(Originally posted January 19, 2010 on the Japanese Bayo-Blog)
A little late, but Happy New Year, everyone. Kamiya here. I’m not sure if it is because I run my mouth too much, but big brother ends up censoring me, so I haven’t really been able to give you all up-to-date information because my blog has been slow to update.
Since it is a New Year, I received various New Year’s cards and presents from our fans and others. They motivate me to work hard, so thank you so much!

So Bayonetta has finally been released worldwide, huh? Is everyone playing it having a good time? The game has been on-sale in Japan for more than 2 months now, and even though it is a game with its own peculiarities, people who love it seem to truly love it, which makes me quite happy.

Which leads me to some news… The one and only TIME magazine wrote about Bayonetta in their 1/25 issue! It was the video game pick for TIME’S PICKS FOR THE WEEK. This is pretty cool, as TIME is a huge magazine, with a circulation of over 3.3 million readers in North America!

Hashimoto said the other day that he wanted to sell more copies of Bayonetta than the original Devil May Cry, to which I replied, “Not happening…” (LOL) Anyways, I think that this game is where we planted the seeds for something that will eventually grow into a tree with a stout trunk. But I just say that kind of thing and then leave things be…Which ends up with me getting stuck with some sort of global label as someone who doesn’t want to make sequels. (LOL)

Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally posted on the Japanese Bayo-blog on December 25, 2009, but withheld due to spoilers.)

Hello, I am an animator here at PlatinumGames. You can call me Nakajo. It seems early, but it is already Christmas, huh? The office building that houses PlatinumGames has an enormous Christmas tree that really sparkles and shines, attracting huge crowds of revelers even on the weekends. This is the third tree that has welcomed the Bayonetta project, but this year things have calmed down, so I was able to look at the tree in a new light. (Don’t ask what it was like before this year…)

About My Role on Bayonetta
I jointed Team Little Angels primarily as an enemy animation designer. The senior animators on the team have already gone over much of the animation here on the blog; however, I thought I would talk a little bit about one of the Cardinal Virtues, Temperantia, and the Infernal Demon summon that finishes off the boss.
(I thought the animators’ blogs were finished up with Uchi’s blog… But I got called in to write one… I’m writing this now half-crying because I just couldn’t figure out what to include…)

When animating the Temperantia fight, I worked making sure to absolutely avoid destroying the sense of scale, all the while paying attention to the sense the heft and speed the fight had. With something as big as Temperantia, getting a sense of heft and scale requires the attack motions to get bigger and bigger, so I had to go through numerous… numerous… numerous… revisions to make sure the attacks didn’t come from off-screen. (If you are attacked from off-screen, you can’t see the locus of the blow, making it impossible to dodge, right?)

Since the main part of Temperantia is SO big during that fight, the boss actually ends up being the stage, and we included various gameplay devices to this end. Some new big of gameplay would be put into the game and then go through numerous… numerous… numerous… revisions. (Again!!)

With the Infernal Demon summons, they would start by deciding Bayonetta’s summoning pose. Uchi-san also posted about the motion capture process in a previous blog, but I would patch things up using some of the stored motion capture data.

However, there is a limit as to how far you can use this data, and having things like “win poses” overlap with each other wouldn’t be good, so it was always a bit of a difficult situation when we’d begin to argue over poses:
“Hey, I’m using that pose already.”
“Really? I’ll look for something else…”

Once Bayonetta’s pose was locked down, I then moved on to how the Infernal Demon and Temperantia would interact. In Temperantia’s case, he is met by the six-armed demon Hekatoncheir. It was consulting with Kamiya-san, who wanted to make sure that this thing was powerful, that we decided to increase his number of arms from two to six. (Huh? He only used to have two… But six is three times as powerful! And three times as much work!! *cries*) During production, I got a really weird sweat and two or three times I thought that my soul might literally escape out of my mouth; however, I was able to finish the product.

Bayonetta is a game that holds many things and memories; however, having users play it and enjoy it would make me happy.

That’s all for now!

