The game industry has a long and sad list of thriving developers who rarely do interviews. Jason Jones at Bungie, Sam Houser at Rockstar, Doug Church now at Valve.
One name you might not know, which should be on that list, is Takashi Nishiyama, who designed the original Street Fighter at Capcom before leaving to run SNK's development division, putting games like Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and Samurai Shodown under his belt. In 2000, he founded the company that would become Dimps, itself a below-the-radar team that's worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog, Dragon Ball Z, and Street Fighter series, amongst others.
lol
This post has been edited by Uno10: 29 January 2012 - 10:58 AM
Shame he wasn't really asked about how Dimps came to work with SEGA, or anything about the development on any of their Sonic titles. If nothing else, people around here could probably have a little optimism in Dimps wanting to make their own IPs as opposed to surviving from their clients.
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Well, I'll give you that their Sonic games weren't bad up till 2004. Actually, in my opinion, Sonic Rush was great—albeit the physics not being 100% correct... but it was ultimately forgiveable, given the nature of the game: boostfest and highspeed (and I mean this is a good way).
Their only unfortunate moment with the Sonic franchise was with the development of Sonic 4; in which they build the new title above the basic concepts of their already-ready-3D-in-2D-sidescroller engine. The result—even though clearly unpolished and frustrating to play—would still be forgiven, had it being called anything else but Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
This post has been edited by Endri: 29 January 2012 - 07:00 PM
I get the DIMPS hate for Sonic, but I feel like the sonic community tends to forget they worked on other games. They did Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure, an AMAZING platforming fighter for GBA. They did the DBZ Budokai series too. And let's not forget Sonic Pocket Adventure.
I'm not trying to say Dimps shouldn't be blamed for diverting the Sonic series from its original gameplay style. Believe me, I hate S4:E1 as much as the next guy, but we need to realize these guys are capable of making some amazing things. Maybe knowing that we can better pressure them to live up to the reputation they've built for themselves with all their other releases.
I'm not trying to say Dimps shouldn't be blamed for diverting the Sonic series from its original gameplay style. Believe me, I hate S4:E1 as much as the next guy, but we need to realize these guys are capable of making some amazing things. Maybe knowing that we can better pressure them to live up to the reputation they've built for themselves with all their other releases.
That's about as likely as Sega officially coming out of the closet about the whole Michael Jackson controversy: Slim to none.
Being serious for once, I actually had no idea until now Dimps worked on the Dragonball Z games. Budokai Techniaki 2 was one of the best ones I played. If they can cater to all the Dragonball fans like that, why can't they do the same for the Sonic fans? I know the series had a very poor slump up until Colours, but they could've helped make it better.
Because they are a studio with a high amount of fighting game experience. RPGs like DB Advanced Adventure aren't hard to make, while the Budokai games are excellent, as a result of their experience in the genre. Sonic games would be totally different I reckon, as they require a high attention to detail in their physics engine, which doesn't matter as much in a fighting game, and is none existent in RPGs. Really, they should just stick to what they know, and stay the hell out of Sonic, where they are ruining their name.
Afro Thunder, on 29 January 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:
Being serious for once, I actually had no idea until now Dimps worked on the Dragonball Z games. Budokai Techniaki 2 was one of the best ones I played.
um, spike did the budokai tenkaichi series, not dimps lol
Dimps is an excellent developer. Their attempts at Sonic however leave much to be desired, but that's not really a big deal. I can't even blame Dimps for the quality of their Sonic titles when SEGA constantly pushes Sonic projects their way.
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OSM, on 30 January 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:
Dimps is an excellent developer. Their attempts at Sonic however leave much to be desired, but that's not really a big deal. I can't even blame Dimps for the quality of their Sonic titles when SEGA constantly pushes Sonic projects their way.
What shocks me the most is that they get worse each time. Like how do you go from a solid engine in Sonic Advance 1 to Sonic 4?
They should've brought back the Dragonball Z composer used in Budokai and the rest of the series for Sonic 4, sure everything will sound like a ripoff of a popular band but at least it if it's going to sound as horrible as Sonic 4's soundfont, I'd like to be humming along to Hunting High and Low while playing it.
This post has been edited by Krigo: 30 January 2012 - 10:42 PM
