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Suda51 Answers Our Big Questions, Such As: "Is Pineapple on Pizza OK?"

We also talk about making another 'No More Heroes' game. And his favorite wrestling move.
Image courtesy of Grasshopper Manufacture

A few hours after landing in Seattle for PAX, I found myself in a room of loud games, sitting across from Goichi "Suda51" Suda, a designer best known for stylish action games like Killer7 and No More Heroes. It's been a few years since Suda51 has directed a game, having adopted more of a producer role at his studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, the last few years. But with No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again for Switch, he's once again a gaming pilot.

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We don't know much about Travis Strikes Again just yet, only that it's not called No More Heroes 3 for a reason; it's more of a spin-off. Travis gets sucked into a retro gaming console, and must fight his way out. Suda51 has teased a series of collaborations with different indie game developers, including outright references to Hotline Miami, but beyond that, it's still unclear what to expect from Travis Strikes Again. One thing is a guarantee: it'll be weird.

Despite how little we know about his latest, I welcomed the chance to speak with Suda51 because he's up for basically anything Though we only had a few minutes, I made sure to make the most of it. By the end of this interview, you'll have important answers to the big questions like "What does Suda51 think about people who eat pineapple on pizza? What's up with those weird shoes he's wearing?"

Enjoy. (This interview has been edited for clarity.)

What motivated you to come back to No More Heroes? Was there something specific that sparked the idea of "Hey, I've got to come back, there's something I have to say."

There were a lot of fans of the No More Heroes series who have been saying, over the years: "When are you going to put out three? When are you going to put out three?" I had a lot of really good memories with the series itself, but also Travis, and for a long time, I've been thinking of revising the series at some point, but I was waiting for the right time to do that.

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When I saw the Switch was announced, I thought "Hey, there's a lot of Nintendo fans who are also No More Heroes fans and a lot of these people were saying 'When are you going to put out three?'" So I figured, OK, maybe this is a chance to go back to that and see if I can do something together with Nintendo. It was the right time to do it, so I decided to go back to the series and make this new game.

You do a lot of producing of games. Of course, being in charge of a studio, that often means overseeing things. What's it like to be back in the director's chair? What did you miss about it?

Suda51: Grasshopper Manufacture originally started out as a much smaller company. We'd been making mid-sized games for years, with teams of about 20 or so people, give or take. Recently, I decided to be a bit more of a producer-type role, overseeing everything. Two years ago, we went to PAX and saw all the different indie games coming out and talked to all the indie developers. I kind of thought "I want to get back to the way things were before." A smaller team to make a smaller game, and to make something that was a bit more personal. I decided instead of just being a producer and overseeing everything, I decided to go back and make a more personal game.

If part of making this game was making something more personal, what's the message you're trying to send?

Suda51: This game is a bit different from the other games in the series. The previous games are basically Travis versus a bunch of assassins and fighting them one-on-one, but this time, the general theme is basically video games.

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There's this console inside the game called the Death Drive Mark 2, and Travis goes into that console and plays the games that are on that console—they're sort of like retro games. When I was thinking about the settings and how to set up the backgrounds for this console and what this means and everything, I started thinking about the history of video games.

First, there was Atari. Then, there was Nintendo. [I was thinking] about how games have evolved since then. There's not necessarily a specific message I wanted to put out through this game, but what I wanted to do with this game was get into the big, general question of "What are video games? What were video games?"

As someone that's made and played video games for a number of years, what's changed for you over these many decades?

Suda51: Like you said, I'm not only a gamer, but also someone who's been making games for years. I've been watching games and hardware evolve over the years, going from stuff like old school retro games to virtual reality, and the things I see coming out in video games now are basically things you never could have imagined way back in the day. I think video games aren't just a video game, but video games are something that are going to shape the future itself.

Before I came in here, I asked Twitter if they had some questions for you, so now I'm going to check my Twitter account and see what they said. [pause]

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What's your favorite wrestling move?

Suda51: [extremely long pause, as though he has never been asked a more provoking question] [laughs] [deep thought] Brainbuster. Brainbuster! A vertical brainbuster.

There was a pro wrestler back in the day named Dick Murdoch who was called the Mad Dog [Editor's Note: One of Murdoch's nicknames was Kyōken, which translates to Mad Dog] and that was his finishing move. I really liked that move back in the day.

What happened to the previous 50 Sudas?

Suda51: Ooooh. Yeah. [laughs] That's a funny question. [pause]

It might have been a brainbuster.

Suda51: [laughs] They're probably frozen beneath the Pentagon. All 50 of them are lined up.

What music are you listening to right now?

Suda51: A Japanese band called Sakanaction.

What's interesting about them?

Suda51: They don't just play music. They're into a lot of other things too, they're trying to see what other possibilities there are in the world. For example, these shoes are the Sakanaction version. They did a collaboration with the band and the shoemaker and it does this. [Suda proceeds to take out a phone app that recognizes a pattern on his shoe, prompting the app to play music and produce a bunch of visual effects]

Of course, I like the music the band plays, as well, but I really like this kind of stuff. They're not just musicians. They're experimental. They go for a fusion of lots of types of culture, not just music.

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How has The Silver Case affected your writing and how you think about games? Are you still interested in mystery and narratives?

Suda51: First of all, I'm still interested in mystery and all that. With The Silver Case, it was the first game I made completely originally on my own. Before that, I'd made games before, but it was always taking part in a series that was pre-existing from some other company.

When I went and started Grasshopper and made The Silver Case, I had a goal in mind to make a game that I consider to be perfect and fully complete. In making The Silver Case, I learned "I'm able to do this. I'm able to do this." I learned who I was and what I was able to do, and learned that I was able to make a game that I considered to be complete. It was a really good learning experience for me, learning a lot of things I didn't realize before that I was able to do.

"They're probably frozen beneath the Pentagon. All 50 of them are lined up."

Is punk dead?

Suda51: No. No.

Why?

Suda51: [points at himself] [laughs]

How do you feel about pineapple on pizza?

Suda51: [laughs] Back in the day, I was like "What the hell is this? This is nasty." When I come to think about it, it's fine. Why not? No problems with it.

Do you actually eat pineapple on pizza or you're just okay with other people doing it?

Suda51: I don't eat it myself. One thing that I think is really important is that when people get older, they tend to become a lot more forgiving of some things. Back then, I couldn't forgive it. In the beginning, I couldn't believe people ate that.

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