Bayonetta 2 director on decision to make the sequel, Nintendo’s input, interest in continuing the series

A new Bayonetta 2 interview has come online over at CVG. The site spoke with director Yusuke Hashimoto, who talked about the decision to make a sequel, how Nintendo provided input, interest in continuing the series, and quite a bit more.

You can find CVG’s interview in full here. For notable excerpts, head past the break.

On feedback/advice from original director Hideki Kamiya…

Mostly the advice we get is to make sure that the world view in the game remains the same, even with things like the design of the main character – to make sure we’re not straying too far away from what Bayonetta really is.

On why Bayonetta is the first Platinum series to earn a sequel…

Whenever we create a new IP it’s always very challenging, and so as a game developer I feel that whenever we are able to successfully do that it’s really important to be able to nurture it. That’s what the company wanted to do with Bayonetta and also there were a lot of people who wanted to see a sequel to the original game.

I personally also wanted to create a second game as well. It’s because these expectations for a sequel matched that this game came about. Should the opportunity arise I’d definitely like to keep nurturing this franchise. It might not be me [directing], but should somebody else take over I would definitely be there to support and help just as Mr. Kamiya has for me. Though there’s a chance I could direct in future as well!

On the relationship between Platinum and Nintendo…

I feel that it’s important to let your creativity flow and Nintendo has been able to provide us with the freedom to do what we had originally envisioned. We were able to have a lot of back-and-forth between Platinum Games and Nintendo and they were able to provide objective feedback; ‘Maybe that’s a little too much’, or, ‘maybe you should try this’. I feel that was really good and helped push Bayonetta 2 to even higher quality.

We started out with a fundamental freedom, with Nintendo telling us to go and create the game as we saw fit. But as the game started to take shape and we were starting to put all the pieces together, they were able to point out some things that we didn’t realise ourselves. That was really helpful for us.

On changes made to fine tune Bayonetta’s action for the GamePad…

The answer is definitely yes. The hardware itself is different, but if you want to have the feel that you had on Xbox 360 you can always try the Pro Controller. We made sure that the experience is on the Gamepad is just as enjoyable, but different. We focussed a lot on that.

If you’re using the Gamepad and get tired of that, you can also switch to touch control which is made to be a seamless as possible. We tried to create touch controls that made sense and really approach them from the user’s perspective: ‘if I was an end user, how would I want the touch screen to react?’

On how Platinum came to the decision of including Bayonetta 1 in Bayonetta 2…

During the development of Bayonetta 2 we had a discussion with Nintendo about how great it would be to offer the ability to play Bayonetta 1 on the same console, which is how it happened. Of course it had to be a perfect port, but on top of that we wanted to add some additional, fun features that we wanted to see such as new costumes.

On the port process and what new content was added…

We added the new costumes that I mentioned, as well as touch screen controls. We also added support for gyro sensors – I can’t really divulge where we use them, but they’re in there. As far as the port work is concerned, it’s never easy to port to any system, but as we were developing Bayonetta 2 we became very familiar with the features of the Wii U so it worked out OK.

Once you ship a game for a piece of hardware, you get to know it very, very well. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do so with Wii U.

On where the idea for the Nintendo-themed costumes came from and if there more we haven’t seen yet…

It was Mr. Kamiya’s strong desire to put costumes into the original Bayonetta and they’re all from his favourite games of that generation. As far as costumes you haven’t seen yet… it’s a secret! Please look forward to this.

On whether Tomonobu Itagaki partnering with Nintendo for Devil’s Third makes him feel like that goes someway in validating Platinum’s original decision to develop for Wii U…

I don’t feel like we’re focussed on Mr. Itagaki. But seeing a lot of developers create great games for Wii U and allowing us to expand the repertoire of the system… I’m happy to be a part of that. It’s like a vending machine; adding to the drinks selection makes that machine even better.

For me, being able to focus on just one platform also makes it much easier for me, so I was definitely glad that we decided to make a Wii U exclusive.

On whether Bayonetta 2 can help expand the Wii U audience and whether fans of the original game be persuaded to purchase a system…

That’s a really hard question to answer and honestly I don’t know. But I think it would be great if even more people became interested in Wii U through Bayonetta 2. The reason we decided to include the original game in Bayonetta 2’s package is to serve that function. If somebody was to take interest and purchase a Wii U because of these games, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed.

On the future of Bayonetta…

In terms of nurturing the content of this game, there’s a lot that we learned from Nintendo and if possible we would love to do it again and keep nurturing our child.