Sumez wrote:
What makes you think the same people made Fester's Quest, though? I'm 90% sure it's not, save from the composer who was one of the talented stock SunSoft guys.
Blaster Master / Chou Wakusei Senki MetaFight was a joint effort development by Tokai Engineering (same company did Journey to Silius / Rough World) and Sunsoft. The programmers were
Kenji SADA (a.k.a. SENTA) and Kenji KAJITA (a.k.a. KANZ) -- which (or both) of them was a member of Tokai Engineering, I'm not sure.
Naoki KODAKA was the composer/musician -- and did the music independently (i.e. was not a Sunsoft employee) (he also did the music to Journey to Silius, alongside
Nobuyuki HARA and
Shinichi SEYA). No idea which of the 3 (SADA, KAJITA, KODAKA) were responsible for the music engine -- it has a fairly unique/trademark sound that's common across several Sunsoft titles. The designer of the game was
Yoshiaki IWATA (a.k.a. FANKY), who has been fairly public about its plot/design/etc. since ~2009 or so (there are
several interviews with him, just Google).
Fester's Quest was released to the US market in September 1989. Blaster Master was released to the US market in November 1988 (roughly a year earlier); the Japanese release, Chou Wakusei Senki MetaFight was issued June 1988. That said, this should put an end to this debate definitively:
It was speculated for some time, especially within the glitch and TAS communities, that Fester's Quest used some kind of modified or tweaked Blaster Master engine (specifically the overhead parts) -- or bare minimum, was highly influenced by Blaster Master. It feels way too similar, including the boss interactions. In late 2014,
an interview was done with
Richard Robbins (Sunsoft USA), producer of Fester's Quest (and
supposedly uncredited for character design in Blaster Master), who had the following to say:
Quote:
Q: Many have pointed out how Fester's Quest feels a lot like the overhead-view sections in Blaster Master. In a 2011 interview, Blaster Master creator Yoshiaki Iwata says that "The character designer for Blaster Master was also one of the main designers on Fester’s Quest, which probably explains some of the similarities there." Do you think that's the case, or do the two games share deeper roots?
Robbins: Same team developed both in the same lab.
In other words: Tokai Engineering was certainly involved in Fester's Quest. Sadly the game has no credits -- not too surprising, as many Japanese companies at the time didn't really allow for employees or subsidiaries to "get credit" for their work within the game itself -- so all we can go off of is that statement.
I feel like a damn gaming historian. You're welcome. :-)