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Clover becomes SEEDS with help from Mikami and Kamiya.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:59 pm
by 87th
Yup, Capcom just became a whole load more boring.
GameDaily Biz wrote:In news sure to please many gamers, former members of Clover have formed their own studio: Seeds. Such a move has been rumored since Clover's announced liquidation late in 2006. Among its current members are Viewtiful Joe producer Atsushi Inaba, Devil May Cry/Viewtiful Joe creator Hideki Kamiya and estranged Capcom producer and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami.

The company has a total of 51 employees, and is still recruiting. More information can be had (for Japanese speakers) on Seeds' official webpage. To find out more about Clover's acclaimed Okami, please read GameDaily BIZ's Chart Toppers.
I'm really excited about this. Everything I cared about Capcom is here, except they seem to care much more about ideas and quality than mainstream appeal and PR! :D

Capcom will still own the rights to Resident Evil and DMC though, so I think those series' are in danger (I'm no longer excited about RE: Umbrella Chronicles, anyway).

I have become quite attached to the storyline and characters of Resident Evil after playing pretty much every game in the series since 1996, but I suppose it would be a little hypocritical of me to say that I was sad to see its creator abandoning it when I'm so happy to hear he'll be working on original projects.

My top three game developers/directors are Hideo Kojima, Goichi Suda and Shinji Mikami. I'm really ecstatic to see them all in small teams that give them the freedom to be creative and do what they want.


On a side note, I can remember that both Mikami and Kojima have been eager to collaborate in the past, but they've always been busy on their own personal projects when one was willing to start making something. I've thought to myself before that the only thing that could make the idea of Project S seem more ideal to me would be if Mikami was involved. With Mikami having collaborated and reacted really positively to Suda in the past and eager to collaborate with Kojima, and development only starting in the 4th quarter of 2007, maybe this is their chance?

I'd say it was unlikely, but Suda seems to find a way of doing everything I'd like him to. I can't count the amount of times I've thought of Suda doing something interesting and unusual, only for him to do it a couple of weeks later. It gets ridiculous! in fact, I was discussing it with my friend Chris (who is also a fan of Snatcher, and very big fan of killer7. He's also very excited about the Policenauts translation) suggesting the idea of having to find and talk to leads to find assasins in No More Heroes. Literally 2 hours later, I arrived home to find the new copy of the Official UK Nintendo Magazine had arrived with a big feature on No More Heroes. The very feature was mentioned by Suda in the magazine! :lol:

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:02 pm
by Ghaleon
Makes me kind of sad I passed Killer7, reading that it seems to have a cultish fan base.

Yeah, this is definitely great news. I hope porting Okami to Wii (a recent rumor I'm sure a lot of you heard) is a reality, whether these fellas supervise that or not.

Oh, why aren't you pumped about RE: Umbrella Chronicles? I wish I could find more info about it, but the few tidbits I read sounded cool.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:31 pm
by 87th
Ghaleon wrote:Makes me kind of sad I passed Killer7, reading that it seems to have a cultish fan base.
Don't think you've missed it, yet. I've seen it in a lot of second hand shops, and bargain buckets. You should be able to pick it up for a fairly low price. It's not the kind of game that ages poorly either. The gameplay is so completely different from everything else, and the graphics are perfect for what the game is trying to illustrate. I don't think that it would look any better on a new system, as the graphics are already perfect on the GameCube/PS2.
Yeah, this is definitely great news. I hope porting Okami to Wii (a recent rumor I'm sure a lot of you heard) is a reality, whether these fellas supervise that or not.
Oh, yeah! I actually avoided buying the PS2 game today, after hearing the rumor. Unluckly, I doubt SEEDS would be involved in the port, as Capcom own the licence and I'm sure SEEDS spite them for that. If Capcom feel that the game was successful though, the port has every chance of being made (it's one of their last bits of input from Clover, after all).
Oh, why aren't you pumped about RE: Umbrella Chronicles? I wish I could find more info about it, but the few tidbits I read sounded cool.
The idea of some of the more creative members of the development team leaving has kind of dampened my excitement. It's basically just a throwback to games that I've played a hundred times, and it sounds like it could be every bit as poor as the Survivor series.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:27 pm
by Henry Spencer
Well all I can say is the Capcom I loved is no more. :sad:

The best guys have seemingly left! Who knows though? The new blood recruited by Capcom may come along with something special and in turn, proceed their masters? :grin:

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:36 pm
by 87th
Well, they still have Keiji Inafune (Megaman, Dead Rising), but that's it I think. Even Yoshiki Okamoto, the creator of Street Fighter, left them two years ago!
Capcom are very little other than the publishers of the Japanese version of Grand Theft Auto, now.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:34 pm
by Henry Spencer
Well what I was saying was, who knows? There may be a new genius, up and coming for Capcom. They have the Phoenix Wright team still don't they? Or don't tell me; the creator walked out on them as well! :lol:

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:59 pm
by Artemio
87th wrote:
Yeah, this is definitely great news. I hope porting Okami to Wii (a recent rumor I'm sure a lot of you heard) is a reality, whether these fellas supervise that or not.
Oh, yeah! I actually avoided buying the PS2 game today, after hearing the rumor. Unluckly, I doubt SEEDS would be involved in the port, as Capcom own the licence and I'm sure SEEDS spite them for that. If Capcom feel that the game was successful though, the port has every chance of being made (it's one of their last bits of input from Clover, after all).
Don't do that to yourself. It is made to be played on a ps2 pad, not on the Wii-mote. The creators stated that several times and after having 60 great hours with it, I can assure you it is worth it completely. Not to mention that a port would take tons of time, since it is fairly obvious it is pretty heavy on ps2 specific code (they extracted every ounce of power from it to create such a beauty).


It is worth your time in every sense.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:16 pm
by 87th
I've played the demo and fell utterly in love with the game, but I don't see how the game would feel better with the PS2 controller. I'm very fond of the Wii overall, and find myself more comfortable playing games on the system. The ability to slip out of a game at any time, and play Gunstar Heroes or find out what I'm supposed to be doing on GameFAQs is really nice. There's little things that annoy me when I play the PS2 again. I recently bought the PS2 version of Psychonauts, and I can't stand PS2 loading times, anymore. The PS2's 15-20 second loading times between areas are awful compared to the average 0-3 on the Wii. I've also got a few Adventure games to finish before I think I should buy another one. I think it's best for me to wait a little while, at least.

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 1:54 am
by Artemio
"I can see your point there"


But, if you buy something like the HD-Loader time sin Ookami are as fast as a GC. I played it that way, and it was great. There is one disadvantage though... the game has mini games during loading, that give you an item if done right each time. With HDD loading times, it was waaay more diffucult, too little time to do it.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:26 pm
by 87th
There's still hope for Resident Evil 5. ^_^
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/20/forme ... ew-wii-ga/

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:21 pm
by shidoni
87th wrote:There's still hope for Resident Evil 5. ^_^
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/20/forme ... ew-wii-ga/
That's what I wanted to hear. But that being said, I'm not really worrying at all. Capcom will not fuck up their arguably head franchise (ey, they learned that from DMC2), so there's gonna be brains in there anyway. I'm still miffed by the fact that Steve Burnside is the most dynamic (as apposed to static) character in the series...

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:11 pm
by jcgamer60
Thats one powerhouse team of developers. Okami was one of my favourite games for ps2 this year. Hideki Kamiya is one of the really good developers that goes unnoticed. He directed devil may cry 1 and created viewtiful joe 1 as 87th explained above. It seems the quality of titles seem to slip when hes not at the helm. Example: dmc2, and vj2.

Anyway, i heard their first project at seeds is an xbox360 game.

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:36 pm
by 87th
Didn't really notice too much of a slip in quality between Viewtiful Joe 1 and 2, myself. I still would have preferred it if VJ remained a stand-alone game rather than a franchise, though. It's a great game, but the iffy sequels and anime series have given a stigma to its fans.

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:15 am
by jcgamer60
Kamiya really has imagination and has clearly proven his games are more than just cool artistic style(ex: vj and okami). Its a shame clovers games weren't good in terms of sales though its a real shame and shows how consumers are not that open to new things anymore. Well, i hope seeds has a strong financial backing(Microsoft?) so they can create new interestings IPs in the future.

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:20 am
by 87th
A report on Kotaku suggested that Shinji Mikami was funding SEEDS from his own pocket. Gotta love him.

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:40 am
by jcgamer60
Its kind of hard to see which hardware they will be developing games for. I know their first project seems to be a 360 game and microsoft is as desperate as ever to fuel 360 games in japan. So i'm sure microsoft wouldn't mind financing thier first project on their console(like MS does with mistwalker and blue dragon). Although if microsoft doesn't back them i can only really see seeds doing low budget next gen titles or working on handheld or wii hardware since next gen costs are really high, not even sure if mikami can support heavy projects on ps3 or 360. DS would be a really good start for this company since DS is a flaming success in japan. Start off small and work there way to the top. :)

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:26 pm
by 87th
I'm sure that outside publishers would give them early financial support if they wanted to see them making games for home consoles.

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:17 pm
by jcgamer60
As long as they keep on making creative/fun games i'll be happy.