Kamiya here. Lately I’ve been listening to the Bayonetta soundtrack while working, but whenever I listen to the music from the latter half of the game, I have some sort of conditioned response to remember being in a nice warm bath, staring back at downtown Osaka (Umeda). It doesn’t leave me in a good mood. Ahhh… The last part of Bayonetta’s development was really brutal, and since I couldn’t go home, using the spa here at our offices in the Umeda Sky Building to wash away the days fatigue was the only thing I really had to look forward to; however, it seems like that left an indelible impression on my psyche. The spa on the 22^nd floor has an unbroken view of Umeda, so during the day I would escape the development floor and head up to soak my messed up body in the bath. While soaking, looking out at skyscrapers under the expansive blue sky, it felt so great, like I was in heaven… When I hear the track that plays before you enter Balder’s Room, “Paradiso – Sea of Stars,” or the final track, “The Greatest Jubilee,” I feel completely opposite to the track names themselves; it’s delusional, like I’m getting sucked into hell. Both of the tracks were composed for us by Mr. Rei Kondo… Sorry… They really are good tracks… (LOL)

Speaking of the soundtrack, it isn’t just songs created by PlatinumGames staff. We had the opportunity to work with lots of people outside of the company, which I am really grateful for. From Rei Kondo, to all the staff at GEM Impact, to Hiro-san at SEGA, thank you from the bottom of my heart! I’d love to work together again!

On to the next… A while back Wizard Magazine held an art contest entitled Bayonetta Re-Envisioned, and lots of great works were selected as prize winners. Of course, we had a say in who won, and the staff all looked at all of the entries! The Grand Prize winner was one that I selected personally.

The idea of taking Bayonetta’s design and using that as a starting point for a brand new concept was a rather unusual experiment for a contest, and all of the entries obviously showed a lot of passion, each one amazing in its own right. Because of this, there were works that we weren’t able to include in the contest, but were so good that we just couldn’t get them out of our heads. That is why we would like to point them out and recognize them here on the blog.

First up is a work by Michael Hiscott. Our concept designer Ikumi Nakamura picked this one. The cherry blossom trees in the background mesh well with Bayonetta.

Shimazaki picked a work by Chuan Ju Lee. Bayonetta started with the idea that witches had to be black, but this image boldly threw black right out the window.

Shimazaki also picked another work, this one by Alexander Gordon. It’s fancy, like it could be an illustration in a fairy tale collection.

Next is a work by Brent Patrick Wilson. This one is incredible… It was a design contest for Bayonetta, but Rodin and Jeanne are so prominent that they are the only thing we really noticed.

Actually, this work by Joshua Meeks was the most popular among the team. It looks like it was created with colored pencil on drawing paper (?), but posing Bayonetta in such a dynamic drop kick is the work of no mere amateur.

Finally, we have a work by Randall Louis. The design, expression, and pose got stuck in our heads and we just couldn’t forget it. If there were a CD with this image as its cover, I would buy it without question.

So what do you think? For all the works that we picked up in this post, we are going to send the artists a copy of the Bayonetta soundtrack, which is currently on sale only in Japan! Because of the differences in markets and the such, we aren’t sure if the Bayonetta soundtrack will be released officially overseas; however, this 5 disc set is a gem, filled with what we feel is only the best content, so I think that you will find it enjoyable.

Well, that wraps it up. Until next time!

Picture: A promotional item that will be given out in Germany. Here is a picture of the back…

Picture: It has a Gates of Hell logo. What could be inside?

Picture: A lollipop! Cherry flavored, I think? But it’s got a kick to it. Definitely not that kind of flavor you would encounter in Japan. (LOL)

Hello everyone. Character designer Mari Shimazaki here with some good news.

It has been something like two months since Bayonetta saw release in Japan. For those of you still playing Bayonetta, or those of you taking a little break, we’ve still got more Bayonetta to give you, so stay with us just a bit longer.

Which brings me to today’s announcement.

As Hashimoto-san mentioned on the Xbox Live Park broadcast here in Japan, we are going to put out a book collecting the design materials we used for Bayonetta. Woohoo!

It will be a little while until it’s released, but here are the details:

Bayonetta Design Collection (Temporary Title)
Release Date: Q1 2010 (Planned)
Price: TBD
Publisher: Enterbrain

It’s going to be a really thick book, as we are going to include almost all of the images we’ve used in promoting Bayonetta! (We were unable to get rights clearances for a few of them…)

Japanese gamers will get a chance to see art that we’ve only released in the West (which there were quite a few we made behind the scenes), as well as peeks at unreleased character, enemy, background, and weapon designs. There will also be CG illustrations and some new easter-egg illustrations (that I’m working on right now) amongst others. Overall, there will be more than 500 pieces of content to sink your teeth into! There will also be tons of comments from the development team (which they are working on now) to round out this monster collection! Look forward to it!

Whenever I end up working on one of these expansive books, I always end up feeling like, “This is sad. I have to show off all of these designs that got shot down… And they are from years ago as well.”
Even though I love looking at others people’s stuff… this poses a real dilemna for me.

Well, enough of my grumbling, I’m going to stay focused on working on the book for now, and even though it will be a while until it is in your hands, I hope you all look forward to it.

Well, I guess the world is all wrapped up in Christmas colors now.

How did you all spend the Christmas holidays? December 25 was actually our last work day here at PlatinumGames, but I am sure plenty of us went out drinking after we wrapped up.

Until next time.

More…

Producer Yusuke Hashimoto here, now with a completely stuffed mail box since all the games I ordered online all showed up the other day. (Strangely enough, my package delivery box was empty though…)

So Bayonetta will be released on 1/5 in North American and 1/8 in Europe and Australia! I hope all of our fans overseas are looking forward to it. It’s been a quick two months since the release in Japan. When I think about the opportunity to expand the borders of the game and have even more people try it out, I can only get excited. So that is why I wanted to write a blog entry about some of the marketing efforts we are partaking in overseas. First up is the TV commercial we will be airing overseas.

The commercial features a soundtrack provided by La Roux, an incredibly popular band in Europe. Compared to the Japanese commercial, it is a much darker, but very cool! For me, this kind of dark commercial hits my personal sweetspot because it fits the game’s atmosphere quite nicely. Actually, for the Japanese MTV Special for Bayonetta, La Roux came in for a chat with MiChi. During filming, the director of the show, Sakuma-san, mentioned that he thought that La Roux were “insane.” We watched one of their music videos, and I had to admit it was pretty cool. What was funny was the we watched the same song that we ended up using in the commercial, “In for the kill (Skream’s Let’s Get Ravey Remix).” When I think about the track, I realized that Bayonetta really has been an incredibly collaborative project, from our cutscene action director Yuji Shimomura’s involvement and on down the line.

Continuing on, I have to mention the Scarborough Fair model that will come as a pre-order bonus for Bayonetta in Europe. At first, I wanted them to make a full set of the four guns, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, or if they could only make one, to include a set of the four dangling accessories to be attached; however, due to a variety of reasons, including cost, we could only make one gun… It is a shame that we couldn’t make four, but I am still happy to see one of the in-game items come to life. Check it out:

By the way, it seems Bioshock 2, coming out next year, is going to have a vinyl record as one of the items in its Western limited edition. (I wanted to do a gold disc or a vinyl LP for Bayonetta as well…) I’m really looking forward to the game, but I am also a huge fan of these sorts of limited editions, ones that are filled with the spirit of those making the game. I wanted to do all sorts of limited edition items for the Japanese release (Bayonetta/Jeanne glasses, Black cat earrings, lipstick, Bayonetta’s brooch clock, a Cheshire stuffed animal, or even a cellphone strap of the Bayonetta doll from the map screen), but as an original title, it is hard to get these sort of things actually made.

I’m always taking applications for manufacturers who want to make products out of things our users would enjoy, so if you think your company is up to the task, get ahold of us here at PlatinumGames. Also, we’d love to hear from our fans about what things they think would make great items, so make sure to get ahold of us and let us know!

That wraps up the PR related stuff, so I thought I would leave you with some of the character designs for the dance-battle-famed Joy.

There really aren’t that many chances to design female characters, especially in the enemy realm, so it was fun to design Joy. Her weapon changes shape in real time, and I tried adding something at its very tip, like something out of an ancient (?) civilization. However, when I designed her, I had no idea her torture attack would end up being anything like THAT…

We’ve seen quite a few users uploading some impressive gameplay videos, and I am looking forward to seeing what kind of videos users overseas come up with. Finally, we’ve got a really cool thing were planning for that may surprise you, so look forward to what’s coming soon!

Hey, everyone! Did anyone get a chance to see episode 8 of BayoTV on our Japanese site? I tried to watch it myself, but I was so messed up that I couldn’t make it to the end!

If you are wondering what that costume was about, it is the same costume as I use in my avatar here on the blog.

Last I heard from Hashimoto-san, we still don’t have firm plans for a western version of Bayo-TV, so if it doesn’t make it out there, check out Bayo-TV at http://bayonetta.jp/bayotv/

This was also a character I used when I was writing on the PlatinumGames corporate blog when we started the company. (Japanese)

http://platinumgames-blog.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/01/post_0bc9.html
http://platinumgames-blog.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/02/post_5856.html

I’d love to write on there again if I ever find some more free time.

