Written by Dr Lava • November 28, 2021

The following interview was originally published in volume #84 of Nintendo Dream magazine (the February/March 2003 edition), a few months after Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire launched in Japan. This magazine featured a 9 page interview with the game’s director Junichi Masuda, as well as art director Ken Sugimori, discussing how they made Gen 3, including the Pokemon found inside and the region itself. Takanato Kondo of Pokemon Company PR is also present, although he only makes a few brief comments. The interview took place in the conference room of Game Freak headquarters in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, and the questions were asked by Saohen and Toranseru Taneichi.

Highlights include which Pokemon was created first, how Gen 3’s designs were different than the ones that came before, that Gen 3 was originally intended as a hard reboot, and how Game Freak decided the titles Ruby & Sapphire. Like most interviews posted on this website, it was never published in English, so I hired a Japan-based translator (Jacob Newcomb for this one) to translate it into English. I’ve also included some of my own commentary — clearly labeled as such — to add relevant information and additional context. A huge thanks to my Patreon supporters who funded this translation, these projects wouldn’t happen without their generous donations. Okay without further adieu, here’s the full 9 page interview translation.

Why the Gym Leaders and Elite Four Got So Powerful

“Mr Sugimori, in addition to working on Ruby & Sapphire’s development, you also drew all the promotional artwork for Gen 3’s Pokemon, isn’t that right?”

Sugimori: “That’s right. My work on the game wrapped up around the end of the year, so I was able to really take my time on the promotional art.”

“It must have been hard work. Well, congratulations on the big success of Ruby & Sapphire.”

Masuda: “Thank you.”

“It’s really incredible they sold 4 million copies in the 40 days since launch. How did that feel as a creator?”

Masuda: “I wasn’t really paying attention to the numbers.”

“Wasn’t it an incredible start to the New Year?”

Masuda: “I just felt like ‘well, I guess this New Year’s is about over.'”

Sugimori: “Our feeling wasn’t so much ‘oh good, it sold!’ It was more like ‘oh good, it’s over.'”

“How many more copies do you think they’ll sell?”

Sugimori: “(Points at Kondo of Pokemon Company PR) You can talk numbers with him.”

“So as a creator, you don’t think about the numbers?”

Masuda: “No not really.”

Sugimori: “We’re grateful it’s selling, but we didn’t set out to make it because we wanted to sell however many copies.”

“As of last September, the series has sold a total of 73.61 million copies worldwide.”

Kondo: “Yes, those are the figures from Red to Crystal, so once you add in Ruby & Sapphire, it’s around 80 million for the mainline series.”

“80 million copies! That’s incredible, truly difficult to even imagine.”

Sugimori: “I can’t imagine it either. 80 million feels the same as 8 million.”

“I see. Well, moving on from the numbers — the Gym Leaders have gotten stronger in these games, haven’t they?”

Masuda: “It naturally ended up that way.”

Sugimori: “But we kinda of always wanted to make them stronger. For this entry, we reluctantly had to cut the backwards-compatibility the series has been known for up till now, so you can’t bring along your old Pokemon into Ruby & Sapphire. So as you play, you steadily level up as you defeat gradually stronger opponents. That helped balance it as an RPG.”

“I see.”

Sugimori: “Plus the battles in Pokemon can be a bit abrupt, or I guess I should say, it all comes down to a contest of types…”

“For sure, if you know your opponent’s types, you can win pretty easily.”

Sugimori: “That was something we wanted to try to address, which is why we made the Elite Four in particular ‘too strong.'”

“Yeah, ‘too strong!’ is a complaint we’ve been hearing all over the place. The 8 Gym Leaders are pretty strong too, so you’ll definitely need to make a side trip at some point to level up.”

Masuda: “That’s right. Taking side trips is important in Pokemon. Rather than completing the game quickly, we want players to catch and use lots of different Pokemon. Of course, they can have fun raising the same Pokemon they used in previous entries, but we always want to give them a taste of traveling with new Pokemon, so we put a lot of effort into that aspect.”

“So I guess that’s why it’s necessary to catch Pokemon with types that are strong against the Gym Leaders. To take on the Elite Four, you’ll need to be at least level 50, which is another way we’ve responded to things. Speaking of which, Hoenn’s got a lot of places where players can get lost and not know where to go next.”

Sugimori: “Yes, it’s a bit different than previous regions. It’s not as linear.”

“Did you make it that way because you want players to take side trips?”

Masuda: “That’s right. Like the areas around Mauville and Lilycove are kind of tricky to understand. We wanted to add in an element conceptually where it’s like a parent letting go of their child’s hand and saying ‘now go wherever you want.'”

“That’s a good way to describe it.”

Masuda: “Without that, it wouldn’t be a real journey. There’s a guide up to that point, so I think they’ll understand.”

“It’s not just one main path this time.”

Masuda: “That’s why no matter where you venture off on a side trip, there’s always lots to do.”

“If someone played without a strategy guide, how long would it take to beat the game?”

Masuda: “I wonder how long it would take… Maybe 30 or 40 hours. But they might look for eggs, or collect ash, or try to catch lots of Pokemon, all of which make the game longer.”

“The map feels pretty big.”

Masuda: “It sure is — it’s a bit bigger than Gold & Silver’s map, which included both the Kanto and Johto regions.”

“The routes feel pretty long too.”

Masuda: “The Game Boy Advance has a wider screen, so if we tried to hide enemy trainers in the corners of the screen they’d still be visible. So instead we took advantage of the screen’s width…”

“I see. These are the first Pokemon games on the GBA, so was there anything you did differently?”

Masuda: “We told ourselves ‘we need to make it feel new this time.’ The biggest advantage of the GBA is it lets 4 people all link together at once. So the crux of the issue was to figure out what we could have 4 people do together. So that’s why we added contests and 2v2 battles.”

“In previous games, linking up focused on ‘competition,’ but now ‘cooperation’ is important for things like Pokeblocks and Secret Bases.”

