Space Channel 5
Developer - United Game Artists (a subsidiary of SEGA)
Publisher - SEGA
Director - Takashi Yuda
Producer - Tetsuya Mizuguchi
Designer - Takumi Yoshinaga
Artist - Yumiko Miyabe
Composers - Naofumi Hataya, Kenichi Tokoi
Genre - Music
Dreamcast Release Dates - December 16, 1999 (Japan); June 4, 2000 (North America); October 8, 2000 (Europe)
Additional Releases - Playstation 2; Gameboy Advance
Current Average Price - $35
I am terrible at Space Channel 5, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the game for its unique style, excellent music, and fun characters. It plunges headfirst into its own lore - a retro-future 1960s motif sets the stage, and only a dancing reporter can save the universe from invading space aliens who are forcing everyone to dance. You gotta respect it.
Space Channel 5 is a music game developed by United Game Artists, a subsidiary of SEGA which was founded when Tetsuya Mizugichi separated from SEGA’s AM3 (Hitmaker), taking with him a small group of hand-selected artists and developers. The team would go on to develop Space Channel 5 Part 2, and the critically acclaimed Rez. Before that, however, SEGA tasked Mizuguchi and his team with creating a new Dreamcast game that would appeal to the female casual gamer. The result was Space Channel 5, a rhythm-based music game starring a “space-reporter” named Ulala, as she investigates an alien invasion, defeating the menace with the help of dance (and a blaster).
Origin of Space Channel 5
Prior to the creation of United Game Artists, Tetsuya Mizuguchi had been known for his work on racing games (notably including the arcade and SEGA Saturn game SEGA Touring Car Championship, and SEGA Rally 2). When asked to create a game for casual female gamers, Mizuguchi quickly realized that he had very little knowledge of this demographic. He interviewed a number of young girls to discover what sort of game they’d like, and discovered that women and young girls seemed to prefer puzzle games over games focused on competition and high scores. He also realized that the girls he was interviewing seemed to care much more about music than video-games. He then set out to create a game which would bring music fans into video-gaming.
The development team was comprised of former staff from Team Andromeda, makers of Panzer Dragoon, as well as developers who had worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog series and a handful of people who had never worked in game development before. This inclusion of game industry outsiders is a common thread amongst Dreamcast-era SEGA development studios, and is likely an important determinant for why many SEGA games of this era are so unusual compared with games being made elsewhere at the time.
Space Channel 5 Gameplay
In Space Channel 5, the player takes on the role of Ulala, a reporter working for a news program called Space Channel 5 in a 1960s-styled science fiction future. When an alien race called the Morolians attack, Ulala is sent to investigate and report. She quickly discovers that the Morolians are forcing people to dance, and decides to fight back. She also clashes with rival reporters. In the end, the invasion is revealed to have been set up by Space Channel 5’s CEO in an effort to increase ratings.
Players control Ulala as she dances through four stages, matching the moves of the Morolians through button-presses of the Up, Down, Left, and Right directional pad, and shooting Morolians and saving hostages with the A and B buttons. These button-presses must all be pressed in sync with the music and action on the screen.
As Ulala progresses through the stages, she frees hostages who begin to dance with her in a sort of street parade. There are boss battles, during which Ulala’s health is represented by on-screen hearts. With every failed button press, a heart disappears. If Ulala loses all of her hearts or if the ratings drop to 0% it’s game over.
There are numerous alternate routes throughout the game, and which path is taken depends on the performance of the player.
While Ulala uses a blaster to dispatch aliens, she never actually kills anyone (a departure from many videogames).
Development and Game Design
Early versions of Space Channel 5 were simple - the player would press buttons in time to the music while a pre-rendered non-interactive video played in the background. Mizuguchi described this early version in a 1Up.com interview as “very cool, but not so fun.” In that same interview he describes the early days of development…
“The music was great: "Mexican Flyer," from 1965. Ken Woodman. I was born in 1965, so I was the same age, and I felt a connection. […] so we tried to make some spacey new style, but without techno music. Just with this jazzy, band style. In the first concept, the gameplay was boring; you'd just push the buttons with the music, and the music video would change. So I suggested a lot of changes […] I wanted to make a simple, addictive game. I got a hint from STOMP, the [dance troupe].
The guy on stage would clap his hands. Everyone was like, "What?" Then he'd clap again. Then the audience would clap. Then he'd go, "OK" and make a more complex, faster clap pattern. It was really fun; the guy had great skill in rhythm, so he'd do something super complex, and he had everyone laughing. […] I thought, "This is a game. It's really simple, but it's a nice concept." So I tried to put those kinds of elements in the game, with music, dialogue, and songs.
Those were tough days. The UGA staff wasn't so flexible. They had very rigid mentalities. So I tried to introduce some fun elements. I invited a [mime] to UGA.”
This mime coached the development team on physical comedy, which helped breathe life into the hand-animated characters and helped give the game its best absurd humor moments. Motion capture was used for Ulala’s movements, performed by Japanese dancer Nazu Nahoko.
The final version of the game features 3D polygonal characters superimposed onto a CGI background (an idea suggested by director Takeshi Yuta). The effect worked beautifully, however the extensive use of streaming video and audio demanded significant space, and the final game filled 99.6 percent of the available space on the Dreamcast’s GD-ROM disc.
