Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast from the Past is an upcoming hybrid action-platforming RPG beat 'em up from developers BLAST ZERO and publisher Red Dunes Games. Marking the highly anticipated return of the classic '90s anime series, this title is slated for a 2026 release.
Ahead of the launch, we here at Netto's Game Room were given the exclusive opportunity to speak with the development team to learn new information about the game and hear their thoughts on the original series.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me! My name is Ben, and I'm one of the founders of our gaming site Netto's Game Room. To kick things off, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hi Ben nice to meet you, we are Dave Baljon (CEO, Artist), Sebastien Romero (Game Director/Designer & Music Composer) and Laurent Romero (Art Director/Lead Animator) and we are the heads of BLAST ZERO.
We’re happy to answer any questions that you have regarding Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast from the Past.
Samurai Pizza Cats is a series that has been absent from the world for quite some time. With the original show ending in 1991, I'm sure many fans never expected to see it again! But now here we are 34 years later, and the series is seeing a return as both the video game Blast From The Past, and a newly announced manga. How did this revival in game form originally come about? And why Samurai Pizza Cats?
A few years ago we were the leads of the team that created another video game, the over-the-top action-packed 4-player Beat 'em Up called “Jitsu Squad”, which was released worldwide in 2021 for PC and major consoles After the release of this game, we were approached by a company from Japan called exA-Arcadia who wanted to make an arcade port of Jitsu Squad. We thought this was a nice idea, because Jitsu Squad is really an arcade game at its core.
exA-Arcadia always adds something extra for their ports. We collectively came up with the idea of adding an additional character to the existing playable cast and at the top of our dreamlist were the Samurai Pizza Cats, as we are big fans of the show! The characters from Jitsu Squad are also kind of inspired in the style of the Samurai Pizza Cats in terms of how they are drawn in proportion, so we thought it was a good match.
Someone at exA-Arcadia had a contact person at Tatsunoko production and we approached them with the idea. Tatsunoko production liked Jitsu Squad and asked us to make a presentation/mock up. We did that, and the idea of developing the Samurai Pizza Cats as playable characters in Jitsu Squad was approved by Tatsunoko production, which we thought was really great! We wanted to further investigate with Tatsunoko production whether it was possible to develop a standalone video game of the Samurai Pizza Cats. Ultimately, we received approval from Tatsunoko production to do this, we are now working with our team on a truly dream project and are very grateful to Tatsunoko production for giving us this opportunity and for believing in us.
The series originally launched in Japan under the title Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, and was adapted as Samurai Pizza Cats in other countries. However, when Saban licensed it, there was no proper translation of the show, and thus, each language's adaptation featured their own unique story compared to the original script, and formed its own identity thanks to its jokes and fourth wall breaking moments. Is this something Blast From The Past will be doing as well, and will it be different for each region?
That's right, we aim to do the same for the game. We are working together with the original scriptwriter of the Japanese show, Mr. Satoru Akahori. We feel incredibly blessed that he is involved in this project. We wish to give the audience and fans of the show a unique new story and keep the jokes authentic, just as the fans and the audience remember them. The English and Japanese version of the game will have different humor reminiscent to their anime counterparts, as this is very important for the charm that the show had in the 90s. We are also working with many of the original Japanese and English-language voice actors of the show. We will share more from all parties involved in the future, everyone involved is super excited
When it comes to the game's story, will it be adapting previously established plotlines, or will fans have a chance to see something new?
We will give the audience and the fans of the show a completely new story, all under approval of original staff of course. We’ve got something very exciting, especially for the hardcore fans.
One thing that stood out during the initial announcement was none other than the animation. The game seems to perfectly replicate the the cel-animated 90's original, which is not something we see a lot of games doing nowadays. What inspired the team to use this hand drawn style, versus using pixel art or other methods, and how hard was it to imitate it on modern hardware?
We are personally very fond of the animation style from the 90s. It has a very refined and warm appearance, and it really takes us back to a time when we could enjoy cartoons carefree on TV as children. We think it is important to give the fans, the audience that feeling back by making it exactly the way they remember it, that is the magic of nostalgia. It can't be measured in a graph or a sales spreadsheet, it's a feeling! It was not easy to reproduce the 90s cel animation art style of the show 1-to-1 so we did a lot of research for this and spend a lot of time trying to perfect the style which can drive you a bit insane actually because of the subtle details haha. The license holder, Tatsunoko Production, is very pleased with the result, and we are very happy that we have shown that the Samurai Pizza Cats are entrusted to us. We hope that the fans of the show and the audience see it that way too.