Masuda: “That’s right. We wanted to add in elements where friends would sit side-by-side working together. For example, there’d be 3 people playing together, then someone else off by themself. You need 4 for a contest, so they’d call out ‘hey come join us.’ ‘You’ve got a rare one, come play with us.’ It was a goal of ours to try to add those kinds of communication features.”

“Pokeblocks work best with 4 people too.”

Masuda: “It’s still a pretty basic system though.”

“And the Pokemon contests are quite engaging. Did you have that idea from the start?”

Masuda: “We did. The games are mostly about battling, but we didn’t want that to be all they’re about. So it made sense to have a stage for showing off Pokemon in a different way. We were thinking how they could be shown off when we made that feature.”

The Balance of Pokemon Up to Gold & Silver

“Was there anything else you set out to change?”

Sugimori: “In general, the goal was to make something that felt new. When we made Gold & Silver, we intended to add in and change a lot of things. However, a lot of people said ‘not much has really changed,’ and we kept wondering why that was. And I think it’s because there were too many familiar Pokemon appearing in Gold & Silver.”

“I see.”

Sugimori: “In Gold & Silver, the first Pokemon you encountered was a Pidgey, and while nostalgia’s fine and all, I wanted to draw lots of new Pokemon. So that’s why we decided to have only new Pokemon appear at the beginning of Ruby & Sapphire.”

“Indeed, it’s fun to see nothing but brand new Pokemon. It makes you wonder ‘what abilities does this one have?’ and things like that.”

Sugimori: “But in Gold & Silver, none of the new Pokemon were fit to appear at the start, the way Pidgey and Caterpie do. So even though we added new Pokemon, we had to reuse some of the old ones. But when we decided to have only new Pokemon in these games, it became necessary to make Pokemon that fill the same role as Pidgey, and make a weak caterpillar Pokemon like Caterpie, but a little different…”

“And that’s why you made Wurmple then?”

Sugimori: “Those Pokemon’s evolution cycle is easy to understand. For some people, Ruby & Sapphire will be their first Pokemon game, and showing them a caterpillar turn into a cocoon then a butterfly is the easiest way to introduce the concept of evolution. So we intentionally made Wurmple similar to Caterpie, but a little different. I think that gives Ruby & Sapphire the feeling of being something new.”

“It sure does. And on the other hand, when an old Pokemon does appear, it feels very nostalgic. When I first saw a Geodude I was like “omg, he’s here, he’s here!” Lots of Pokemon from earlier in the series are in Ruby & Sapphire, but what kind of selection criteria did you use to decide which ones?”

Masuda: “In general, we chose Pokemon whose types we didn’t have enough of. From the early stages of development until past the halfway point, we planned on Ruby & Sapphire featuring nothing but brand new Pokemon. But later when it came time to balance things out, we realized there weren’t enough of certain types, and decided to add in older Pokemon to fill the gaps.”

Dr Lava notes: So apparently for most of Ruby & Sapphire’s development, Game Freak was planning on including only brand new Pokemon. Trading was impossible from the earliest Game Boy games, so Gen 3 would’ve been a pretty hard reboot — much more so than Black & White would eventually become. In Gen 5, you could still catch old Pokemon in the post-game, and you could transfer them from previous games as well. But that wouldn’t have been possible — fans would’ve had to wait until FireRed & LeafGreen released more than a year later. Fans also could’ve traded some over from Pokemon Colosseum — which released exactly one year after Ruby & Sapphire — but none of those games were announced yet and fans playing Gen 3 would’ve had no way of knowing those games were gonna have the ability to trade old Pokemon to Ruby & Sapphire.

Interestingly though, Masuda and Sugimori are saying they instead decided to make only the early game all new Pokemon — it’s not until Route 103, after the third town, that you see an old Pokemon. And even then it’s just a 20% chance of encountering Marill, the route is still mostly brand new Pokemon. All this cancelled reboot business also resulted in the creation of the Pokemon like Wurmple who otherwise would have just had their roles filled by old Pokemon like Caterpie. It also explains why more new Pokemon were added in Gen 3 (135) compared to Gen 2 (100) or Gen 4 (107).

“So there weren’t any selection meetings? Like wanting to bring back your personal favorites?”

Masuda: “Well, there was some of that. Like for me, there was no way I wasn’t going to add Psyduck.”

“Psyduck’s even printed on your business card. It’s your favorite Pokemon after all. But surely, there must have been some complications as well?”

Sugimori: “Well, I’m not sure about that.”

Masuda: “I don’t think we had much trouble. When we had to make decisions, we made them quickly. Like if a Pokemon looked like it’s poisonous, then we made it Poison-type… but that kind of resulted in us having a lot of Poison-types.”

Sugimori: “Type balancing this time was more difficult than Gold & Silver.”

“So you had to add in older Pokemon from Gold & Silver to balance out the new Pokemon?”

Masuda: “Yeah there was a bit of that.”

“But Mr Sugimori, not all of Pokemon you drew made it into the game, right?”

Sugimori: “That’s right, because I had a huge pile of them.”

“Did you think, like, you absolutely needed to add in the most popular Pokemon from previous games or something…?”

Sugimori: “I thought it wasn’t really a good idea to take that approach. Every Pokemon has fans, people that like them.”

How Were the Pokemon Created?

“One thing I thought was funny about the new Pokemon was that Slakoth evolves into Vigoroth then Slaking. Like oh, he went back to sleep? Was he based on one of the developers?”

Sugimori: “No, they weren’t based on any of the developers.”

“So nothing like that famous case of Snorlax being modelled after Koji Nishino?”

Sugimori: “Yeah, Slakoth just goes from a sloth to being motivated, then to deciding it wasn’t worth it after all.”

“I also laughed at the shift from Zigzagoon to Linoone.”

Sugimori: “With Slakoth and Zigzagoon, we got suggestions from the designers and came up with the names first. The names were great, then we wrote their Pokedex entries, and from there we created their designs. There were a Pokemon where the designers handled things that way.”

Dr Lava notes: The Japanese and English names for these two Pokemon are essentially the same. So what Sugimori’s saying is they came up with their names first, then their designs were based on the names. For those who missed the worldplay, the interviewer’s remark about Zigzagoon’s shift to Linoone is because the two Pokemon represent a zigzag becoming a straight linear line. Their theme was expanded in Gen 8 with Obstagoon (obstacle), and best illustrated by Sword & Shield’s art director James Turner, when he posted this Shiny artwork he made in three separate tweets in early 2021.

“How many designers made the Pokemon?”

Sugimori: “This time there were 8, including me.”

“I’m sure it can happen lots of different ways, but generally what steps go into a Pokemon’s creation?”

Sugimori: “The 8 designers follow their inspirations and draw some rough sketches, and in other cases we get orders from the planners saying ‘we want this type of Pokemon,’ then we design them. Then we gather everything we’ve made and evaluate them, and say stuff like ‘this one would be better if you changed this or that.’ Then we get together one more time, and I make the final touches. Art styles vary by designer, and some of them don’t always look like Pokemon — they might look like they’re from a girly manga or something — so I unify them all under my own art style.”

“Was there anything you kept in mind while making the new Pokemon for Ruby & Sapphire?”

Sugimori: “I thought about how wide the variety of Pokemon could be, and wanted to push the envelope of what would be accepted. So the first one I made was Blaziken. I wondered if people would go for such a humanoid Pokemon. I was intentionally testing the waters.”

Dr Lava notes: Blaziken’s design was actually derived from an earlier Sugimori design, whose concept art (pictured above) is believed to date back to early 2000. This Pokemon was never given a name — at least not publicly — but fans usually refer to it as “Latiken” because it appears to have ultimately became Blaziken and Latias. So presumably what Sugimori’s saying here isn’t that Blaziken was the first Pokemon he designed for Ruby & Sapphire, but it was the first Pokemon he designed that made it into the final game. If you wanna learn more about Latiken, click here.

“I see. Most Pokemon in Gold & Silver were of the cute variety, but this time…”

Sugimori: “Indeed, there were a lot of kiddy designs, and some fans were starting to say Pokemon had become too babyish, so one theme for Ruby & Sapphire was returning to the coolness of monsters. We added more and more cool, tough-looking, monstrous Pokemon, a philosophy best exemplified by Groudon. And the second big theme of Ruby & Sapphire was taking on new inspirations for Pokemon unlike anything we used before.”

“Yeah when I was playing, I got a strong sense of ‘returning to your roots.’ Were you think deeply about ‘just what are Pokemon’ during development?”

Masuda: “Yes, like with the titles — Ruby and Sapphire are red and blue, aren’t they? If we’re returning to the beginning, then we need to go back to the first colors. But we didn’t just go back, we challenged ourselves to see what kind of world we could make using the Game Boy Advance. As for the graphics, we’ve gone in a different direction from the original. When we were making Red & Green, we were basing some Pokemon off monsters. That’s why — like with Groudon and Kyogre on the package — we were consciously trying to use more interesting elements from dinosaurs and monsters.”

“In your previous interview at the time of Gold & Silver (February 2000 issue), you said when you were designing Pokemon, you had to consider merchandising, and that created some constraints.”

Sugimori: “Rather than constraints, I’d say we were careful about a lot of things. Like we’d say ‘if we don’t make a Pokemon this way, they’ll be difficult to animate in the TV show.’ We didn’t really think about those kinds of things this time, which might be bad for the anime staff and independent artists.”

“I definitely saw the benefits of that change in perspective.”

Sugimori: “Like Groudon for example — there are a lot of lines on its design, so I think it’ll be difficult to draw in the anime. But I just thought ‘screw it.’ Better to make it cooler. That’s the approach I took sometimes while drawing Pokemon for Ruby & Sapphire.”

Masuda: “But we still tried to limit the amount of fine lines.”

Sugimori: “Yeah but that had nothing to do with merchandising. If a design is too busy, it’s difficult to understand and leaves a weak impression, which of course was something we kept in mind. We didn’t really think about what drawings were best for the anime staff, but we weren’t intentionally trying to make things harder for them. We just did things a bit differently.”

Masuda: “We at least tried to figure out what they’d look like in 3D.”

Sugimori: “Since there’s also some weird ones that don’t look like other Pokemon, I’m curious what kind of reactions they’ll get.”

“There were a lot of weird Pokemon in Red & Green, and originally even Pikachu didn’t really look like a cute Pokemon.”

Sugimori: “That’s right. Over the years we’ve developed an image of what a Pokemon looks like, but this time we decided to push those boundaries and weaken the idea of what can’t be a Pokemon.”

“As a creator, you have to do that.”

Sugimori: “To take it to the extreme, if it appears in Pokemon, then it is a Pokemon. So it was like ‘this is the Pokemon we came up with.'”

Torchic’s Based on a Painted Chick!

“When the 3 starters evolve, it’s like ‘huh, that’s what they turn into?!’ I think a lot of small children will be surprised.”

Sugimori: “I think people from our generation have certainly experienced buying painted chicks. So while this one is orange, just like a real painted chick, it starts out cute then grows into something fierce and hard to look at. We wanted to recreate that experience, which led to Torchic, Combusken, and Blaziken.”

“It definitely feels like raising a painted chick. Once they grow up they aren’t cute anymore, and a lot of people throw them away.”

Sugimori: “Well, we wanted people raising them to feel that sense of disappointment, while also acquiring something more powerful.”

Dr Lava notes: Painted chicks are something you tend to see in country’s that aren’t too concerned with animal right — baby chickens with dyed fur that are typically sold at festivals and fairs. They’re impulse bought in the same way a kid might win a goldfish at the carnival that they can’t actually take care of long-term, and often thrown out when they aren’t cute anymore. Painted chicks were popular during the Shōwa era (1940’s-1980’s Japan), which is when Sugimori and Masuda were kids. They’ve mostly died out in popularity in modern era, however.

