- Joined
- Jan 23, 2025
- Messages
- 76
- Level up in
- 23 posts
- Reaction score
- 242
- Points
- 477
Here is an article I wrote this year about one of my favorite Sega Saturn games (I also made a YT video on this topic, but I would like to be able to publish it in text format as well). It is a bit long, but I wanted to be thorough and explain a few things about this game's unique production history that often go unremarked on.
It might have to be split into two parts because of character limits.
Thank you for reading.
1997
1997 was a landmark year in gaming. Even non-retro gamers generally know the big console titles released in '97. Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Goldeneye, Star Fox 64...well, forget listing them all, because the rest of this article will be long enough without such an inventory. The point is, 1997 A.D. was an exciting time to be a video game hobbyist.
One particularly exciting moment in '97 gaming news was when a particular publisher, Enix, officially announced that the next installment of their extremely popular - at least in Japan - Dragon Quest franchise would be moved from the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, a story in itself for another article perhaps, to the new "Console King" of the era: The Sony Playstation.
On January 17th of 1997, IGN wrote - although they were by no means the only gaming outlet to do so, this is just an example - the following:
Stock in Sony Corp and Enix Corp rose significantly in Japan yesterday due primarily to Enix's announcement that it would develop Dragon Quest VII for the Playstation.
And so, the Playstation started to sell even more console units than it already was in '97 in anticipation for a Playstation Dragon Quest game, beacause that was just how big Dragon Quest was at the time - again, at least in Japan.
In '97, the PS1 was leveling up from a gaming console underdog to the "top" one in Japan. Sony was not exactly a startup or anything obviously, but they were the relative newcomer in the console gaming industry taking on the veterans that were Nintendo and Sega. One reason for the PS1's success was in part due to the release of RPG games like Final Fantasy VII, a big business genre in Japan at this time, so Enix announcing the next Dragon Quest title on the PS1 further cemented the PS1 as the "RPG powerhouse" console of '97. It was a big move, a big play, but this was not the only announcement Enix made concerning publishing games for a 32-bit console that year.
Also in '97, Enix announced that they would begin to publish Sega Saturn games as well. Some Saturn fans became hopeful that this would be a sort of injection for the Saturn after Sega had started to lose the "console wars". However, Enix did not say at the time exactly what they were going to publish for the Saturn - leading, naturally, to wild, baseless speculation (the best kind). Speculation that included the idea that one of the games Enix would publish might, in fact, be a Dragon Quest title.
Concerning the status of a Dragon Quest title for the Saturn, there were conflicting reports. Some discounted the idea entirely as "wishful thinking", but other console game enthusiasts were more...enthusiastic. Here is GamePro magazine getting it, as they often did, confidently wrong:
There is some good news on the Playstation front. Longtime Japanese software company Enix, creators of Ogre Battle and Brainlord for the SNES, is developing a Dragon Quest game for the Japanese Playstation and the game could possibly come to the US in 1998. This action represents a radical departure for Enix, which has traditionally made games for Nintendo systems only. A Dragon Quest game for the Japanese Saturn is also on the way, but no specific release dates for Enix games were available at press time. - GamePro Issue 103 April 1997
In the end, the first game Enix would publish on the Saturn ended up being neither a main-line Dragon Quest title nor a Dragon Quest spin-off. Oh, there was a dragon in this game all right, but the dragon didn't look like this:
(I would like to post an image of a DQ dragon here)
Instead, it looked like this:
(I would like to post an image of Garp the Dragon from Nanatsu Kaze here)
Rather than a Dragon Quest title, the first Enix published Saturn game was something else entirely. A something with a very unique vision and pedigree, designed with some sort of...grotesque dignity.
The name of the game was Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari, or "The Story of the Island of Seven Winds", but due to collective anticipation for Saturn Dragon Quest news amongst Saturn owners, the announcement of Nanatsu Kaze did not sound like a dragon's roar, but instead...a whisper in the wind.
Released in Japan on November 27th, 1997, Nanatsu Kaze is an offbeat 2-d adventure* (more on this later) game in which you play as Garp, a Dragon on a Quest, and it was developed by a company going by the name of Givro Corporation.
Before I write about Nanatsu Kaze in detail, to better convey what makes it such a special game I would first like to focus a bit on the team of programmers, developers, sprite artists and so forth that worked on it at Givro.
Givro
Givro was a game development company originally founded under the name Almanic Corporation in 1989. The company name would be changed to Givro Corp in 1995. Among other titles, Givro founder Takashi Yoneda worked on Quintet's Actraiser, which was published by, you guessed it, Enix.
Actraiser is a hybrid side-scrolling hack 'n slash slash God simulation game where in the overhead sim portions you lend an angelic hand to human civilization, your "children" as it were, so that humanity can survive and thrive through the ages. Yoneda's first work as a director at Almanic was a game also related to civilization growth and actually came out months before Actraiser did...and that game was 46 Okunen Monogatari ~The Shinka Ron~ (or "4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution") released in 1990 for the PC-9801 computer system and published by...again, Enix.
