July 27, 1999 This interview was conducted by Weekly Famitsu with Yoji Sugimoto, the director of the upcoming action RPG Dew Prism.

Famitsu: I believe that Dew Prism is your first work as a director. Up until now, what role have you played in the development of other games?

Sugimoto: I was the Programmer in Square's Xenogears and Chrono Trigger, as well as Sateliteview's Treasure Conflicts.

Famitsu: Now, if you were a programmer up to now, how did you become the Director for an Action RPG?

Sugimoto: Personally, I'm pretty bad at Action RPGs. One of the reasons I was chosen was that I wished to develop a game that even I could play easily, "an Action game that is easy on the person". Also I wanted to partake in a game that had all its Characters in full 3-D as a programmer.

Famitsu: Now in this game, there are 2 playable characters. Was this a feature that was planned on in the beginning stages?

Sugimoto: We thought it would be fun to have a game that has 2 different stories that take place within the same world and time frame, so we designed two completely different characters to fill this role. For example, if you play as Rue and meet up with Mint, She'll travel with you for a while but you'd have no idea what she's thinking or what her objective is, so you'd have to play from Mint's Perspective. I could say the same thing about Rue if you're playing the game as Mint. Actually, Mint's personality wasn't always as carefree as it is now, but we thought it's more interesting this way so we stuck with it.

Famitsu: As you said, you've tried to make the game Dew Prism to your liking but exactly in what ways did you implement this?

Sugimoto: That would be a bit difficult since now the list of features we have in this game would be very long. For one, I liked the Illustrations that Usui and Terada did for Xenogears so I had them do the art for this game as well. We tried to keep the cast of characters as small as possible in order to focus more on each one. I also thought it'd be fun to be able to do many different things with a touch of a button like an action so we added that as well.

Famitsu: I see. Now I've heard that the Battle system plays out quite differently depending on which playable character you choose.

Sugimoto: The person in charge of the battle part of the game always wanted to make it so that you'd be able to transform into a monster just by getting a coin so we added that, which is Rue's battle system. Since we had Rue have the Ability to transform into monsters, we then had to do each monster he can transform into as well.

Famitsu: Now is there something else that you had a hand in, besides the system?

Sugimoto: I'd have to say it'd be the world that Dew Prism takes place in. I wanted a bright and happy game so I strayed away from dark dungeons and scary music and put in brighter themes instead.

Famitsu: Finally, could you say something for the readers of Famitsuu that are waiting for the release of Dew Prism?

Sugimoto: Please enjoy the character movements and the story in Dew Prism. Definately play as both playable characters and enjoy the world of Dew Prism.