Capcom on the decisions to make Okamiden/Mega Man Legends 3, discussions about moving Okamiden to 3DS
First, Capcom’s Christian Svensson was asked what the thinking behind Okamiden and Mega Man Legends 3 was, as Okami/previous Mega Man Legends titles haven’t sold too well…
“When we announced Okami, the Nintendo DS was just coming out. People had asked Okami producer Atsushi Inaba about the game not being on DS due to the drawing mechanic. He said he didn’t think we could achieve our vision there; same thing for the Wii with its controller. Our take with Okamiden was fans asked for something clever. We saw the DS as a means of innovating with the touch screen as a drawing mechanic.
The team did some very early technical demos on the visuals and how close we could get to the PlayStation 2 and Wii visuals. It looked as good as anything that Nintendo put out. It’s a very high-budget release on the DS in the form of Okamiden with high production values. But the interface on the DS was what really drove that game.
With the 3DS for Mega Man Legends 3, one of the things you’ll find about new hardware are early adopters tend to be more core. They’re passions and informed about things. Anytime there’s a new piece of hardware, there’s an opportunity to either establish new IP or reboot IP that maybe should have done better last time around. That was really more of the strategy with the 3DS, to reach a new early adopter audience. We won’t be there at launch with the game, but there are some interesting things that we’re doing that will hopefully be perceived as visionary and really fan embracive.”
Svensson was then asked if Capcom considering moving Okamiden to the 3DS…
“There were discussions, but it was too far down the path. The thing you have to remember, by the time you guys hear about them, very often these games have been in development for over a year. While we occasionally get an early heads up on things here and there in terms of new hardware, we were fairly far down the path on DS before we got word on 3DS, and that’s fine. We’ll see what happens.”
If I’m remembering correctly, Okamiden was announced in September 2009, but Capcom staff were working on tech demos back in 2008. Considering how much time and effort was put into making the game for the DS, it’s probably best that the title stayed on the system. I’m still hoping we’ll see more of the franchise, though, whether it’s on the 3DS or consoles.