So, have any of you had the chance to check out the higher difficulty levels in Bayonetta? Actually, I did some of the spot checking on the upper two levels of difficulty during the end of the development. The request was to make sure “a normal human being can get pure platinum if they try really hard.” As I am apparently “representative of normal human beings” I worked on balancing the game up until the last days before the deadline. In Bayonetta, accumulating points is a rather important element of the gameplay, and one of the ways this can be accomplished is via the various interactive action events. I tried to avoid really complicated inputs, and focused directly on pressing the buttons and rotating the analog stick during these sections…

Suffice it to say, in order to earn points, I would play from morning until night, pressing buttons and rotating the analog stick to the very limit over multiple play-throughs, and ending up with a fat right forearm in return. I think I hit on a new sort of exercise equipment. (That only works for your right forearm…)

Amongst all her moves, from the guns to the summons, there is one pillar that explores the more sadistic side of Bayonetta’s actions – the anti-Witch Hunt moves known as Torture Attacks.

Iron Maiden & Guillotine

The first one that I thought up was the Iron Maiden. It was the easiest one to think up, and very fast to nail down, thus becoming the basis for all the designs that came after. The main part of the design is the face design patterned off of real Iron Maidens used during the Middle Ages. However, just tossing something into the game like that wouldn’t be very interesting, so I gave it a little extra organic movement for kicks. That we went all the to making the Iron Maiden belch is kinda in line with what you see in the game.

The Guillotine is also a major torture attack, and I’d like to expand upon it here. However, simply using device based attacks tends to end up being “summon and done”style gameplay, so Kamiya-san and the animators would scheme up ideas that, when just hearing about, are almost unpalatable for public consumption.

For example:

“She’s just going to keep kicking him in the ass.”

“He’ll get split in two… But really, really slowly.”

“Japanese rope bondage.”

The basic color scheme was gold inlays over black, and to make people feel like this guillotine has long been in use, I attached some of it’s previous “spoils” to the side. By the way, enemies that can’t be stopped by this guillotine seem to grow their necks back. Must be angels or something…?

Gravestone & Chainsaw

The previous two torture attacks were designed to be used with frontal and rear attacks, so then I went to work on a “Dropping Tombstone” to be used when attacking a downed enemy. I drew plenty of ideas, but we ended up going with the first one on the right. The more you press the action button, the larger and more extravagant the tombstone becomes. We even occasionally dropped a Japanese style grave randomly; however, we changed this to an idea that Kamiya-san had of a 16 ton weight. Seriously, can that man love Fantasy Zone any more!? (For me it is more of the 16 ton weight from SEGA Game Library available on the Mega Drive [Genesis].)

Also, we had to include the weapon-du-jour, a chainsaw. I designed the non-moving parts to see very organic. Perhaps in Inferno, these things are swimming around in schools.

Stone Horse & Mysterious Fish (Rejected)

The stone horse is something that no sadistic witch could be without. Once you get a look at it in the game, you’ll realize that this one is alive, too. It has spikes on its back that look incredibly painful, and we also planned to include a rose whip as a set with this item. With all this going on, Joy must have gotten really tied up, so to speak. But I didn’t know how she would really get tied up, so I had to check some of “those” sites during work hours to get the production down just right…

The fish was a rejected idea. It was based off the fish from an old game that may have involved Balloons and Fighting, but we didn’t really have a place to put it in the game, so it got pushed to the back of the stack.

Vise, Blender (Rejected) & Bird Cage (Rejected)

The vise was actually designed by Shimako, who stepped in as a pinch hitter while I was busy with other work. The palms being jagged like a washboard is a relly nice touch. In the game, as you rotate the analog stick, Bayonetta methodically turns the crank on the vise. I think it is probably the best example of a point in the game where the player and Bayonetta are in complete synchronization.

We didn’t have anywhere to fit the Blender into the game, so it got cut. Although, I think if we would have put it in the game, things would have gotten messy in more ways than one.

The bird cage was actually a Middle Ages torture device, but there wasn’t really a way to turn it into an action oriented event, so it was cut. I would have loved to stick chains on it and spin it around, but anytime I explain why my idea was so cool, no one would understand. That sucked.

There are many more torture attacks in the game, and they all been imbued with a bit of a sadistic edge, so I think you will enjoy watching them carefully and trying to pick out all the details. There we also ideas I didn’t get to use that I’d love to use we ever get another crack at things. Maybe they will end up alongside weapon ideas in another game…

As the weapons chief of PlatinumGames, I want to continue designing incredible weapons like the ones in this post. My aim – to be a sort of video game DARPA. (The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Also, JP has an announcement he wanted me to pass along:

For our fans in Europe, check out the Eurogamer Bayonetta minisite, where you can enter competitions to wined signed copies of Bayonetta, pre-order the game, and try to beat Kamiya-san’s high score on the Xbox 360 demo.

http://www.eurogamer.net/bayonetta/

So with that, I hope you all have a great time being a real witch.

A confused Kamiya here… I finally fixed the settings on my router the other day, and now my iPod touch gets online no problem, so I can lie around watching Nico Nico videos and wasting money on the App Store, not to mention that I don’t have to go through the connection process every time I turn on my Macbook Air as it just works now! It’s great! But when I think that, I also think that I bought the thing a year ago, and I have no idea what the heck I was doing…

Bayonetta has seen release, and I’m happy that I’ve been able to see Japanese fans getting excited these days, but now we have the Western release to look forward to, and I am getting excited all over again. For instance, the demo was made available to fans on December 3! I’d love for you all to get a feel for Bayonetta personally, as action games live and die on how they feel to play, and the best way to experience that is to pick up a controller and give it a shot yourself. I’ve always said that I don’t say, “I want you to buy our game.” I say, “I want you to play our game.” So, the first thing that I would like you to check out is how it feels to play Bayonetta, as that feeling is something that is very important to us.

Also, for every blog that I write, I do get the chance to read all of the comments that you send in. Thank you all so much! I know we made many of you wait for a while after the Japanese release, but even if it is just a day closer, I hope to share the excitement of Bayonetta with you all soon.

I forgot to blog about this earlier, but did you all get the chance to check out the MTV Japan Bayonetta special that aired on October 28? During the show, Hashimoto came out and was so incredibly nervous that his face turned a strange color, but more importantly, I want to write about recording the narration for the show. The recording took place on October 25, and I was able to sit in.

Bayonetta was narrated by the same voice actress that did the voice-over for the Japanese Bayonetta TV commercials, Ms. Atsuko Tanaka. Amongst members of the team, we would often ask the question, “If someone were to play Bayonetta, who would be good?” Tanaka-san’s name always came up in these conversations, and I, too, was looking forward to the recording.

Once we got into the studio, I saw Tanaka-san already reading the script and practicing her lines. It was my first time meeting her, and my impression of her was different than I had imagined. She has a quiet aura to her, and was soft spoken. However, the voice I heard through the speakers reading Bayonetta’s lines was powerful and vigorous, just like our heroine. Maybe it was because of the gap between her appearance and her performance, but I was left speechless.

I was sitting in on the sessions to explain Bayonetta’s character traits to Tanaka-san, and I thought that I would have to occasionally step in to direct her, but the fear that I would have to do was a bit over-the-top. I ended up just being in awe of her the entire time… In fact, there was really no reason for me to even be there in the end. (LOL) Of course, I was incredibly pleased because it was a great experience for me. The wild ideas in my head really expanded in scope. For instance, if there is ever a chance for Bayonetta to have Japanese voices, I definitely want to ask Tanaka-san to fill the part…

The TV show’s director, Mr. Yoichi Sakuma, is truly a creative individual, and being able to watch from the sidelines was really great fun. Working with people like these really made me feel like we were going to make a great show. It was a wonderful day for me.

Picture: I got an autograph from Ms. Atsuko Tanaka! I asked her to write it out to “Hideki-kun,” just like Bayonetta would write it. Hehehe. Thank you so much for listening to my ridiculous request!

This is something I mentioned a while ago, but Hashimoto and I appeared on a Nico Nico live broadcast November 15 called “Xbox LIVE Park – Bayonetta Day!” This was my third time being on a live net broadcast. There was nothing like this when I was working on really highly anticipated titles like Resident Evil 2 or Devil May Cry. (Let’s not even get into the worldwide levels of anticipation for Viewtiful Joe or Okami… Suffice it to say, there were no live broadcasts either.) With Bayonetta, it seems that we are getting attention from a variety of places, which is something I am incredibly thankful for as this is an original title.

So on to the show… The show was set up where there was a section where we would answer user questions, another where we would show gameplay footage, etc., so we filled up our allotted 90 minutes. For someone who tends to say things off the record during interviews that would end up causing tons of problems, I get a little bit nervous with the live stuff because I know that I have to be a good boy… However, being able to talk with users directly over voice chat and the like, I was really able to get a taste of the fun that live presentations bring. I am already a big fan of Nico Nico videos, so it was incredible fun for me to see the comments streaming along to my own video.

The other thing that was, needless to say, hotly anticipated, was Japanese celebrity personality Kayo Police-san donning the Bayonetta cosplay costume! The costume, as you may know, has a bit of an audacious open-back design, but seeing her wearing it in person was really floored me. Being so innocent myself, I got so excited that I couldn’t look directly at what was going on… But I digress… Anyways, Kayo Police-san seems to be a pretty staunch fighting game fan when she games, but to make sure she was ready for the shoot, she put a good chunk of time into the retail version of Bayonetta (I hear she has even beaten the game now!) I am incredibly grateful for her enthusiasm towards Bayonetta. She even did a great job of picking up the slack when it looked like I was going to foul things up… Thank you so much, Ms. Kayo Police!

Picture: Ms. Kayo Police surrounded by a couple of old dudes. She has a style that makes you think she isn’t Japanese, and she wore the costume perfectly! Standing next to her, I really end up looking like Doraemon or something…

And now for something completely different… The other day I got the chance to have a chat with Mr. Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and the Smash Brothers series amongst others. Speaking of Sakurai-san, I read your column all the way to the very end… I’m talking about the one in Famitsu, of course.

I was able to share a few words with Sakurai-san at this year’s TGS, but I had never really talked to him before that, and this new opportunity was kind of the first chance for the two of us to really sit down and chat. I’m sort of a shut-in, so I don’t really spend much time hanging out with other people in the industry; however, getting the chance to talk with him was quite stimulating, and I took much from our discussion. The details will have to come another time…

Other than that, I had a little time to meet a lot of other people in the industry. I was able to link the games that I see to the people that make them, with moments like “Oh, he made that game…” “So what?” you ask? Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but it was a really useful experience for me.

This month, I will also be appearing on Enterbrain’s live internet program, MIDNIGHT LIVE 360. It seems the plan is do to a one-on-one with none other than Hideo Kojima… The stuff that we talk about off-the-record is the most interesting, but we can’t really air that, can we!? (LOL) I have to be a good boy on this one, but I will still try to make it fun.

Finally, I forgot to mention this previously, but the Bayonetta Xbox 360 Premium theme is now available in Japan. It should make old-school gamers shed tears of joy, so if you got the guts to give it a try, definitely buy a copy on the Marketplace. Just to give you a hint about the theme… We created a concept called “Witch Girl Angel-land,” based around the idea of what would happen if Bayonetta was a 2D side-scroller. If Bayonetta was a 2D side-scroller, I would have definitely played the heck out it on release. You know, not buying any extra items in the game and saving up all the coins to show my true skills… The next concept is called “BAYO,” and it is based of the idea of Bayonetta as a strategy shooting game. If times hadn’t changed, this one would have definitely been ported over to the Master System… I would have played it to death along with my younger brother. The final concept was “Umbran Fighter,” or “what would happen if Bayonetta was a 3D fighting game?” I really want to play this one. For real.

So the theme is loaded with tons of little easter egg images based off wild ideas that make me happy. Let me get away with this one, OK. (LOL) Of course, our staff put hard work into the theme, so I can promise you it will be quality!

That wraps up it for this blog… See you soon!

Picture: Oh yeah, the other day, we sent off the prizes for the fan site contest we held in Japan. I went out and bought some iron-on transfers, printed out a special image at home, and brought it in for Shimazaki to do her magic with the iron, turning them into great t-shirts! Made with love at PlatinumGames.

Picture: A delighted Kai-san, the man in charge of making the Bayonetta pose for our special image. We were able to use this design by getting permission from Capcom. Thank you very much to all those who made this possible.

Hi everyone! I’m Yama-chan, a game designer here.

I was told to write about blog about the game design elements of Bayonetta, so here we go…

Even after we finished work, time passed as I got caught up in anticipation of this and that, but somehow, once I finish something, it seems like I have a disposition to forget what I’ve done. This time is no exception, and I feel my recollections may be rather dim…

That’s why I reintroduced myself to some of the old documents and such that I made. While I was looking at them, I would see things that would make me say, “Oh yeah, we had this!!” So I thought that I’d regret… I mean release these things and everyone could experience some of the trial and error that we went through at the beginning of Bayonetta.

The area around Vigrid Station is 50% larger than the original

The image above is the original size, and below is the same size as the shipping version, or 50% bigger than the upper image. The health bar is also an old version. At the beginning we decided that we wanted to make things real, which guided our decision making on size, but Bayonetta’s actions were much larger than we imagined, and that plan flew right out the window. Thus, we made the change towards bigger areas. Another reason was because we needed extra distance to compensate for Bayonetta’s fast movement and allow us time to load the stages into memory. The image quality differences are due to the implementation of graphical filters.

