"The fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive. It meant we got the design right and it points to the fact that Grace quickly established herself as a fan favorite, that people had such strong opinions on her design."
Yes, as a Pokémon fan, I naturally understand the various discussions currently taking place within the fan community. I can totally relate to all of it. Regarding the graphics and gameplay, we've truly tried to do our best in both areas.
"I helped Santa Monica to make God of War, Naughty Dog to make Uncharted and The Last of Us, and Sucker Punch to make the beautiful Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last games that I worked on as the president of Worldwide Studios. But in 2019, after 11 years leading the first-party development, I was fired from the role."
I haven't played Crimson Desert enough, but we had everything that I've seen from Crimson Desert in the plans for that game. It was signed with a big publisher that has a lot of famous IPs...And then they just changed business direction again and wanted to focus on their existing IPs instead of new ones. They broke up with us on a text message, which I will never forgive them for.
"I think one of my most-played games is Pokemon Pinball, but the idea to make a pinball game came from Mario... he came to me and say 'JP, I want to make a custom engine for Playdate and we should make a pinball game.'"