Mizuguchi On Life After Sega, Rez Pseudo-Sequels

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Space Channel 5 and Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi, held on the final day of last week's GDC show. As for his future projects, he seems in no hurry to reveal anything, mentioning: "Well, it's been about six months since I left Sega... I think we'll be able to make an announcement [about new projects] at E3 or maybe next year." But he does indicate: "I think my next game will be for the PSP or Nintendo DS", and when asked if it would be a sequel to Rez, suggests: "In my mind, yes. But I won't use the Rez name because that belongs to Sega."

Trippy

[josh glaser]

Rez was an awesome game. It's a pitty more people haven't played it. It's basically a shooter type of thing where you lock on to targets and stuff. The sound is awesome and the graphics are unique (and often headache inducing). It's simple, and not too deep, but superfun.

Re:Trippy

[chendo]

Of course, it would be much better if you have a girlfriend to play it with [gamegirladvance.com]...

Really, this is like those Harry Potter vibrating broomstick things... girls buy em for reasons ;p

Hi. I'm Troy McClure

[Anonymous Coward]

Mizuguchi On Life After Sega, Rez Pseudo-Sequels

Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such pseudo-sequels as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Mild Inconvenience" and "Star Trek 12: The Search for Any Remaining Trekkies Out There".

Look for me in the extended DVD version of "Gigli II"

This so fits

[Nefarious_Hat]

I was just playing the game yesterday, and thought. "Man, a sequel would be nice." Apparently the universe bows to my whims. Man, a ham sandwich would be nice. ... ... Damn. For those of you not in the know, a basic review of rez is available at http://archive.gamespy.com/reviews/january02/rezps 2/

Seems dangerous

[hambonewilkins]

"In my mind, yes. But I won't use the Rez name because that belongs to Sega."

Does anyone else hear Sega's lawyers ears perking up? He's basically saying he's going to circumvent copyright/trademark law (no, I'm not a lawyer) because they own the name but he wants to do a sequel. Good for him, but I certainly wouldn't speak about it in public.

It would be like the producers of a movie saying "we wanted to make a James Bond movie but couldn't get the rights from MGM so we just made a slightly different one." Remember the Goldmember controversy?

Re:Seems dangerous

[Black Hitler]

Remember the Goldmember controversy?

Which had nothing to do with copyright/trademark law. Parody movie titles are supposed to be pre-registered with the MPAA as a matter of course; New Line failed to do so and had to work out a separate deal with MGM. Had New Line done it properly there would be no issue. Anyway it seems to me that making a sequel to Rez and not calling it "Rez" would be no more a violation of copyright/trademark law than Rare making Perfect Dark after Goldeneye and not calling it "Gold

Re:Seems dangerous

[bugbread]

He's basically saying he's going to circumvent copyright/trademark law (no, I'm not a lawyer) because they own the name but he wants to do a sequel.

IAalsoNAL (making us brethren!), but it really depends on what part of Rez Sega owns. If it's the name and likeness, he can produce a game with a different name and different graphics, but with the same gameplay style, and be legally safe. That's where Goldmember, etc. have problems.

Really, if you think of it, if game style were part of copyright/trademar

Re:Seems dangerous

[BinaryOpty]

Xenosaga is a game that's done this very thing. Square owns Xenogears, so Monolith named their game Xenosaga. No copyright infringement suits or or anything even though everyone knows its relation to Xenogears.

Re:Seems dangerous

[AvitarX]

Yeah, and that even seams like fairly blatent trademark infringemeant if the game name was trademarked.

It is not a parody and clearly is trying to cash in on the first one. That is why trade mark law exists, of course Xenogears may not be trade marked, in which case there is some wiggle room, but depending on how the story is intertwined it still may not work (I know nothing about the games).

Re:Seems dangerous

[josh glaser]

I think the grandparent is a little off here. I don't think Monolith called Xenosaga "Xenosaga" because Square wouldn't let them call it Xenogears. They called it that because it was a different game in the same series. The "Xeno" in the title makes them easily recognizable as that, and I don't think they wanted to call it "Xenogears II." Especially because Xenogears is actually Part V in the Xeno story, and Xenosaga is Part I. (What would they call Xenosaga then? Xenogears -4?) Other popular RPGs do this too...Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, SaGa Whatever, etc. They probably just didn't want to create confusion by naming a prequel like a sequel. Also, if Square owned the name Xenogears and wouldn't let them use it, and they used the name Xenosaga, well, the names are similair enough so Square could sue them anyway. I mean, making a prequel to somebody else's game probably isn't that smart either - which is why I'm pretty sure they had the rights to all the Xenogears stuff.

Re:Seems dangerous

[bugbread]

Another example is Dark Cloud 2, which is called Dark Chronicle in Japan. It's made by the same folks, on the same platform, but they wanted to avoid the "2" for some reason.

"In my mind, yes"

[philiptan]

Between Space Channel 5 and Rez, when Mizuguchi says that his next game would be a sequel to Rez "in his mind," I don't see that as an indication that the next game would necessarily look or play like Rez at all, and that should be a good thing.

I doubt Mizuguchi is interested in making a straight sequel of Rez... he seems rather too imaginative for that. I personally hopes that he takes the synaesthetic ideas in Rez in a direction no one expects. The Kandinsky/Tron hybrid is done, and it's excellent... hop

Re:"In my mind, yes"

[shadowcabbit]

Even though he's already made two sequels (Sega Rally 2 and Space Channel 5 Part 2)?

We can't fault Mizuguchi if those were made as a result of Sega's decisions and not his own (ie he didn't propose the sequels, but Sega put him in charge of them).

I actually would welcome a new Rez-like game. The original was mind-blowing, but it was too short because it was limited by the Dreamcast's disc space. Give Mizuguchi the chance to do close to the same thing with a dual-layer DVD (and, by extension, better audio compression tools)-- and that'd be the one game I'd put a pre-order on the import for.

Another poster weighed in on if Sega had the copyright on the name and style... I think that there're plenty of ways you could do the same thing as Rez, but still get away with it. On the other hand, I doubt that Sega would begrudge Mizuguchi the opportunity to keep working on one of his most beloved games. (witness what happened with Xenogears/Xenosaga and Square Enix/Monolith Soft-- same basic dilemma)

Re:"In my mind, yes"

[philiptan]

No doubt, I'll be in line if a straight sequel of Rez is released. I'm just a lot more interested in what Mizuguchi could do if given a free hand. He tapped some very compelling concepts in Rez, and I'd be disappointed if he decided to only apply those concepts to a Panzer Dragoon-style shooter. It's the completely new ideas in his head that I want to see, not just the refinements of the old ones.

That being said, sequels are certainly part of the bread-and-butter of game sales. Not only do sequels give the

Re:"In my mind, yes"

[DeadScreenSky]

The original was mind-blowing, but it was too short because it was limited by the Dreamcast's disc space.

Umm, nothing could be further from the truth. Rez used well under half of the max space a Dreamcast disc has. An interesting theory, but there are two far more obvious/likely/possible reasons:

1. The game is meant to be played all in one sitting. Otherwise the intention of creating the stated goal of synaesthesia [wikipedia.org] simply wouldn't work - you can't space something like that out. It also fits into the well

Small Studio

[BestGameEver.com]

This comment of his was interesting: "I could see getting up to 20 people, but I don't want to get any bigger than that. If I want to make a big game, then I'll try to cooperate with a studio. I think production and design should be separate." This sounds like a cool development model. Ties in with the recent story about game development outsourcing too.

Wow!

[aanand]

"Well, it's been about six months since I left Sega [slashdot.org]..."

Dude! Not only did this guy make Rez - he can speak anchor tags!

Re:Wow!

[IntergalacticWalrus]

...AND they lead to slashdot! Who knew that guy was a slashdot reader!