Greetings! We believe you have waited this for a long time!

We have prepared this for about two years, and we heard your voice for millions of times. Now it will be ready!
The big surprise is the Nintendo DS remake of "Pokémon Gold and Silver"!
But it is not only a remake but also a big evolution!
I believe you can get more news on the newest Coro-Coro 15 days later.

Oh, yes.
Here's an another little surprise for you.

Please play Pokémon Mystery Dunegon: Explorers of Time / Darkness tomorrow.
You'll find something different!!!!!

See ya.

Pokémon 12th anniversary music column!

Today, I'd like to explain the changes of Pokémon music
by comparing main themes of previous series.

*Portion of music only. Also, it includes sound effects.
Thank you for your understanding.

(1) Pokémon RED/BLUE

>Opening demo

>Title theme

Above softwares were developed for the game
machine called "Game Boy."
Game Boy allow us to use total of four notes.
Coordinated by two square waves, one triangle wave
and one white noise.
Not only I composed the opening theme,
but I also composed the game music,
sound effects and Pokémon cries. All of them.
The opening music was created with the image
of the battle scenes.
"Monster" was the image of the title scene music.
I follow a guide and composed about 30 fifteen seconds
music to confirm the direction.
After this, I started total music composition.
To make the sound gravely, I added one rather heavy
white noise as if sound like marching music.
By changing the volume of white noise little by little,
it expresses a leap sound of snare drum.

(1)Pokémon YELLOW

>Opening demo

Mischievous, naughty, cute, angry, obedience,
fluffy, electric, red cheeks and so on...
I composed from above Pikachu images.
Since a large amount of data transfer was made
while changing scenes during the opening demo,
it was framed not to slow down the music.

(2)Pokémon GOLD/SILVER

>Opening demo

>Title theme

These softwares were also for Game Boy.
I composed the opening demo music,
and our sound designer, Ichinose made the arrangement.
At the very beginning, "ding dong" sounds represent
the bell of starting the brand new adventure.
Regarding the title music, I did the arrangement.
Incidentally, game music were composed by myself and Ichinose.

(3)Pokémon CRYSTAL

>Opening demo

>Title theme

This software was developed for Game Boy Color.
I did little experimental feature with this software, such as
panning(shifting the sound from right and left, vice versa.)
I composed and arranged the opening demo and the
title theme.
Around this time, my main task changed to
the director work. Therefore, the number of the
composed music had drastically decreased.

(4)Pokémon RUBY/SAPPHIRE/EMERALD

>Opening demo

>Title theme

The hardware shifted to Game Boy Advance from this point.
Four sampling waves, three square waves and one white noise.
(Even with this specification, game music can drowned out,
once the sound effects beep.)
This title theme had a splendid impact!
Ichinose did the arrangement,
and he sure did the remarkable job! Wonderful!
The battle music was the only part I composed.

(5)Pokémon FIRE RED/LEAF GREEN

>Opening demo

>Title theme

For Game Boy Advance.
All game music were arranged by Ichinose.
We had a discussion and concluded as
not to change from the basic sounds.
The music were arranged by adding extra sounds.

(6)Pokémon DIAMOND/PEARL

>Title theme

The softwares for Nintendo DS froｍ here.
Any sound can be created with this hardware.
Sampling waves and 16 notes. What a gorgeous feature!
(But considering about the sound effects,
we used ten notes only)
Opening demo and title theme music combined as one
music and it became magnificient.
Ichinose did an excellent job with the music arrangement again.
Can you tell?
The title theme was the arrange of the one from RED/GREEN.
It sound so original. Superb!
The game music were composed by myself, Ichinose and Sato.
I was in charge of the battle scene music.
Sound effects were designed by Nohara.
Whew, our sound staffs are getting increased.
Adding members, Sato and Nohara made the
game sound and music enriched!

How was the column above?
Checking the Pokémon history from
the phase of opening demo and title themes.
It reminds my old memory and also gives me the freshness.
I believe this is one of the POWER OF MUSIC.

