Hideki Kamiya, director of Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and Bayonetta should be feeling pretty good right now. Bayonetta was one of best selling games in Japan this year, and chances are it will also do pretty well internationally.
Despite that, it doesn't seem hard to get the guy feeling down. For instance, ask him about making an Okami sequel, and he'll tell you that "Up until very recently I really felt someday I wanted to make a sequel to Okami, and there were others who wanted me to as well. But thenthe other day I heard the announcement that someone else would be making a sequel and now I'm just not interested in it anymore. Once someone else touches a world that you yourself created it stops being yours. There is no point in making a sequel when the world doesn't belong to you."
Sounds like the level of intimacy the guy feels with his games is pretty intense. Now that someone else is "touching" Okami, he wants no part of it. Good thing Viewtiful Joe is still pure. Kamiya says "Viewtiful Joe is probably all I've got left. That story is incomplete so I'd like to finish it someday. But that would probably be the most difficult one to do."
Please Capcom, get the band back together and make Viewtiful Joe 3 the right way. I don't care if you need to use the old "mission from God" trick to make it happen. Just make it happen.
Jonathan Holmes is the most lovable Associate Editor on Destructoid. Catch him on videos, original editorials, and on back episodes of the Destructoid Show and MTV's Road Rules. Jonathan is a retro gamer's gamer.
Likes
Mega Man 2, Resident Evil, Katamari Damacy, Bit.Trip, Metal Slug 3
Meet the rest of the team
Viewtiful Joe 3. I like the sound of that. Now that we know that Capcom is willing to create a new Okami game, Joe would be the next logical step foward. MAKE IT HAPPEN CAPCOM.
I'd love a new Viewtiful Joe game, but I don't see it happening with Hideki's involvement. Just seems unlikely that Capcom would let ex-Clover devs work on it for some reason.
I'm both rather sad and kind of touched by the kind of connection that Kamiya has with his properties. Sad, well... because Okami was brilliant but touched because he takes the games he makes very seriously and intimately. Something you really don't see a lot in developers.
But seriously, that is a very interesting look into a developer's eyes. I never wondered what would happen if a franchise I made was later re-impulsed by a publisher I don't work for anymore.
Fuck Okami, it's overhyped and rather mediocre, IMO.
A proper Viewtiful Joe 3 would be AWESOME, those games had character! (The first was better than the second though).
@ CleaningGuy- Yeah, VJ2 just didn't live up to the near flawless victory of VJ1. The boss fights just didn't have the same depth, and I missed playing as Captain Blue and Alastor.
Still, it was better than nothing.
@ Monodi- GAH! You're right! Why do I have a job? Why?
I finally agree with jonathan on something. VJ2 is worse than the first one, I didnt like all the puzzles with silvia because they forced you to play the game in a certain way unlike the freedom the first one gave you. And the chambers of viewtiful werent a replacement for the extra chars. Damn I have to replay the game this holiday I love it.
@ Loophole- Yeah, Clover was involved with all the VJ games. They did go downhill pretty quickly, didn't they?
My guess is that Capcom encouraged them to pump them out pretty quickly after the success of the first game. And don't even get me started on VJ: Double Trouble...
you know, i actually agree with the guy. i mean, the fact that he feels so strongly and genuinely in the lore of Okami speaks volumes of his feelings and care for the game - leading me to believe this guy wouldn't have done a half ass job with it (i'm not saying the sequel will be a half ass job, i'm just saying.)
i'm really glad this guy stuck his neck out and said that, it really rekindles my spirit in videogames being more than just a 'business'
@MkShiranui: You might want to consider not obsessing over Okami anymore, and maybe also sympathizing with other peoples' feelings. You might not mean any harm, but the way you present your own opinions as absolute pisses a lot of people off to no end.
Like, really pisses them off. Severely. Some people I've seen probably want your mouth sewn shut. You seriously need to find new things to relate to people on. The way you took one of the original creators feelings and decided to essentially piss on them doesn't bode well. This man has just said something that genuinely inspired several people here, because they believe there's a certain integrity to attributing ownership of a series to a specific group of people.
It symbolizes something that cannot be corrupted. Then you come in here and go "It's good that the original creators who spent countless collective months working on something can be fired for their work and then have the project handed off to someone else for the sake of making cash. It's good that some corporate executive has realized after shitting on a group of creative people that their game had created a cult-buzz that can be exploited."
I love Capcom, but I do not love the businessmen running it right now. I'm officially not buying Okamiden and I hope to God that you can wrap your head around why. You present an image lately that makes me wonder what will actually happen upon me writing this.
