Straight from the Source: Goichi Suda (No More Heroes)

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Goichi Suda during BitSummit, where I was given 15 minutes to pick his brain. I hope you enjoy this interview.

We are still working on transcribing the rest of the BitSummit interviews. Stay subscribed to Source Gaming on Twitter, or Facebook to ensure you don’t miss a single scoop!
Non-bolded text is from Goichi Suda.
Organized / questions by PushDustIn.
Additional questions by Eigotaku.

*Special thanks to Ollie Jameson from Minus World for his help with transcribing this interview! Soma from Source Gaming also provided edits for clarity.

Note: This interview was translated from Japanese.

PushDustIn: You recently announced No More Heroes 3 for the Switch. Was there a particular feature of the Switch that inspired you to return to this series?

The Switch has a lot of cool features. It really reminded me of when I first heard of the Wii and decided to bring No More Heroes out for that system. That’s why I decided to go with the Switch for ‘No More Heroes 3’. It also seemed like a good place to revive Travis Touchdown. The game is not necessarily called ‘No More Heroes 3’, we haven’t made the title official or anything, but in general, that’s why I chose the Switch.

PushDustIn: What are your thoughts on the Switch in general, now that it’s been out for about three months?

When I first heard about the Switch, I thought “I like this hardware, I hope it’s successful,” and it’s actually turned out to be more successful than I expected. Also, you’ve got a great game in Zelda that came out for it and that really raised the bar for other games in the future. In general, I hope the Switch is successful and I’m excited to be making a game for it.

PushDustIn: In a profile with Toco Toco TV, you said that you choose characters that “exist on the outside of society.” Why do you feel compelled to make those kinds of characters?

The reason that I said that is because I really like ‘outsiders.’ I personally read a lot of pro-wrestling magazines and music magazines that have interviews with athletes and artists and I feel that the language they use and the philosophies that they have are very much ‘outsider’ kinds of philosophies. I read those and feel something close to them, and that’s why I’ve decided to make a lot of my characters ‘outsiders’. I also feel that there’s something about heroes that really is very much an ‘outsider’ type of nature.

PushDustIn: Do you think that it’s a good thing to be an ‘outsider’?

When I was an assassin, I met a lot of people who were ‘outsiders’ and felt a lot of affinity with them. Since my assassin days, that’s something I’ve always felt attracted to. That’s my story. That’s why I like ‘outsiders’ so much. Of course, I’m not really an assassin. (laughs)

Eigotaku: You did have me going there for a moment….you didn’t flinch at all!

I saw the shock on your face!

Possibly inspired by Suda’s former life…

PushDustIn: This is a random question, but why do you have a special thanks in Super Smash Bros. Brawl?

There were some sound staff [from Grasshopper Manufacture] that contributed to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I gave the OK for those sound staff to go ahead and work with Nintendo on that, so that’s why I’m in there as a special thanks.

PushDustIn: You’ve also been quite vocal about Travis Touchdown in Smash. If he was to get in, how do you think he would play? What kind of character do you think he would be comparable to?

There are a lot of characters in Smash that already use things like swords, so I think Travis would be a character that uses pro-wrestling moves. There aren’t really any characters in Smash right now who use those kinds of moves, so that’s something I really want to see happen if Travis gets in.

Eigotaku: It would be incredible to see Travis go up against Bayonetta or Ryu.

I definitely want to see that too. Tell everybody that and we’ll get him in! I think Sakurai-san is ready to put Travis in.

Eigotaku: What I find incredible is that you can just talk to Sakurai and say “this can now happen.” In the music business, it would be like two icons getting together and saying “let’s do a project”, or something like that. I think that’s really interesting.

PushDustIn: You’ve known Sakurai for a long time, as you both live in Tokyo.

We’re always saying “let’s meet for dinner”, but we haven’t got around to it lately. Someday soon, we hopefully will.

Eigotaku: What do you guys chew the fat on? What do you sit down and talk about?

We talk about games. Sakurai-san also really loves games, so we both give each other feedback on our games.

PushDustIn: What does being ‘indie’ mean to you?

Indie to me equals ‘Atsushi Onita’, who was a pro-wrestler. That’s the kind of impression that I get. In musical terms, it would be something like Rough Trade Records, an indie label from the UK.

(From Onita’s Twitter Account)

PushDustIn: You’ve supported the indie scene a lot. You’ve been a strong supporter of BitSummit. Is it important for you to have those unique voices in the video game industry?

I’ve definitely been meeting a lot of indie developers recently. I went to PAX and I always talk to indie developers there. I really feel that indies are making games that they want to make, how they want to make them, which is kind of rare in the industry. I think that’s very cool and is something I respect.

PushDustIn: Do you try to achieve that with Grasshopper?

It’s a little bit different, because with an indie team you have a very small number of people, whereas Grasshopper is a big company. We try to stick to that natural way of making games as much as possible, but we’re a big company with a lot of people working on our games, so to some extent, it’s difficult to do. Taking a smaller team and trying to make something in that way is definitely something I’m interested in and would like to do some day.

PushDustIn: Thank you for the interview!

If you haven’t checked out our previous interviews, you can find them under the BitSummit category.

*Special thanks to Ollie Jameson from Minus World for his help with transcribing this interview! Soma from Source Gaming provided edits for clarity.

Make sure to subscribe to Source Gaming on Twitter, as we will be posting a ton of interviews this week. Who knows, maybe we’ll talk about Bayonetta in Smash?