Kamiya here, fresh off commenting on the official After Burner Climax blog in the afterglow of happiness that came when I heard news about the digital release. I still can’t believe that they are really going to port the game! It’s great! You may not know, but I’ve been begging for this gem for ages, as I thought After Burner Climax was the simplest and most effective vehicle for showing people what “next-generation” machines can really do. Having these planes flying in crazy environment and taking out entire formations of enemy planes in rapid-fire, is full of spectacle and “gamey-ness” if you ask me. Now put that up in the big screen TV corner of an electronics store, and that would get even grandma and grandpa to stop in their tracks. You don’t need to make things real! The absurd is amazing! With something like that, I could even get my old man, who might have zero interest in games, to beam with pride and say, “That’s some next-gen goodness.”
So the Xbox 360 version will be 800 Microsoft Points, and the PS3 version will be around 900 yen, which makes me wonder if it is OK to be that cheap. I would have bought it even if it was a full priced, packaged release… I’m going to have to unpack my video projector… I’ve been pretty vehement about saying, “PORT IT!” so now I am going to have to put my money where my mouth is and play this game on like a 100 inch screen.
So, since After Burner Climax is one of our brothers-in-Climax so to speak, make sure you pay attention when it is released digitally this spring. And best of luck to everyone working on the title! Oh, and let’s get working on getting Monster Land up on the Virtual Console or XBLA.
Check out the official SEGA After Burner Climax website:
http://sega-afterburner.com/
Wow, I got a little excited and that ended up longer than I thought… Alright, on to the next topic. Last January 30, we held a party for our fans at an authentic Cantonese restaurant on the 39th floor of our office building, the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka. We called the event Platinum Twilight!
32 fans came for the evening and spend some time with the staff here at PlatinumGames. A good time was had by all. Everyone was very well-mannered, and we didn’t get any “delicate” questions (actually, I kind of wish they had asked us more questions…), so it was a really chilled out evening from start to finish. It was nice to hear some much fervent support from so many people, and it made me feel warm and happy that chose a path for my life that included making games.
Having events like this with our fans is something that we did several times during our Clover Studios days, but having it in the very same building as the studio meant that we just had to make an exception to the rule and give the fans a quick tour of the production floor. Even when it is guests working in the industry, we are especially careful about information leaking, so this was the first time that non-studio guests have been show around the inside of the studio. Right now, we are working hard on Vanquish, which at the time had just been announced, but details had not been released, so even I got a bit nervous leading people around and explaining things to them.
We were only about to show people around the studio for a short period of time, but I think that people more or less got a feeling for the fact that one of the important point to the way we make games is breaking down barriers in our office and communicating with each other. I also think they discovered that we really love toys here. People even saw my cluttered desk… At the least, being able to actually talk with the users we normally don’t even get to place a face on was an incredibly important experience which can’t simply be summed up into a few words.
Of course, we are around to create and release interesting games; however, we are not some sort of “game creating machine. Everyone on the staff are each their own person. Just as when you become interested in one of our games, we are interested in the users who play our creations. Things may change depending on the type of game, its scale, or the people behind (or company) it, but I think that I’d like to make games more like they are a folk craft, filled with the warmth of people, rather than some sort of industrial packaged good. I want to keep holding these types of events, so we can share each other’s true dispositions and get a feel for each other’s humanity, instead of persisting in your stock “producer/consumer” relationship.
It was a little bit hard to figure out when the event ended because of how things were run a bit poorly; however, I am very thankful for all of those who took valuable time out of their lives to spend time with us. Thank you so much! To those fans that weren’t selected to be with us, we plan on holding as many events as we can in the future, so definitely enter to attend the next event if you can.
So here are my notes on the event…
l When Bayonetta came out, I played it for 30 hours straight on the day of release! -> I beat Super Mario World the day the SNES came out.
l So that’s the kind of person who wrote those blog entries…
l Valentine’s Day chocolate
l Sorry that the printing on the overseas collector’s editions Scarborough Fair gun is wrong…
l Bayonetta cosplay! Woohoo!
l Hand-made Scarborough Fair guns are awesome.
l I love Resident Evil 2 -> I’m kinda proud that I think we might have been the first kissing scene between two polygonal characters rendered in real-time.
l I like RE2 more than RE1 -> I’m actually a bigger fan of 1. LOL.
l Make a sequel to Bayonetta! -> If schedules work out…
l Make a shooting game! -> I’m not opposed to this…
l Make Viewtiful Joe 3! -> Anyone actually going to play it? LOL
l Sequel to Okami? -> I did have a story for one in my head, but you know…
l My paragons of gaming are God Hand and Vagrant Story -> I, too, am a devotee.
l I like Devil May Cry 2, too. -> WHAT!?
l I want one of the mini-dolls from Bayonetta -> Please keep putting in requests…
l I want one of the Bayonetta love pillows -> Please keep putting in requests…
l I want Bayonetta’s glasses -> Hehehehe…
l The original arcade version of Nemesis (Gradius) is awesome!
l If you live in Juso, you should try the ramen shop near the station. It’s called Yokanise.
l It’s hard to follow Bayonetta’s story -> Sorry bout that…
That wraps it up for the party, but I have one more thing to report in this post. Since Bayonetta game play commentaries seem to be flourishing online, I thought that I, Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya, in my infinite lack of wisdom, would try and make one myself. I gave it a shot on the prologue and here are my results.
I made this by myself at home, so pardon my complete lack of excitement, the poor AV quality, and terrible technique. I am mainly talking about things behind the scenes things like incidents during development, hidden background information, etc. If you are interest, please check the videos out. It’s been more than 3 months since the game came out, so I figure that many of you may be getting close to wrapping up the game, so beware that the videos contain spoilers! I’m not normally the world’s most motivated person, so I’m not sure how long I will continue this (LOL), be have fun nonetheless.
Until next time!
Picture: Our concept designer Ikumi made these for my birthday. She designed the dolls for the game, and then she made these by hand! But instead of making Jeanne, she made Zero…