Noted man of culture and Vanillaware president George Kamitani talked food, fan service, and Princess Crown in an interview with Famitsu. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089.]
Here are some highlights from the interview:
George Kamitani, Vanillaware President: (On why put the effort into food): “I thought about putting in something that feels good. I like eating and I like perverted stuff. Ecchi is difficult to sell on consoles, so you could say that’s how the delicious-looking foods started.”
George Kamitani: “Princess Crown was originally an action game. Sega said during the presentation ‘We want an RPG’ so I went ahead and said ‘It’s an RPG.’ The programmers there went with it too. After that we asked ourselves ‘What do we do…’ [laughs].”
George Kamitani: “Sega introduced me to Atlus. They said ‘We brought Purikura* to a ‘Purikura’ company!”
(Editor’s note: To explain Kamitani’s joke and pun, Princess Crown is shortened to “Pri-Cro” in Japanese. It is spelled and pronounced プリクラ “Puri-Kura”. However, Purikura is mostly known as the shorthand for “print club,” the Japanese digital photo sticker booths. Sega produces Purikura machines, so there’s the connection.)
George Kamitani: “We had a project over at Sony Computer Entertainment (Now Sony Interactive Entertainment) for about two years. However, a change in organization structure put the project on standby. A concerned individual made an introduction which would end up becoming Enix’s online game Fantasy Earth Zero.*
(Editor’s Note: George Kamitani worked for Square Enix as the director for Fantasy Earth: Zero.)
George Kamitani: “There isn’t a guaranteed method for making good games but there are some things that you can’t do. Everything we learned from Princess Crown in retrospect went into Odin Sphere.
George Kamitani: (On the things you can’t do): “Bending the concept halfway through. If you’re going to do that, you might as well start from the beginning. Also, no outsourcing. The reason is because they wouldn’t put their lives on the line. Well, it may vary from person to person whether they would or not, but it’s a business. You can’t help it when publishers or the outsource company only offer minimum support because they want to stay within budget. It’s rare to have something good without budget involved.”
In case you missed it, NieR series creator Yoko Taro recently shared his thoughts on Vanillaware president George Kamitani and company. You can also check out George Kamitani’s annual New Year’s illustration here for 2019’s.
