Interview: Estique's Takayuki Komabayashi

Any shooter fan should give Changeable Guardian Estique some attention. That’s not merely because it’s technically astounding for something running on an actual Famicom or NES. And it’s not just because the staff includes luminaries from Compile’s best years as a shooter developer: Jemini Hirono, Dagattai Kodama, and Pac Fujishama, to use their pen names. It’s really because Estique is an impressive shooter. 

Numerous retro-styled shooters have blatant connections to genre classics, but Estique is harder to pin down. There are traces of Compile’s history about it, but other influeces lurk below the surface, from that Changeable ship itself to the simplified weapons to the game’s two diverging storylines across the Famicom and NES versions. There’s a lot going on here.

Estique debuted on modern platforms last month, with a physical release planned and Broke Studio still listing the NES and Famicom cartridges. That's why I decided to ask director Takayuki Kombayashi about just what went into Estique.

How did you initially come up with Estique?

I thought that my company should create an original game, and I wanted it to be a shooting game that was easy to play without those brutal surprises for first-time players.

And how did you become a fan of Compile?

When I played games on the Sega Mark III, the one I enjoyed the most was Maou Golvellius [aka Golvellius: The Valley of Doom].

Several former Compile staffers worked on Estique, but it also seems inspired by other games besides Compile shooters. The transforming robot is similar to the mecha in Thexder and its sequel Fire Hawk, which you’ve mentioned as favorite games of yours. What do you like about the transforming concept?

I like robot shooting games, but I thought the gameplay might not work if the robot’s hitbox was always taller than a ship, so I decided to go with a transformation system.

 

The title Estique is an anagram of Equites, an Alpha Denshi arcade game that you have also mentioned as a favorite. Equites is somewhat obscure compared to Thexder and other classic shooters, and Equites is also a vertical shooter instead of a horizontal shooter like Estique. Can you tell us a little about why you like Equites? And how did it inspire the gameplay of Estique?

Equites is highly praised for its heavy, rich sound as well as its responsive gameplay and tight feel. Since Equites is a vertical shooter, that aspect didn’t really influence the gameplay itself in Estique, but it still has a connection to the NES version's settings.

Estique's method of briefly powering up the ship or robot’s weapons is interesting. What was your inspiration for that?

Is it because there’s no step-by-step power system? I don’t like step-by-step power-ups in shooting games.

There are lots of nostalgic references in Estique, especially in the soundtrack. For example, why did you include the Gunkan March?

I like the Gunkan March from Parodius Da! so I asked Satoshi Fujishima [aka "Pac"] to make it the first track in the prototype version’s sound production. Regarding the ported version, our company suggested playing it when the game language is set to Japanese, but it was removed based on the publisher's decision.

By the way, our adventure game Hyper Euphoria, which recreates the style of 80s Japanese PC games and was released by a different publisher, does play the Gunkan March too.

On that note, Hyper Euphoria is currently available on Steam in Japanese. Are there any plans to translate it?

The Japanese text is highly idiosyncratic and filled with inside jokes. Due to the high cost of translation, I do not think an English version will be released.

What inspired Mary and Kanon, the pilots drawn by Daigattai Kodama? Are their names references to anything in particular?

We didn’t specifically decide on any references in the character designs or the names, so they’re supposed to be original characters.

Estique sends Mary and Kanon around the world, complete with vacation photos after each stage. How did you choose the cities they visit? 

Japan, the U.S., and the U.K. are major places. I like Hong Kong, and Germany was chosen because there was a possibility of developing it for a German publisher.

Why do the Famicom and NES versions of the game have different cutscenes and, in essence, different storylines? For example, the ending to the Famicom version implies some romantic attraction between Mary and Kanon, but that does not come up in the NES version. Was that a joke about how NES games were sometimes censored compared to Famicom games?

I thought the NES version had to give the impression of "English written by Japanese people doing their best" as well as a different story and setting. Also, since I know there are people who don’t like silly stories, I wanted to provide a version with a relatively serious story as an option.

Regarding NES and Famicom games, there are examples like Power Blade being overwhelmingly better as an action game [than Power Blazer], or The Adventure of Link being harder but more complete, but we didn’t touch any of the core parts of the game like its difficulty or design.

Is it true that the physical special edition of Estique for the Switch will include an exclusive "score attack" level? What inspired that stage?

It was originally planned to be included in the ported version, but the publisher decided not to include it. So the score attack version comes as a cartridge in the Nintendo Switch special edition package. You can consider the content to be equivalent to the Gunhed Special Version [a rare score-attack version of Gunhed, aka Blazing Lazers].

You recently announced Estique 2 and showed some preview footage of a level set in Giza in 1235 B.C. Will the sequel involve time travel?

We're imagining an atmosphere similar to Time Soldiers or the anime series Yattodetaman.

Will Estique 2 carry over characters from the original game? Some of the bosses and supporting cast are seen very seldom in the first Estique.

Some minor enemies and the basic system will be reused, but bosses and stages will be new.

What was the inspiration for the name of Cat Hui Trading?

From the film director and actor Michael Hui.

Is the cat mascot, Maruino, meant to look like Randar from Compile games?

I asked Satoshi Fujishima, who created Randar, to "draw a 1UP character for a certain game," and what he came up with ended up unused, so we just repurposed it for our company.

You’re a devoted collector of old games, and you worked at the retailer Beep Shop for many years. What changes have you seen in game collecting over the last 10 to 15 years? What do you think of prices going up on rare games?

As for arcade boards, overall prices peaked in 2024 and have dropped a bit since, so I don’t think they’ll just keep going up. If prices get too high, fewer people will buy, so the market price will likely drop to some extent.

What is your favorite old-school Compile shooter?

Gun-Nac.