The Witch Time statues were originally Crystal Skulls

We had planned to let players carry the skull around like a normal weapon, and by pressing Punch and Kick simultaneously, Bayonetta would throw the skull to the ground and activate Witch Time.

We planned to allow Witch Walk in all areas of the game, instead of just limiting it to selected areas

Here is a peek at some of the Japanese design documents from Chapter 2.

The pages above are just pages 6 to 10 pulled from a 13 page design document. Unfortunately, I’m not able to share the full document for some “grown-up” reasons. The historic ruins of the Witch and Sage that appear in the full game was originally a church, and we had planned a stage around it where the player would use Witch Walk to move around the walls and proceed through the level. It was a stage with quite a few puzzles. Whenever we would try to include Witch Walk as a normal mechanic, things would almost certainly head for puzzle-laden territory, effectively bringing down the tempo of the game, or causing other side-effects like filling areas that have no connection to the action with Witch Walk. We kept getting further and further away from our original concept, so we decided to limit Witch Walk to specific situations. I think that Witch Walk, as a gameplay mechanic, would probably best be tried in a slower-paced 3D puzzle game. Oh, I forgot to mention that Shibata-san was in charge of the final Wind (Ancient Ruins) stage. I was in charge of the tutorial, and the opening of the game up until Fortitudo. I also had a hand in an area towards the end, but I can’t share much about it right now because it would be a spoiler.

The Torture Attacks originally went by names like Boredom Breaker, or the Fallen Angel Buster

What can I say, we were all raised on Kinnikuman.

The Witch Hearts were once Blue Orbs

Item names are, surprisingly, pretty all over the place until the very end of production. In-production enemy names usually end up being based on how they look or how we imagine them to be from their concepts, as during development enemies tend to change appearance and the like. When Don-san was writing his blog, he said something along the lines of “I don’t really know the enemy names.” Well, the truth is, I don’t know them either. (Yikes!)

Other than that, we even had ideas for an overworld map at the beginning of the game… But to share it now would definitely be a spoiler, so I will hold off. If they ever put out a Making-Of book, hopefully I will be able to share it with you all then.

I also wanted to share with you some full email conversations with myself and Kamiya-san that we shared while he was on a business trip overseas, but they all got cut out because they said that I was “going too far!” I guess there is such a thing as too long a blog…

So what do you think?

There are lots of ideas that are born and die over the course of a game development cycle, and some of these dead ideas had more significance than others. Spirits also rise and fall. Game development is filled with drama.

Hardware changes and so do the player bases… I suppose you could call it the passage of time. Game design is not just a simple issue of trial and error until you find something fun, as you get wrapped up in not only things like changes in hardware and players, but the many other tasks forced upon you that don’t have anything to do with finding fun. These are both production challenges as well as mental challenges…

But I think we got to this point by always going back to the starting point of “I want to make a fun game!” whenever we hit a wall and questioned whether we could honestly pull this off.

I don’t think that PlatinumGames will change it’s core principle – that of making fun games.

So did you enjoy Bayonetta? I hope you find it fun.

Until next time!

(This blog post originally appeared on the Japanese Bayo Blog on November 12, 2009.)

Hello again, everyone. Hideki Kamiya here. I just wanted to tell you all that I’m really getting a kick everyday out of watching the gameplay videos you are uploading. Uploading and watching videos of gameplay on the net was something I couldn’t do when I was a kid… I would stand behind people in the arcade and watch them play, figuring out strategies, or have a gallery of people behind me, pleased that they watching… Times have changed, right. I really don’t have anything to say against it personally. As long as people behave themselves and have fun, I’m happy.

Which brings us to my next point. I’m a little late to the party with this, but Bayonetta went on sale without a hitch! For the games that I’ve worked on up until now, I would hang out in the corner of a big box store and watch over sales that day; however, this time I had some work to do in Tokyo, so while I was there on the business trip, I checked out quite a few stores in Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Akihabara that were selling the game.

So how did it go? Well, to be honest, I couldn’t really tell! LOL. We were going around to the stores around lunchtime on a weekday, so there weren’t really that many customers in the aisles, and nowadays stores don’t really have people carry games up to the register, but instead look at a row of empty boxes and just tell the staff member which game they want. I didn’t really get to see the old school moment of someone picking up the game and taking it to the register to purchase… But what I did see were people standing in front of the empty boxes thinking about things, so I tried to send them a really strong telepathic message – “Just buy it already, go home, and have some fun!”

Picture: It’s definitely lunch time on a weekday. So I ended up by myself in the store since no one was around…

Picture: What the hell is this!? LOL.

