by Yu Suzuki, the creator of Shenmue, Space Harrier and many other games, is releasing his latest Air Twister through Apple Arcade on June 24th. We spent some time with the game prior to release and even had the chance to speak to Suzuki through a translator about the dreamlike experience of riding giant swans through alien landscapes. Suzuki confirmed some of the game’s details – like the size of the protagonist, Princess Arch, and which classic children’s novel served as the game’s main inspiration – and talked about how much he enjoyed one of the top 10 GameSpot games of 2021, It Takes Two.
I’ve played Air Twister and it’s bizarre. Did you think people would react like that?
Yu Suzuki: I didn’t really know what people would expect. I just made the game. That’s normal for me.
Air Twister feels a bit like playing an interactive dream. Was that on purpose?
Many Thanks. I appreciate your comment. Yes, not particularly. I didn’t really think it was an effort to do just that. I just wanted to put everything that I was really interested in as a kid into one game.
One of the influences for me in creating this fantastic landscape was The Never Ending Story. Riding a large creature in the sky and levitating things in the air and existing in this fantastic working base – almost like anti-gravity. So to speak… control the world. So, letting those levitating things fly around. That was really interesting for me. I also really liked the fusion of mechanical and biological creatures. It’s always been part of this fantasy idea. So yes. When you put it all together, it definitely seems like it came out of a dream.