Enix would be a major publisher for games developed by Almanic/Givro, and one reason for this is explained by then-Givro president Noriyuki Tomiyama in the June 6th, 1997 edition of Sega Saturn Magazine.
Tomiyama states:
Enix understands the importance of “making good games.” That’s why we ended up creating Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari. For example, while longer development periods tend to increase production costs, they told us, “Take your time and wait for a great result.” As a creator, that’s very much appreciated. - translated by my friend LapinVT (as are all subsequent interviews in this article)
Givro's first game's title, 4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution, sounds quite...ambitious. And "ambitious" is a word I would use to describe nearly all Givro games, whether it be the titles that had to be rushed out or the ones that were allowed decent development time.
46 Okunen is basically a turn-based RPG, and its premise is that "you" begin life as a lowly aquatic critter and are tasked with evolving through a survival of the fittest world until you become a bipedal being capable of reaching and colonizing the stars.
One "through-line" in Givro games is "learning" or "evolving". More than a couple are about growth, evolution...metamorphosis.
This aspect is evident not just in 46 Okunen, but also in its SNES/Super Famicom counterpart, also directed by Yoneda: the side-scrolling action adventure title EVO: Search for Eden, published by Enix in 1992 in Japan and '93 in the United States. The aspect of growth occurs again in Givro's Wonder Project J series, also published by Enix - and both games in the J-series are also directed by Yoneda, and in these games you help teach Pinnochio-esque robots how to be more human-like and oversee their growth, their evolution.
And so it is no surprise that the idea of metamorphosis is also present in traces of Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari. The opening game-play sequence even involves our lead character, Garp, breaking out of an egg (with a little help from the player, of course) and into a "new form"...and into a new world. But so present too in Nanatsu Kaze is another Givro "trademark" or "calling card": multi-joint animation.
Only Givro can pull this off.
Those are supposedly words relayed by Enix in regards to assigning Givro to the development of Nanatsu Kaze, according to an interview with Tomiyama in the June 6th, 1997 edition of Sega Saturn Magazine. As to why Enix was pursuing the Nanatsu Kaze project in the first place, I'll explain that in a bit. First, let's look at the interview a little more in regards to Givro's "multi-join animation" specialty. Tomiyama states:
The biggest challenge was how to make the characters move. That’s when Hayakawa suggested, “How about animating with separate parts?”
Please insert disc two to continue reading this article.
(Can I post the rest of the article below? Even though it should be under 30,000 characters, it is only letting me post 10,000 or under currently.)
It might have to be split into two parts because of character limits.
Thank you for reading.
1997
1997 was a landmark year in gaming. Even non-retro gamers generally know the big console titles released in '97. Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Goldeneye, Star Fox 64...well, forget listing them all, because the rest of this article will be long enough without such an inventory. The point is, 1997 A.D. was an exciting time to be a video game hobbyist.
One particularly exciting moment in '97 gaming news was when a particular publisher, Enix, officially announced that the next installment of their extremely popular - at least in Japan - Dragon Quest franchise would be moved from the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, a story in itself for another article perhaps, to the new "Console King" of the era: The Sony Playstation.
On January 17th of 1997, IGN wrote - although they were by no means the only gaming outlet to do so, this is just an example - the following:
Stock in Sony Corp and Enix Corp rose significantly in Japan yesterday due primarily to Enix's announcement that it would develop Dragon Quest VII for the Playstation.
And so, the Playstation started to sell even more console units than it already was in '97 in anticipation for a Playstation Dragon Quest game, beacause that was just how big Dragon Quest was at the time - again, at least in Japan.
In '97, the PS1 was leveling up from a gaming console underdog to the "top" one in Japan. Sony was not exactly a startup or anything obviously, but they were the relative newcomer in the console gaming industry taking on the veterans that were Nintendo and Sega. One reason for the PS1's success was in part due to the release of RPG games like Final Fantasy VII, a big business genre in Japan at this time, so Enix announcing the next Dragon Quest title on the PS1 further cemented the PS1 as the "RPG powerhouse" console of '97. It was a big move, a big play, but this was not the only announcement Enix made concerning publishing games for a 32-bit console that year.
Also in '97, Enix announced that they would begin to publish Sega Saturn games as well. Some Saturn fans became hopeful that this would be a sort of injection for the Saturn after Sega had started to lose the "console wars". However, Enix did not say at the time exactly what they were going to publish for the Saturn - leading, naturally, to wild, baseless speculation (the best kind). Speculation that included the idea that one of the games Enix would publish might, in fact, be a Dragon Quest title.
