Back in the mid-90s, the games industry was lacking some of the colourful characters that you'll find today, but one man who certainly stood out was Kenji Eno, of Japanese developers Warp. Most well-known for his immersive adventure games Enemy Zero and D, as well as its ill-fated Dreamcast sequel D2, Mr Eno is a colourful character as renowned for his musicianship as his imaginative games.
When Mr Eno appeared at the Nintendo Media Summit a few weeks ago, our man Tom Bowskill, along with Cubed3's Mike Mason and Adam Riley, managed to grab a chat with him about his upcoming WiiWare release You, Me and the Cubes, as well as any potential ideas he has for future games on the DS or Wii consoles.
Nintendo Life: Did you find the Wii met your expectations when you first saw it - when you imagined how it would work and how you could use it?
KE: Maybe there was a bit of a positive and negative feeling after having seen it. One positive aspect has to be about when thinking how difficult it must be to make such a controller, but I felt that the response was actually quite good!
From some of the initial marketing that Nintendo sent out, perhaps some people over-estimated exactly what the control system could do. So for those people, maybe it wasn't quite the same as they expected. But that was just them, as I understood right from the start and had a clearer understanding, so I didn't have a problem like others.
The rest of the interview is a fascinating read and well worth a look if you're interested in Mr Eno at all, or fancy a few hints at upcoming titles from a well-respected developer!
To check it all out, head on over to Cubed3.com!
[source cubed3.com]
Comments 19
I thought he was a myth!
Enemy Zero? D? Uh... never heard of either. How is this guy legendary?
@Adam, I dread how Damo will feel when he sees that comment!
COUGH SPLUTTER GRUNT MUMBLE.
I remember reading he once wanted to make a game based completely on sound, with no visuals whatsoever. I don't remember if it ever got made though.
I played a bit of Enemy Zero on the PC and was confused by it, but it was way ahead of its time when it was originally released.
Never played any of his games but was interested in D2 which looked like a Resident Evil type of game, it was supposed to be a launch titles on the Dreamcast, though it started out as an M2 game a console that was supposed to be a follow up to the 3DO I think.
I've never heard of Mr. Eno or one of his games. But I like his jacket. It looks good on him.
You put "hints at future Nintendo titles" in the subtitle of this article, so I clicked on it, and then you don't include these hints in the article? Not fair.
I honestly was not familiar with Mr. Eno until I heard about You, Me and the Cubes which I am currently enjoying right now.
HE EXISTS?!
@Adam.
To be fair Nintendolife can hardly be blamed for your lack of knowledge on those particular games. Why not do some research if you don't know what those games are, they're well worth checking out, especially D2 for Dreamcast which is far more than just a Resi Evil Clone and is quite a beautiful production. Eno fully deserves the title legendary.
@Prosody
He did indeed, Real Sound: kaze no regret, for Saturn and Dreamcast. Sadly its Japanese only. He made the game partly for blind people to experience gaming, a further sign of his visionary (no pun intended) approach to gaming as an art form.
D2 was pretty weird and a bit boring. It was kinda interesting anyway..heh I remember in the 90s with the saturn and PS he was a bit weird personality, giving concerts to promote his games...I miss the 90s v_v
@Betagam7 : "He made the game partly for blind people to experience gaming, a further sign of his visionary (no pun intended) approach to gaming as an art form."
I couldn't help but laugh :lol:. Sorry 'bout that...
Even though i had read about D before, i can't get out of my head his name as a composer... i'm sure i've read it in a game staff roll, like a SNES game, or from 'round that time. I wish i could get my hands on a full list of the games he composed music for...
... or maybe i'm was mistaking him with Kenji Ito. Quite possible actually .
@Kafei2006 : Kenji Eno - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Eno">
Is he the one with the face like a slapped behind?
@derickw69 : I know of Wikipedia thanks, but that's not giving me a full list of every single game for which he composed music (like there are on Wiki for other great composers like Koji Kondo, Yuzo Koshiro or Nobuo Uematsu).
GOD BLESS THAT MAN!
lmao @comment 16
@Kafei2006 : I was not trying to be rude or anything, it was late where I live and I was trying to create links (not very well I can see) with Kenji Eno and the video game music composer that I think I know who you are talking about. I remember back in the SNES Final Fantasy days that there was someone with a similar name. But like I said, I tried to help but didn't really. Eno-san on the other hand had a visionary approach with his games. I kinda thought of him as an early Itagaki-san or Kojima-san at the time.
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