14 DAY TRIAL // The creator of Shadow of the Colossus and ICO, Fumito Ueda, sat down recently with Famitsu magazine for the purpose of discussing differences between Western and Japanese perspectives, but also of drawing comparisons between cost and design choices of the two cultures. Sony's God of War II for PS2 was the main topic of discussion. Don't be surprised, you'll soon see it's the perfect example. I took the liberty of posting a couple of excerpts from the interview up on Cory Barlog's blog, "Don't play games with me!" for you to read.
The guys who developed this game have such enthusiasm that I really felt like they were saying "dude, I want you to see all of this awesome stuff!" on purpose. [...] The way the game first grabbed me was pretty awesome. The way the game started off made me think about how in Japanese games that would never happen. It wasn't a matter of "how many explosions can we have on the screen in a short amount of time", but it definitely felt like a Hollywood movie. The way that everything was changing and expanding constantly pulls in the user into the game's universe. Everything from the combat, to the programming, to the way of thinking is totally different from a Japanese game.
For example, when you see the stage where you're flying (ed. note flying pegasus stage), and you see another stage, the more someone says they're two different games, the more varied the game becomes. [...] When I talk about Wanda and the Colossus (Shadow of the Colossus), the whole game is consistently based around the system of "the climb and the battle", and if you really say that we only made that kind of system, then it really was a success. However, when making God of War 2, because of the ideas, the programming of the stages and the numerous ways of capturing gamers, it became something really different. Each part was specially created, and the parts were all consistent with each other. That's a really extravagant way of creating things. But having so many different elements in a game makes me feel a little uncomfortable, and it's expensive too. If it was me, I guess I would use things multiple times."
I only took this piece of the interview because it says everything there is to say about Sony's game and because I had exactly the same impression about God of War's developers when I saw just how beautiful and grandiose they made it (not to mention the breathtaking storyline) - I actually imagined them working on it with great enthusiasm myself. I could hear them saying "man I hope everyone appreciates to the max what we're doing here!" If that's the case, and Jaffe and his guys are reading this, I'd like them to know that I truly believe the game is the best of its kind. There's nothing that you don't appreciate in God of War II and if there was, it would be the fact that it has to end at a certain point.