Concerning the status of a Dragon Quest title for the Saturn, there were conflicting reports. Some discounted the idea entirely as "wishful thinking", but other console game enthusiasts were more...enthusiastic. Here is GamePro magazine getting it, as they often did, confidently wrong:
There is some good news on the Playstation front. Longtime Japanese software company Enix, creators of Ogre Battle and Brainlord for the SNES, is developing a Dragon Quest game for the Japanese Playstation and the game could possibly come to the US in 1998. This action represents a radical departure for Enix, which has traditionally made games for Nintendo systems only. A Dragon Quest game for the Japanese Saturn is also on the way, but no specific release dates for Enix games were available at press time. - GamePro Issue 103 April 1997
In the end, the first game Enix would publish on the Saturn ended up being neither a main-line Dragon Quest title nor a Dragon Quest spin-off. Oh, there was a dragon in this game all right, but the dragon didn't look like this:
(I would like to post an image of a DQ dragon here)
Instead, it looked like this:
(I would like to post an image of Garp the Dragon from Nanatsu Kaze here)
Rather than a Dragon Quest title, the first Enix published Saturn game was something else entirely. A something with a very unique vision and pedigree, designed with some sort of...grotesque dignity.
The name of the game was Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari, or "The Story of the Island of Seven Winds", but due to collective anticipation for Saturn Dragon Quest news amongst Saturn owners, the announcement of Nanatsu Kaze did not sound like a dragon's roar, but instead...a whisper in the wind.
Released in Japan on November 27th, 1997, Nanatsu Kaze is an offbeat 2-d adventure* (more on this later) game in which you play as Garp, a Dragon on a Quest, and it was developed by a company going by the name of Givro Corporation.
Before I write about Nanatsu Kaze in detail, to better convey what makes it such a special game I would first like to focus a bit on the team of programmers, developers, sprite artists and so forth that worked on it at Givro.
Givro
Givro was a game development company originally founded under the name Almanic Corporation in 1989. The company name would be changed to Givro Corp in 1995. Among other titles, Givro founder Takashi Yoneda worked on Quintet's Actraiser, which was published by, you guessed it, Enix.
Actraiser is a hybrid side-scrolling hack 'n slash slash God simulation game where in the overhead sim portions you lend an angelic hand to human civilization, your "children" as it were, so that humanity can survive and thrive through the ages. Yoneda's first work as a director at Almanic was a game also related to civilization growth and actually came out months before Actraiser did...and that game was 46 Okunen Monogatari ~The Shinka Ron~ (or "4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution") released in 1990 for the PC-9801 computer system and published by...again, Enix.
Enix would be a major publisher for games developed by Almanic/Givro, and one reason for this is explained by then-Givro president Noriyuki Tomiyama in the June 6th, 1997 edition of Sega Saturn Magazine.
Tomiyama states:
Enix understands the importance of “making good games.” That’s why we ended up creating Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari. For example, while longer development periods tend to increase production costs, they told us, “Take your time and wait for a great result.” As a creator, that’s very much appreciated. - translated by my friend LapinVT (as are all subsequent interviews in this article)
Givro's first game's title, 4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution, sounds quite...ambitious. And "ambitious" is a word I would use to describe nearly all Givro games, whether it be the titles that had to be rushed out or the ones that were allowed decent development time.
46 Okunen is basically a turn-based RPG, and its premise is that "you" begin life as a lowly aquatic critter and are tasked with evolving through a survival of the fittest world until you become a bipedal being capable of reaching and colonizing the stars.
One "through-line" in Givro games is "learning" or "evolving". More than a couple are about growth, evolution...metamorphosis.
This aspect is evident not just in 46 Okunen, but also in its SNES/Super Famicom counterpart, also directed by Yoneda: the side-scrolling action adventure title EVO: Search for Eden, published by Enix in 1992 in Japan and '93 in the United States. The aspect of growth occurs again in Givro's Wonder Project J series, also published by Enix - and both games in the J-series are also directed by Yoneda, and in these games you help teach Pinnochio-esque robots how to be more human-like and oversee their growth, their evolution.
And so it is no surprise that the idea of metamorphosis is also present in traces of Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari. The opening game-play sequence even involves our lead character, Garp, breaking out of an egg (with a little help from the player, of course) and into a "new form"...and into a new world. But so present too in Nanatsu Kaze is another Givro "trademark" or "calling card": multi-joint animation.
Only Givro can pull this off.
Those are supposedly words relayed by Enix in regards to assigning Givro to the development of Nanatsu Kaze, according to an interview with Tomiyama in the June 6th, 1997 edition of Sega Saturn Magazine. As to why Enix was pursuing the Nanatsu Kaze project in the first place, I'll explain that in a bit. First, let's look at the interview a little more in regards to Givro's "multi-join animation" specialty. Tomiyama states:
The biggest challenge was how to make the characters move. That’s when Hayakawa suggested, “How about animating with separate parts?”
Please insert disc two to continue reading this article.
(Can I post the rest of the article below? Even though it should be under 30,000 characters, it is only letting me post 10,000 or under currently.)
Last edited:
