According To Hideki Kamiya, Ōkami's Development Team Was 'Weak'

The section for on Capcom's site is for game series. I know that a lot of people forget that Okamiden exists, but a few hundred thousand of those 4.1 million is from the DS title.

Why not to use vowels with macron everywhere when they needed? Like, Shuntarō Furukawa, instead of Shuntaro.

Don't most offices have someone that's a bit rubbish? At least they still got a great game in the end.

Okami is a game with a beautiful art style, and some of the most 6/10 gameplay I’ve ever played lol. Idk if that’s a result of a “weak team” but the moment to moment enjoyment of controlling Amy and Issun is south of any of their more mechanically sound titles.

Bizarre statement considering the end product. Nothing wrong with Okami in my opinion.

His comments have been attributed to an overly tight necktie.

@ScalenePowers I agree the art direction is excellent, but even then I find it can look a bit iffy in motion. I was thrown off by the cardboard cutout trees that rotated with the camera, and while some animations are beautifully fluid, many look stiff and artificial.

The pulsating head animations when characters talk make it look like their brains are about to explode, and the lack of facial animations in general robs the characters of nuance… I didn’t find the dialogue particularly endearing either.

I know it’s supposed to be the ‘Zelda for the sophisticated, aesthetically-minded gentleman/lady of culture’, but… I think the original Wind Waker holds up far better in terms of aesthetics, gameplay, world-building, character-building, general expressiveness, and… well, just pure fun!

@Maxz lmao I saw that someone responded and was like “oh no Okami fans are coming for me!” But I’m glad you agree!
I think that I’m able to overlook a lot of the shortcomings with the visuals for the sake of it having been a PS2 game (like the trees,) but I agree that the character models communicating in their funky way doesn’t do their bland dialogue any favors!

I don’t much care for the Zelda comparisons either! It is just an action adventure game? Wind Waker certainly holds up better and you know what? Twilight Princess does too. I that games art style is massively under appreciated

The game has a level of nonstop dialogue and wacky NPCs constantly interrupting the flow of gameplay that would make the original era of 3D Zelda blush.

@ScalenePowers I wouldn’t be surprised if we both get dragged over hot coals eventually… but yeah, I’ve never really understood the Zelda comparisons.

I mean, there’s action… and adventure… and a vaguely fantastical setting, but the two series feel worlds apart. For some reason I’d assumed that Ōkami was released some time before Wind Waker and so could be forgiven for being a ‘product of its time’. I got a reality check when I looked it up and found that Ōkami was actually released in 2006 — as opposed to 2002 for Zelda.

It’s funny to think there was a time when Sony’s machine couldn’t graphically keep up with Nintendo’s. How things have changed.

That was a really inciteful video. Looking forward to the next part.

@Vyacheslav333 doesn't seem like common knowledge for non-Japanese speakers to get that right every single time it occurs. Doesn't really detract from the article either

This game could really benefit from a full graphical overhaul. We now have the perfect tech to do what they wanted to do back in the day.

That's probably frustration talking because the guy wanted a better team. Any junior employee needs to be micromanaged until they are autonomous. It doesn't mean they are "the worst", they are just not up to speed. Ok, some people just suck forever, but you get my point.

What a shame. But please make another one. ='(

Glad I watched the video for better context. Headlines a little bit clickbait-y and nearly invoked a direction reaction (although TBF it does say watch the full interview).

I get it - he wanted a dream team to create an outstanding title and not everyone on the team was passionate about the project, especially when they shifted the graphical style away from realism.

That being said - if his team was so weak to create what is (frankly IMO) a solid 10/10 experience that is as good as if not creatively better than the Zelda games from back then, then that’s still pretty impressive. What high standards he had lol.

Overall, I’m pretty glad they shifted style though as it’s what sets the game apart (like Wind Waker for Zelda). The painterly watercolour effect and 2D brushstroke assets over 3D was spellbinding to me back in the day and something that set my creative side ablaze.

On top of that there is this real enrichment from Japanese culture and folklore that makes Okami feel magical.

It’s a shame the full story never got told as (apart from Omamiden) this game needed a sequel with the way it ended, sort of felt like I’d watched multiple episodes of Season 1 of an anime but Season 2 never got commissioned. As it was the game was 3 times bigger than I initially thought it would be since every boss climax made me think it was endgame… only to open itself out further which was really impressive back in the day.

Just talked myself into playing this game again. Love Okami. Will continue to dream for a proper sequel that won’t happen.

Imagine working for a director who talks ***** about your team in the media — even 20 years later (and after Ōkami becoming a signature game for the studio he was part of). I would not want to work for this guy.

I mean, if he got drunk, tied a tie around his head, and challenged his team to a spicy ramen eating contest, then beat them all and called them weak. That’s understandable (respect worthy even).

Actually saying the team sucks, mocking the game itself (sales) and diminishing the love of the fanbase who invested in it? Not good.

Kamiya with no filter, everyone. But I sorta get what he was saying. After his success with DMC he was was allowed to carve out Clover, and they sorta bet the farm on Okami (and branded themselves in the game…look at all the Clovers you dig up and the game’s ending made it obvious they were expecting to do a full console sequel imo) and it absolutely flopped in Japan. So many people forget that. Even worse, the original PS2 version didn’t look amazing (I always thought they would have been better served releasing it on GameCube because even Viewtiful Joe showed that the PS2 was weaker hardware between the two versions.) but that was where the instal base was. Plus I think that Kamiya had hoped that Okami would carve out its own market similar to DMC (especially given that DMC was originally a BioHazard game) but instead it was too japanese for the Japanese (despite Goemon games imo being just as heavy handed on the cultural jokes and folks loved them) and it got endlessly compared to Zelda, which I never found any interview that said that was their intention.

So they tried to release their magnum opus, a game that if initially successful, would essentially give Kamiya his own studio with endless corporate backing and instead they got a game that didn’t quite work (imo the original PS2 controls were a little finicky and the game has a lot of moving parts such as the minigames also the pacing is odd in some areas), he didn’t get the cream of the crop employees, the game was not seen as its own thing and his game flopped in the region it should have sold best (and was butchered in localization to the west) and eventually his studio was shuttered.

His vision was vindicated in the end but given the results (Clover shut down and Kamiya leaving Capcom and taking the best of Clover with him to form Platinum) I can see where this is coming from. People have to eat/pay bills now. Nobody wants to be the artist remembered after the fact, be it posthumously or after their studio is shuttered. Considering Platinum didn’t fair much better, (having to do licensed games, many of their “classics” flopped or had to be rescued such as Bayonetta or W101. Many games he couldn’t go back to) since they didn’t have the money, I can understand why he was upset.

That being said he and his teammates produced some incredible games and his frustration (especially if he was drunk) doesn’t take away from that. And I feel he also acknowledges that as well. Granted I own Okami 5 times so I am biased as I was heavily invested in the game from the start. It probably doesn’t help that Okamiden is sorta the redheded stepchild and that Capcom markets the cult love of the first game but shuffled the second under the rug aside from merch and has essentially buried all other Clover games beyond merch.

We talk about crunch now but Japanese devs had a lot of pressure and few safety nets. Nintendo is honestly weird in that they would let devs travel for inspiration or would allow development resets and nobody (major that we know of) would get fired or demoted until they quit ala Konami.

What a d***. I wouldn’t want to work for him.

@CammyUnofficial @Vyacheslav333

Cammy is correct. I speak, read, and write Japanese at a relatively high level, but the reading audience doesn’t need to know the most precise reading form. Many won’t know ō means (unfortunately), but also in even the example you cite of Shuntaro, how would you get across that the Japanese R is rolled in a way to sound halfway like an L? I would say there is none and if the article is using the standard transliteration for most Japanese names, that is clearest to the largest amount of its readers. Just my 2円.

Lol. He was the director, right? Someone in a leadership position calling his team weak is pretty yikes. Anyone who's worked a day in their life knows where the problems actually come from, guy.

Also this is my personal opinion but I have always gotten the impression that Kamiya is frustrated that his vision has to be “translated”. He doesn’t have the technical ability (or money and time) to make a game from his brain to finished product and the process in between frustrated him. This is a for better or worse thing.

Obviously his team hammered out the kinks and corporate meddling probably kept him from getting them sued (and probably kept him from wasting money like with scalebound) given that his personality and humor are considered abrasive to many, but he is the singer songwriter that can’t play an instrument but wishes he could. He also imo wanted the freedom that Kojima had. Who for decades basically got a blank check from his parent company (until that blew up). Granted he lucked out better than Suda51 whom I would say has a lot of control over his work but that doesn’t translate to sales or a well made product (I am a fan of Suda51, mind you).

Unlike say Miyamoto-dono or Tezuka-dono that trusted the team (including randos they made playtest the Super Mario games) to translate their drawings and ideas into a finished product. (And as such they have lasted longer at their original companies.)

@PtM You had to realize how they worded that. They didn't say it was released on the Wii's launch but that it launch on Wii. In this case the word launch means the same as released just like how they use it for PS2, the game was not released on PS2's launch but launch on the PS2 platform in 2006.

@ScalenePowers I essentially have an Okami shrine my home (I own several statues including the F4F Amaterasu bust) and have bought the game 5 times, but I agree with you.

The game idea and artistic design and music are gorgeous (the localization not so much, but anyway) but the gameplay (even after the improvements of the wii version) still isn’t tight/as smooth as it should be. It really is an incredibly ambitious game but doesn’t quite do what it set out to do gameplay wise. And I feel a lot of Kamiya’s frustration speaks to that. And he isn’t wrong. At the same time I don’t think he knew how to get the team to refine the game further (especially since I think that the argument could be made that Platinum to a lesser extent has some of the same problems). Miyamoto-dono for instance was notorious for grabbing people and making them playtest and taking that feedback back to the team to try to improve gameplay. But the main point is somehow either he could convey to the team what needed to be changed or he had the a team with the technical expertise to know how to make that change.

IMO all of the Clover (and the original Platinum games and Bayo3) games feel like that. They are all highly ambitious and stylish games but they all could use some more time in the oven (and often different target hardware). And I say this as a major Clover/Platinum fan.

If I could change one thing about Okami, it would be to add an option to increase the natural text speed. Some of those constant intruding vignettes really needed to have moved faster.

This seems like a really mean thing to say? Plenty of people love the game, so I'm profoundly confused by this statement.

@PedroMatos This is the guy who blocks everyone on Twitter. I'm pretty sure he just doesn't like people.

4.1 million sales is still not enough for Okami.

Maybe he just couldn't see that his team wasn't so rubbish. I'm an old fogey who clings on to his old 8 and 16 bit games, but Okami was excellent.

I love Clover/Platinum's games, but can't stand this guy. Every interview or news story where he talks shows how much of a cantankerous jerk he is, and he seems like working for him would've been hell.

He's the boss that takes all of the glory but none of the blame.

@CupidStunt Most of those sales come from re-releases of the game on newer platforms; it originally tanked on the PS2 upon its initial release. Also, that username wags finger ~_~

I find the sales issue interesting but also puzzling. Okami was re-issued as one of the "Greatest Hits" line. From what I'm seeing, that means it should have cleared 400,000 for that original(pre "Hits") PS2 version.

I very much wanted to like PS2 Okami. It's well made in many ways, but I found it infuriating for some of the design choices. The intro can't be skipped and is nearly 20 minutes. Dialogue interrupts gameplay a lot and the character gibberish is grating. I found the "brush" to be unreliable which caused problems including having to repeat set pieces with cutscenes I could not skip(again with that). It was just very disappointing considering the high praise the game got. It's one of the number of times I've had to learn that game reviews are less useful to me than they had been in the past. If those issues are a reflection on anything, I'd say that goes to the director of the project.

To be clear, that's for the PS2 version specifically. I have heard that the game has been improved in significant ways, like being able to skip things. However, I'm not eager to try it again, but clearly it has its fans so it has succeeded as an experience that some people love.

What a rubbish thing of him to say. I bet a lot of the development team have a lot to say about him but have kept their opinions to themselves, or don't have a chance as with most of game development, the Director or Producer get all the praise. While the rest of the team actually do the damn work. Hopefully, after this outburst, we'll hear the other side about what it was like to work under Kamiya. I bet he was an absolute arse to work with.

Sheesh Kamiya, are you matter of fact, a hater, or part of the problem? Such a blunt individual that guy...

Lots of people here seemed to have watched the video with their brains turned off and earplugs on. If you're going to criticize him, try to have an understanding and empathy for what he is trying to convey.

All I see here is a beautiful video with two legends speaking from their hearts. Saved and favorited on YouTube

Him blaming the team is cowardly. He’s the boss, the mentor. Did he not mentor his apprentices? Did they not grow under his supervision? If they didn’t flourish under him then he is the one who is weak! His arrogant balloon should have popped long ago.

They still made one of my favorite games of all time so I think that's fine. He should be more respectful of the team even if they weren't all high skill veterans.

The ps3 remaster was actually really beautiful and the ds game was pretty good.

Kamiya comes across as quite a small person tbh, has done for years. He’s made some great gaming contributions but he comes across as a bit of a jerk. Time will soon tell whether PlatinumGames will actually miss him.

Wow, what a [Skeleton Warrior].

By saying that he's pretty much letting us know clearly that he was the weakest part of that team.

At the time Okami first released on PS2 the gaming community was obsessed with "realistic" graphics and Cel shading was frown upon by most gamers and regarded as kiddy.
I think that contributed alot to it underperforming saleswise.