M’s Galore: Major Minor’s Majestic March Interview with Masaya Matsuura

Major Minor’s Majestic March is finally out next week. We loved this game when we saw it last at E3 2008, and were disappointed when it didn’t make it in time for Christmas. I suppose “March” is a better month for the game’s release, and you know what’s even more great? Matsuura himself has been calling the game M4 in magazine articles I’ve read since this interview… pretty cool!

Anyway, we’ve been fortunate to catch up with Masaya Matsuura regarding his latest project. We talk about the game, why it’s different, Matsuura’s take on current rhythm games and music in games, and even discuss the music that Matsuura creates outside of games.

Read our majestic interview with Masaya Matsuura after the jump.

OSV: It’s great to speak with you, Matsuura-san. Many of the staff members here have been fans of yours for a long time, so thank you for taking the time to speak with us regarding Major Minor’s Majestic March. Let’s start with a general question about the title: why a marching game, and why on the Wii?
Matsuura: I think that the life of music video games has only just begun, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the possibilities are endless. I consider it my mission is to open up these possibilities. One day, I was thinking about ideas for Wii games since I was requested by a publisher to do so. It just occurred to me that a marching game could be fun. It was just a stab in the dark, but after listening to a variety of marching music I was energized. I also listened to a great range of music bands from North American universities and realized that this music style is not necessarily so old fashioned anymore. Based on these thoughts, I decided to make this marching game. I thought it would be so much fun!

OSV: You’ve been credited for pioneering the rhythm game genre, and have some interesting ideas for how to advance the use of music as a gameplay focus. How do you feel Major Minor’s Majestic March innovates the music-based gameplay experience, and what were some of the challenges you faced coming up with this concept?
Matsuura: Compared to the rhythm games which I was making 15 years ago, this title firstly focuses on how we can successfully manage a band and their musical performance. These days its common for most music to be computer based, with a repetitive set rhythm and tempo; I’m becoming tired of this. What we’ve focused on for this game is not only varying the tempo, but also orchestrating an ensemble, communication between conductor and member, and, above all, bringing the focus back to the musical performance, and I think we have successfully reached most of these goals in the game.

OSV: We had some hands-on time with Major Minor’s Majestic March (or M4 as I like to call it) at E3, and I thought it was a lot of fun. However, I found myself wanting to move my legs along with the marching motions of the game. Were you ever considering implementing the Wii Balance Board into the gameplay experience?
Matsuura: There were still a lot of incomplete parts in the E3 version compared to where we are now. The gameplay is currently much more polished. However, we still aren’t finished with development yet so we naturally think it will be even more fine-tuned by the time the game is released. [Editor’s Note: This is as of December 2008, the game is obviously now completed!  Sorry for the confusion.] As for the WBB, I think its fine for weight bearing but is not so well matched for the repetition of cyclical steps.

OSV: On this topic, are there or were there any plans to create a plastic “baton” mold to house the Wii remote to add to the realism of the game? What do you suppose people are going to do with all these plastic peripherals that are filling their closets in this current generation of rhythm games?
Matsuura: If you were a musician, you would naturally be very choosy about the quality of instruments. Well, I am one of those people. I always think that I’ll really love the instrument from the bottom of my heart when I buy one. Because of this, I’ve never been able to get into the instrument-style peripherals. As long as there is no reason to treasure it independently from its relation to the game, people will continue to treat them as junk. But I do not want to do that – I can’t do it. When I get something and I cannot clearly say if it’s a musical instrument or not, it’s a very unsettling experience for me even if we classify it as a toy.

OSV: Would you be able to comment on the technology featured in Major Minor’s Majestic March? From what we’ve been told, the audio tracks are stretched and shortened on the fly depending on the player’s tempo, which doesn’t sound like a system that has any sort of precedent. Was the technology developed from scratch, in-house?
Matsuura: Good question! We have developed a tool/format called MTL for this game. Simply stated, the audio part is cut up into small pieces and it can then be stretched around by a change of a tempo. For example, the music track for one stage is composed of more than 4000 individual audio files. We avoided Midi as we wanted to retain the feeling of real instruments.

OSV: We read and thoroughly enjoyed your recent article in Game Developer Magazine, where you talked about moving the “music games” forward. We’ve seen this move from controller-based input models to peripherals that look more and more like real instruments in recent years. With the Wii, although M4 is using the system’s controller as the input system, it still resembles the actual baton used by marching band leaders.

