DmC: Devil May Cry represents a clash of East and West as Capcom is collaborating with Ninja Theory. One thing game director Hideaki Itsuno has apparently learned is that Western studios work in the opposite direction to Japanese ones, putting graphics before gameplay.
“I think this speaks to the differences in the core of how Western games are developed compared to games in Japan,” he told Siliconera. “Well, at least at Capcom because we can’t speak for everyone. Given our experience, it seems like with the West and Ninja Theory they focus on the visuals stuff at the beginning and then build the gameplay on top of that.
“Whereas at Capcom Japan, we focus on the game logic and getting the systems down in the beginning then we gradually build the visuals on top of that. The key to the feedback and the kind of advice we’ve been giving is we’ve been trying to find a hybrid system where we take a best of both worlds approach. It hasn’t been easy, but I think we’re happy with the results we have.”
Given some of the pap coming out of the mouths of Western game folk lately, he may be right.