Hello everyone around the world. Welcome to the PlatinumGames website! I’m Hideki Kamiya, director of Bayonetta.
If you’ve taken the time to visit this site, it probably means you’re more than a little interested in Bayonetta, right? Some of you probably came looking for information about Bayonetta, but there isn’t that much out there and you’re on pins and needles waiting to know more. Well, it isn’t too long now until Bayonetta is on the shelves, so we are going to lead up to that date by giving you all the information you desire on the site. So, make sure to keep visiting us here!

Of course, you’re thinking, “Shut up already and tell us about the game!” Well, as part of our plan, we won’t just be releasing screenshots and trailers (trust me, we will put those out too!). I also want to use this site as a blog alongside members of the Bayonetta team. (That would make this the first post of said blog.)

I haven’t changed my way of thinking about games. I still feel “if you want to talk about a game, you have to play the game.” However, beyond playing the game, I think this blog can become an important source of information for gamers. Lately the market has been flooded with sequels, but I think that is simply because you can buy a sequel and feel safe in what you are buying. Don’t you agree? Plus, there are definite advantages to sequels. You already understand the concept thanks to the previous title, and the media tends to cover sequels more than other games, so you’ve got more information at your fingertips. Yet, it is within that environment that the staff here at PlatinumGames decided, “Let’s make original games!” Now we are working hard towards that goal; however, as we are a new company, we don’t have anything in the bank that we can just use to make to crank out a game. We can only make original titles, right!? (LOL.) Of course, we’re not facing backwards towards the past, but instead, whether it be an original game or a sequel, we are totally dedicated to making one thing – Fun games.

But to get back to the point, even though we are unsympathetic to the sequel-flooded market, I am aware that we as game creators need to recognize our responsibility in creating the situation. No matter who you are, getting your hands on a kusoge sucks. (By the way, kusoge is Japanese slang for a crap game. Try using it in your everyday lives.) Once you’ve been burned a few times that way, you start wanting to head for the safe route. It is because there has been no lack of disappointing titles that we have invited this situation upon ourselves. The staff here at PlatinumGames wants to make games that serve as proof that “you can trust what we say as creators.” This is how we arrived at the creation of a place like this site. We feel that communicating with you is an important way in getting you interested in what we do.

There are also cases where a game isn’t a kusoge, but it wasn’t exactly what you were looking for, so you feel burned by the experience. This is why we want to be completely upfront with what we are making so there are no hard feelings or misunderstandings. For instance, with Bayonetta, we would hate for someone to think it is a heartwarming tale and then buy the game to discover it is really a sadistically hard game (I hope…) where you play as a witch who laughs as she destroys angelic enemies.

I don’t want to get into a spouting off some sort of sales pitch… “My game is awesome. Buy my awesome game.” Instead, I want to tell you about who is making our games, and what they are thinking and feeling when they make them. I want to express our true feelings, free of pretension, in hopes that it gets the point across. I want you to trust and believe in us in hope that at the very least, someday you will want to play Bayonetta. I don’t mind if you play it once and decide you want to buy it or you don’t want to buy it. I’m confident in my creation. (But, of course, if you play it and like it, I’d love for you to buy it!) Buy it or not, I really want you to at least give Bayonetta a try. Naturally the next thing you must be thinking is, “Then hurry up and let me try it!!” Hehe… Sorry, but I can’t help you there.

I think I might be losing my bearings here, so allow me to change course. Since this is the first post in the Bayo-Blog (I just picked that name myself), I thought I would share a bit of my feelings in regards to Bayonetta as a character.

I’ve said this all over the place, but the impetus for Bayonetta came from a chat with my producer, Yusuke Hashimoto, where he said, “I’d love to see another action game by you, Kamiya-san.” Right after our chat, I wrote my first draft of a design document for a 3D action game, and that is when I decided to make the main character a woman. When the team looked at the design doc, there were apparently a few people who were uncomfortable with the choice. “It will be hard to relate to her,” they said. “It will be a hard sell.” There were plenty of reasons to feel that way, and perhaps it really is hard to connect a female character with hardcore battle action. But to me, that gap was the attraction. I also had a less reasonable, but still valid, reason for selecting a female lead character. I already feel a sense of accomplishment as I feel I have already done what there is to be done vis-à-vis creating male characters.

The first male character I created was Leon in Resident Evil 2. In Resident Evil 1, the main character, Chris, was a bit of a blunt, tough-guy type. So in RE2, I wanted to change it up and make Leon someone with weaknesses, but ultimately a man who was on the ball. To be fair, I am more of a fan of a character like Mikami’s Chris, but since he got to make Chris first, I decided to go in a different direction. I went with a character that wasn’t really my “type.” However, now that I look back at how things turned out, it is surprising to me how popular Leon ended up being. In Resident Evil 4, he actually ended up being really cool looking guy, and I fell in love all over again. LOL.

The next male character I created was Dante from Devil May Cry. Devil May Cry started off as a game in the Resident Evil series, and I always planned for the game to be jam-packed with action, thus I went with the concept of a “gritty badass show-off.” (Actually, I just thought of the ‘gritty badass show-off’ bit right now…) I had been thinking of making a lead character in that vain for a while, but within what was thematically a horror game, it didn’t seem like something I could pull off. Yet, in Devil May Cry the theme is Stylish Action, so I had free rein to put my own spin on the lead character (and the game) as I saw fit.
Oh yeah… Just to add another descriptor to how I perceive Dante… He is a character that you would want to go out drinking with. Basically, he isn’t just a show-off to be ‘cool’. He is the kind of guy that will pull some ridiculous, mischievous joke and that will endear you to him. I wanted to make him feel familiar to people.

Next was Joe, the titular character from Viewtiful Joe. Viewtiful Joe was a comical game, so Joe himself is brimming with playfulness. He seems to be a naturally fun-loving, unassuming laid-back hilarious dude. Dante was sort of like that as well, but Joe is most likely the more narcissistic of the two. No matter where he is, he is the star of the show, and he can’t help but having fun behind the star… I really enjoyed making him the star, as well.

The last male character I want to touch upon is Issun in Okami. He isn’t a playable character, not to mention you don’t really see him during gameplay (LOL), but I think that people who have cleared Okami realize that he was a great main character. Conceptually, Issun is a childish character who manifests this immaturity in his extreme perversion and foul mouth; however, he is also a good-hearted, loyal, and compassionate figure. As Okami is an adventure game, Issun holds a special place as the character with the largest number of lines I have ever written, and as you move through the game, I think he is also the most fleshed out of my characters. Among all the characters I have created, he is the only character that hasn’t been used by another creator, and even now, he is a character whose story I feel I’d like to continue some day.

Oh… This seems to have gotten longer than anyone is actually going to read! Well, there you have it. Those are the reasons why Bayonetta is a female character.

And with that I would like to bring to a close the first entry in the Bayo-Blog by one Hideki Kamiya. The next post will be from Bayonetta’s character designer, Mari Shimazaki. She will have plenty to say, so look forward to her post soon.

I’ll be on the look out for places to join in the fun, and will be contributing to the blog now and then, so look forward to that and keep reading the Bayo-Blog! (Again with that name I just picked!)