And since we’re talking about animal rights and the Torchic family, now’s probably a good time to share one of my tweets about Blaziken’s design origins (see below). Blaziken’s Japanese name is Bursyamo, which is partly derived from the word Shamo. By the way, you can follow me on Twitter if you wanna keep up with future translations and general Pokemon development history.

“So despite growing uglier, you become more attached as you raise them. By the way, what are Pokemon to you two?”

Masuda: “……”

Sugimori: “……”

Masuda: “What are they?”

“You have to ask me? (Laughs) Well then, are there any Pokemon you’re especially attached to?”

Masuda: “Well there’s Psyduck — but as far as the new Pokemon — Torchic, Lotad, and Wailord. In general, I like the ones where I asked the designers ‘what would something like this look like?'”

“Mr Masuda orders them to ‘make this type of Pokemon.’ What about you, Mr Sugimori?”

Sugimori: “A Pokemon I’m emotionally attached to… (gets lost in thought for a while). I like Pokemon who are made from a rather limited number of lines, like Ditto.”

“Ah, I see.”

Sugimori: “It doesn’t have much of a shape, but that flabby appearance gives it character. I feel like that makes its design more interesting.”

“By the way, why did you name them Ruby & Sapphire?”

Masuda: “Well now…”

Sugimori: “We really went back and forth on it a lot.”

Masuda: “Yeah, a lot. Around this time last year (January 2002), we still hadn’t decided, and it was around the premiere of the movie last summer that we finally decided. We were really torn on it, and went through a lot of different title ideas, and we also had some issues with trademarking. We had to consider what would happen when we released the English version too, and since the last game was Crystal, we wanted something that was new but still looked like the past, so we ended up going with minerals again.”

Sugimori: “And since there’s two versions, they had to be opposites.”

Masuda: “We looked for oppositional things that weren’t already copyrighted, and we wanted to have the same titles both in Japan and overseas, which really limited our options.”

“Rubies and sapphires both come from the same ore, don’t they?”

Masuda: “That’s right, from an ore called corundum. Only the red ones are called rubies, and every other color is called sapphire.”

“And the blue sapphires are the most valuable… Was them coming from the same ore something you did on purpose?”

Masuda: “Yes. They’re basically the same, but the concept is just how you look at them changes what they are.”

“Well that certainly worked out well.”

Masuda: (Laughs)

“Once you came up with that idea, did you feel like ‘it’s gotta be that!’?”

Masuda: “We sure did — we immediately thought ‘that’s it!’, but when we sent it to The Pokemon Company, they sent it back.”

“Oh really?”

Kondo: “(In a soft voice) ‘Excuse us… but if we’re turning over a new leaf, are more minerals like crystal the right way to go?’ is what they thought. But after hearing Game Freak’s thought process, they agreed ‘ah ok, this is the only way to go,’ and we settled on Ruby & Sapphire. They really are great names.”

“Pokemon titles were originally limited to colors, so what made you choose minerals this time?”

Masuda: “Crystal’s title came from the crystals used in electronic transmissions, so we picked a title that fit with the game’s contents.”

Sugimori: “Especially since Crystal was meant for the Mobile System GB.”

Dr Lava notes: The Japanese version of Pokemon Crystal was designed to work with a cell phone adapter that connected fans to the internet. Once online, Japanese players could battle, trade, get news update, compete on leaderboards, and download special events like the one that gave access to a wild Celebi. Sugimori and Masuda are saying Pokemon Crystal got its name from the physical hardware powering those online features. If you wanna learn more about the Japanese Crystal and the Mobile System GB, watch this video.

By the way, this interview was conducted long before Pokemon Emerald was even announced yet, so obviously they don’t discuss the game’s title. But I think it’s safe to assume they would’ve named Gen 3’s third edition after a green corundum if it had a unique name, but didn’t because they’re still just called sapphires. So they picked Emerald because it’s a green stone, and it’s another callback to the original Gen 1 games. By the way, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are all different kinds of crystals.

“Ah, I see. That makes sense. So, are you already thinking about the next games’ titles?”

Masuda: “Well… that depends on a number of factors.”

“I’m looking forward to it. One theme in these games is the conflict between land and sea — what were you trying to communicate with that theme?”

Masuda: “My initial idea was nature, humans, and Pokemon living in a balanced environment, a harmonious world. On one hand there’s Team Magma, and on the other Team Aqua. Actually, they were originally together, not separate. But anyway, this world has a culture that takes care of nature, and as you’ll understand when you play the game, it’s a pretty world — or rather, one that’s pleasant to live in. Then around this time last year, we thought it was actually more interesting if there were two organizations — with Team Magma in the red game (Ruby), and Team Aqua in the blue game (Sapphire). The games’ premise is a conflict between land and sea, with Team Aqua valuing nature to the extreme and Magma valuing culture and science to the extreme, with the protagonist existing in between. The protagonist doesn’t favor either side, they want a world directly in the middle.”

“So the protagonist lives in a world of harmony and balance?”

Masuda: “It wouldn’t be good to lean too far to either side.”

“But both sides have some truth to what they’re saying. So you were still thinking about this in January of the release year?”

Masuda: (Laughs)

“About how long was the development process?”

Masuda: “About 2 years. Our initial concept was just by swapping out the words Magma and Aqua on a computer, you could enjoy 2 different worlds, but there were a lot of details that made that impractical. So we changed the messaging… although it basically just comes down to switching one for the other.”

“Their hideouts are in different locations as well.”

Masuda: “Some fans will play both games, so rather than make them identical, we thought it was better to have some differences. Like if they’re up here in one, they’re down there in the other. Adding in differences makes it more entertaining.”

Was Hoenn Based on Emotional Ties to Kyushu?

“The Hoenn region is based on Kyushu, isn’t it?”

