While Sega held its Spring Showcase event earlier yesterday, the big news came from an evening gala event where Sega and developer Platinum Games announced their partnership. Sega will be publishing four titles for the developer, three of which were unveiled at the event.
Platinum Games is a relatively new studio, founded in 2006 under the name Seeds, Inc. by former members of Capcom's Clover Studio. The company's most well known employees include Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami as well as Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya -- the talents behind Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami. While the company itself may be new, these professionals bring with them an impressive pedigree, so the unveiling of their first batch of titles, as well as the securing of an enthusiastic publisher in Sega was welcome news to attendees who have appreciated their previous efforts.
Platinum Games President and CEO Tatsuya Minami was on hand to explain the partnership with the publisher, as well as to lay out the company's mission.
According to Minami, "our company has not been around for very long but we have a mission to create very unique and special kinds of games. We would like our games to bring happiness and joy to gamers across the globe. A lot of people have said that developers in Japan haven't been doing well lately, but we are different. We would like people of the world to once again play high quality Japanese games."
"To realize this dream, we have been looking for good partners, and that's when we met Sega. Sega has the courage to allow us to make these unique and exciting titles."
"Each of these titles is very different in style and is on different hardware, but each one is unique. There is a fourth title that we can not announce just yet. The director on this title is Shinji Mikami. With Sega as our partner, we hope that we can bring our original and unique titles to the Western market, particularly America," concluded Minami.
After this brief introduction, Atsushi Inaba took over the duties as master of ceremonies, taking the attendees through a series of brief presentations unveiling the trifecta of games that are part of the partnership.
The first game is titled Bayonetta, and should be coming to today's more powerful console platforms. Director Hideki Kamiya questioned whether or not action games have really evolved since he debuted Devil May Cry seven years ago, and Bayonetta is his attempt at taking action to a whole new level.
The trailer video we saw lasted only a few scant seconds, during which we saw a female lead character who can kick and punch, but who could also fire off bullets using guns on her feet. You really couldn't see very much outside of the bullets flying in "bullet-time" and what appeared to be a nasty multi-hit combo on a massive opponent. According to Kamiya, Bayonetta is a modern day witch who is engaged in a never-ending war against angels. The conflict between witches and angels serves as the driving story behind the game, and while we couldn't be shown very much, the action would be compelling.
