Today, Akihiro Hino is known as the president and CEO of Level-5, but for fans of Game Informer, he has a much more important credit in his gameography: Overblood and Overblood 2.
On the original Overblood, Hino was the lead programmer. He received a promotion for the sequel and served as lead designer and director on Overblood 2. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Hino as he was promoting the latest from Level-5, Yo-Kai Watch. We were only able to sneak in two Overblood questions, and his answers were brief, but considering the legacy the two games have among our readers, there's no way we weren't going to share them.
You can find our questions and his answers below.
What are your strongest memories of working on Overblood 1 and 2? How well do you think the games hold up to a modern audience?
On Overblood 1, I was programming all by myself. On Overblood2, I was directing, planning and writing scenarios. Those were some of my most hardworking days. That’s the way I liked it, but I really couldn’t sleep then.
Was there ever an Overblood 3 planned? Do you know who currently holds the rights to the franchise?
A further sequel was never planned for Overblood.
If you're unfamiliar with Overblood and its sequel, you can watch our full Super Replay playthroughs of both games by heading here for Overblood and here for Overblood 2. It's some of our favorite video content we've created, and lead to the inception of our most active fan group, the I Watched The Entire Overblood Super Replay Facebook group, which you can find here.