EDIT:

HIROKI = Hiroki S. (BG Graphics)

Confirmed during an exchange between Akio and Tomohiko Tanabe (as well as Hiroki being the original sprite designer on Dragon Breed, before Nabe took over)

EDIT #2:

N.H = "N. Hani" (Planner)

Confirmed by Akio, when asked about what other games "Miss Honey" planned. Between her initials appearing in the score table, as well as Momoko Taguchi's & a Ms. Miyuki, this may have been the first Irem game to feature an all-female design staff

kohran li

Izuna, The Unemployed Ninja, as she appears in the upcoming game Cotton Rock With You!
A commission for void_vent

VGen: vgen.co/Videajames

Definitely check it out, any HotD2 fan should love it! Every time I go on my yearly light gun kick, this one gets plenty of rotation

Inching closer to the 1CC on Vampire Night. It inherits House of the Dead's brutal rank system, but luckily can be exploited in many of the same ways (take intentional hits, stay below 4HP, skip cutscenes)

Regardless, all bets are off upon making it to Sir Vampire

Umi Ryuuzaki 💙
#MagicKnightRayearth

A Nessa that I drew to make some stickers

Hidaka from Hi-Score Girl at an arcade figuring out which game to play, exclaiming that she'd rather play Samurai Shodown III

Same, Hidaka, same

Ah, that's unfortunate some of Miyaku's edits still made it in... I too would've preferred they reverted to Sam's lines whenever possible, but apparently there was ambiguity whether the GPL license applied to Sam's translated script, so using the original wasn't an option.

Also, here's Miyaku mentioning getting kicked off the team, just a couple weeks after joining the project: x.com/MiYakuGaming...

The Github also credits a Mentil for "lots of Engrish and translation fixes", I'm assuming that included revising all of Miyaku's parts. Admittedly I didn't play thru the entire patch yet, but other people *have*, and didn't point out anything too egregious in the final product, so...

No, but the first translator Eadmaster had lined up (the one who claimed to be N5 certified) was likely MTLing everything. Luckily they were kicked off the project after only a week, and different translators got brought on to revise everything.

The Xanadu situation is an absolute cluster, btw. After completing the original dub & ghosting everyone back in 2017, they brought in professional VAs to redo everything, never finished syncing the lip flap to the new voices anyway, and as of 2 months ago decided to switch to subtitles instead.

Same guy also announced translations for Emerald Dragon back in 2007 and Anearth Fantasy Stories in 2013. You'll never guess what the status is on both of them.

lol

new Izuna merch is going on sale from Feb.13, ETA June... I suppose that new game Success announced a while back is imminent? prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000016...

for what feels like the trillionth time: a skilled player could theoretically beat an arcade game on a single credit on their first attempt.
modern microtransaction-funded games are designed to keep the player hooked with deliberately impossible situations with victory just slightly out of reach

Unmatched atmosphere. The Guncon would be a must-own even if this was the only light gun game on the system, imo

Even with some questionable design choices, it's not without it's charms, so I can still recommend it to the PCE faithful. Shout outs to Supper & company for the patch (as well as the QoL improvements to the battle/walk speed, I'd never have seen it through to the end otherwise, lol)

Finished up Emerald Dragon for the PC Engine. Boasts strong production values and a "unique" battle system, but the tedium sets in quickly after reaching Kasha Island. Didn't even bother doing the side quests during the epilogue, I just wanted it to end by that point

Update:

Yoshihito Tagami (Main Planner)

Akio shedding some insight into Geo Storm's development. (Was the rest of the dev team not privy to Tagami's involvement? I've never seen this mentioned anywhere else)

Probably wasn't satisfied with Allumer's sound tools limiting him to 3 second loops, would be my guess? He's listed as a composer in the end credits, anyway.

Update:

SAKOTAN = Morihiro Sakota (Graphics)

See here: bsky.app/profile/kino...

All games where Sakota was credited under his real name

And all games "Sakotan" worked on. Note how there's no conflict with Morihiro Sakota's resume; they were both at the same companies at the same time, but never credited on the same titles

... well as Tashiro probably having worked on some later period Nanao arcade games)

Conveniently, Sakotan forgot to use his alias a couple times, both at Taito and at Irem 2.0

Given all the above evidence, plus his pseudonyms clearly riffing on his surname, I'd say we've made our case.

... well documented, but there appears to also have been some sort of Nanao pipeline. Fellow Gekirindan designer Miyabi Tashiro left Taito the same year as 'Sakotan', with both of them joining the new Irem, leading one to believe both Taito's 'Sakotan' and Nanao's are one & the same (as...

Update:

SAKOTAROU = Morihiro Sakota (Graphics)

Finally uncovered the identity of Nanao graphic designer Sakotarou/Sakotan. Shortly after Irem's closure, a pixel artist named Sakotan appeared in the credits of Taito's 1995 shmup, Gekirindan. Coincidence?

The Toaplan connections on that game are...

Akio: "[...] Come to think of it, I was developing another game at the time, but my senpai in charge of the enemy characters in Image Fight told me, “I'll treat you to lunch if you draw some enemies for me,” so I did some rough sketches for him. Perhaps that's why Abiko put my name in there? I don't even remember which particular characters I drew..."

Update #2:

Akio was *not* a dotter on Image Fight, as he was busy working on Ninja Spirit at the time. According to him, he merely sketched a couple enemy designs, in exchange for one of the graphic artists buying him lunch.

"Akio: [...] Incidentally, the team for R-TYPE II consisted of the following: a timid planner myself, an overworked dot artist my senpai, an underworked dot artist the programmer from the original R-TYPE an older gentleman who was just learning how to program and a genius but absent-minded sound man."

Update #2:

N/A = Takeo Sumita (Programmer)

Confirmed by Akio himself, in the tweet below that lays out the entire 6-person team of R-Type II