That evening, we arrived in Akihabara, and when we went into Yodobashi Camera, we discovered that the 360 version of Bayonetta had sold out! The shipment numbers might have been a little tight, but it is a good thing when more people buy your game than the store imagined, don’t you think? (Apologies to all those who couldn’t pick it up!)

Picture: It’s the evening, and you can see more customers in the store. Seeing in-store displays like this really makes you happy.

Picture: The 360 version is sold out! It seems new titles really do have an uphill battle with regards to shipment numbers.

Picture: Seeing Bayonetta lined up with the Wii version of Okami made me kinda happy. LOL.

While we were going around to stores, we also took some time to check out some of the advertisements that were placed up in and around the Kanto region (Tokyo metropolitan area). I had previously taken a look at the ads, but seeing them in person is a whole different kind of impressiveness. I’m sure people around other areas of Japan wanted to see these as well, so my apologies. The development staff of the game in Osaka were quite envious as well. But the most important thing here is how to get people who don’t know about Bayonetta interested in the game. I hope that even one more person checks out the official site because they saw one of the ads and thought, “What’s this!?”

Pictures: Ads in Shibuya station. Get off the platform and right before your eyes is Bayonetta! If you look around, you will see tons of these large advertisements lined up. It was quite a sight, and there were even more than the ones shown here.

Pictures: Once you exited Shibuya station, the TV commercial was being played on the huge display right in front of you! Every 30 minutes the ad would play once, so I waited with bated breath for it to air. LOL. If you looked to your left, there was another ad on the huge cylinder of the 109 building. To see a game advertisement on the 109 building is an incredibly rare occurrence, or so I am told. But since it is the ever-so-fashionable Bayonetta, I think that is why they probably let us get away with it.

Pictures: In front of the station, Microsoft was handing out special flyers. I got one myself.

Pictures: This is the Shinjuku station “Peel-Away” poster! The “bad cards” were posted to cover up Bayonetta’s supple curves. By pulling them off, you were not only revealing Bayonetta, you could scan the card and go to a special website on your phone via QR barcodes. They were also scented with the faint smell of Bayonetta’s perfume. Watching things, girls, old men, and even grannies that would seemingly have no interest in games were looking carefully at the ad and pulling off the cards.

Pictures: She is really pretty, huh… The Bayonetta in the game is a bit harder edged, don’t you think? This girl doesn’t look like she would kick angels in the butt, knocking them into a guillotine and sending their heads flying… (LOL)

Picture: A digital advertisement in Akihabara. Bayonetta’s ad would be shown a few times a minute.

Finally, on to why I was in Tokyo – Hashimoto and I were there to appear on a live internet Game TV show called Ge-cha. The original plan was for me to give them a “Super Play” demonstration, but I don’t know if that now the game is out and I’ve been freed from my obligations, that I’ve also been abandoned by the gaming gods, but I kept making a series of basic mistakes and taking damage, but I really ended up crashing and burning… Now that Bayonetta is in everyone’s hands, I think that there will be many ‘Super Players’ coming out of the woodwork, so I won’t have to play Bayonetta in public anymore. At least, I hope so! LOL.

But putting that aside, recording the show itself was really a lot of fun. My deepest thanks to all those on the staff and those who appeared on camera.

Speaking of live shows, I have announcement to make… Producer Yusuke Hashimoto and I will be appearing live on a Nico Nico Live broadcast! Maybe I’ll be playing live…? Even if I screw things up, please be kind to me… Until next time!!

Picture: Since I went to Shibuya, you know I had to have a Windows 7 Whopper at Burger King. I ended up leaving three of the beef patties behind…

Hello everyone. I’m Bayonetta concept designer Ikumi Nakamura.

I was wondering if you had heard about the Rodin’s Selection soundtrack you get with Bayonetta? What you didn’t know, and I am here to tell you about, is the strange set of circumstances that occurred as we set off to produce this bonus item.

Years ago… There was a phone. In front of me.

RODIN
Hey. Ikumi. I’ve got a job for you.

IKUMI
Huh? Who is this!? No solicitors!!

RODIN
I’m a bartender… In a wretched hive of
scum and villainy. I heard you got some
skills, and I want you to design my menu.
You gotta make it… Dangerous. And Hot.

*click* *beep beep beep*

And then phone call ended.

A few days later, I found myself in one of America’s grimiest cities. Searching around, I found a witch’s seal on the floor in front of me. I stood on it, then collapsed, as it felt as though my entire body was being dragged away.

That is when I realized where I was…

More…