During the Arc World Tour 2024 Finals event, Final Weapon had the opportunity to interview Kamone Serizawa, Series Director of Under Night In-Birth. Our interview dives into Serizawa-san’s thoughts on the success of Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, what kind of game he would make if it wasn’t a fighting game, and his thoughts on the potential for a collaborative Under Night In-Birth x Melty Blood game. We hope you enjoy this exclusive interview, and we’d like to thank the wonderful team at Arc System Works for making this possible! Enjoy!
Hi, Serizawa-San. Thank you so much for your time; we’re really excited to talk with you today. So, my first question here is, what is the possibility of seeing more guest characters like Eltnum or Akatsuki in Under Night In-Birth II?
Kamone Serizawa: So it’s hard for me to say if it’s possible or not possible, but what I can say is that our project lead, Narita, he does like guest characters; that’s something that he likes to do. So, I think he’s very open to those kinds of ideas.
I guess for Eltnum and Akatsuki, the reason these two characters were included as guest characters in the previous installment was because we were connected with these indie development studios from before. So take Eltnum, from Melty Blood. Type-Moon is an independent company, and the makers of Akatsuki is Blitzkrieg. The same deal, right? Independent studios. We were connected with them as independent studios from long ago, so that was sort of the trigger and the starting point of having these characters included in Under Night II.
The way we do things, we don’t just consider popularity, but I think it’s the possibility of guests can grow the more connections that we have. I guess you can kind of think of it that way. The more connections we have, the more possibilities for guest characters in the future.
French-Bread used to be known as Watanabe Production. Are there any games back when French-Bread was known as Watanabe Production, in the late 90s or early 2000s, that you’d like to see come back, perhaps?
Kamone Serizawa: Yeah, I feel that. There are a bunch of things that I would love to do, like bring back those old games from the Watanabe days. And as you know, with French-Bread, we only have fighting games. We only make fighting games, and our company sort of runs only on fighting games. So I do feel like it’ll be interesting to sort of expand and create some different takes on some different genres and stuff like that.
The problem with the games that we produced in the 90s and the 2000s is that most of those are more like doujin or adaptations of pre-existing IPs. And so it’s a little bit harder to bring those games back. If we had more original titles and IPs, it would be easier to bring those and do a re-imagining or a re-release or something like that. Unfortunately, though, a lot of those games were borrowing from existing IPs. So the reality is a little bit difficult on those. Yeah.
How did you meet Raito-San? How did that go out and, you two meeting and working to collaborate together?
Kamone Serizawa: Raito is one of the music composers for our games, but he was actually a team member at Watanabe Productions. He was part of it. As time went on, though, we realized that we don’t really need – this sounds bad, but, we’re not trying to say anything bad about Raito – but we realized that we don’t really need a music composer in-house to make things work. We can work with an external composer; the music part doesn’t have to be in-house, basically. At the time, French-Bread’s studio was in Tokyo, but Raito was from Okinawa. And Raito wanted to go back to Okinawa and have his own studio and work from there.
So that kind of worked out, where he wanted to go back to Okinawa. So basically, we split, but it wasn’t like a fight or anything. He went back to Okinawa and set up his own studio as his own company. And we’re continuing to work with Raito in that capacity from Tokyo. Since he’s been at Watanabe before, he’s very familiar with our games, so we’re continuing to work with him. As far as how we met, he was already a Watanabe Productions member, and he just happened to love the same kind of games that we were making. I’m not really sure how he came to join Watanabe, as he was just kind of already there, and we were already working together.
In regards to Under Night II, how do you feel about the success that the game has had so far? What are your hopes for the next year going forward with this game?
Kamone Serizawa: We’re extremely grateful for the success and all the community and the popularity that Uni II has garnered over the years. I guess what I feel about it is that I look back, and I feel like I’ve made the right choice when it comes to our policy direction with this game. When we were going from Under Night In-Birth to Under Night In-Birth II, we were really sort of weighing two different options, right? So now that we’re having a sequel, on one hand, we were gonna do a dramatic update and a very significant overhaul of the game.
