Shinji Mikami documentary

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKYX3GstHlw&feature=youtu.be

Fantastic stuff. Shows a big insight into how Mikami works, but also gives further credence to game-designers not understanding what made their games great. Mikami still sees the static-camera as a technical limitation and the over-the-shoulder camera as the 'evolution' of that idea and superior in every aspect. Going as far as being extremely embarresed and asking fans to 'shut up' when they try to convince him otherwise.

Gameplay-wise he seems more to be the guy of the core vision, the idea, so I have a feeling elements like the core-combat of RE4 for example are more his staff that built those around his vision if you get me.

He is showing his age and some familiar concepts are coming back, like his note that you make your best products around the time that you are 30. Since you're still young enough to be energized, but wise enough through experience. As such he still considers RE4 his best game.

One very interesting point though is how in RE4 he was Producer and Director, making it far easier for him to make decisions and how with RE2 he and the crew had a lot of problems, as Mikami and Kamiya had different visions and ideas at times making them unsure on who to listen to. He feels that might be the reason why RE4 was so good as well. He does go on to briefly mention Dead Space as well and its evolution through its three games and how RE changed and never had a 'core', since every title in the series had a different director, making RE4 less of a departure than one would think in his eyes.

Overall, great watch, highly recommended.

Thanks for sharing.

I think aside from the last third of it that the musical texture of this video is a utter mismatch. Sure, it comes more forward as a doc than an I, Youtuber vid, but I get the feeling it warps much of what Mikami has to say to an image of a "wise man with a staff, scratching his beard" ( he does it! ). I don't like that.
The shown footage from the games get a hit by that, too. Maybe they surfed some corp rights with that, I dunno.
Points for using the JP masters of the titles. You know... Last Escape then NEMESIS.

I'd prefer Part 2 changes the presentation around.

Completely agree on all fronts. Was happily surprised to see the original Japanese releases being used in the footage, but shown gameplay was lacking and at times didn't mash with what was being talked about. The used music also didn't really work at all.

Surprised they didn't show more in-depth notes about his personal life, I have no clue if he's even married at this point. Only thing I learned here is that he has a sweet ride haha.

> wise man with staff

Had that feeling too, a bit too glorifying. There was a pretty good interview with Gendy about animation where he was more about 'it's a team effort', while here the interview - or Mikami - also sketch a fake reality that they alone make the game and the ideas, which is weird.

Is this the first time we are in agreement? What a feeling.

Yeah, what you said. I feel like some of the material is running a counterpoint. And I don't think it's intentional. As it is Japanese custom to speak from a point of unity in creating and developing, the parts where he describes his position as director or producer and his obligations therein with the staff, it's as there is this bump. That any project is a collective effort, yet the doc shines the spotlight on him. Of course it does. Also, the empty work spaces and free streets suggest a national holiday. It's a bit of a weird notion all in all.

I would post this under the video, but I don't have or favour a Google account.

This is a fantastic watch. My head canon he is so disappointed in TEW2 that he is now a broken old man lol.
I know you like it Roy but I just can't get behind that game being good in any way.
Other than some visual elements.
We will have to agree to disagree
They really need to blow me away with Ghostwire.

No worries, we can all have different tastes!

Glad you enjoyed it though, I was surprised people weren't talking about it that much, fantastic interview despite its shortcomings as Zenyn noted.

Mikami is god.

Absolutely! Do feel he's getting old though, hope Ghostwire isn't his last game..

Part 2 is out. Lots of great info. He says God Hand was the only game he had full freedom to make what he wanted after the success of RE4. Knew it wouldn't sell.
Imagine how many God Hand's we would have if the suits weren't involved in decisions.

Watched the second part, hit and miss for me. I appreciate the extra insight into God Hand's development as there were a lot of things that were missing, and it was fantastic to finally get the info on the matter. Think that that idea was fantastic and also pretty sweet that he just got 1 year to make it to fill up the time, and that he'd gotten a good enough reputation to make a bad selling game.

He mentions that if things went wrong it would sell 100.000 copies, which it almost did. It sold 60.000 units in Japan alone, so I think we can assume it sold around 100.000. Lucky bastard haha.

Didn't like how they just skimmed over P.N.03. It is precisely the game that he hates making the most, and I think it would've made for some good conversation. Overal the whole interview felt very off. Killer7 got skimmed mostly too, and things like why he went for Clover and later co-founded Platinum and has bad blood with Capcom - it's all absent. Feel like there were either a lot of NDA's or they didn't want to go in too deep.

That said, one thing I have really learned from all this: designers don't know what makes their game great. I kind of already knew this, but this hammered it home for sure. This interview really showed that Mikami has a great heart and soul, but a lot of the mechanical depth, the detailing, the trimming, that's his team and teamwork. And a lot of things that we enjoy about his games, may or may not have been intentional. For example the emphasis in Vanquish being the graphics, The Evil Within being a basic fundingmachine. Static camera angles being a relic that he'd rather never do again and sees as inferior to RE4's camera in every way etc. etc.

What was everyone else's take on the interview?

That video seriously damaged my appreciation for Outrun. The Dude in Red Sportscar material was obsessive.

I mean, yeah, it's Thus, Spoke Mikami.
It's okay to get some thoughts about the projects he worked on. But they picked right up where they left off with Part 1 in direction and style.  

My fave is when he says that sometimes it's difficult to come up with more content and ideas that gel well with the stuff that is already stirring in the pot. That it's supposed to come natural. Isn't that the truth to all creative endeavours? Yes, it is. And I enjoyed the bit at the start. That movies are fun to watch, music fun to listen to, and video games are fun for the interaction. As he mentions it's a bit typecasting to refer to him as the "survival-horror-guy", the man's got way more than that. People, eh?

Mikami is god.

My dog has empirically better teeth than yours.