A portion of a Gosokkyu interview with Umihara Kawase creators Toshinobu Kondo and Kiyoshi Sakai...

G: I was surprised to see a new Umihara Kawase game announced after all these years. What made you decide to reunite and make a new Umihara game?

Kondo: Working on the DS port was a big part of it, I think. Sakai had previously helped out a little on Studio Saizensen games, but it was after the DS port that we really started talking about doing a new Umihara Kawase game.

Sakai: We originally had planned a small project, a port of the original game which would be included as bonus content on some other release. It was our publisher Agatsuma’s idea to make a brand new entry in the series.

G: The name “Sayonara Umihara Kawase” caused some initial concern, especially internationally—people were worried that the series was going to end before they’d played a single game! Can you explain the significance of the title, Sayonara Umihara Kawase?

Sakai: Considering the history of the series, it wouldn’t be strange if this were the last game. We also wanted to attract older fans of the series with that title. Whether this actually will be the last Umihara Kawase game or not, is still undecided.

Kondo: It depends on how much the fans support us, in other words. (laughs)

G: Fans have long shared their Umihara speedruns online, so the new online leaderboards seem like a natural addition. Are there any plans for further online features, perhaps via DLC?

Kondo: I won’t say it will never happen, but I think it would be difficult. It depends on Agatsuma Entertainment.