The sequel "Coulomb's Resome" was also officially announced! Report on the official "Coulomb's Gate" event, "The Return of the Bully Ceremony," which featured live performances, behind-the-scenes development stories, and new information!

Since its release for PlayStation in 1997, the legendary game "Coulomb's Gate" has enjoyed a cult following even today. The "Coulomb's Gate Soundtrack," which was released in the same year and has long been a must-have item for fans, has been released as an analog disc more than 20 years later.

Here we report on the "Coulomb's Gate Soundtrack" analog release commemorative event, "The Return of the OHASHIKI Ceremony," which was held on December 28, 2019, just as the year was drawing to a close.

The release of the analog version has been eagerly awaited since that time

The event venue, the Collaboration Room in Donuts Corporation, was filled with many "Coulomb's Gate" fans even before the show began, reminding us once again of the deep-rooted popularity of this work even after more than 20 years.

First to appear before the audience was Kuniaki Hajima, who was in charge of the music for "Coulomb's Gate. The host was Shun Arita, a leading researcher on "Kowloon's Gate," who planned the game music collection CD "Kowloon's Gate Original Sound Collection" and the setting material collection "Kowloon's Gate Archives. who has planned "Kowloon's Gate Archives" and "Kowloon's Gate Archives".

I can only think that we are bound by fate to those who come to such a maniac event," said Mr. Hayshima, expressing his frank impression of the people gathered at the event, while mentioning the recent boom in analog vinyl recordings. He said that he had wanted to release an analog version of the "Coulomb's Gate Soundtrack" since that time, and this time his wish was fulfilled. He said that one of the highlights of the analog version is that the sound quality has been dramatically improved, and that he himself was surprised when he heard the completed analog version.

Next, Mr. Yashima performed the latest version of "Coulomb's Gate" live. The music performed at this live concert was created by unearthing music data created 22 years ago, when the music for "Coulomb's Gate" was being produced, and collecting and reconstructing it. A unique sound space spread across the floor with the lights dimmed, creating a world view of "Coulon's Gate" that is worthy of the expression "one and only.

Coulomb's Gate" related activities have been active for about five years.

The second half of the event was a talk live featuring the developers of "Coulomb's Gate. The four developers who appeared were director Takashi Kimura, character designer Koki Inoue, JPEG dungeon designer Sei Taketomi, and music director Kuniaki Hajima, who also appeared in the first half of the event.

Seeing the fans gathered at the event, Mr. Kimura said, "I feel so much passion, and I would like to learn from the fans what makes them feel that passion for "Coulomb's Gate" in the future. Inoue said, "When we were making the game, we didn't think it would be a content that would last this long, and having the same members together like this is something that doesn't happen in other games. He also expressed the uniqueness of the work "Coulomb's Gate. Taketomi, who was 50 years old at the time of the event, looked back on his life with "Coulomb's Gate," saying, "I was making this game when I was 25 to 6 years old, so I have spent exactly half of my life since the game came out. Mr. Hajima also said that he had foreseen the current cult popularity of the game from that time, saying, "I knew from the time of its release that it would become a work that would go down in history.

He also talked about the various developments related to "Coulomb's Gate" over the past five years, including the commercialization of CDs containing the game's soundtrack, the release of a book of setting materials, and the PSVR content "Coulomb's Gate VR suzaku" (Coulomb's Gate VR suzaku). When asked if he could have predicted these developments five years ago, Mr. Kimura said he was surprised to learn that the "Coulon's Gate" content was still alive when he was contacted by Mr. Arita. Mr. Inoue said, "I sometimes listen to Mr. Tsunashima's music, and at the same time images come to mind, and I was thinking of compiling "Coulomb's Gate" as an archive someday when I was contacted by Mr. Arita," and he talked about how people were connected again, as if called by something.

As an episode typical of Kimura, who has been working in the game industry since "Coulomb's Gate," he said, "There is one "Coulomb's Gate" fan in every 30 people, and suddenly they come to my seat with a game software and ask me for an autograph. He also said, "One out of every 30 people is a 'Coulomb's Gate' fan. Mr. Hajima shared his memories of songwriting, saying, "When we received pictures, we would create music based on them, and I looked forward to that process every time. He also said that 70% of his music was improvised. The songs he thought up were not as interesting as the ones he wrote, so he valued the images he received from the pictures he received.

