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Why Masaya Matsuura's New Game Is PaRappa the Rapper's Baby
Sound weird? I like it! I am a huge supporter of PaRappa and have been singing the songs since way back when. I can’t believe that it’s been about 13 years since then. That is crazy! Anyway, here is a portion of blog.wired’s interview with the man, his ponytail, and his new Wii game.
Wired.com: This is your first straightforward videogame in a while. What’s it like leaving the land of crazy experimental games?
Matsuura: Our ideal image is that many people had the experience of playing PaRappa in the mid-nineties. So maybe some of them had the chance to find a girlfriend or boyfriend by playing PaRappa. And maybe they got married. And maybe some of them have kids already. So if this kind of family has a chance to play our new game, that would be fantastic.
Wired.com: It seems odd to me that Square Enix is publishing Major Minor’s Majestic March in Japan. Why do you think they had their eye on it?
Matsuura: Everybody tells me that. Maybe role-playing game fans feel very strange about this kind of game. But fortunately, Majesco, the U.S. and Europe publisher, had a very tight connection with Square Enix in Japan, and they promoted this title to Square Enix. For me, it feels a little strange of course, but I don’t have any business negotiations directly with Square Enix. For us, we made this game for the global market, but unfortunately we couldn’t find a good publisher in our country for some time. Majesco finally found a publisher in Japan, so Major Minor came back to our country.