Hideki Kamiya records a series of interviews with his colleague and friend Ikumi Nakamura. For those who don’t know him, we’re talking about the author of Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, among others, who in this case decided to directly contact the Japanese publisher Capcom, with whom he had worked for a long time, to Request Okami 2 and Viewtiful Joe 3 developmenta sequel to two of his works.
Between seriousness and sarcasm
Okami is a 2006 game that was highly acclaimed by the press. This was his last game while at Capcom. Immediately after publication, the company closed the internal studio that created Okami. Several developers (including Kamiya) left to found PlatinumGames. But after nearly 20 years, it seems Kamiya wants to retrace his steps in some way.
“The story stopped halfway through, so I regret leaving it like this,” he commented. “I think authors have a duty to make parts that fans want. Although I may sound arrogant, it’s been a long time since I dealt with Okami. But I still feel like I didn’t do my duty.” So Capcom, please, let’s do this together.“
“Please,” Nakamura added, having worked with Kamiya as an artist on Okami. This was her first credited role in the video game world, having joined Capcom at the age of 19. Furthermore, this isn’t the first time the two have discussed a sequel; they even recorded a video in 2019 announcing that “Okami is coming back!” though their security wasn’t enough to convince Capcom. This time around, the picture is different, because Kamiya is unemployed after leaving PlatinumGames. Nakamura, on the other hand, has her own studio, where she directs the horror game Kemori.
The conversation continued by bringing up a second series that Kamiya would like to resume in the same vein as Okami, the Viewtiful Joe series. Apparently, despite a sequel in this case, He feels like he left things unresolved. Sure, in a recent Capcom fan poll there were a lot of calls for an Okami sequel, but Kamiya himself saw that Viewtiful Joe wasn’t even mentioned. “It’s just because only eight people have played Viewtiful Joe,” he joked. “That game also stopped in the middle, so I have to finish it. The poll Capcom ran last time didn’t include Viewtiful Joe as an option; so I sent a reply saying, ‘I’m Hideki Kamiya, let me make the sequel.’ To Viewtiful Joe.”
It’s hard to tell how serious Kamiya is about what he’s saying, given that it was then. Capcom was criticized for not including his comment in the poll results.“The director himself is asking them to remake the game, but they don’t even want to talk about it. What the hell, Capcom? Where did my feedback go? They post comments from other players like, ‘Resident Evil was the first one I bought for PlayStation,’ or ‘I always enjoyed playing Mega Man when I was a kid.’ Those comments are important, but it would have been nice if they’d also reminded me, please. As a director, I’m a human being too, and I’d like to be treated the same way as the players.” Nakamura’s laugh speaks volumes about the seriousness of the conversation.
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