We recently got the chance to sit down and chat with M2 Co., Ltd. CEO Naoki Horii to talk about the history of this company and the amazing work it does celebrating vintage titles.
During the conversation, Horii touched upon the games he'd love to work on, and quickly mentioned Darius and R-Type, claiming that "side-scrolling shooters have a certain romance to them."
M2 has already worked on the Darius series via Darius Cozmic Collection and Darius Cozmic Revelation, so it's clear that Horii feels he has some unfinished business with that franchise. However, R-Type is a shmup lineage that M2 Co., Ltd. is yet to be involved with; the recently-released R-Type Delta remaster was handled by City Connection and TAKEx0FF, while R-Type Dimensions is the work of Tozai Games.
I'd personally love to see M2 let loose on a full R-Type collection, but that's not the game Horii is keenest to work on:
"I had to name something, I’d say Marble Madness would be our 'ultimate' game to work on.
Just by looking at the marble on the screen and the marble on the control panel, you can understand everything and start playing immediately. That elegance still feels unmatched to me."
Released in 1984 by Atari and designed by a young Mark Cerny, Marble Madness tasks the player with controlling a marble around isometric landscapes using a trackball controller. A commercial and critical success, the game was ported to a wide range of home systems.
Another game Horii would love to tackle is a Taito-made mechanical arcade from 1983:
"There’s a game I encountered in the past decade called Ice Cold Beer. It’s an electro-mechanical game, but it’s just as brilliant. The rules are simple, instantly understandable, and once you start playing, it’s incredibly stimulating. When you fail, you want to try again, and you never reach a point where you feel like stopping."
Horii feels these games offer something important to him as both a gamer and designer:
"It’s not that I want to introduce these games specifically, but they taught me something: I value interaction above all in video games, especially when it’s sharp and well-defined.
A game with compelling interaction, strong edges, and no natural stopping point, that’s what I’d consider ideal. If I could design something like that, it would be the greatest joy. And if I can spend my life continuing to pursue that ideal, I’d be satisfied."