Today, we’re continuing from where we left off in last week’s blog post, so if you haven’t checked that one out yet, I’d highly recommend reading it first! I primarily covered how the core case idea for GENBA no Kizuna evolved over time and how that also led to the creation of our little circle of suspects: Raptor Pack Productions. And they’re what I’d like to delve a bit further into now!
If you’re worried about spoilers for the final game, don’t be. That said, it’d probably still make more sense to only continue reading if you’ve actually played through it. But with that little warning out of the way, let’s get right to our raptorian rascals!
The most drastic change when it comes to the group is that, originally, Ryuunosuke was supposed to be the victim, leaving us with only three suspects for his murder: Amber, Shiku and Terano (Alexis and Kurou weren’t yet involved).
If you’ve played GENBA, you know that Ryuu hasn’t been treating his friends all that well in the months prior to the Kaseki incident. However, back then, his behavior towards them had been a whole lot worse and way more abusive, and it would ultimately become the catalyst for a heated argument that would completely go off the rails and end in an accidental heat-of-the-moment kinda death.
Aside from this point, though, the rest of the case would essentially still unravel as it does in the final game.
- Changing The Victim
Now, why did I change this? That’s primarily thanks to Natsu. She really liked Ryuunosuke‘s design and thought it would’ve been a shame if such a cool-looking character design would have been wasted to only serve as a corpse. And I kinda agreed. So I revised the plot a little and introduced a fifth character that could fulfill our dead body role instead: Kurou Mikazuki.
Unfortunately, the thing about him was that his character design ended up being pretty cool, too, so I was once again faced with the same problem. However, I couldn’t just add yet another character and refused to make a crappy character design for our corpse.
So instead, I opted for another solution: writing Kurou as the most despicable piece of shit. All so that, in the end, rather than thinking “Man, what a shame for such a cool-looking chara to just be a dead body“, players would go: “Actually, yeah, fuck that guy!” w
Making Kurou such an ass also helped in another regard, though. By having the victim be an antagonist to RPP, rather than a very member of their group, I could further build up and emphasize the bonds between our suspects. Which was one of the major goals I set out to pursue, after all.
- Bonds Of The Crime Scene
As I’ve stated in other blog posts before, SHINRAI is “murder mystery first, characters second“, while GENBA is “characters first, murder mystery second“. In our first game, the characters were primarily there to fulfill certain roles within the mystery, but this time, I really wanted to do the exact opposite of that and have the mystery be a vehicle to highlight the characters and their relationships.
That’s always been the plan, because it just made so much sense thematically. On the one hand, you have this ragtag bunch of investigators who need to learn to work together as a team and, on the other hand, you have this group of friends who, despite their internal struggles, are already working together as a perfect team, trying to protect each other and foil the efforts of the cops.
That’s also why I ultimately settled on the title “genba no kizuna”, which translates to “bonds of the crime scene”.
It refers to both groups: the police force and the suspects!
Although I do gotta admit that I was also kinda worried about the reception by SHINRAI fans. Since I did decide to take such a different approach, I feared that some would be disappointed (as it did turn out to be the case, according to some of our reviews).
So I felt it was better to ditch the “SHINRAI” in the title and refer to it as a spin-off to distance it a bit more from our first project.
To make more clear that they’re going to be quite different from one another.
That said, I still wanted there to be a connection between both projects, which brings me to the next thing that changed over the course of GENBA‘s development and it’s once again character-related.
- The Witnesses
Involving witnesses in the case had also been an idea I had gotten very early on. I’ve always loved how Ace Attorney handled recurring characters and wanted to do something similar. It was just a question of which characters from SHINRAI to choose.
My first instinct had been to pick Raiko and Nobara, but it didn’t really feel right and like too much of a coincidence. Then, for a while, I decided to go with Mika. However, she was already planned to appear in Withering Without Hope and I eventually began thinking that it maybe made more sense to use a character that wouldn’t. You know, to use the opportunity to flesh out someone a bit more who’s not gonna get that chance in the actual sequel. And that’s why I went with the two characters you now meet in the game.
It also felt more “right” for one of those two to have a connection to RPP and it was a whole lot easier for me to tie their appearance into the little bit of backstory you get in SHINRAI. Things just immediately clicked.
But that about wraps it up for the major character changes GENBA went through! I still have a whole lot more to talk about, though, so stay tuned for the next blog posts, if you’re curious about this stuff!
Until then, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a super ghastly start into spooky month! Take care °w°
