Yeah we all know he's the one who drastically changed RE in the first place. Being swept away by the first RE. I have mixed feelings about where the franchise is going.
The aiming and such are obviously better but at what cost? It does play like a shooter now compared to a horror game. In that perspective, I understand where the people want this game to go old-school once again.
On the other hand, a lot of people were pissed at Capcom for keeping the clunky controls in the first place, and Capcom does need the RE namesake so it'll move a bajillion copies.
Don't get me wrong I'll be getting RE5. Co-op is something I relish in horror games as long as they don't overpower the players too much.
I have to admit there's less and less horror in RE's survival-horror niche. I do hope they make another horror franchise. Preferably one where you don't shoot anything that moves and the enemies are not test-tube made freaks.
I mean who wouldn't want a new RE-like game with vampires and such? Oh and please make the horror genuine. Don't rely on startling people...
He comes off a bit whiny, but I completely see his point. If you created a fictional world, you'd likely be apprehensive if somebody else took creative control of it.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read a devlopper say, seriously. It's like saying to Capcom, you can't do it as well as I do, and it just makes him look like an Ego maniac!
I mean, Kojima makes one of the biggest franchise in the industry and he still praise other's job on his franchise.
Honestly, Mikami should've kept his promise and cut his own head off when RE4 came out on PS2.
@jmill87: Because it's smoother than jeans and tee-shirts and geek-cuts. Although if you search on youtube there is video of Mikami during the maiking of RE1 with HUGE glasses and a bowl cut before his fashionista transformation. Another look at his reinvented fashion conscious self can be found on the zelda documentary, look for it on youtube if you want.
@new_pornographer: T-shirts and jeans are the classic cool, and there is no need for them to ever leave the fashion world. They're practical and not ugly. Mid fashion, if you will. They've lasted for a much longer time than any other fashion, and high fashion is just another way of saying "I'm going to be embarassed by this in a few years"
My style hasn't changed in well over a decade, and there's no reason for it to. If it looks good now, it will always look good. If I happen to look like everyone else, ok... If I don't look like anyone else, great.
I always find it disturbing how a video game company can take a franchised game that was the brain child of one of their employees and completely rip it away from that person.
So just because you work for a company, you don't own the rights to anything you create there? That has to be frustrating, to see something you created being whored out in all the wrong ways.
Another example is Hideki Kamiya, creator of Devil May Cry. He didn't know DMC2 was being made until another employee came up to his office and stated 'Hi, I'm directing DMC2. Any helpful tips?'. Kamiya hadn't heard anything previously, and of course was completely stunned. no wonder so many people leave Capcom, only Keiji Inafune seems valued by them and can even greenlight projects.
I kinda see where Mikami's coming from here...RE5's not really the fifth Resident Evil I would've thought to make if I was looking at it from a series perspective.
That's not to say it's a bad game, but like with RE4, I'm having trouble placing it in the series to any meaningful degree. RE4 could've been its own game and still been awesome, and RE5 seems to be continuing that tradition. At least Wesker's in it.
I guess I just want the old zombies back. Parasites are lame.
A lot of people have completly and utterly misunderstood what he is saying. Firstly he did make RE4 (as much as a single person can make a game), so it isn't that he is annoyed that the series has gone from survival horror to action horror.
He is simply saying that if he developed the game he would have done things differently so even if RE5 is the greatest game ever he would still simply be thinking how it isn't the game he would have wanted to make. He even states it will be fun if you aren't me.
The guy did RE4 so I think he can be allowed to say if he sees anything wrong in RE5 he will be annoyed. I would have loved to see how he would have refined RE4. That game is damn near perfect. No other game has ever come even remotely close to it in terms of pacing and change of environments.
@Zim: Exactly. I think it's sorta like how Kojima was saying that if the team for MGS5 used an idea of his for the game, then he wouldn't feel right unless he were working on the game directly. So he wants to be hands-off unless something goes wrong. Obviously Kojima also has at least one other reason for wanting, but to me it seems to have parallels with this story.
If the game is your baby so to speak, it can be hard to watch other people take control of it and basically take a new iteration in their own direction.
I actually feel the same as Mikami. As a fan of Resident Evil, RE4 and RE5 are completely different from the rest of the series. Their genres aren't even the same anymore. (RE's below 4 are Survival Horror, RE4/RE5 are Action Horror) The newer games are fun, don't get me wrong. I just think they are more of a spinoff game of the RE series, like Dead Aim or Survivor. I still have times I peak at the original gameplay trailer for biohazard 4 and think of what could of been if that game didn't get reworked to the RE4 we know today.
@giant_chibi: Yes, I was being smarmy, but ultimately games have to choose on a sort of a slider between "Amazing storyline" and "Appealing to mass interests who just want to shoot things"
There are, of course, benefits to moving that slider in either direction.
What I am also saying is that anyone who complains about the story in RE4 is delusional, because the RE storyline has NEVER been "better". It's only been more convoluted.
Gamers need to get over the idea that the more twisted and lengthy a plotline is, the better it was somehow. Stories shouldn't take effort to understand, only effort to analyze and find meaning within, like a good book.
RE4 should be praised for having a more basic plot than its predecessors.