Masuda: “That’s right.”

“When you look at the map, Kyushu really does come to mind, it’s a great recreation. But what was the reason you chose Kyushu?”

Masuda: “My family’s hometown is actually in Kyushu.”

“Oh really? Where in Kyushu?”

Masuda: “Around Izuka in Fukuoka prefecture.”

“I see. Sugimori, you’re from Fukuoka too aren’t you?”

Sugimori: “That’s where I was born, yes. I also lived in Nagasaki for a while, but I spent most of my life in Tokyo. So for me I was like, ‘well I guess there’s a connection.'”

“Mr Masuda, I thought you were from Kanagawa.”

Masuda: “My home was in Yokohama, but both my parents came from Kyushu. So I wanted to take my memories of summer trips to Kyushu and put them in the game.”

“That’s what Pokemon is all about. So when it came to the geography, were you thinking ‘this part is Oita’ or ‘this part is Nagasaki’?”

Masuda: “We spent a lot of time thinking that way at first, but if we took it too far, the game would’ve gone in another direction. But living in Yokohama and going to the sea in Enoshima, compared to looking at the sea when I went back to Kyushu, the amount of fish was entirely different. Seeing the nets full of fish was a very impactful experience. That kind of beauty, along with the bountiful forests, was something I wanted to add in. That goes for the tall grass sections of the map as well, but I wanted it to be a place abundant in nature.”

“So it was made from your emotional ties to Kyushu! Hoenn has hot springs, and some of the dialogue uses Kyushu dialect — but was there anything else you consciously tried to add in?”

Masuda: “I definitely wanted to add some Okinawa elements, but it wouldn’t fit if we copied the geography exactly, so we condensed it down to make everything closer together. I composed the games’ music as well, and Okinawa’s well-known for its music. There are cultural differences between the different Okinawan islands — and of course between distant lands like Japan and Europe there are a lot of differences — but even within Japan, there are lots of things that are similar yet different that I thought we should include. That’s why there are lots of flowers in Ever Grande City, and the buildings look a bit different.”

Dr Lava notes: The tiny red islands on the Japanese map above are Okinawa Prefecture. Masuda’s saying in order to include Okinawa as part of Hoenn, he had to bring those islands a lot farther north so they were closer to the main island. Otherwise surfing to islands like Ever Grande would’ve taken forever. By the way, some of the Hoenn maps I’m using here are rotated 90° clockwise — that’s to make side-by-side comparisons with real-life Kyushu a bit simpler. In another interview, Masuda said he flipped the island on its side so it fit better on the GBA’s widescreen display.

“I see. So the music was also Okinawan style?”

Masuda: “I decided not to use Okinawan music. If I did, it would’ve been too much like the real Okinawa.”

“I guess so. By the way, what does the name Hoenn mean?”

Masuda: “I thought it up when I went back home to Yokohama about two years ago… It has the symbol ‘en’ (縁) which means to link people together. And since I wanted it to be a place that’s ‘bountiful’（豊かな）in those connections, linking Pokemon and humans together, it became Hoenn (豊縁).”

“So, you decided on the region’s name pretty early in development.”

Masuda: “It was a bit later when we agreed on the name Hoenn, but that was when I first came up with the idea.”

“Johto’s name comes from the Shijo district of Kyoto, and means ‘condition,’ ‘castle,’ and ‘capital.’ They don’t appear in Ruby & Sapphire, but how are Kanto and Johto connected to Hoenn?”

Masuda: “I think it’s more fun to think of them as separate worlds. When we designed Hoenn, we also made a rocket launch pad, and we had ideas like ‘maybe that’s where Team Rocket came from.’ But we decided it was better not to spell things out concretely, especially as far as the media’s concerned.”

(Laughs)

Dr Lava notes: Rumors were rampant back in the day that there was some way to ride the rocket at Mossdeep Space Center into space and catch Deoxys. There was no truth to those rumors of course — but what Masuda’s saying here is that their original idea was that Hoenn was a “separate world” from Kanto and Johto, and Team Rocket traveled there from Hoenn via the Space Center. And presumably that’s why they’re called Team Rocket. But Masuda says they didn’t want to spell it out concretetly, “especially as far as the media’s concerned” — which sounds like they didn’t want to be tied down by their own narrative, in case they changed their minds later in the series.

By the way, the Mossdeep Space Center is based on the real-life Tanegashima Space Center, which is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan. It’s located on a small island called Tanegashima, about 25 miles off the coast of the main island Kyushu.

Masuda: “Hoenn’s shaped like part of Japan, but there are islands everywhere in the world.”

“Maybe it’s rude to say this so soon after release, but with Kanto, Kansai, and Kyushu all represented, there have been people saying ‘make the next one about our region!'”

Sugimori: “I haven’t really heard much of that.”

“No, like for example, I’m sure there are people saying ‘make a region based on Hokkaido soon,’ for example.”

Sugimori: “Well it’s an RPG, so it’s important that the setting should be somewhere interesting — like how there are volcanoes in Kyushu. And by using a more southern region this time, we were able to use different-colored scenery, which is why we chose Kyushu as a model for Hoenn. If we can find a way to utilize a region’s unique features, then we’ll consider Hokkaido or other regions.”

“I guess it would be hard to have Swimmer trainers show up in Hokkaido.”

Sugimori: “I guess we’d have to use something else.”

Dr Lava notes: Funnily enough, Game Freak did end up choosing Japan’s northern-most island Hokkaido as their inspiration for Gen 4’s Sinnoh region. And yes, they did use Swimmers in Diamond & Pearl, despite the frigid temperatures.

Masuda: “Don’t you think southern regions are just more vibrant? Having gone from the monochrome Game Boy, to the Game Boy Color, and now the Game Boy Advance, we can show a lot more of that vibrancy, which is another reason it’s a good setting. But we aren’t trying to make people think ‘oh that’s definitely Osaka’ like we did in Gold & Silver.”

