
#Soul calibur vi character creator trial
Hunkering down for three years in secret, Hoshino and his team at Namco spent their time flitting between trial and error, tirelessly working to lay down the groundwork for a fighter worthy of the Pokémon name. “ Pokkén makes use of this know-how to create interesting motions that bring out the uniqueness of each Pokémon.” During my time at Bandai Namco, we specialized in creating animations that appeal to players,” he says. “Given my experience in fighting games, I am very particular about the movements of Pokémon. “I’d wanted to make a Pokémon action game since around 2010.” “My wish had come true.” His first task was to formulate a plan to create the Pokémon beat ‘em up he’d always dreamed of. Much to his surprise, Hoshino’s favorite hobby had become his career. Over the Wii U years, Bandai Namco and Nintendo developed a strong collaborative relationship, with the former assisting on development duties for massive releases like Mario Kart 8, Arms and Super Smash Bros: Ultimate. It's no surprise that Hoshino was already on Ishirara’s radar. “I’d wanted to make a Pokémon action game since around 2010 - and I felt that with my fighting game production know-how and my love for Pokémon, I would be able to make this a reality,” he says. It was the invitation he’d been waiting for. “Around the end of 2013, because of my love for Pokémon, Ishiara asked me to make a new fighting game called Pokkén.” “Eventually, my enthusiasm made its way to the president of the Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara,” Hoshino explains. As the public face of Soul Calibur tweeting out news for the franchise, it wasn’t long before his Pokémon-centric extracurricular activities got noticed. His passion didn’t stop there - he won official Pokémon Trading Card Game championships in his homeland of Japan, eventually passing the notoriously difficult TCG ‘Pokemon Professor’’ exam. While his day job saw him carefully curating close-quarters combat, on his lunch breaks he hosted inter-departmental Bandai Namco Pokémon tournaments. The game became Hoshino-san’s escape from life’s problems – a piece of playable solace.

“Back in the days working at Namco, within the company I created a Pokémon department in order to host all kinds of different events,” Hoshino-san says with a wry smile.įalling in love with Pokémon Yellow on the Game Boy Color, Hoshino found himself enthralled its battle system. Speaking to the legendary creator at this year’s Pokémon World Championships in London, Hoshino tells Inverse how he went from sculpting a tale of souls and swords, to creating the Pokémon games of his dreams. Yet he was quietly smitten by a more wholesome gaming franchise – Pokémon.
#Soul calibur vi character creator ps2
If you’ve ever played Soul Calibur, you’ve felt the deft touch of Masaaki Hoshino.įrom his early days programming PS2 classic SoulCalibur II to working his way up to director of Soul Calibur V, Hoshino has built a career perfecting pixel-based pummelling in fighting games.
