2012 Game Informer
增田顺一谈首款编号续作
增田顺一
《宝可梦 黑2·白2》发售前夕，制作人增田顺一解释为何做直接续作、为何留在DS，以及战斗与在线玩法的取舍。
Contents 本篇 6 章
Pokémon Black and White 2 are less than a month away so we decided to chat with the games’ producer about the franchise’s first numbered sequels. Junichi Masuda has been with Game Freak since the company’s inception, and he is the producer on Black and White 2.
距离《宝可梦 黑2·白2》发售还有不到一个月，我们决定与该作的制作人聊聊这个系列的首款编号续作。增田顺一自Game Freak创立之初便在公司任职，他是《黑2／白2》的制作人。
Game Informer
What was the reasoning behind doing a sequel to Black and White opposed to doing something like Pokémon Gray?
为什么决定做《黑／白》的续作，而不是像《宝可梦 灰》那样的作品？
增田顺一
Near the end of Black version and White version’s development, the Game Freak staff was all playing the game and playing through the entire scenario and the story and I heard from a lot of my staff that the characters like N and Ghetsis from the original games, they’re very interesting and a lot of the staff were curious what became of these characters after the end of the game. So from that we really got the idea to maybe follow-up on this. We thought perhaps we could expand on this story a bit more. Take it a bit further in that direction and after that, talking with Mr. Unno, we eventually decided to set it two years later in the same region and we just kind of saw this as a chance to – we hadn’t really done a sequel for the Pokémon games, a direct sequel – so we saw this as a chance to challenge ourselves with something new.
在《黑》《白》开发接近尾声时，Game Freak的员工都在玩这款游戏，把整个剧情和故事通了一遍，我从很多同事那里听说，原作的N和盖奇斯这些角色很有意思，很多同事都好奇这些角色在游戏结局之后怎么样了。由此我们真正产生了或许可以接着这个故事做下去的想法。我们觉得也许可以把这个故事再扩展一些，朝那个方向再推进一步，之后和宇野先生商量，最终决定把时间设定在两年后、同一个地区，我们把这看作一个机会——我们此前还没有做过宝可梦游戏的续作，一部直接续作——所以我们把这看作一个挑战自我、尝试新东西的机会。
Game Informer
Why stick to the original DS? Why not move to the 3DS for the new Pokémon?
为什么仍然留在原版DS上？为什么不为新的宝可梦游戏转到3DS？
增田顺一
So first, being a direct sequel to Pokémon Black version and Pokémon White version, we really wanted to make sure that players of the original game would be able to play the sequels. Maybe not all of them have a Nintendo 3DS, but they definitely had a Nintendo DS if they played the original games. Also, the Nintendo DS platform is really just owned by pretty much the most people around the world. So many kids and so many players from the around the world have the Nintendo DS platform, so it made sense that if we wanted to have the most people possible play the games to put it on the Nintendo DS. However, it wasn’t just about having Pokémon Black version and Pokémon White version players play the games. We wanted to make sure that it was enjoyable for new players, too. We also really wanted to focus on making sure the games could communicate with the original Pokémon Black and Pokémon White versions and it made the most sense to put the games on the Nintendo DS this time. However, we also wanted to have a nice surprise for the owners of the Nintendo 3DS so we developed the Pokémon Dream Radar application which is available on the Nintendo eShop. It’s kind of a supplementary game that features some action-packed gameplay where you can catch Pokémon using the gyro sensor and the AR function of the Nintendo 3DS. Since the Nintendo 3DS can play Nintendo DS games, if you have the Pokémon Black version 2 or Pokémon White version 2 in your Nintendo 3DS you can transfer the Pokémon you caught in Pokémon Dream Radar to your Nintendo DS game. We thought that was very interesting.
