Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu recently had the opportunity to speak with Level-5 president Akihiro Hina about some of the games the company has recently unveiled, such as the intriguing DecaPolice. Mr. Hino revealed that early on in the development of the mystery/action game DecaPolice was pegged by the team as a successor to the beloved Professor Layton series, but apparently as development progressed they decided against it as Level-5 is also working on a brand new Professor Layton game called Professor Layton and The New World of Steam for Nintendo Switch. Here’s what was said:
The interviewer: I was very surprised by Decapolice when it appeared on the LEVEL-5 VISION broadcast.
Hino: The development team worked on the title for about three years. I think we got a trademark for it three years ago. The time to obtain a trademark to present the game to cross-media partners coincides with the time to create a proposal with a general overview of the game. In fact, I’d say the development ran parallel to Megaton Musashi.
Interviewer: I see. So the two games were developed in parallel?
Hino: I worked on Decapolice more carefully than ever before, just like I did with Megaton Musashi, scrubbing and polishing it over and over again, re-reading and rewriting, seeing if I could make it more interesting. If I’m honest, it might even be a trial and error process.
Interviewer: This is your first detective script, isn’t it?
Hino: I think the reason Professor Layton is so popular is that it tickles the intellectual curiosity of adults. The starting point for this project was that if we could combine Level-5’s expertise in creating RPGs with a narrative mystery picture, we thought it would be interesting.
Interviewer: Well, it’s a detective RPG that tickles our curiosity, like the Professor Layton series, but it also sounds very interesting because it feels so unique.
Hino: It’s true that at first we were going to use something like “from the staff who brought you Professor Layton” or “The successor to the Layton series is here!” or something similar as an advertising spot.