Of course, this doesn't really have any relevance to the subject at hand, and so... I can understand why some people may mourn the loss of the old RE games, but the controls were most of the reason the games were hard.
It's like old NES games. How many were difficult simply because of their control schemes?
But since you can't bank on broken control schemes to increase a game's difficulty, you'll have to find other ways, otherwise you'll lose money.
I think it's a good direction for the series. May anyone who disagrees forever cherish the existing and numerous entries.
11/29/08
11/29/08
Again, Mikamisan took RE4 in its new direction in the first place.
11/29/08
The aiming and such are obviously better but at what cost? It does play like a shooter now compared to a horror game. In that perspective, I understand where the people want this game to go old-school once again.
On the other hand, a lot of people were pissed at Capcom for keeping the clunky controls in the first place, and Capcom does need the RE namesake so it'll move a bajillion copies.
Don't get me wrong I'll be getting RE5. Co-op is something I relish in horror games as long as they don't overpower the players too much.
I have to admit there's less and less horror in RE's survival-horror niche. I do hope they make another horror franchise. Preferably one where you don't shoot anything that moves and the enemies are not test-tube made freaks.
I mean who wouldn't want a new RE-like game with vampires and such? Oh and please make the horror genuine. Don't rely on startling people...
11/28/08
11/29/08
If it's anything like how we feel I bet they cry themselves to sleep everytime one of them is released.
11/28/08
11/29/08
Do you really want to sully a gaming page with a quote from a testosterone-overdosed moronathon like Dwayne Johnson?
11/28/08
11/28/08
I mean, Kojima makes one of the biggest franchise in the industry and he still praise other's job on his franchise.
Honestly, Mikami should've kept his promise and cut his own head off when RE4 came out on PS2.
11/29/08
If he had done that, we'd all miss out on whatever he has up his sleeve.
11/28/08
11/28/08
11/29/08
01/11/09
My style hasn't changed in well over a decade, and there's no reason for it to. If it looks good now, it will always look good. If I happen to look like everyone else, ok... If I don't look like anyone else, great.
11/28/08
So just because you work for a company, you don't own the rights to anything you create there? That has to be frustrating, to see something you created being whored out in all the wrong ways.
11/29/08
Another example is Hideki Kamiya, creator of Devil May Cry. He didn't know DMC2 was being made until another employee came up to his office and stated 'Hi, I'm directing DMC2. Any helpful tips?'. Kamiya hadn't heard anything previously, and of course was completely stunned. no wonder so many people leave Capcom, only Keiji Inafune seems valued by them and can even greenlight projects.
11/28/08
Unfortunately they are massively better in pretty much every regard to said series, and I really don't miss that it's changed.
Though I would wholly support a return to actual zombies as enemies. That much I will concede.
11/28/08
Well, he did kinda make and direct RE4...
11/28/08
That's not to say it's a bad game, but like with RE4, I'm having trouble placing it in the series to any meaningful degree. RE4 could've been its own game and still been awesome, and RE5 seems to be continuing that tradition. At least Wesker's in it.
I guess I just want the old zombies back. Parasites are lame.
11/28/08
He is simply saying that if he developed the game he would have done things differently so even if RE5 is the greatest game ever he would still simply be thinking how it isn't the game he would have wanted to make. He even states it will be fun if you aren't me.
The guy did RE4 so I think he can be allowed to say if he sees anything wrong in RE5 he will be annoyed. I would have loved to see how he would have refined RE4. That game is damn near perfect. No other game has ever come even remotely close to it in terms of pacing and change of environments.
11/28/08
11/28/08
If the game is your baby so to speak, it can be hard to watch other people take control of it and basically take a new iteration in their own direction.
11/28/08
11/29/08
What, like RE4?
11/28/08
11/28/08
/agree
11/28/08
It's just not a novel.
Which it isn't anyway, since it's a video game.
So I don't see the issue.
11/28/08
a. don't typically have amazing storylines
or
b. don't necessarily need good storylines
Both ring true, but not all games fall under either category
personally, i loved hotel dusk, which plays out alot like a mystery novel and i don't mean the way you held the ds, but the story of it all as well.
11/28/08
There are, of course, benefits to moving that slider in either direction.
What I am also saying is that anyone who complains about the story in RE4 is delusional, because the RE storyline has NEVER been "better". It's only been more convoluted.
Gamers need to get over the idea that the more twisted and lengthy a plotline is, the better it was somehow. Stories shouldn't take effort to understand, only effort to analyze and find meaning within, like a good book.
RE4 should be praised for having a more basic plot than its predecessors.
Of course, this doesn't really have any relevance to the subject at hand, and so... I can understand why some people may mourn the loss of the old RE games, but the controls were most of the reason the games were hard.
It's like old NES games. How many were difficult simply because of their control schemes?
But since you can't bank on broken control schemes to increase a game's difficulty, you'll have to find other ways, otherwise you'll lose money.
I think it's a good direction for the series. May anyone who disagrees forever cherish the existing and numerous entries.
11/28/08
11/29/08
Yeah I'm sure Mikami has the last word on when projects based on an ex-employers' Intellectual Property can start.