See ya.

On February 27th.
The video game "Pocket Monsters RED/GREEN"
for Game Boy was launched in Japan.
The day, PIKACHU, VENUSAUR, CHARIZARD, MEOWTH, MEWTWO and
many other Pokemon gave a birth.

Yes.
Today is a very special day, not only for GameFreak,
but to the development staffs including myself.

The initial members of Pokemon RED/GREEN are
still working hard in GameFreak.
And, today is a good day to look back where we came from.

Aiming for high quality creation.
Today, higher than yesterday.
Tomorrow, even higher than today.
We will keep trying our best with passion above.
This passion didn't change a bit from those days.

And we will keep this thought as the most important thing.

We reached Pokemon 12th anniversary
and we would like to express our gratitude to
the people all over the world.
We deeply appreciate your support.
Thank you very very much!

And... Pokemon still continues to get evolved!

Ciao!

On February 24th(Sun), I visited to the Kyocera Dome
in Osaka.
"I love Pokemon Club Party (Pokemon Daisuki Club Party)"
was held there!
To be precise, this event was exclusive to the members
of Daisuki Club only.

The events were held one in the morning
and the one in the afternoon.
I was impressed by the numbers of the people
and by thier extreme passion!
Many games were ready to play.
The crowd, not only kids, but thier parent
also enjoyed games.

The Kyocera Dome is actually a size of baseball stadium.
I should feel amplitude enough, but I couldn't!

As I always feel, I really enjoyed the Pokemon events.
I got very excited.

I went to see many spots.
Such as... I checked and realized that the game rules
are really admirable.
Also, taking a lot of pictures.

Then... people started to gathering toward to the stage.
Yes, the Pokemon live show is just about to start!
At the entrance, "flowers" were handed over to
each and every kids.
(I wonder why...?)

On the stage,
The master of ceremony, Pokemon and audience,
entire attendees search for mysterious Pokemon.

As show goes on, everybody in this event call
for the name of Pokemon to face the adversity.
And at last, the show reaches to the conclusion,
kids raised thier hand highly holding "flowers!" all at once!
A carpet of flowers! Created by 2,500 audience!
(I did't expect the "flower" is used like this!)
Then, the mysterious Pokemon showed up!
What a happy ending!

The last scene of the show.
Each flower was handed to thier parents
as an expression of gratitude!!
"A lot thanks!" from kids to thier mom and dad.
It was a just beautiful sight.

There are many marvelous Pokemon events.
But, this event especially gave me the warm feeling!

For those people who missed this event,
there may be an another chance in the future!
Please check "Daisuki Club" out!!

See ya

This time, I'd like to write about how we address
oversea's Pokemon names.

It requires a lot of effort to name enourmous
number of Pokemon.
Addition to this, especially the naming of
leading Pokemon needed to be worldwidely same,
and this is, one tough work.

For example, Pokemon's name "DIALGA."
We got a comments from Spanish translation team
in Europe about the image of this name.
Their impressions are... alga and seaweed.
Therefore, they would like to have a different
name other than this.
Well, they are right. Even in English, ALGA
nearly means seaweed.
The image from this word might be certain...

But it is not good to give up easily.
This is the starting point of adjusting
the image and thought.

Even the word ALGA is "alga (close to seaweed),"
the name is constructed with "DI + ALGA."
Let's think from the Japanese origin name.

Then... suppose, the part of DI （pronounce "Dee"）
>Does it recognized as Dee+Alga?
(which means Dee + Seaweed?)
>Is there any paticular meaning in DI?
>Does people find out the image of seaweed instantly from this name?
and so on.
Exchange of discussion continues with the word "ALGA."

This is a sample of naming the pokemon which
will be used the same name worldwide.
And due to the miscellaneous reasons, the name
cocluded to DIALGA.
It was one of the final candidate, and the name sounds
very cool in Japanese.

We finalized the name "DIALGA" in Spainish version also.
Well, what do you think about this name?
I wonder Spanish players image seaweed from this name or not.

