most mecha were designed by yoji shinkawa, the character and mechanical designer for the "metal gear" series who had previously worked in the prequel. for the previous, shinkawa had made rough sketches of a coffin-shape mech. as murata liked the designed, he requested shinkawa to develop it as ken's frame. leo's new mech, vic viper, was based on the space ship with the same name from the "gradius" scrolling shooter games. shinkawa had the idea of making vic viper being leo's mech and that it would be able to transform which murata was approved. additionally, the character lloyd and the frame inhert were designed by kazuma kaneko of "megami tensei" fame. the character illustrations and select mecha illustrations were created by tsubasa masao. the character designs were made by nobuyoshi nishimura who advised the team in doing the special effects.