Blast From The Past features a mixture of gameplay styles. A town called Little Tokyo serves as an overworld and is explored like in an RPG, while stages and battles play out as a 2D platformer. Could you tell us a little more about how this works?
It is indeed quite a big mixture of gameplay styles, we want the player to really be able to explore the unique world of Samurai Pizza Cats. That’s why we chose to make the adventure part of the game in a top-down view which allowed us to make the world feel grander and richer compared to just a using a sideview camera.
In the overworld you can walk around and talk to inhabitants, pick up sidequests and shop for items etc. But one of the unique things in this overworld compared to regular RPG games is that the battle encounters take you to a 2D sideview, giving you short action-packed battles which you can use to level up your characters, obtain money and collect new battle cards. This way you have both the nice feeling of progression that you get in an RPG, but also the fun action that you have in a platform fighters.
The game allows players to instantly swap between their favorite characters on the fly, creating some truly unique attack combo opportunities. But for those only interested in playing as their favorite character, is it possible to complete the game only using them? Or are there situations where other characters are required to progress?
You can of course choose to play as only one character for 90% of the time, there are however a few instances in the game where you will need a specific character to progress or where your favourite character isn’t available because the cats are in different parts of the stage for example. Another downside of using only one character in battle is that you aren’t leveling up the others enough which would make the parts where your strong character isn’t available more difficult.
When it comes to exploring and replaying areas, is there a reward system or incentive to keep coming back? Or will the game be more of a linear journey to its conclusion?
The story itself has a mostly linear progression but since we have an overworld to explore you can take your time and look for side quests whenever you want so you can do things at your own pace, a bit comparable to The Legend of Zelda series. There are also a lot of collectibles in the overworld as well as in the main platforming stages which enhances the replay ability. As you obtain more battle cards throughout the game you can use some of them to go back into previous stages to reach certain sections that you couldn’t before.
Samurai Pizza Cats is a very old series, one of which many of us grew up on and remember incredibly fondly (including our very own Netto's Game Room co-founder Sagi, who wanted me to ask this question)! Did you grow up watching it, or did you only really get to know of it after getting to work on the game? Also what are your team's thoughts of the original, and what would you change or add to it if you had the chance?
Of course, We grew up with the show as well and it was pretty well known here in the Netherlands. We have watched all the episodes, both in English and Japanese, countless of times. Laurent has so many items from Samurai Pizza Cats that is work space is almost a personal museum haha.
We love the original show! We always found it very unfortunate that there was never a follow-up after the first season of the show. We hope to continue the legacy through the video game that we are developing and promise that the fans will get something they do not expect, but that we have managed to achieve thanks to the fantastic collaboration with Tatsunoko Production and the people involved.
Are there any plans to expand on it if the game is successful? Either as DLC, like new characters or stages, or a sequel?
Our main focus is to deliver a complete and fun game, we’d love to create more Samurai Pizza Cats content in the future of course, but we really want to focus on doing this right first which takes full dedication.
And finally, is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about Blast From The Past?
Fans of the show can rest assured that they will see many of the familiar faces with their charmful and funny personalities from the 90s show again, this is really our goal as we are fans ourselves! In addition, we can say that the story of the game is not based of a specific episode of the show but rather seen as a different chapter, which we think is a lot of fun and will make the fans curious to experience this new adventure. We can guarantee that we will come up with super cool surprises during the development of the game, please stay tuned on our socials!
Just for fun: Who is your favorite character in the series?
Dave: Bad Bird! (Karamaru) I love ninja's, his design and attitude is super cool!
Sebastien: I love The Big Cheese(Ko’on-no-Kami), he never fails to make me laugh in both the Japanese and English versions with his over-the-top personality. The voice actors are really amazing in their parts.
Laurent: The Big Cheese ( Ko’on-no-Kami ) is my favourite.
I like his design and he’s fun to draw.
Before we go, we would like to say thank you to BLAST ZERO and Red Dunes Games for giving us this opportunity, and for those interested in Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast from the Past, you can head over to the Steam Page to wishlist the game today.
The title is scheduled to release in 2026, and is planned for a console release as well.
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