alright, so i went through the ama with wan hazmer and daim dziauddian on twitch and picked out every little tidbit i could about the megastars bc i knew you guys would want to know. this is a long post and i’m on mobile atm so i can’t put it under a read more — sorry about that! bosses are in chronological order, starting with DJSS and ending with Eve!
- djss took the least amount of time to develop out of all the bosses (haz says his fight took about half a year.)
- daim purposely tried to make djss' name as long as he could. he was specifically looking at negasonic teenage warhead from deadpool for inspiration.
- haz and daim do have the briefing/kliffnotes for djss. they discussed sharing them at some point, but idk when that would happen.
- related to the above, daim says that dj is in his mid thirties. EDIT: his kliffnotes were shared on twitter and they say he’s 41. daim must have goofed haha
- when asked if djss actually has a face and how he eats, daim compares it to kenny from south park and how you never see his face. he thinks dj does have a face in there, but that we just never see it. as for the “how does he eat” part, daim says that sometimes they don’t have to show everything.
- daim is a djneon/neonnova shipper, and it’s one his favourite pairings alongside zuke/mayday.
- daim said that uncle ali basically instantly landed the role as djss. he was that good.
- sayu was obviously inspired by hatsune miku and other vocaloids, but haz brings up one particular commercial involving miku and google chrome, which involves a bunch of people collborating on songs and concept art for miku, similar to how sayu started as a collab between remi and tila in-universe.
- someone asked about the models for sayu's crew's apartments. there wasn't much on that, but haz mentions that one of his favourite nsr fanfics (yes, he reads them) is "Road to Redemption," and there's a scene that takes place in a studio where the crew works on sayu, and he really likes that.
- the devs wanted sayu's name to sound both malay and japanese at the same time (as well as a nod to miku). haz says it means “warm water” in japanese.
- akusuka is a direct copy of akihabara in terms of locale.
- sayu’s shellfish commercial is a homage to a real snack in malaysia named mamee monster, which is hugely popular with kids. the format of the commercial itself was inspired by a pocky commercial that featured hatsune miku.
- her game design (for her boss fight) was partially done in ms paint by music director falk (who made the base version of her boss theme)
- yinu's mom doesn't have a name. she's just mother/mama.
- haz confirmed that yinu's father is, in fact, dead.
- daim thought yinu’s name was a nod to yuna (a popular malaysian artist). it’s not.
- natura is daim’s favourite district. he likes how calm it is compared to the others.
- daim said that they wanted a hint of hope in all three of yinu’s backstory photographs, to show that no matter how bad your life gets, there’s always that glimmer of hope and that good things can still happen.
- the members of 1010 do not have any official names.
- the assets for the autographs were made by the artists at one of the partner companies working with metronomik on nsr. haz and daim didn't really have anything to do with making them, and while daim did approve them for the final game, he was sorta skimming through a bunch of assets along with the autographs, and he didn't realize what they really were at the time until later. haz is impressed with how the fans managed to decipher them.
- 1010's fight was purposefully put between yinu's and eve's as a break from the emotional stuff.
- michael jackson was used as a reference for 1010's animations/moves.
- the Bio Tactical Shield that you get for zuke after beating 1010 is a reference to BTS.
- tangibly related, but the collectable figurines are supposed to serve more as a backstory to vinyl city as a whole, rather than 1010 or neon j. daim describes the figures as what events were going on and what people were doing before the events of nsr.
- 1010’s appearance from older trailers (where they all looked the same) were actually placeholders. 1010’s actual designs weren’t finished yet when those trailers were released.
- parts of 1010’s designs (for their bodies/outfits) were inspired by tron uprising, a project that daim worked on.
- somebody asked why 1010 and neon j have sculpted butt plates. daim and haz have no idea, but daim suggested that ellie (who designed 1010) and jan (who did their character models) put them there to up the “sexy robot” factor.
- daim’s favourite member of 1010 is purl-hew/blue, and haz’s favourite is eloni/green.
- the members of 1010 were designed based on popular tropes in boy bands. rin/white is “the main guy,” zimelu/red is the “bad boy,” purl-hew/blue is the “cool guy,” haym/yellow is the “young/innocent one,” and eloni/green is the “weird/funny one.”
- eloni/green not getting fan mail was based on how the “funny guy” of kpop bands/idol groups don’t seem to get as much attention as the rest of the group.
- haz and daim didn't expect neon j to become so popular. haz joked about blaming it on ddaddystar, who did that doodle of djss and neon j from the credits.
- when asked about neon j’s age, daim said he’s definitely older than djss, and that he could be in his forties.
- related to the age thing, someone in chat said he should be older if he went to war in the sixties. haz replied by saying they never mentioned what year the game takes place in, so it doesn’t necessarily take place in the present/2020.
- a lot of people asked about the border wars, and daim and haz said they like leaving the bulk of it up to fan interpretation.
- daim said that neon j’s organs were preserved in a robotic shell after the war, and that’s why he’s considered a cyborg.
- as stated above, daim is a djneon/neonnova shipper, and it’s one his favourite pairings alongside zuke/mayday.
- neon j’s monologue was slightly longer, but it was cut down because zul (neon j’s va) didn’t do very many takes for the monologue, and the takes he did do didn’t have the comedic punch that daim was looking for, so it got shortened.
- the singing parts of neon j’s lines were ad-libbed by zul in his audition, and daim liked it so much that it stayed for the final game.
- neon j’s monologue had to be altered in the japanese dub so that the jokes/comedy would make more sense.
- the color changing paintings from her boss fight were created by accident.
- eve was put as the last boss because of how emotional her relationship with zuke was and how complicated and intricate she is as a whole compared to the rest of the bosses.
- daim considers eve to be the "final boss" for zuke, while tatiana is the final boss for mayday.
- eve took the longest to develop out of all the bosses. she was orignally a lot more complicated, and daim said they had to "filter" a lot of things about her in order to tone her down and fit her into the game.
- eve was almost scrapped from the game. daim said her concept as an eccentric artist wasn't as well known as the other four bosses’ concepts, and combine that with how long it took to finalize her... yeah.
- none of the artists have set in stone heights because of how the gameplay works, but eve is the tallest one. the closest scene in the game that has them at their actual heights is the ending.
- her name was originally eva, but it was changed bc there’s already a popular artist with the same name.
- daim explains that a big part of eve’s concept and theme is her embracing herself. he uses the example of eve’s backstory where she starts out hating herself and trying to cover the pink half of her face, but then starts doing less of that overtime. he also mentions that all the body parts (hands, arms, legs, etc.) from her fight also come from her embracing her body and using it in her artwork.
- dream fever is haz’s favourite district.
- daim didn’t originally think of zuke and eve as being an actual couple until later down the line when the story heavily implied it.
- eve’s younger designs were done by lzbros, who did all the 2d animation for the game.
