2020 should become a landmark for Platinumgames – Japanese studio, where they did Bayonetta, Vanquish And Nier: Automata. For February, the company gathered on Kickstarter two million dollars to reprint The Wonderful 101. And at the end of the same month, the Japanese announced the superhero action Project G.G. , where players will fight giant monsters in the spirit of Godzilla.
What else will please us Platinumgames This year, it remains only to guess. To the release The Wonderful 101: Remastered (In the USA, the game will be released tomorrow, May 19, and in Europe – three days later) we decided to release a large review material about the heritage of the legendary studio. We will tell the story of each of their projects: from the debut bitemap ** Madworld ** to the recent action Astral Chain. And at the same time, let's try to figure out what to expect from future creations of eminent developers.
Platin Four
Founder Platinumgames Tatsuya Minami – a native of Capcom ; He worked in the publishing house for almost twenty years and worked on the series Resident Evil , Devil May Cry And Mega Man. However, over time, Tatsuya decided that he no longer wanted to sculpt the sequins of popular franchises; In 2006, he left Capcom, and soon opened his own company.
But he is not the only founder of Platinumgames. Around the same period, Capcom disbanded the internal studio Clover , Famous by Viewtiful Joe, ** okami ** and God Hand. The critics of their games liked the game, but they were sold weakly, so Capcom decided to transfer Clover workers to the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. But three company employees did not like this decision: they, like mines, wanted to develop something truly unique. Former Clover Executive Director Atsusi Inaba left Capcom shortly after the mines. And after him, two more legendary game designers went: Shinji Mikami, father Resident Evil, and Hideki Kamia – the head of the development of Devil May Cry. Initially, they were going to create games only three, but after a few months they connected to mines – and together with it they founded Platinumgames.
Comedy bitemap God Hand was the last work of Shinji Mikami under the start of Capcom
Under the wing Sega
True, in order to release AAA projects, one talent is not enough. Any serious studio needs a publisher – and Platinumgames agreed with Sega. The new studio with such a gold composition in the SEGA was accepted with open arms – and immediately signed an agreement to create four new projects.
The first of them was Madworld black and white slasher-exclusive for WII , which came out on March 10, 2009. He turned out to be … rather informative. People are accustomed to the fact that WII is a console for the whole family, but Platinumgames has gone from the opposite: filled the project with scenes of violence and black humor. The slasher even wanted to ban in many countries, and in Germany the game never came out.
As a result, Madworld was poorly sold both in the West and Japan – although the game itself turned out to be excellent, and the press collected a good. But in a purely commercial plan, the first pancake Platinumgames came out lumpy. However, the SEGA leadership did not bother.
The next game in the portfolio of the Japanese was Infinite Space -RPG, inspired by the science fiction novel Arthur Clark "End of childhood". There are more than 150 ships in this space simulator – and as many crew members to choose from, and the plot is built on the adventures of a young captain named Yuri, who is trying to protect his native galaxy from a huge military empire. It is not surprising that the "platinum" did it not alone, but with the Tokyo studio Nude Maker. Infinite Space has also become an exclusive for the console Nintendo – Only not WII, but portable DS.
The last witch
And already in October 2009 in Japan I went out Bayonetta , For the development and script of which Hideki Kamia was responsible. It was he who decided that this time the main character should become a woman – but not simple, but a witch from an old clan. And if Dante fought with demons, then the opposite is true: Bayonetta puts his ass to the angels. And four guns help her at once: sage, parsley, rosemary and thymeyan.
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From early childhood, the animator of the Hideti Kai project adored militants with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and had not yet missed a single series Kamen Rider or Ultraman And excitedly watched the battles Antonio monks and Akira Maeda. It was these memories that formed the basis of the animations of the Bayonet. And for the witch to seem more feminine, Hidetosi added dance elements in her movement – including ballet.
Literally the whole game is filled with similar important little things. And how many allusions are there for other projects! For example, gathering haze is a direct reference to the rings from Sonic the Hedgehog , and in some katsets the witch quotes openly Devil May Cry.
Bayonetta has become one of the most successful Platinumgames projects. The slasher came out on all possible platforms: from Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 to Wii U , PC And Nintendo Switch. And on February 18 of this year, there were also versions for PlayStation 4 And Xbox One.
Time to win
And to talk about the fourth game from Platinum, you will have to go from afar. In 2006 studio Epic Games Issued GEARS of WAR – and forever changed the genre of shooters from a third person. American developers decided to take the look from the shoulder that was in Resident Evil 4 , and a system of shelters from Kill.Switch. As a result, it turned out to be an action where players do not just clean the endless waves of enemies, but hide behind objects on locations and make tactical decisions. Gears of War had a huge impact on console shooters, and Vanquish from Platinumgames – one of them.