首先，作为《宝可梦 黑》《宝可梦 白》的直接续作，我们非常希望确保玩过原作的玩家能够玩到续作。他们也许不是所有人都拥有任天堂3DS，但如果他们玩过原作，就肯定有任天堂DS。而且，任天堂DS平台在全世界拥有的人数几乎是最多的。全世界有那么多孩子、那么多玩家拥有任天堂DS平台，所以如果我们想让尽可能多的人玩到这款游戏，把它放在任天堂DS上就是合理的。不过，这不仅仅是为了让《宝可梦 黑》《宝可梦 白》的玩家玩到游戏。我们也想确保新玩家同样能玩得开心。我们还非常希望能确保游戏能与原版《宝可梦 黑》《宝可梦 白》通信，所以这次把游戏放在任天堂DS上是最合理的。不过，我们也想给任天堂3DS的用户一个不错的惊喜，所以我们开发了《宝可梦梦境雷达》这款应用，在任天堂eShop上提供。它算是一款补充性质的游戏，包含一些动作性较强的玩法，你可以用任天堂3DS的陀螺仪传感器和AR功能来捕捉宝可梦。由于任天堂3DS可以玩任天堂DS游戏，如果你把《宝可梦 黑2》或《宝可梦 白2》放进任天堂3DS，就可以把在《宝可梦梦境雷达》中捕捉到的宝可梦传送到你的任天堂DS游戏里。我们觉得这很有意思。
Game Informer
In Pokémon Black and White, there are sprites and polygonal characters. Are you interested in a fully polygonal Pokémon game in the future?
在《宝可梦 黑·白》中，既有精灵图也有多边形角色。你们未来有兴趣做一款完全多边形化的宝可梦游戏吗？
增田顺一
There are definitely good aspects to both 3D and 2D. For example if you look at the Pokémon on the package you can really see how cool it looks as a 2D illustration and in the games, for the Pokémon characters, one of the reasons we use sprites, at least currently, is because we like to have more of a comical, kind of look like an animation, this kind of visual style is what we want to do for the Pokémon games. If we were able to take that style we have now and have it translate into 3D with no problems; that is definitely something we would be into. However, it’s not just about the visual appearance either. The feeling and the control of the character is also very important to us. There is definitely a certain feeling you have when you control these 2D characters. It may be different if we switched over to 3D.
3D和2D肯定各有优点。比如你看包装上的宝可梦，就能真切感受到它作为2D插画有多酷；而在游戏里，对于宝可梦角色，我们使用精灵图的原因之一，至少目前是这样，是因为我们喜欢那种更滑稽、更像动画的感觉，这种视觉风格是我们在宝可梦游戏中想要呈现的。如果我们能把现在的这种风格毫无问题地转化到3D中，那我们肯定会愿意去做。不过，这也不只是视觉外观的问题。角色的手感和操控对我们也很重要。操控这些2D角色时，肯定有一种特定的感觉。如果我们换成3D，那可能会不一样。
Game Informer
How often do you hear requests from fans or the press about the possibility of a Pokémon MMO?
你有多经常听到粉丝或媒体问起宝可梦MMO的可能性？
增田顺一
In terms of how often we get asked, I’m on Twitter and I get asked every once in a while, but it’s really not very often – from fans at least. I get the feeling that maybe not all of our fans are really interested in such an online game. It’s more so in interviews with the media and whatnot that I get asked about online games, like “Are you guys going to make an online version of Pokémon?” In terms of that, when you are playing remotely with someone very far away, obviously online, using the Internet like that is a really great option and it works great for that purpose, but with the Pokémon games, we really like to focus on face-to-face communication, and in-person communication, playing with people in the same space. One example might be like people from around the world come to the Olympics and have this huge event and that’s really exciting. While online play is a feature we also like and want to have in the games, encouraging this in-person face-to-face communication is something we want to continue to promote in our games.