“It does look nice to see clouds reflected in the water.”

Masuda: “That’s the summer sky. But it’s winter now.”

Sugimori: “The theme of Pokemon is ‘youthful summer vacation adventures,’ so it was important to have that kind of atmosphere. The protagonist always has a backpack and rides a bike, and his adventures take place within the distance he can ride that bike. That’s what we want the Pokemon world to be like.”

“The bike’s is nice and all, but I was grateful for the Running Shoes this time.”

Masuda: “That was something we really worried about. If we went too far with it, they’d make the bike obsolete.”

Sugimori: “I was opposed to it. I said ‘we don’t need sprinting.'”

Masuda: “But it’s not sprinting, it’s just running.”

Sugimori: “I kept insisting that ‘an adventure is about walking.'”

“Well, you can’t run inside buildings though.”

Masuda: “We did that on purpose. If you could, people would constantly hold down the B button, and at that point you might as well let them run by default. We also added in situations where other trainers will definitely see you if you’re running. I think it’s good how we tied running into the gameplay.”

“By the way, Mr Sugimori, has your father learned how to play Pokemon?”

Sugimori: “No, he hasn’t.”

“In a previous interview, you said he could enter a room, but then he couldn’t figure out how the exit worked and got stuck inside.”

Sugimori: “That’s why we added arrow markers for room exits.”

“Wow, what a great son (laughs).”

Sugimori: “But I still don’t know if he’s figured it out or not.”

The Most Difficult Part of Development

“How many developers worked on Ruby & Sapphire?”

Sugimori: “The most we’ve ever had for the series.”

Masuda: “Around 30. That’s what it grew to over the 2 years.”

“How many did you have during Gold & Silver?”

Masuda: “Around 10.”

“All the previous entries had delayed releases, but this one went well huh?”

Sugimori: “I don’t know if I’d say it ‘went well.'”

“What was the hardest part of development?”

Masuda: “Since we had 30 people, after 2 years we started losing steam. We had trouble staying motivated, and people were asking ‘how much longer till we can say we’re finished?’ We needed to come up with a precise plan, there was still so much work to be done, and it was hard to keep our spirits high. We’d yell “c’mon, let’s do this!” Also, deciding on the titles was difficult.”

Sugimori: “As for me… well… a lot of the Pokemon had a troubled development.”

Masuda: “There were a lot of them.”

Sugimori: “Like I said earlier, I have to finalize the Pokemon made by several other designers, and there were points where I didn’t have them all unified, but I had to put them into the ROM mid-development despite my misgivings. So we had the games tested by the Super Mario Club while some weird Pokemon were still in there. And I just thought ‘they aren’t ready yet.'”

Masuda: “They said ‘they don’t look like Pokemon.'”

Sugimori: “There was a long period where I felt like ‘Yeah I know that, you don’t need to keep saying it.’ That was pretty draining, spiritually.”

“So you had unfinished Pokemon in the games during testing?”

Sugimori: “The basic designs were there, but maybe they were missing horns they ended up with later, or some other details were off. They were a bit unseemly.”

Dr Lava notes: This batch of “unfinished Pokemon” is probably stored somewhere at Nintendo. Since a hacker known as wack0 hacked Nintendo servers in 2018, beta sprites from Gen 2, then Gen 1, and eventually Gen 4 all leaked online. Some assets from Gen 3 have found their way onto the internet — like proto-Pokedex entries — but as of this article’s publication, no beta sprites. There was also a 2002 Ruby & Sapphire demo that contained some beta sprites, which means there are at least two batches of early Hoenn designs. But it’s anybody’s guess if we’ll ever get a chance to see them.

Masuda: “Sometimes if we add in horns later, it affects their movesets.”

Sugimori: “Like at one point I said ‘the tail on that Pokemon got annoying, so I got rid of it,’ then someone told me: ‘What? But I already programmed in some tail moves.'”

Masuda: “So the person who checks the movesets says ‘I guess they’re starting from scratch,’ and ‘please don’t get rid of the horns or the tail.'”

Everyone: (Laughs)

Sugimori: “So we had some constraints where we couldn’t get rid of a Pokemon’s tail, then we had to change their shape or find some other workaround.”

Dr Lava notes: So apparently, there were some Gen 3 Pokemon that Sugimori wanted to have their tails or horns removed, but couldn’t because they already had movesets that included tail- or horn-based attacks. I checked the movesets of every Gen 3 Pokemon to see which ones he might’ve been referring to, but the possibilities were more limited that I expected going in. The three Pokemon pictured above seem like the most likely. Lairon and Aggron are pretty easy to imagine without tails, and they can both learn Iron Tail. Interestingly, their pre-evolution Aron can also learn Iron Tail, even though it doesn’t even have a tail. Volbeat might be the most likely culprit — the move Tail Glow was created specifically for Volbeat, and it would make sense that the other developers wouldn’t want it thrown out, especially if they already made its attack animation.

As for the Pokemon who weren’t supposed to have horns — Ralts, Kirlia, and Shuppet look like they could fit the bill… but none of them have horn attacks, so it couldn’t be them. After inspecting all the Gen 3 movesets for horn-based attacks — and even if I included moves like Peck and Smart Strike (which is called Smart Horn in Japanese) — I couldn’t identify any of the Pokemon who might’ve had their horns targetted for removal. I spent hours looking into it, but ended up empty-handed. If you’ve got any ideas, send me a message on Twitter.

“Gold & Silver had 250 moves, but now there’s over 300.”

Sugimori: “Yeah the number of Pokemon and the number of moves have both steadily increased. We carried over a lot from the previous games, and also added in a lot of new stuff, so they came pretty dense games. It was kind of hard to handle, even with a team of 30 developers. We struggled a little.”

“That really does sound difficult.”

Sugimori: “Some fans asked if they could go to Kanto and Johto in Ruby & Sapphire, but if we didn’t cut the connection to previous games at some point, the series would become inaccessible. So we had to make the decision to cut it. But the moves were… (pained laughter).”