She had other sources of inspiration. When Shinji Mikami finished his previous God Hand project, he took a vacation for a year and a half-and in order to somehow diversify a long vacation, the game designer began to watch Japanese cartoons. Among them, science fiction anime was closed "Kassyan" , And it was it that produced the developer to create a dynamic shooter, where players will be able to not only slow down time, as in Max Payne , but also quickly slide throughout the location on the reactive engine. Initially, they wanted to make sure that the hero could be worn on a map from one point to another and exterminate enemies in a vast territory, but during the development the team still made the world a linear-but filled it with a huge number of details.
For example, the majority of Robots are red, because they literally serve as an ominous Russian organization Zvezda, and we, of course, play for an American paratrooper who is trying to prevent Russia from capturing the whole world. In a word, the plot of Vanquish is a mishmash of stamps taken from American blockbusters, and even with purely Japanese absurd performance. Fortunately, the shooter can be passed without paying attention to the Katsen: they have little effect on the gameplay, and all the fun is concentrated precisely in battles.
Vanquish was the first and last Sinji Mikami Micks project inside Platinumgames. Shortly before the release, he founded his own company Tango GameWorks , where later and left Platinum. Shinji wanted to give a way to young developers: usually high posts in Japanese studios are occupied by employees older than forty, and young people have almost no chance of promoting their ideas. Therefore, Mikami decided to release his final game, and then give in to the workplace in Platinumgames to someone younger.
And what happened next, you yourself already know: the creator of Resident Evil again took up horror films. Four years after the release of Vanquish, in 2014, he released the debut project of his new studio-Survival-Corror The Evil Within.
Anarchy reigns here
Meanwhile, the SEGA leadership extended the contract with Platinumgames. Their fifth game was a multiplayer action movie Anarchy reigns -The ideological heir to Madworld, only without black and white aesthetics. But the Sega transferred the release of the game in the West for a whole year-from 2012 to 2013-so it took place at the most inopportune moment: a week before DMC: Devil May Cry From Capcom. And although Platinum called its project innovative and unique, critics accepted it ambiguously. The audience hoped to see an entertaining solitary regime with a good story, and instead got a weak plot, repeated missions and an empty game world. The network regime turned out to be much more lively in terms of battles, but there were also gameplay and purely technical problems there. In a word, the project did not live up to the expectations of players or high -profile promises of developers.
Even in Japan, Max Anarchy sales – that’s what the game was called in their homeland – turned out to be too low. Apparently, in Sega it was not for nothing that they spared the money to advance from fear that the project would be commercial failure. After this failure, Platinumgames switched to more “safe” titles in other people's franchises – and the first of them threw up the developers Konami.
Kojima is a genius
All thanks to Hideo Kojima. When in 2008 came out Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots , He began to look for ideas for the new part of the series. One of the employees Kojima Productions proposed to develop the history of a secondary hero – Ryden. I liked the proposal, and already at E3 2009 Kojima presented the fans of the future Metal Gear Solid Riding. The studio spent several years on the development of a slasher, but she did not understand how this project could be implemented from the technical side. The game about cyborg-ninja should be spectacular and dynamic, but the developers from Kojima Productions specialized in stealth-and this was weakly intersected with slasers. By 2011, the studio was at a dead end: it was necessary to either abandon the initial idea, or transfer development to other performers. Kojima proposed the Platinumgames project – and if they rejected it then, then Metal Gear Riding: Revengeance, Most likely, it would not have been born.
The new developers greatly changed the plot so that people who are not familiar with the series understand what is happening there. And, of course, the gameplay was thoroughly redone: many mechanics were changed and even wanted to completely abandon the stealth elements. However, in the final version they are still present, even if they play a secondary role. But tire of enemies in Slow-Mo is a continuous pleasure!
One of the future artists of the project, Kenitiro Yoshimura, was just going to leave the studio for freelance. But a few days before dismissal, he looked at the designers of Metal Gear Rising – and remained in horror. The visual style of the game has not at all echoed with the manner of Yoji Sinkawa, the leading designer of the characters and furs of the original franchise. Yoshimura could not keep silent, went to the director – and so his last three days in Platinumgames have turned into another six months of painstaking work. But this was the right decision: Konami approved most of his illustrations, and even Yoji Sinkava himself was delighted with them.
Illustrations of Sinka
And concept art Kenitiro Yoshimura
In February 2013, Metal Gear Riding: Revengeance finally went to store shelves. The work of Platinumgames was appreciated: the project was approved by critics, fans, and even ordinary players, not a drop who are not familiar with the series https://sister-site.org/players-club-vip/.
On this, the first part of the history of Platinumgames is coming to an end. But soon we will continue it – so subscribe to gambling in social networks so as not to miss the continuation. In it we will tell you why the second part of Bayonetta reached only Nintendo Wii U, which is why we canceled Scalebound And how the beloved was created for everyone Nier: Automata. And at the same time, let's figure out which project can rightfully be called the worst in the history of Platinumgames.
In the meantime, stay with the gambling – and play only the best.
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