EXCLUSIVE: Making the future fun through the power of games, interview with JP GAMES’ Tomohiro Hasegawa

Some of you might not need an introduction to the members of JP GAMES Inc., founded by Hajime Tabata, – also referred to as “Tabby” – most recently of Final Fantasy XV fame. While a new company, the caliber of staff behind the name is nothing to sneeze at. We meet up with Tomohiro Hasegawa, Chief Branding Officer, with translation from Ken Kawashima, Global Account Manager. He starts off by mentioning one of the company’s strengths: with many being veteran artists and programmers involved in RPGs, the genre could be considered one of their specialties.

“Fantasy worlds are not just those like in Final Fantasy games.”

Just consider documentaries that use CG recreations of situations, like NHK’s “Out of the Cradle” as an example. While its main purpose educational, it’s probably safe to assume you’d be more likely to watch it with these animations, than without. Since (presumably) nobody living is able to tell us how the homo sapiens were in their original state, the depictions are “fantasy”. The same goes for THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR: the “fantasy” is from imagining the future.

Hence, the definition of “fantasy worlds” is broad: past, future, or something that doesn’t exist. They stand strongly by their credo: make the future fun through the power of games. It’s meant to include different elements; it’s not just about creating video games, with how they want to provide entertainment with THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR, along with boosting the Paralympic movement.

Even if you’re not a massive FFXV fan, you might’ve noticed plenty of its social media accounts, collaborations and such. You can really get the idea that they don’t stop at just pushing out the game. You can think of boosting the Paralympic movement in this manner: the base game in THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR, and the community that would be built around that.

“It’s not just fantasy elements we place heavy emphasis on; also on the real life activities.”

It is curious to think about a game based off the Paralympics. After all, the ‘regular’ Olympics tends to get a lot of the celebration. The Olympics – in this case, Tokyo 2020 Olympics – would seem like one big party. Compare that fanfare to the Paralympics, which is more likely to be overlooked. As such, Tabby sought to give the Paralympics a leg up – so to speak. On receiving an offer to make a game based on Para Sports, he felt it would be a good first project for JP GAMES.

You might expect THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR to be a sports game, but we are told that it is actually closer to being a story-driven endeavour. What do you think the story would be like? Certainly, one could reasonably assume the focus would be on the athletes in the world of the game. It would be cool to see the characters take flight, literally or metaphorically, with the prominent wing imagery. Whatever the world is like in THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR, it would be wonderful to see them get the space that they need.

The team at JP GAMES do not want to ‘push’ the Paralympics onto people. Once again, the slogan – making the future fun through the power of games – is stressed. Games have more power than people may realize. For starters, they can boost the Paralympics through a video game, which is something they can be excited about. Getting fans for the Paralympics as a result of the game is certainly a plus.

“Our goal with this game is turn on as many gamers as we can to the excitement of Para Sports through our RPG and help make the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics a success.”

Whatever it is, Hasegawa will be notifying us when they can share new details, so look forward to that! In the mean time, you can peruse the images below and have a look at their fairly modest office. Let us wait to see what they will produce in the coming months!