Development studios often have loads of staff, but Goichi "Suda51" Suda has managed to become a recognizable name unto himself. "There is a bit of pressure to sort of answer to this demand for, you know, Suda51-style games," he says. "Not to sound big headed or anything, but it's something that I'm really thankful for, that, you know, the name Suda51 is probably just as big, possibly even bigger, in the game industry, than the name Grasshopper is. Luckily, that helps us sell games."
Beyond getting his start with Super Fire Pro Wrestling special, the sport is referenced in almost every title Suda has been involved with. Almost mimicking his fascination with the acrobatic physical combat and its lashings of drama as fighters feud, there's more to the Suda51 name than simply having one man behind it.
"One thing that I feel really fortunate about is the staff that I work with, especially the veteran staff, the people that have not only been working in the game industry for a long time, but the people with whom I've been working with for a long time," he says. "They're the ones that really help bring out the Suda51-ness in the games, which honestly makes it not just a Suda51 style game, but a Grasshopper style game."
Emphasizing he doesn't view it as a negative, Suda51 says it's not simply a case of having to meet fan expectations, but also that of the staff – he feels they're consistently on the same page, both as creatives and fans of what they want to make.
"If I come up with an idea that's a bit iffy, or just doesn't feel really Grasshopper-ish, they'll be like, 'No man, come on. We gotta make this more Suda51, we've got to make this more Grasshopper'," he says. "We vibe really well together. They know what sort of games that I want to make. They know what sort of games we want to make, what sort of what sort of games we can make. That's why I work with them. Because these are the people who know how to make a Grasshopper game."
He's grateful to not have "a bunch of yes men" but genuine collaborators. "For example, when I'm writing up the scenario for a game, I'll write up the first draft or something, and I'll present it to the rest of the staff. And if there's kind of, like, 'Yeah, okay…' Then I'll feel like, 'Oh, shit. Does this kind of suck? Is this not good enough?'"
With that said, what is it that he feels defines the Suda51-ness or Grasshopper-ness that he strives to meet, and that fans expect? He thinks for just a moment. "Mainly pro wrestling," he laughs. "There's got to be pro wrestling elements in the game for it to be a Suda51 game, for it to be a Grasshopper game."
Rather than something definitive, it's just something he's come to intuit. "The new game, the completely new IP that we're working on right now, I spoke with the staff when we first started planning it out, and we decided, 'Okay, you know what, we're not going to put any pro wrestling shit in this game. This is going to be a pro wrestling-free game'," Suda51 says. "We've been working on it for about, I guess, a year or two now, and you know what? It ended up having pro wrestling stuff in it! It just kind of organically comes out, you know?"
Playing it forward
"The most important lessons I’ve learned would probably be 'making video games is hard'"
Suda51's main goal is to approach the games he makes from the mindset of a player. "I try to stay really conscious of the whole process someone who plays the game is going to go through – buying the game, booting it up for the first time, seeing a couple loading or title screens, etc., – and then what sort of rhythm they’ll play at from the moment they grab the controller," he says. "I also have a deep desire to see what sort of emotions I can bring up in the player, and to make games that are simply different from everything else. I try to think about 'how video games are supposed to be', and then basically avoid that as much as I can and hope it works out well – and while this doesn’t necessarily succeed every time, I always try to ensure that people can get an experience they can only get from a Grasshopper game not from any other video games, or movies, or music, or what have you."
But as a creative, Suda51 isn't one to be pigeon-holed. From smaller projects like his upcoming collaboration with Swery65 and White Owls, Hotel Barcelona, he's also developed live service titles like Let It Die. What's he learned from bouncing around between very different scales of development and genres? "The most important lessons I’ve learned would probably be 'making video games is hard' and that – for example with Hotel Barcelona, which is being developed by Swery and his White Owls studio – when a good developer makes a game, that game is usually gonna turn out good, which is kinda obvious," he says.
But, circling back to Grasshopper's own growth, Suda51 also emphasizes that "team building is really important to developing video games". Everyone contributes. "For example, you see this sort of thing a lot: a Western developer who’s put out some really well-received, big titles announces that they’re breaking off and starting a new studio," says Suda51, "and it’s really big news and all but then a few years later the studio ends up shutting down. This happens all the time in this industry." No matter if it's working in-house with Grasshopper Manufacture – where he's been working for the last 27 years – or contributing to other teams, Suda51 has observed that "whether or not a game turns out really well is deeply connected to how well the team developing it works together".
Super special team-up
This is a philosophy he brings to the table in collaborative projects. After all, we're talking in the wake of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered's release, which saw him team up with Shinji Mikami for a raunchy and action-packed spin on survival horror topes – channeling Robert Rodriguez energy.
Rather than thinking "how am I going to put, like, the Suda51-ness into this game?" he simply thinks about whether he wants to work with them in the first place. "For example, with Shinji Mikami [for Shadows of the Damned]. We've got a really strong trusting relationship. He'd helped me out a lot. We worked together a lot on making the game, and it just sort of kind of worked out." It's the same for Hotel Barcelona, which is primarily being developed by Swery65's studio White Owls. "He's just a really good guy, a nice guy to be around, a good guy to work with," says Suda51. "I'm really excited to see how that turns out."
Back on Lollipop Chainsaw, he even worked with James Gunn – now of Guardians of the Galaxy and DCU movie fame – when he was best known for making some cult classic B-movies. "[That] originally started out with Warner Bros. asking me to work on a game with them, and originally the game was going to be set in Japan. But instead of simply having the script and game translated, they wanted to fully culturalize it, so they introduced me to James Gunn and asked what I thought of working with him," says Suda51. "I’d seen several of his movies, and when I saw Super in particular I thought, 'Wow, this guy is awesome'. So I told them yeah, by all means, I’d like to work with James Gunn on this."
"I’m really looking forward to seeing what [James Gunn] does with the DCU."
The collaboration went well. "He turned out to be a genuinely good dude," says Suda51. "[Gunn] doesn't have that 'Hollywood stank' about him at all. [...] I’m really proud of what we were able to make together. I remember meeting up with him after GotG came out, and we went out to dinner and he was still the same guy. We still speak once in a while, and he always messages me back right away. [...] I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does with the DCU."
That's the thing about Suda that comes through in his collaborative work – he's someone just as curious about other creatives as he is his own works, and always eager to talk. The subject of what he's been playing lately comes up. "Not that this game needs a shout-out from me or anything, but the game I probably played and dug the most this year was The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom," he shares. "I doubt anyone needs me to recommend this title to them, but... Anyway, I felt it was significantly different from a lot of the other bigger Zelda titles, a bit more cartoonish and closer to the older games in the series, but once you get into it, it really hooks you in. I really loved the world it was set in and all the various details, and again, it just left me feeling like 'I got to experience Zelda all over again.'"
So far, thanks to the creativity and desire to buck trends, that happens to be the feeling I get each time I play a new game from Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture: I get to experience Suda51 again. Always aiming to push forward with new creative ideas, and to work with new collaborators, you can never know quite what to expect from Suda51 – but it'll rarely be retreading old ground. There might be rough edges. It will probably be off-kilter, and a little bit punk. There will be wrestling. But no matter what, it's always worth hitting play.
How did Suda51 get his start? With a bang! "A lot of people were really p*ssed off": Suda51 talks his early career, and whether he'll return to narrative-heavy games – "I do think about it a lot."
