MSX

“That was when I came up with the idea for Policenauts, and I once again realized, as I had for a long time already, that things I want to do with games are best expressed in the adventure genre.”

“I wondered if this might be the system where I could realize my original, full vision of Metal Gear… and the game that has emerged from that is Metal Gear Solid.”

“These games had their own worlds and stories. I felt a certain authorial quality in them.”

“This has been important to me, because Konami has often told me my ideas are too crazy, and there's been dark times where the warm letters I receive from fans were all that sustained me.”

“But I think I have a different role in the current market than making those kinds of titles; my role is to constantly pursue new ideas and new technology. I feel fine doing that as well, so I think I should leave the creation of retro-styled titles to others.”

According to Konami’s 25th anniversary website, the project’s original objective was to make a war game, but the MSX2 could not display many enemy soldiers on a single screen nor more than four bullets at once, so Kojima proposed a game about fleeing the enemy in the style of the film The Great Escape: with the rule of escaping without fighting, the tension of war could be conveyed without many enemies on screen.

“Without that encounter I probably wouldn't have pursued a proper sequel, and there might never have been a Metal Gear Solid.”

“technical limitations of the MSX hardware made it impossible to produce a simultaneous display of the player with multiple enemies”

“So, we could put audio on there, and now games could talk. No one had made anything with CD-ROMs yet.”

Kojima’s first games as a director were for MSX and computers: Metal Gear (1987), his directorial debut, with which he established the stealth game genre; Snatcher (1988), a graphic adventure with a cinematic presentation inspired by films like Blade Runner; Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990); and Policenauts (1994), another graphic adventure that he designed, wrote and directed.

“I really don't like saying this, but it really wasn't up to my standards. The care that I put in the original wasn't there.”

“When you get four enemies or even four bullets on the screen at once, the screen starts blinking and it just doesn't work. I tackled that problem by taking a different approach--hiding from enemies and not fighting them.”

“It was my first game that made it to release, so I have a lot of memories. It's my cute boy in that sense.”

“By the way, I'm developing this game called Snake's Revenge, but I know it's not the authentic Snake, so please create a new Snake game of your own.”