Starting from original Japanese.
Then, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean...
As the world of Pokemon expands, there are pleasure and adversity
of localizing into their languages.

Ciao!

Only cake's pictures were shown on the last column,
so here's little appendix.

Candles are burning.
The cake, Starbucks and I, Masuda.

Munching cake with staffs.

This is a new attempt.
Adding a new information over the old one!! (What da ya know!)
Nevertheless...
It'll be more pleasant, if the information is much faster...

Why is that?
Because if it's not, they aren't real?
Because if it's not, they aren't live?

The old information on the newspaper can be tolerable,
however on the web, it's contrary...
Very intriguing.

BTW, have you played Pokemon Diamond and Pearl
on this January 12th?
Did you find snow was falling bit different?
Snowpoint City was just beautiful!

This means, on January 12th,
ｔhe weather all over the world were same.
(I've always want to do that!)

Ciao!

What a surprise!!

Game Freak staffs celebrated my birthday just right now!!
Tomorrow is my birthday!!
Chocolate cake and Starbucks Tall Latte!!
It was super delicious!!

Many thanks to all!!
I deeply appreciated it!!

Greetings. Happy new year!
We look forward to your support
and encouragement.

In 2008, we Game Freak will try for
various things as always!
And we will keep striving to create
new innovation beyond the imagination.

Well,
I'd like to ask a question to you.
Do you have an aspiration for this year?

I, Masuda's aspiration will be
'to gather up stuffs firmly'.
Last year was the year of 'Challenge'...
This year, I'd like to gather many things up firmly.
If you don't have any aspiration yet,
try to come up with one!

Oh, yes.
Here's a little surprise for you.

Please play Pokemon Diamond / Pearl on January 12th.
You'll find something different!!!!!

I hope this year, things go well for all of you.

See ya.

'Welcome! This is the Global Trade
Station, or GTS for short.'
GTS starts with above message by the lady
at the counter.

I have a confident that the player will sure
to trade their Pokemon at least once with this GTS system.
However, I wondered how we could make the trade
number of times...
Not only domestic, but overseas trading,
especially the people you have never met.
This was the big theme of creating GTS in
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.

I believe high game playability means,
to make the game fun playing many times repeartedly.
Same as this GTS.

So we considered the following contents.
>some Pokemon's Pokedex descriptions are written in foreign language,
>automatic mail translation,
>the location of the opponent you traded is pointed on the globe,
>country/city name is indicated when you set the cursor on the point,
>rare colored Pokemon's Egg can be found little easier,
>Pokemon traded with different country have better growth
than the one normally traded,
Ideas like above are incorporated in the game.

It requires a very large effort to make the player
to play one certain thing.
Once the player lose the interest to the "Play",
they will stop playing very easily.

To make the player not to get bored
(which means 'to make the player addictive'),
it is important to set the variety of enjoyment entangled.
Even it's a small,
if the idea's theme is set to the right course,
it is substantial to embrace to the game.
Putting together the small pieces of fun elements,
those make the game more luxurious.

Like this GTS,
It is very important to enunciate the theme
loud and crystal clear.

See ya.

I've been wanted to ride that train for a long time... and...
I finally made it!!!

The finest train which Japan proud to the world,
bullet train(shinkansen) "N700"!!

I took a bullet train "700" for many times,
but I never had a chance to ride on the "N700".
My dream became into reality!

So exciting!!
Taking a pictures with my cell phone!

Oh, the reason why I had a chance to ride on the "N700" is,
because I visited Nintendo for business trip.
Therefore the bullet train I took was,
from Kyoto bound for Tokyo.

It seems like the last train of the day always will be "N700"...
Ok, let's take this last train everytime I have a business tirp to Kyoto.
Hmm... probably not.

Well, it was impressive.
Especially, the conception of not reducing velocity by
inclining car body.
This idea may came up especially in Japan,
because we have a great numbers of curves. Most impressive!

It was super cool!

For more details, please check the following website
about the bullet train "N700"!!

http://n700.jp/

See ya.