Inti Creates on Shovel Knight inspiring Azure Striker Gunvolt, sequel's sales, Blaster Master Zero's performance in Japan, & more

Takuya Aizu, CEO of Inti Creates had an interview with DengekiOnline shortly before last year ended, and now we see that the interview has gotten an English translation. We've pulled some tidbits from the interview below, but make sure you hit the link for the full piece.

Shovel Knight inspired Inti Creates to make Azure Striker Gunvolt for 3DS

Even though we learned that making and selling retro-style games on Steam was viable, it would be difficult for us. However, at that time, I heard that "Shovel Knight" was doing really well as a digital title on 3DS, so I thought, "Then let's try selling Gunvolt on the 3DS eShop," and that's the route we took.

Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 sales

Domestically, "Gunvolt 2" sold well. As a direct story sequel from the previous game, it could be considered a success if it sold 70% of the previous game's sales. By that metric, it managed to sell over those expectations, so please don't worry.

Looking at overseas figures, in 2016, the Nintendo 3DS had largely stalled in sales. Because of that, 2014 and 2016 presented very different markets on the platform. In that environment, games selling on the Nintendo eShop faced a difficult struggle, and that is what I was speaking on.

Blaster Master Zero sales in Japan

As we expected, it did sell a certain amount in Japan. If we had released it domestically using the name "Meta Fight," it's possible it could have sold more, but that was a decision we reached together with Sunsoft (a brand owned by SUNCORPORATION). Eventually, we decided that naming the game "Meta Fight Zero" in Japan and "Blaster Master Zero" overseas would create confusion, even for informed customers, so we went with a single name worldwide. And due to its popularity overseas, we decided on "Blaster Master Zero."