Hideki Kamiya, designer of Bayonetta, created Okami back when he worked at Capcom’s Clover. In the recent issue of Famitsu (translated by 1Up), Kamiya looks back at making Okami. More »
Independent developer Binary Tweed has finally released the politically-pointed watercolour platforming adventure Clover via the Xbox Live Community Games Program. More »
Few years back, Capcom underwent some pretty radical changes, and ended up restructuring as a company. But when time came to make the changes, they didn’t model the new Capcom on an existing model.
Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi spoke today about the “rise” of Western gaming. But former Capcom man Atsushi Inaba, well, he goes a little further, saying that, overall, “Western developers are superior to those in Japan”.
Despite being one of the best damn games we’ve ever played, Okami bombed (at the register, relative to its quality) on the PS2. Bombed on the Wii, too. So maybe, uh, third time’s a charm? Let’s hope so (because this isn’t official confirmation)! A listing for a Greatest Hits version of the game – on PS2 – has turned up on retailer Play-Asia, with a ship date of later this month. Who knows, maybe a cheap, cheap price will look great to the 3-4 people who somehow missed it first time around. And don’t own a Wii.
Okami (Greatest Hits) [Play-Asia, via Siliconera]
In July 2007, fresh from beating the game, I ordered the Japanese-language edition of the Okami art book. Weeks went by. Then months. No art book. I totally forgot about the thing. Then today, June 24, 2008…success! The book finally turns up (albeit the English-language edition). Was it worth the wait? Was it ever. This is a proper art book. Full of concept art, level design sketches, character reference models and even some mangas detailing both the game’s boss battles and “god release” cutscenes. Best part? It even gives you soundtrack advice: ie, if you’re reading this, play track 7 on disc 3 of the soundtrack.
How does Okami director Hideki Kamiya feel about the Wii port? He’s pretty bummed out! The Wii version has cut the staff end credits from the game, which was released in North America earlier this month. The original game was developed by now dissolved Capcom subsidiary Clover and ported by Daxter developer Ready at Dawn. According to Kamiya: I really don’t know what under pretext the credits were cut… What do you all think? I feel dejected, and not only because my own name has been erased from my creation. Of course we have pride in our work and we want to scream “We made this!” from the top of our lungs. But more than that, the fact that they cut the entire staff is utterly deplorable.
Our 2007 Game Of The Year awards weren’t a factual representation of my game of the year. See, living in a PAL nation, I didn’t get Okami until early 2007. And had I been able to vote for it, Mario Galaxy and Uncharted may as well have packed their bags and gone home. Many of you will share similar sentiments. Which is why seeing Okami producer Atsushi Inaba teasing us with how much he’d like to do a reworked version of the game hurts. Like nails being driven into the spine. When asked which Clover games he’d like to go back and work on again, he answers: In a purely creative sense, it would be Viewtiful Joe. I’d like to really wring all of the inherent potential out of the concept. Another idea would be to redo Okami, like the recent DS Zelda. There are ideas we weren’t able to include in both games which are still in our minds.
This is probably the cruellest sentence of 2008 so far. Fuck you, Inaba. Seeds of Change [Next-Gen]
