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This is the story of how an artist adapts and refines his craft. It starts with a challenge. In a recent interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, The Wonderful 101's director Hideki Kamiya talked about his first wholly original project. "I began developing [Viewtiful Joe] when my boss at Capcom, Shinji Mikami-san, said, 'Try doing the design process by yourself.'" A Capcom star on the rise, Kamiya had previously directed Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry - but Viewtiful Joe was to be the first title he'd design from the ground up. Viewtiful Joe might seem the kind of classic that needs no introduction, and then you think about the fact that a master of the 3D genre should have chosen to design a 2D action game as his debut title on the then-next generation of hardware. But Viewtiful Joe is no normal take on two dimensions, and this surely has its roots in the timing of Kamiya's rise to prominence.
Kamiya's big break had come in directing Resident Evil 2 (he was a planner on the original.) The Resident Evil series was one of the most successful games in that early 3D era of home consoles in the late 90s, when the original PlayStation was the only real game in town. And this trained a generation of Capcom's finest minds in what is now a niche art - 3D worlds built to be viewed from fixed camera angles. Kamiya didn't just design Resident Evil 2 in this style, of course, but would afterwards design Devil May Cry, probably the first truly great 3D combat game and one that used a fixed camera.
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