Now that we’re at a stage where we are basically playing games using replicas of real instruments, how do we move forward? It seems that if we move towards even more realistic instruments, these games will lose their mass appeal as “games” and instead become closer to real musical performances. How do we reconcile this and move forward with the genre?
Matsuura: As we have touched upon earlier in the interview, I would say that the more sophisticated a peripheral becomes, the less we can actually call it a peripheral. In that case, we may get to the point where a set top box and TV are no longer necessary. I do not consider it strange that games may head in this direction – rather, I’m excited by the prospect.

Well, I am one of those people who played keyboard with a shoulder strap at live performances (Laughs). Even if it’s a tool that the audience has not previously seen, they still want to hear it, and it’s entirely reasonable to think that people have the same expectations for gameplay. But there will always be a market for musical performances as we know them so I do not think that they will fade away. We have long discussed the blurring of distinction between hardware and software, and I think that it’s fair to say that it’s happening as we speak. Despite this I have never felt tempted to implement peripherals in my games.

OSV: I’ve always been a fan of your music, but have never been a huge fan of marching band music. What can you tell us about the actual music that will be featured in the game? Were you responsible for the composition, and will we be hearing any sort of cameos or references to existing popular music on M4’s soundtrack?
Matsuura: Thank you very much. Yes, some music of mine has made its way into M4. As I described earlier the band performances of North American college bands and the Brass bands of New Orleans have managed to reinvent the marching music genre and give it fresh appeal. Of course, marching music is not making the headlines of the music billboard charts nowadays (laughs), and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to take on this challenge. Overall, the music that we have in the game is a medley of famous marching tunes, adaptations of famous licensed tracks and our own work, all blended to create a unique “New Brass Band” sound. Most countries still have brass bands in their schools, and we hope to tap in to some of this affinity in the Wii-owning family market.

OSV: Can you tell us how many minutes of music will be featured in the game? Were any live instruments recorded, or is all the game’s music sample-based?
Matsuura: That’s a difficult question for a game where the player is controlling the tempo. It’s really difficult to say as a flat time since the composed instruments are sometimes totally different in a same stage. Anyway, it’ll take a fair amount of time to clear all the courses. Due to the enormous amount of audio files, on this occasion we have decided to utilize sample-based audio, which as you know is not uncommon these days. I imagine that relatively few people will be able to make the distinction.

OSV: Regarding the music, are there any plans to release a soundtrack album in the future? A soundtrack release made a lot of sense with the catchy songs that were featured in Parappa the Rapper and other titles you’ve worked on in the past, but do you feel there would be a market for an album featuring the music from Major Minor’s Majestic March?
Matsuura: We do not currently have any plans to release a sound track. However, should the opportunity arise we would certainly be willing, and I also believe that it’s possible that we may release it in a totally different way than usual.

OSV: In the Game Developer Article, you also discussed the differences between a true musician and a composer who only creates music in the setting of game development. I take it that you create a lot of music outside of the games you work on, so have there been or will there be stand-alone releases of music from Masaya Matsuura that is not associated with any game? We’d love to hear your music!
Matsuura: Thank you. I continue to write and play music outside of my work with games, but these days live performances seem to be restricted to the occasional conference. As it happens, we are currently researching unconventional ways of releasing music, and this is something which I am hoping to make a reality in the near future.

OSV: As a sort of fun question, if you could be any instrument, what would it be any why?
Matsuura: I guess I might be a MoogIIIc. I got the IIIc some years ago, and patch-type analog modular synthesizers have musically been an indispensable part of my existence for a long time now, and will doubtless continue to be so in the future. There is no instrument where I feel a greater sense of affinity than this. Without doubt it has long been a dialysis for my creativity (laughs), and in that sense I often feel that the boundaries between us are blurred.

OSV: We know you’re focused on Major Minor’s Majestic March right now, but can you tell us what you’ve got planned for the future? Is there anything else you can tell us about the present state and future of NanaOn-Sha at this time?
Matsuura: Lately almost all of my time and effort has been invested in M4. I’m putting all my energy into overseeing some big changes that will hopefully make the game so much more appealing.

I am sure that my future projects will also have global aspirations. Although the world is in an unsettled state, I fully appreciated the opportunity that I have right now and I will continue to make no great effort in improving these achievements as much as I can.