PlatinumGames studio head reflects on MadWorld and The Wonderful 101

In an interview with Electric Playground, PlatinumGames co-founder and studio head Atsushi Inaba was asked about the projects that were the most enjoyable for him to work on. Inaba pointed to a pair of titles: MadWorld and The Wonderful 101. They were released on Wii and Wii U exclusively.

Regarding MadWorld, Inaba felt that PlatinumGames was able to create an enjoyable and deep experience despite its violence. As for The Wonderful 101, he has fond memories of developing the project with director Hideki Kamiya.

Inaba’s full response:

“You always ask the hard questions, trying to make us choose one game.

I guess if there’s one I would have to choose it’s probably MadWorld. It’s one of the first titles we released, and that’s because obviously it’s a Sin City visual design. The team at Clover Studios had just done Okami, which is of course a game about peace, tranquility, these very colorful colors we’re using, and then to go to this violent, dark, brutal world. The one thing the game taught me is that you can have the violence and the brutality, but still turn it into a really interesting game experience, so the visuals – that level of brutality – doesn’t have to mean that the game itself isn’t deep or isn’t a lot of fun, so there was a really unique learning for myself being on that title.

I guess if I had to say one other one, it would probably be The Wonderful 101 because that was the last game I collaborated with Kamiya-san on. Kamiya-san and I both have very strong personalities. We’re very opinionated, we have our own flow, we think about games. I would tell him, ‘We need this level of quality.’ And he would then come back to me and say, ‘No, it needs to be higher in a different way.’ We really do riff off of each other, but it’s also a very painful experience, because you’re really pushing each other in a direction towards excellence, but with that comes a lot of stress and pain and pressure. It’s never an easy experience, but even in the pain of working with him to create an amazing game, there’s still a lot of fun that is had, so I guess if I’m gonna choose a collaborative game where I get to work with Kamiya, Wonderful 101 is the one I thought was a lot of fun. But every single game is fun in its own way, so that’s why these questions are so hard to answer.”

You can watch Electric Playground’s full interview with Inaba as well as Kamiya below.