“Why did you decide to use Braille this time?”

Masuda: “Right now we’re in Shimokitazawa (Game Freak HQ), right? So I use the Odakyu line to get to work, and when you go up the stairs in the station, there’s Braille there. I just thought, ‘ah, there’s a lot of braille around here on the Odakyu line.’ But I can’t read any of it, and if I touch it, I still don’t understand. Then I noticed there’s also Braille next to the pull tabs on beer cans, and at the hospital too. If you pay attention, you’ll notice it everywhere. It made me wonder, ‘if it’s all around us to this extent, why can’t we read it?’ So then I researched Braille, and found out it’s arranged to make regular characters. And since that discovery was so incredibly fun, I wondered, ‘how many people know about these characters for blind people?” then decided “I want people to learn about them.” So I added it into the game.”

“I see.”

Masuda: “It’s quite interesting. It’s even on beer cans, and other places you wouldn’t expect.”

“Can you read it fluently now?”

Masuda: “It depends. Not 100%, but they have Braille in elevators too, and the buttons for open and close are 3 characters each in Japanese. So when I see only 2 characters in Braille I wonder “what’s going on?” That’s where I’m at, I just keep discovering it here and there.”

“You both have Braille on your business cards as well.”

Masuda: “I had it done by the Japan Braille Library.”

Sugimori: “We made the connection thanks to Pokemon. I think it’d be cool if this leads to more kids learning to read Braille.”

“Definitely. Now, this might be a difficult question to answer… but are there any ultra-rare Pokemon?”

Masuda: “Well…”

Sugimori: “I haven’t drawn any yet.”

Both: (Laugh)

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t be able to answer. But you did give out Mystery Tickets at the Hobby Fair, right?

Sugimori: “It makes fans excited about receiving something later, which is part of the fun of Pokemon, so it’s something we want to often in different formats.”

“There’s also a product coming out later this year that allows you to connect to the Gamecube.”

Kondo: “Right now it’s all confidential outside of what was revealed in a Nikkei article. You’ll just have to wait a little longer…”

Masuda: “But basically, we’ve been coming up with all kinds of things.”

“There’s a Gamecube in the protagonist’s room, so did you hypothesize that the GBA would be able to link and be used in that way when you added in that image?”

Masuda: “Uhh yeah… sure.”

“A rather profound answer… So next you’ll be working on the international versions?”

Masuda: “The international versions are handled by Nintendo, so now we’re thinking about what comes next.”

“So for now just kinda hanging out then?”

Masuda: “Not really hanging out — we’re thinking about a lot of things and… (gestures as if encouraging himself) fighting on!”

Sugimori: “Haaaaa… (sighs deeply).”

Both: (Laugh)

Sugimori: “We’re still thinking…”

“By the way, what is Pokemon to you two?”

Masuda: “There’s that question again. Like I said earlier when I was talking about Braille, it’s the joy of discovery.”

“And Mr Sugimori?”

Sugimori: “……..To me, I feel like I’m leveling up with each one I make.”

“You’ve both known each other since the planning stages of the first Pokemon, right?”

Masuda: “We started planning around 1990…”

“There’s been 3 Olympics since then.”

Masuda: “The years have really flown by.”

Sugimori: “It’s really added up, all those late nights.”

“And now for my last question — how do you want people to play Ruby & Sapphire?”

Masuda: “I think when Gold & Silver released, I asked fans to ‘please play for a long time,’ and really… that’s still the case, I want people to play for a long time.”

“You said you wanted them to boot it up once a day.”

Masuda: “I did. If they don’t tend to the berry trees regularly they’ll wither. So harvest them before they wither, okay? Once the trees grow they’ll bear fruit, then wither — but if you don’t turn the game on for a month, then you’ll end up with dead trees everywhere.”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

Masuda: “(Laughs). Well that’s why I want them to turn it on every day.”

Sugimori: “I want people to play slowly. I’m the type to take it slow — like when I play Zelda, I read all of the information and take my time moving slowly through the game, and stop to read the strategy guide… oh wait, we are making a strategy guide, right?”

Both: (Laugh)

“No go on, please continue.”

Sugimori: “Isn’t it nice to slowly unravel a game’s mysteries? There are things that only happen once in a game, so I want people to value those moments and have lasting memories of them. So I want them to enjoy the game without rushing through it.”

The Pokemon Talk Continues

“What were you like as a child?”

Masuda: “When I was a kid, I really liked dekochari.”

“Dekochari?”

Masuda: “It’s when you put a bunch of decorative lights on your bicycle…”

Sugimori: “So just decorating a bicycle.”

“Ah okay, yeah I’ve seen that.”

Masuda: “I got stopped by a motorcycle cop once. I’d put all those decorations on myself, but he was like ‘what happened here!’ In general, I liked building plastic models and taking things apart — whether it was a camera or something else, I wanted to see what they looked like on the inside.”

“Did you ever get in trouble for that?”

Masuda: “No, my parents understood, so if something ever broke they gave it to me.”

Sugimori: “I was always drawing ever since I was a little boy.”

“What kind of drawings?”

Sugimori: “Sketches of manga and basic 4 panel comics.”

“You also did illustrations for Game Freak back when it was a magazine. What manga artists influenced you?”

Sugimori: “I mostly just followed what was trendy. Like Space Battleship Yamato or Gundam, as a couple examples.”

“What are you most interested in now?”

Masuda: “Well, my child was born in September…”

“Congratulations!”

Masuda: “Thank you. September’s birth stone is a sapphire actually. So now I’m doing my best to take care of her.”

“Did having a kid change your perpective at all?”

Masuda: “It has. Like I think about why I think things are cute or not. Why do I think my own kid is cute when I don’t feel that way about other people’s kids? And I tie it into Pokemon as well, like why am I emotionally attached to this one or that one?”

“So she was born during the most interesting stage of development?”