VJ3 on PS3,for fuck's sake...not the Wii then a port...if VJ n VJ2 came to PS2 also,make a VJ3 for PS3 with extreme graphics,even if the cartoonish is there,wich i love it
Also give a "Choose Episode" and "Choose Scene" to friggin Rainbow V every stage without going throu the whole way...
"Thank you DJs"..also Jon
WE WANNA KNOW THE ENDING OF VJ,DAMMIT!,been YEARS without knowin! ;__;
For trying to replicate the VJ experience on DS, it did an okay job, but two things really threw it off. The first one is more forgivable, but your jumping weight was increased, so that threw off players of the first two games. The second one, however, was the thing that killed it for me: the game frequently requires you to use a touch-screen power while also fighting enemies with the buttons. This was before many developers realized that was a cardinal sin of DS development, as it required the player to grow a third hand in order to play the game properly.
So, yeah, wow, I really agree with this guy. Okami was an incredibly unique game and world. Once it's been handed off elsewhere it won't be that world anymore. Whatever changes they make, he'd have to take into consideration, because even if there isn't a requirement to be "canon" or anything, each game will shape the image of the overall franchise. I would have a hard time doing the same if say, I wrote a book, and they handed the sequel off to another writer. I just wouldn't be able to come back and write the 3rd book. It's the new guys world now.
Well from a writer's perspective, theres nothing worse than having someone new work on something you started and have it be accepted as canon. If the story is bad, it reflects badly on you the original writer (see: backlash from Halo: The Flood novel). Even if its good, you still have to throw out everything you wrote because you can't write a "your greatest ally is now your greatest enemy" story when your greatest ally is killed off in the second game.
That's Kamiya for you. He's as passonate as all the other members. But if theyn do make a Viewtiful Joe 3, Kamiya will only write the story. After the first game he has never been the director, but Atsushi Inaba has produced all the games as well as the anime AND designed the characters, so he's the guy people need to talk to.
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
7:20 PM on 12.07.2009
| 
PLEASE, Kamiya!!
A proper Viewtiful Joe 3 would be AWESOME, those games had character! (The first was better than the second though).
YOU'RE OVER-HYPED AND MEDIOCRE. D=<
Still, it was better than nothing.
@ Monodi- GAH! You're right! Why do I have a job? Why?
WHY?!?!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
:0
My guess is that Capcom encouraged them to pump them out pretty quickly after the success of the first game. And don't even get me started on VJ: Double Trouble...
i'm really glad this guy stuck his neck out and said that, it really rekindles my spirit in videogames being more than just a 'business'
Like, really pisses them off. Severely. Some people I've seen probably want your mouth sewn shut. You seriously need to find new things to relate to people on. The way you took one of the original creators feelings and decided to essentially piss on them doesn't bode well. This man has just said something that genuinely inspired several people here, because they believe there's a certain integrity to attributing ownership of a series to a specific group of people.
It symbolizes something that cannot be corrupted. Then you come in here and go "It's good that the original creators who spent countless collective months working on something can be fired for their work and then have the project handed off to someone else for the sake of making cash. It's good that some corporate executive has realized after shitting on a group of creative people that their game had created a cult-buzz that can be exploited."
I love Capcom, but I do not love the businessmen running it right now. I'm officially not buying Okamiden and I hope to God that you can wrap your head around why. You present an image lately that makes me wonder what will actually happen upon me writing this.
Also give a "Choose Episode" and "Choose Scene" to friggin Rainbow V every stage without going throu the whole way...
"Thank you DJs"..also Jon
WE WANNA KNOW THE ENDING OF VJ,DAMMIT!,been YEARS without knowin! ;__;
For trying to replicate the VJ experience on DS, it did an okay job, but two things really threw it off. The first one is more forgivable, but your jumping weight was increased, so that threw off players of the first two games. The second one, however, was the thing that killed it for me: the game frequently requires you to use a touch-screen power while also fighting enemies with the buttons. This was before many developers realized that was a cardinal sin of DS development, as it required the player to grow a third hand in order to play the game properly.
Well from a writer's perspective, theres nothing worse than having someone new work on something you started and have it be accepted as canon. If the story is bad, it reflects badly on you the original writer (see: backlash from Halo: The Flood novel). Even if its good, you still have to throw out everything you wrote because you can't write a "your greatest ally is now your greatest enemy" story when your greatest ally is killed off in the second game.