Nintendo's released a new Iwata Asks feature, in which company boss Satoru Iwata sits down with the developers of a new Nintendo title. While some previous features have focused on internal projects such as Ocarina of Time 3D, this time the CEO shared time with emissaries from third-party superstar Capcom to discuss the company's upcoming 3DS title, Resident Evil: Revelations.
Revelations took technical cues from The Mercenaries and Resident Evil 5, reveals Producer Masachika Kawata, with the latter ported internally to the 3DS' hardware to test the system's capabilities. Out of that came The Mercenaries, which Kawata describes as “the one that's really pushing it hardware-wise:” By the time work began on Revelations, the team had already learned enough about the 3DS to ensure a smoother development on the all-new title.
But it was two older sources that would provide the game's stylistic foundations. “Whereas Resident Evil 4 had changed the model for the series of the numbering titles, I wanted to get back to the origin,” says Kawata: “Many people still say that Resident Evil for the Nintendo GameCube system was the best game in the series. So this time, we wanted the fans to enjoy the fear element.”
The team also worked to give the game a pace similar to that of televised drama, with an episodic storyline whose rhythm was dictated by cliffhanger events. “Capcom is always like that,” laughs planning head Tsukasa Takanaka: “We make the main events interesting and then fill in the gaps.”
Resident Evil: Revelations is due for North American release on Feb 7.