Masuda: “A bit after actually. Just after she was born, I came to hold her when I heard a beep from my cellphone in my pocket, with an email asking “are these technical specifications alright?'”

Both: (Laugh)

Sugimori: “I don’t really know how to follow that up. I’ve just been busy lately, not sure what I should do.”

Masuda: “Have you been playing any games?”

Sugimori: “I’m playing Zelda right now.”

“How’s Wind Waker?”

Sugimori: “It’s fantastic. Very interesting.”

“Do you think you want to make a game like that?”

Sugimori: “No I don’t. I’m good (bitter laughter). I get dizzy just thinking about having to make all that in 3D. I enjoy playing it, but I don’t want to be on the creation side of things. I just admire how great and fun it is.”

“But I’d love to run in a 3D grassland in Pokemon.”

Sugimori: “Oh really?”

“Yes.”

What You Do on Days Off

Masuda: “I cook. I like cooking, but I hate cleaning up.”

“What are you good at cooking?”

Masuda: “Pot-au-feu (a French homecooked meal of slow-boiled meat and vegetables). All I have to do is boil it.”

“Mr Sugimori?”

Sugimori: “Well, I’m kind of an idiot. I don’t have anything cool to say.”

Both: (Burst out laughing)

Sugimori: “On my days off, I get a massage. My shoulders get stiff as rocks.”

If You Could Be Any Pokemon?

Sugimori: “Let me think for a minute.”

Masuda: “I’d wanna be Exploud. Even when it gets old, it keeps making noise, it stays motivated.”

Sugimori: “…………(checking the Pokedex poster pasted on the wall).”

Both: (Laugh)

Masuda: “Slaking?”

Sugimori: “If it’s gotta be one of the new ones… I guess I just wanna chill out, so Slakoth.”

Happiest Memory?

Masuda: “When I was in elementary school, I was always saying “I want a bike,” but my parents didn’t buy me one. Our apartment complex was on top of a mountain but the shops were down below. One day my parents told me to go down there, and I went without knowing why. They suddenly said, ‘we’re buying you a bike, so pick one you like,’ and I was extremely happy.”

Sugimori: “It was when I got Yoichi Kotabe’s autograph. I was glad to have this job. I never thought Kotabe would come work at Nintendo. I grew up on his works as a kid.”

Masuda: “We even got to work together.”

Sugimori: “I was so nervous. I was speechless.”

Dr Lava notes: Yoichi Kotabe is an animator and character designer who worked on lots of anime that were popular when Sugimori was a kid, like 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother and Heidi, Girl of the Alps. In 1985, Nintendo hired him to make artwork for Super Mario Bros, and over the next two decades he worked on many Nintendo properties. He also ended up working on quite a few Pokemon games and movies — including Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Stadium, and Mewtwo Strikes Back.

What Do You Think of the GBA?

Masuda: “A toy that lets you play with up to 4 people.”

Sugimori: “The perfect game device. Both to play on and make games for, it’s perfect.”

How You Feel About Nintendo?

Masuda: “It’s a company we can learn a lot from in terms of style and the creation process. They’re always like a role model for us.”

Sugimori: “Actually I prefer Sega…”

Both: (Burst into laughter)

Sugimori: “Nintendo is… really a role model.”

Masuda: “I think our way of making things is similar. We’ve made games for other companies’ consoles before, but they were different — they cared more about money than ideas. That’s something where Game Freak and Nintendo really see eye-to-eye.”

Sugimori: “Nintendo games really leave a strong impression — that’s what Nintendo does best. They’ve given me goosebumps since the Famicom days.”

“Which Nintendo game gave you the strongest impression?”

Masuda: “F-Zero for Super Famicom. It was impactful, and even now when I ride the Odakyu line and the train starts moving, it reminds me of the engine sounds in F-Zero. Every time I ride the train I’m like ‘it’s F-Zero!'”

Sugimori: “For me it was the first Metroid.”

Something Delicious You Ate Recently

Masuda: “In general, I like fresh foods. The other day I had abalone for the first time in a while, and it had such a nice ocean scent. I’m glad I was born Japanese.”

Sugimori: “I went home for New Year’s and ate there. So it’s got to be my mother’s cooking. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that.”

Advice for Aspiring Game Makers

Masuda: “It doesn’t have to be plastic models, but you should try to make lots of different things with your own hands. When you make video games, you don’t get that sensation of touch. On the day Ruby & Sapphire launched, all our staff went to Shinjuku to see people lining up to buy our games, and that was the first time we were like ‘ah, it’s selling!’ You’re stuck inside when you make games — you don’t get a sense of the product selling outside.”

Sugimori: “I get asked this kind of thing sometimes, but wanting to be a dojinshi artist like me and wanting to work for Game Freak are two very different things. So I don’t know if I can say anything useful. I draw pictures, and I hope they make people happy. So get out of your shell, and try to show people what you’ve made, and think about how they reacted to it — it takes hard work to be able to show your creations to lots of people. In the process you’ll build connections, which is how I ended up working for a game company, but it won’t turn out that way for everyone.”

Closing Comments

And that brings us to the end of this magazine’s interview translation. If you wanna read lots more Pokemon developer interviews, check out this site’s homepage, or the list of recommended translations linked below. And I wanna give one more thanks to my Patreon followers who support these translations — they wouldn’t be possible without their generous donations. If you’d like help fund my work for $5 a month as well, you’ll have access to more translations not available anywhere else (click here). Okay that’s all for today, thanks for reading.

Read More Pokemon Translations:

• Interview: Sugimori and Masuda discuss Gen 1’s development

• Interview: Sugimori explains Gen 5 Pokemon design origins

• Book: Japan-exclusive Pokedex translation (1996)

Videos About Pokemon History:

• Video: Sugimori Explains Gen 5 Beta Pokemon

• Video: Gen 4 and 5’s Scrapped Lock Capsule Event

• All Videos: Gen 4’s Internal Data and Cut Content