The producer of the upcoming Lollipop Chainsaw remake has taken to Twitter to try and reassure fans who are concerned about proposed changes that will be implemented.
Former Kadokawa Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda left in May to form a new company called Dragami Games. Yasuda then announced earlier this month that one of the company’s first projects will be a remake of cult action game Lollipop Chainsaw.
However, aspects of the announcement – including that it would have a new soundtrack, a “more realistic” art design and would have no involvement by creative director Suda51 nor co-writer James Gunn– left some fans worried.
Yasuda has now attempted to address some of these issues, with the exception of Suda and Gunn’s absence.
Lollipop Chainsaw – launch trailer
“The primary goal of the Lollipop Chainsaw Remake project is to make it so that players who wish to play Lollipop Chainsaw can do so easily, not to make a new Lollipop Chainsaw game,” Yasuda’s new statement says.
“Of course, the ideal thing to do would be to make a remastered version of the original game, changing nothing.
“However, we were unfortunately unable to include 16 of the licensed songs, which were a great part of the original game’s feel, and so we are instead aiming for a remake that is as close as possible to a remaster.”
Addressing concerns that the plot may be changed, he added: “We believe that Lollipop Chainsaw’s story is a huge part of what fans love about the original game, and we, the development staff feel the same. As such, the story will not be changed in the remake.”
Yasuda also referred to fan concern that in his original announcement he said the remake would have “a more realistic approach to the graphics this time”.
“The mention of how the game will have a more realistic look in the previous announcement was meant to refer to how we will make use of the advanced rendering technology available in current game consoles,” he explained.
“We do not wish to change Juliet’s design, and the assumption that we want to is baseless. We were the ones who created Juliet’s model data after great trial and error ten years ago, and feel attached to her more than anyone else.”
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Finally, Yasuda addressed worries that the game’s sexualised content may be “censored” for today’s audiences, by suggesting that there are no intentions to censor the game.
“We have not yet discussed the issue with the platform holders yet, and thus cannot say anything about the topic,” he said, “but what we can say is that we intend to negotiate with the platform holders to make it so that the game can be as close to the original version as possible.”
Last week the original game’s creative director Suda51 and co-writer James Gunn both stated that they have zero involvement in the new project.
“Neither I nor Suda51 are currently involved in this,” Gunn tweeted. “I heard about it for the first time from Suda a couple [of] weeks ago.”
Suda then followed up: “To add my two cents, like James Gunn says, neither he nor I am involved in this project at all, and Grasshopper Manufacture has nothing to do with development or anything.”
In his statement announcing the remake on Tuesday, Yasuda appeared to downplay Suda’s role in the original game, suggesting he had a more advisory role.
“As Suda-san was very busy handling development on other projects at the time, I served as director and producer, creating a joint development team consisting of staff from Grasshopper Manufacture and Kadokawa Games, overseeing development directly,” Yasuda claimed.
“Suda-san looked over the game design and supervised the project as an executive producer.”
Yasuda’s claims appear to be at odds with the game’s actual closing credits, which list Yasuda (not Suda) as the executive producer, and Suda as the creative director.
Furthermore, despite Yasuda’s claims that he “served as director and producer”, the game’s credits list Grasshopper’s Tomo Ikeda and Masa Shidara as director and producer respectively.