The latest in the series, "Coulomb's Rhizome," was officially announced!

In the latter half of the event, information on new titles was released one after another. First of all, it was announced that "Coulomb's Gate VR Suzaku," which was released on PSVR, will be ported to Nintendo Switch. The game will be released in the fall or winter of 2020. Although the title of the game is "VR," the Nintendo Switch version will not have a VR mode.

Next was the official announcement of "Coulomb's Rhizome," a new game positioned as a sequel to "Coulomb's Rhizome," which has already been publicized on official Twitter and other media. A video of the game was shown on the screen, attracting the attention of the fans gathered at the venue. The new game is set in the year 2025 in the Yin world, in the town of "Koumyouro," where there is no wind or water, and a new story unfolds. Koumyouro was an unused town in the previous work, and according to Kimura, "I wanted to use it someday because it has beautiful characters. Mr. Hashima's inspiration may have been stimulated when he saw the presentation video made for internal use, and he immediately composed a new song to go along with the video.

Incidentally, Mr. Kimura expressed his enthusiasm for the new work, saying, "In 1994, when the development of the previous work started, it was before the introduction of Windows 95, and the network was mainly communicated via textual information such as Nifty Serve, so the expression of the network was a little outdated. Mr. Kimura expressed his enthusiasm for the new work, saying that he would like to enhance the network expression in a modern way.

After the introduction of the new work and talk about it, the event came to an end. The guests gave their closing remarks. Mr. Taketomi, who is not involved in the development of the new game, said, "I am looking forward to the new game, "Coulomb's Rhizome. I have a solid image of the previous work in my mind, so I'm sure they will create something that breaks through that image. I am also looking forward to the music by Mr. Yarushima," he said, expressing his expectations for the new work from the perspective of a user.

Mr. Kimura revealed that the development of the new game is in a state of constant turmoil: "Although we have announced the new game, there are still many problems that have not been solved yet, and we have to overcome them by the end of January, so I guess we will not have a New Year's break (laugh).

Mr. Inoue said, "Thank you for loving "Coulomb's Gate" so much. We will continue to move forward with various projects, so please continue to support us." He also said that he would continue to be involved in the series and related works.

Mr. Natsushima, who closed the session with his comments, expressed his desire to hold more events in the music field, saying, "I'm sure we will be able to hold another event like this one, or a live concert, when a new work is released.

The "Coulomb's Gate" official event, which lasted about an hour and a half and included live music, a talk show, and the announcement of new works, must have been satisfying for the fans who gathered for the event. Not only looking back at the past, but also looking forward to the future with the announcement of new works, it seems that the "Coulomb's Gate" series will never cool down in the future.

In the latter half of the event, there was a Q&A corner where the speakers answered questions that had been solicited via Twitter in advance. The following is a summary of the questions and answers.

Q."Is there anything you were unable to do in the development of the previous "Coulomb's Gate" due to functionality or capacity limitations?"

A. "In the previous JPEG dungeon, for example, if there was a building in front of you, we wanted to create a specification that would allow you to disappear at a certain moment and go in that direction, but we couldn't do that at the time. But we couldn't do that at the time. I think we will be able to achieve that in the new game because it will be a real-time dungeon.

If we tried to make "Coulomb's Gate" now, we would be able to do everything we couldn't do back then. However, I think the characters drawn with the graphics capabilities of the time would be tasteful, and if we made them realistic, the direction would be different, so I think we would have to make the film while considering the right balance.

Q.I would like to know the process of designing Guilee. How does one go from a bathtub to a bathtub woman?

I saw a sister in the bathtub, and I thought her legs were sexier than her upper body, and I wanted her to have a lot of legs, not just one or two, but a lot of legs, so I came up with that design" (Inoue)

Q:Do you have a favorite character in "Coulomb's Gate" that you have a strong emotional attachment to?

A. "It's the TV garbage we made by taking pictures of the developer's face and importing them.

The most memorable character is Mercury Man" (Taketomi)

Xiao Hei, who was sometimes criticized for being a moe character at the time.

Kagamiya was inspired by Edogawa Rampo's "Kagami Jigoku" (Mirror Hell). But the design that came in was not what I had in mind, so I redrew it myself, changed the lines, and asked the voice actor (who had recorded the lines once) to come back and re-record them.

(Interview, text, and photos by Iona Kaze no Iona)