就我们被问到的频率而言，我在用Twitter，偶尔会有人问我，但真的不算很频繁——至少从粉丝那里是这样。我的感觉是，也许并不是我们所有的粉丝都真的对这种在线游戏感兴趣。更多是在媒体采访之类的场合，我会被问到在线游戏的问题，比如“你们打算做宝可梦的在线版本吗？”就这一点而言，当你和离得很远的人远程一起玩时，显然通过互联网在线游玩是一个很好的选择，用于这个目的效果很好；但就宝可梦游戏而言，我们真的很想专注于面对面交流、当面交流，和处在同一空间的人一起玩。一个例子可能是，世界各地的人来到奥运会，参与这场盛大的活动，那真的很令人兴奋。在线游玩也是我们喜欢并希望在游戏中拥有的功能，但鼓励这种当面的、面对面的交流，是我们在游戏中想要继续推动的。
Game Informer
The digitized cries of the Pokémon have stayed the same, more or less, since the beginning. Is this something that would ever change? Will there ever be new Pokémon cries?
宝可梦的电子叫声从最初到现在基本没有变化。这是有可能改变的吗？会有新的宝可梦叫声吗？
增田顺一
The original games, I was the one that made the cries, the sounds for the Pokémon, and over time, you may not have noticed them, but they have actually changed over time throughout the games. They have changed, the cries in the game, but we definitely keep them different than the ones in the animated series.
最初的游戏里，宝可梦的叫声、音效都是我做的。随着时间推移，你可能没有注意到，但在历代游戏中它们其实一直在变化。游戏里的叫声变了，但我们始终让它们和动画系列里的不一样。
Game Informer
Has the Pokémon team ever considered speeding up the pacing of the battles, maybe incorporating more action, or timed button-presses like what we see in the Mario RPG titles?
宝可梦团队有没有考虑过加快战斗节奏，比如加入更多动作元素，或者像马力欧RPG系列那样加入限时按键？
增田顺一
When we were making the original games, Red and Blue, we really tried a lot of things, a lot of different battle systems and a lot of different aspects for the battle systems. We even tried things like getting rid of the concept of hit points. But we ended up with the battle system that went into the final game and has evolved over time in the current games. One of the base concepts of Pokémon is to really make it playable for anyone. Anyone can pick up the game and play it and enjoy it. By having a lot more action-packed gameplay, or some kind of gameplay that requires timed button presses, it might be a little bit too difficult for some people, especially for people who aren’t used to playing games. The idea of being able to go into a battle and think carefully about what moves you want to use, to really have the best tactics in battle is something we really value highly in the Pokémon games.
我们在制作最初的《红》和《蓝》时，真的尝试了很多东西，很多不同的战斗系统和战斗系统的不同方面。我们甚至试过取消生命值这个概念。但最终定下来的还是进入成品的那套战斗系统，并在后来的游戏中不断演变。宝可梦的一个基本理念就是让任何人都能玩。任何人都能拿起游戏来玩并享受它。如果加入大量动作化的玩法，或者某种需要限时按键的玩法，对一些人来说可能就有点太难了，尤其是对那些不习惯玩游戏的人。能够进入战斗、仔细思考要用什么招式、在战斗中真正运用最好的战术，这种想法是我们在宝可梦游戏里非常看重的。
增田顺一
In the Pokémon World Championships, there is a time limit on when you can choose your moves and whatnot. That is one way that the battles can be enjoyed, at the high-level play having a limited amount of time. Similar to chess, we really want players to be able to have enough time to think about which moves they want to use, and not really feel like they’re being rushed and I think that style of battle is really what works. It’s what we think is best for the Pokémon games right now at least.
在宝可梦世界锦标赛上，选择招式等操作是有时间限制的。这也是享受对战的一种方式，在高水平对战中限制一定的时间。和象棋类似，我们真的希望玩家能有足够的时间去思考要用哪些招式，而不是感觉被催促。我认为这种对战风格才是真正行得通的。至少目前我们认为它最适合宝可梦游戏。