Hideaki Itsuno

Hideaki Itsuno (伊津野 英昭, Itsuno Hideaki) is a Japanese video game director and video game designer. He has been employed by Capcom for most of his career.^[1] He has been the director for such games as Devil May Cry 2, 3, 4 as well as Dragon's Dogma.

Career

Devil May Cry series

Despite the success of the original Devil May Cry, the sequel was not created by Hideki Kamiya or Team Little Devils.^[2][3] The first notice Kamiya's team was given about any sort of sequel occurred during localization of Devil May Cry in North America and Europe, a move which greatly surprised Kamiya. Though Itsuno is ultimately credited as director in the final version of Devil May Cry 2,^[4] he was only brought onto the project about halfway through to replace a previous director, as Capcom was dissatisfied by how their work on the game was coming together.^[5] Since Devil May Cry 2's release, Kamiya has expressed disappointment that he was not called on by his superiors at Capcom to direct the game.^[6]

Following the mixed reception received by Devil May Cry 2, Capcom decided to develop Devil May Cry 3 in a similar manner to the series' more critically successful first entry, Devil May Cry. Gameplay elements such as the size of environments and the game's battle engine were reconsidered. Other aspects of Devil May Cry 2 which were criticized, such as Dante's cockiness being toned down and the game's weak difficulty, were brought back in line with Devil May Cry.^[7] Itsuno was the director for the game.

He returned to direct Devil May Cry 4.^[8] Itsuno said in a Famitsu article that the visuals attempt to deliver a satisfying feel of being in the air, and that the actions of Nero's Devil Bringer could not be done on contemporary generation consoles, but they could be done on the new generation of consoles such as the PlayStation 3.^[9]

The next game in the series, DmC: Devil May Cry was developed by UK developer Ninja Theory.^[10] When discussing this decision, he said: “With DmC this time, we wanted to avoid the problem that befalls some series where you keep making it with the same team, same hardware, and it tends to decrease and fans move away from it,” he explains. “We wanted to avoid that. We don’t want the series to die.” ^[11] The development team included over ninety members with nearly ten of them being from Capcom. While Itsuno oversaw the project, Alex Jones and Motohide Eshiro acted as producers. They wanted to aid the Ninja Theory developers in making DmC play more like the previous Devil May Cry games.^[12]

Dragon's Dogma

He was the director for Dragon's Dogma^[13] During the press conference at Capcom's Captivate event in 2011, Hideaki Itsuno said that Dragon's Dogma is a game he had been dreaming about making since his school days. He was able to realize it now due to advancing technology, and has been directing a staff of around 150 people at Capcom Japan for the past two years development time (three years including conceptual phases).^[14] As of April 2011, the game's development status was at 50%.^[15]

Itsuno stated that his team has "made Dragon's Dogma and come up to this point through our experience of action games. We're trying to make a new genre: We're using our action heritage and putting that into an action RPG."^[13] In addition to Capcom's previous works (such as Breath of Fire,^[13] Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Monster Hunter), Itsuno also cited the influence of other Eastern RPGs such as Dragon Quest and Western RPGs such as Fable and Oblivion.^[13] Itsuno later explained that they have "seen a great deal of open-world action RPGs over the years," but that "there's never been one that really put everything together in the action parts. We figured that if there hasn't been a game made by people who understand how action works, then we ought to do it ourselves. We wanted a game where the player is thrown into the world and needs to figure out how to stay alive via nothing but his own controller." However, it will also be possible for characters to take a less action-oriented approach, with Itsuno stating that they are "making this game such that you can beat the monsters even if you build up EXP, collect good companions and/or pawns, and sit back and watch the battle unfold," and elaborating that while it is an action game, "that's not all that it is. You can fully configure your party and put as much thought as you like into battle, which is something we're doing for people who really want to get into this world."^[16]

He said that the plan was to make the game a much more Western fantasy game.^[17] In March 2012, he said he hoped the game would sell an ambitious 10 million copies worldwide and one million in Japan.^[18][19] Following the game's successful launch, Capcom is planning to develop a sequel.^[20] Itsuno says that they were only able to do 60-70% of what they wanted to in the first game, and wish to include those ideas for the sequel.^[21]

Future

In October 2012, Itsuno has hinted that the Rival Schools and Capcom vs. SNK series may see a revival.^[22][23] The former series was once again hinted in the next year alongside the Devil May Cry series. He also aims to create a fighting game that would replicate the impact Street Fighter II brought to its genre.^[24]

Video games

References

External links

• Hideaki Itsuno at the Internet Movie Database
• Hideaki Itsuno at MobyGames