That was on one hand. And on the other hand, we were looking at a sort of a minor change, like kind of like just an extension of Exe:Late[cl-r], with maybe additional characters. So, not too big of a change. What we settled on was that we wanted to make it familiar to legacy players but also easier for new players to enter the game.
And so, what we did was look to create sort of a minor change, but also significant enough that it’s easier to play. We kind of hit both ends, where legacy players can have more fun, and then we can also attract new players with simplification and just easier-to-understand mechanics. I think that decision fared really well. And I think the results speak to that decision-making.
French-Bread and Under Night, especially with Under Night 2, just have beautiful graphics. I think that’s one of the things in the entire fighting game genre that sticks out about French-Bread games: the amazing pixel art visuals. Over time, there has been a progression and an evolution of that art style. Where do you see it going in the future, even after Under Night II?
Kamone Serizawa: Obviously, we can’t just go full on 3D for Uni II. However, with this sort of pixel art style, we are constantly studying, practicing, and enhancing our technique with the pixel art. We believe that with the Izumi DLC that’s coming up, we worked really hard on that character. I think people who are familiar with pixel art, who know how to do it, or who know what goes into that process would probably appreciate what we did for Izumi. We want to continue making improvements and brushing up our technique in the space that is the pixel art technique.
You mentioned earlier that French-Bread in the past made games in different genres under Watanabe Production before it became French-Bread. So, for you, Serizawa-san, do you have any plans or wishes to make a game in a genre other than a fighting game in the future? And what would that look like?
Kamone Serizawa: Yeah, if I have this go-ahead to make whatever next game that’s not fighting games, I would love to try do some kind of action game or a rhythm game as well; those would be really interesting. The action game, like we said, had the graphic capabilities, and with our fighting game knowledge, we had those sharp movements and the animations. I think we can capitalize on what we know already, and maybe there’s something we can do there in the action game genre space.
When it comes to rhythm games, I think, again, we work with Raito a lot, and Raito’s music is very popular. His musical talent is very good, and so I think there’s something that we can do to capitalize on his musical talents. I personally have no experience in rhythm games. I don’t really play any rhythm games, but that is a challenge that might be interesting to take on.
I love French-Bread’s games, and I’m also a huge Type-Moon fan. Would you ever be open to a collaboration game with Type-Moon? What would you think about a true Under Night In-Birth X Melty Blood crossover?
Kamone Serizawa: Very difficult question, but again, with Type-Moon, we maintained a great relationship with Type-Moon over the years. I mean, come on, it’s Type-Moon – they’re huge now, right? We’ve had an opportunity to work on Type Lumina, so that was really great, but Type-Moon is huge. Compared to that, French-Bead is kinda small, and so I think if we can come to a level where French-Bread can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Type-Moon, we have a chance at doing something like that.
For right now, I think our focus is to really support Under Night, and just support the community, and grow it. I think our brand recognition is going up now with our participation in EVO last year and this year, so I think we’re getting there. Once we can rise up to the level of Type-Moon, then I think they will be a little bit more open to collaborations like you’ve suggested.
I just want to see Hyde versus Arcueid – that would be so cool!
Kamone Serizawa: (Laughter)
Finally, who would you say is your favorite fighting game character to play?
Kamone Serizawa: Very, very difficult question. This is a difficult pick for me, but I think if I had to choose one favorite character, it would be Ken from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Ken is more of a straightforward show-tale character, very basic, but his moves are really cool.
When you’re sort of controlling him, it just makes me feel excited. He might not have the most complex systems, mechanics, or the most interesting moves, but just to be able to move him around the screen with that sort of excitement that you feel and having that character be really cool in that way is very important. It was very influential for me as a game creator, so I would definitely pick Ken from 3rd Strike.
Serizawa-San, thank you so much for your time, and congratulations on the success with Under Night II and your selections at Evo as well. We’re big fans of the Under Night In-Birth series, and we’re really looking forward to all the support for it in the future.
Kamone Serizawa: Thank you very much.
Note: This interview was edited for clarity. Transcribed by Luis Enrique.
