1UP: Is there any one specific thing that you wanted to see in Sigma yourself?
YH: One of the things I felt really strong about and is actually going to be in the game, is that Rachel is going to be a playable character -- and I'll go into more detail in a little bit -- but now you're able to change her hairstyle. So you can actually go in and change her hairstyle to match your own preference. That's something I felt really strong about and went the extra mile to make sure actually got in the game. Given the way her character is modeled, I felt there were better hairstyles for her than the default one, so I felt we had to make it that you could change the hairstyle. I just couldn't give it up.
1UP: I agree with this idea, because Rachel's design was always a bit overt on the bondage/fantasy angle. Now you can soften what is objectively a pretty extreme look. Do you have any costume changes planned?
YH: Ah, we also have it so you can change her earrings. And while the hairstyles have absolutely nothing to do with how the game plays -- it's totally a visual aspect -- the earrings are actually going to provide something similar to what the armlets did for Hayabusa. You'll find items in the game where you can change her earrings out to give her different special abilities.
1UP: Tell us a little bit about how Rachel plays.
YH: We've just recently within the last couple of days gotten her onscreen in playable form. As you know our goal with Hayabusa is to make the coolest action game character. So what we're saying now is that if Hayabusa is the coolest male action-game character, and the best-controlling, fastest action-game character, then let's make Rachel the best female action-game character. As you know, there are other action games coming out for PS3 with female lead characters, but I can guarantee you that Rachel is going to kick their asses. We've tweaked everything so that she plays differently than Hayabusa, but is still fast and controllable and feels -- I don't have a better way to put it -- female. She her actions aren't as calculated and aren't as efficient as Hayabusa's. She has a certain elegance to her that's explicitly female, and so just going in there and playing with her and seeing how she controls, it's obvious that we're going to have a really great character on our hands.
1UP: Explicitly female? What does that mean -- she's going to have a pillow fight attack or have a tantrum?
YH: [Laughs] We're trying to make sure that all of her animations and each individual action have a certain intangible element so you can tell she's female. And we're also implementing our other famous projects' physics engine, of course with Itagaki-san's permission. We're making even more improvements so that you'll know that this is a woman.
:
