411 Interview - Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop Producer Minoru Nakai
Posted by Tommy Coloma on 11.04.2008
Minoru Nakai gives us the 411 on the Wii port and also tells us what's going on with the Mega Man Legends/Tron Bonne sequel that everyone keeps asking about.
It's been two years since Dead Rising first allowed us to live out our Dawn of the Dead fantasies on the Xbox 360. While a success both critically and commercially, there were several aspects of the game that even its biggest fans thought should be improved. Seeing the positive reception that the Wii port of Resident Evil 4 garnered upon release, Capcom decided that a version of Dead Rising on the Wii could be used to introduce the series to a wider audience while giving the company the opportunity to address the problems found in the original. In order to make it more accessible to casual gamers, the developers implemented, among other things, Resident Evil 4-like controls, an improved save system, a less time-sensitive mission structure, and better weapon management. There are also a few changes that those who have played the original might be interested in, including the addition of new enemies and weapons, the ability to stagger enemies and follow up with special charging attacks, as well as the ability to buy weapons from the gun shop owner.
I had a chance to do a short interview with producer Minoru Nakai at TGS last month. Here's what he had to say about bringing Dead Rising to the Wii, his experience with the Onimusha series and how it helped in the development of the port, and where Capcom stands as far as the Mega Man Legends sequels go.
Why would those who have already played the 360 version be interested in the Wii remake?
There are three big points. Obviously, the controls in this game are pretty much the same system as the Resident Evil 4 remake on the Wii, and everybody really loved those controls. So, if there's a fan of the 360 version of Dead Rising who really liked the atmosphere and fun you can have killing the zombies in a humorous kind of way and also liked the controls of the Resident Evil 4 Wii remake, which were different from the 360 version, I think that they would really like to play this new version and maybe experience that again in a different way. Also, a couple problems with the 360 version were addressed in this version. The letters on the screen are actually bigger. I know there was a big problem with not being able to actually read any of the text if you didn't have an HDTV. That is no longer a problem with the Wii version. And also, the save system was geared to the hardcore - there's only one save. There's actually a number of save slots in this one, so it's a little gentler when you're getting into it. Those are probably the biggest three things that would make this thing interesting for people who played the original.
How about those who still want a challenging game?
There are 3 difficulty levels in this game. It's a little more traditional than the original, and if you select the hard mode it will be quite challenging to complete the game, so there's certainly a very challenging setting in there. And the other thing about Dead Rising is there are a lot of survivors throughout the mall that you have to go rescue. They're kind of like side-missions. There's a bit of a time limit - you have to get there before they die, and if you're not really good at the game, you're probably not going to complete all those things. So, for people who want a challenge, they can go ahead and try to complete all those side-missions, and it's going to be pretty challenging for them.
A few years back you worked on a few games in the Onimusha series. How did your experiences with those games help in putting Dead Rising together?
Probably the biggest thing that I took away from my experience with Onimusha and brought into Dead Rising Wii is the fact that they're both at heart action games where the most important thing is the interaction between the character and enemies. And something that's very important is where all those enemies are placed and how they're balanced to really give the player the most enjoyment possible. And so, with that basic point being very similar between all action games, I learned a lot, working on Onimusha, on exactly how to place enemies. Not just the zombies - like the poodles and the birds flying around attacking Frank, the police woman, Psycho Joe. Basically, taking the world that you have and figuring out where to put the enemies and how to balance the game to make it as interesting for the player as possible. My experience with Onimusha really helped on Dead Rising Wii.
Difficult question - I think, those two games, especially when you look at Rockman DASH, they really were kinda the first full 3D action games that were out there for consoles. Pretty soon after that you had The Legend of Zelda which kinda showed us the way in many respects, but it was really difficult without having an easy example to follow, so the entire time while designing the game we were trying new things. Figuring, ok, well - how is the boss going attack you in 3D? It was something totally new to us. How are the maps gonna work? How are they going to be laid out? In terms of technical ways, can you actually do what we really wanted to do for this game? So, all those things were really challenging from a "first time really attacking the problem" perspective, so we did a lot of trial and error, tried a lot of things. Some things didn't work, some things did. But, both of those games ended up coming out pretty good. I think most people were happy with them, so it was a pretty successful experience overall.
Any plans for a sequel any time soon?
Certainly we hear this question a lot. People are really looking forward to the day when we finally do get a chance to do a sequel, especially one for Rockman DASH. There's a lot of people, myself included, who want to make the sequels, but you really have to weigh the capacity of the company and look at all the other games that we're involved in creating right now, and right now it seems like the capacity and the timing isn't quite right for that sequel, but there are a lot of people who really want to make one, so it's certainly something to think about, but not right at this moment.
Which one would you prefer doing - a Rockman one or a Tron Bonne one?
I'd rather do Rockman DASH if I had to do one.
Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. Is there anything you wanted to add for the people who are interested in Dead Rising?
In the end, after making this game and seeing how it turned out, there really is a lot there for fans of the original 360 version as well as people who never played Dead Rising or maybe don't even have a 360. Maybe they're just a little more casual and they want to try a crazy action game. There really is a lot of stuff there for both groups of people, and I hope a lot of you will end up enjoying Dead Rising Wii.