Mizuguchi has stated that the character Ulala was a collaborative creation, however he credits the game’s art director, Yumiko Miyabe, with much of her design. Jake Kazdal, another notable artist, worked on concept and model designs. Ulala’s orange outfit was intentionally colored to represent the Dreamcast, and SEGA’s new, bold direction.
The music in the game was composed by Naofumi Hataya and Kenichi Tokoi of SEGA’s music label WaveMaster, though it should be noted that Hayata attributes the game’s iconic musical direction to Mizuguchi. The game’s musical style was inspired by big band jazz of the 1950s and ‘60s, with bold horns and upbeat rhythm, and this unusual tone was one of the first elements to be established in the game’s creation, appearing in the very first Space Channel 5 prototype (this version was so early that not even Ulala, the game’s main character, appeared). As the game progresses and the stages become more intense, the soundtrack shifts to incorporate techno and trance music. The final soundtrack of in-game music is substantial, reaching nearly 70 minutes.
The game’s main theme is Mexican Flyer, composed by Ken Woodman. Mizuguchi reached out to Woodman about using the theme, much to the surprise of Ken Woodman who thought it an unusual choice for a video-game. The song became the game’s theme after SEGA secured the rights. A soundtrack published my Marvelous Entertainment was released on February 21, 2000. It features 22 tracks.
The game’s Japanese voice actors were pulled from within SEGA, most coming from within United Game Artists itself. This worked well since the team wanted to have total control over the tone of the characters, and there was a need for rapid re-recording sessions. Ulala’s Japanese voice actor was also pulled from within SEGA. In a Games TM interview, Mizuguchi stated that the Ulala recording session was so strenuous that the voice actor was brought to tears. The english-language voice actor for Ulala was Apollo Smile.
The most notable voice actor on the project, however, was none other than Michael Jackson. Jackson was shown a near-complete version of the game by SEGA staff memeber Shuji Utsumi (later the CEO of Q Entertainment). Jackson loved the game and wanted to be in it, a request which Mizuguchi initially wished to refuse since the game was due for release in less than a month. The team wanted Michael Jackson in their game, however, so they quickly modeled him and substituted him in for a Morolian-controlled NPC. Jackson’s famous dance moves were included, and when Jackson approved of the result, he provided voice lines for his character.
Legacy
Space Channel 5 was well-received by critics and holds an 84% rating on GameRankings. IGN gave the game a 9.2/10, while Famitsu rated it 29/40. Critics from GameSpy called the game “a work of art in every sense,” praising the music, aesthetic, and calling the game a testament to SEGA’s production skill. Despite this praise, they cited the game’s relative lack of replayability as a major drawback. Computer and Video Games magazine gave the game a perfect score, calling it “an absolute must for every DC owner". GamePro compared the game favorably to the legendary Playstation music rhythm game PaRappa the Rapper, and recommended it despite its short length.
Despite these accolades, the game sold poorly. During its first week in Japan, about 95,000 units were distributed and from these only about 41,000 units sold. Eventually the game would sell 93,600 units in Japan, placing it among the top 40 best-selling Dreamcast games. But this wasn’t quite good enough. Mizuguchi stated in a Video Games Daily interview in 2005 that the game was not commercially successful enough.
In 2002, a sequel to Space Channel 5, called Space Channel 5 Part 2 was released simultaneously in Japan on the SEGA Dreamcast and Sony Playstation 2. This sequel improved on the original in many ways, both artistically and technically. It is a more polished game and features an even more memorable soundtrack. Like the first game, Space Channel 5 Part 2 was lauded by critics. Unlike the first game, however, it was a commercial success, selling well for SEGA on the Dreamcast and selling even better on PS2.
The Dreamcast version of Space Channel 5 Part 2 was never released outside of Japan. However both Space Channel 5 and its sequel were released on Sony’s Playstation 2 in North America and Europe. The North American PS2 release of Space Channel 5 Part 2 was called Space Channel 5: Special Edition and included the PS2 port of the original game as well.
In 2003, a Game Boy Advance version of the game titled Space Channel 5: Ulala’s Cosmic Attack was co-developed by THQ and Art Co., Ltd and published by THQ and SEGA in North America and Europe on June 17 and September 12 respectively. It scored an average of 55% and is regarded as a pretty forgettable game.
In 2011, Space Channel 5 Part 2 was given a high-definition port to Microsoft Windows PCs, Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3.
In 2020, the latest game in the Space Channel 5 series released. It is a virtual reality game called Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash. This game was developed by Grounding Inc., (the game development company founded by former SEGA employee Yukio Futatsugi who was the team lead on Panzer Dragoon and its sequels and who directed the criminally overlooked Xbox game Phantom Dust). Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash released for Playstation VR, SteamVR, Oculus Quest and HTC Vive.
Today, Space Channel 5 on the SEGA Dreamcast is one of the most recognizable and loved games on the console. Surprisingly it is also still very affordable, with average prices only reaching as high as $35 on eBay. It remains as charming as ever, and at that price there’s little reason any Dreamcast collector or player shouldn’t own a copy.