Akiman did draw another girl of the month in Gamaga magazine, after a month off he’s back hooray! Photobucket is currently acting up on me so I’ll be back with the image later…
This interview occured a few months back in Play magazine, the May ‘07 issue. I’ve been meaning to put this up here for a while but I haven’t gotten around to it until now. The interview is of George Kamitani who used to work for Capcom and even worked on Street Fighter II’ Championship Edition and Saturday Night Slam Masters. The interview is due to him being the main artist and person behind Odin Sphere. Odin Sphere from Atlus developed is a 2D action game available on the Playstation 2 - YES A CONSOLE NOT A HANDHELD - and you can hear the dialog in English or Japanese !!! Great graphics, great story, great music by Hitoshi Sakimoto of Final Fantasy fame, can’t say enough good things about it. Anyway, tidbits of the interview relating to Capcom and SF. Co-worker Hiroyuki Tanaka is also interviewed. Enjoy! 
*PLAY MAGAZINE - After playing Odin Shpere for a little while, I was suprised to find it had much less emphasis on action than I expected. Just looking at the screenshots, I thought it would be almost like a beat’em up.
GEORGE KAMITANI - Yes, while making Princess Crown (game he made prior to Odin Sphere) and designing all the items that appear in that game, I thought it would be interesting to use them much more technically, almost like a card game. Even if players aren’t great action gamers, they can think strategically and use items to proceed. When I was at Capcom I worked on games that were extremely action-heavy and I wanted to get away from that.
HIROYUKI TANAKA - Now that you mention it, you started out in this industry at Capcom, didn’t you?
GK: That’s right, as a game designer. This was back in the era of Street Fighter II’ Championship Edition and Saturday Night Slam Masters.
PLAY: I had no idea you worked on those games. They’re pretty dear to my heart as a video game fan.
GK: The problem with those games was they became too difficult. It got to the point where we were putting in ridiculous moves like double 360s with multiple button presses. From my experience on those games I felt that going forward with that kind of design would just make hurdles too high for people, so I wanted to do something different.
HT: And then you left Capcom. You get a lot of attention for your art, but you were originally a game designer, weren’t you (laughs)?
GK: I was. I actually started out working part-time in high school at a game company in Hiroshima called Crosstalk. It was right in the middle of the Famicom boom, and I got experience both in graphics and programming for MSX.
PLAY: I didn’t know you were so multitalented!
GK: I just really wanted to make games. After Crosstalk, I went to Capcom with the intention of learning as much as I could and quitting in three years. I only lasted two, though (laughs). One of my colleagues had started another game company and invited me to join. They were making home console software, and after helping out with the initial project I wanted to do something completely original. That became Princess Crown.
HT: We’re still not even at Atlus yet (laughs).
GK: Yeah, we went to Sega first. At that time the game was heavily influenced by Gainax’s Princess Maker. It was sort of a combination of Princess Maker and my work at Capcom on fighting games. The Saturn was starting to lose its battle against the Playstation, and Sega was trying to fight back with RPGs. The first time we presented Princess Crown to them, they asked, “Is this an RPG?” and I blurted out “Yes! It sure is!” (laughs).*
