#talking evil

I enjoy, and have seen quite a few horror movies, but to me most of the female main characters seem to be in the movies for the sole purpose of having a terrified person who can scream loudly. Perhaps it is this way because the women are generally portrayed as weak and defenseless, and seeing them being chased increases the feeling of oneness with that character, and thus the sense of fear.

But back to Claire, I feel that she is perhaps more well-rounded than a lot of the characters we see in horror movies and games. Sure she has a tough side, but she is also a just your average civilian/college student/woman. It is my opinion that all of these elements together make her a perfect main character for a horror story.

For Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, Claire’s voice was again done by the immensely talented Alyson Court, who has been the voice of Claire since Resident Evil 2. We were very privileged to be able to work with Alyson again, and even though we asked a lot from her, she never failed to exceed our expectations. On the set, Alyson BECAME the young Claire again from 1998. It was truly a pleasure to work with her again.

Going into the voice recording, we thought about how a regular girl thrown into a town writhing with the undead would react, how the fear would affect her breathing, and how she would scream. So it was with this direction in mind that we had Alyson consider all of these things when delivering her lines. We wanted to convey from the mere sound of her voice, the terror Claire was feeling.

In the end, what we needed to do was to convey through Claire the real “presence” of horror.

The Gap Between Two Claires (2009.05.29)

Last time, I talked about Claire’s appeal, but that’s not all there is to her.

Have you ever thought about the gap between the two sides of her character?

It’s just when you think she’s just an ordinary college student, we find out that Claire possesses an exceptional set of survival skills. - Perhaps because she is the little sister of Special Forces member Chris Redfield? Yet despite being a saucy biker type, her gentle side won’t allow her to forsake the weak. The reason she came to Raccoon City in the first place was to look for her brother. Her outward appearance kind of belies her real personality, and that gap makes her an interesting character.

For this game, we realized the importance of that gap, and tried to recreate the Claire we knew from 1998. For the design, we turned to Capcom’s own SHIGECHIYO. SHIGECHIYO also worked as the main designer on Umbrella Chronicles, and did character and monster design. For Darkside Chronicles he went a step further and gave us support starting from the concept stage.

So, I asked SHIGECHIYO about what he paid attention to most while designing.

First of all, I didn’t want to upset the image fans have of Resident Evil 2, so I tried to leave the basics unchanged. But given that the original’s design is more than 10 years old, I have updated the look and feel in some places. The changes aren’t drastic though; it just needs a subtle refining touch.

Also, advances in hardware have led to improvements in rendering and allowed me to add details that convey Claire’s character and personality. Her sunglasses and boots show that she is into motorcycles. The knife on her shoulder, her cut-off jeans, all of these things that show that gap in her character, her spunk, I am leaving them as they were. I’m only rearranging them.

【SHIGECHIYO’s Design】

We created a 3D model of Claire based on that design.

We really paid attention to detail, right down to how much midriff to have her show, and the size of her butt. Because the display system in Darkside Chronicles let’s you see your partner, how characters look from behind is extremely important. From that attention to detail was born a Claire, packed with a whole new kind of appeal. Watch the latest trailer, and I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean.

【Game Model】

When voice is added to Claire’s model in motion, the allure she had in Resident Evil 2 becomes apparent once again.

Claire gets caught up in a hellish struggle to escape from Raccoon City. As she and Leon help each other, they start to develop a mutual understanding of one another. Unlike in the original game, in Darkside Chronicles, the two characters act as a pair, so the dialog between them has more substance and detail.

They start out in the beginning as just two survivors, but along the way, they learn to trust in each other, and transform into a formidable team. Claire’s tenderness and her toughness are what pull Leon through. I believe that seeing that growth, together with the game’s learning curve, will make for an enjoyable experience.

The fact that she grows up in the end, is the reason I like Claire.

The relationship between Steve and Claire often breaks down to a typical big-sis versus snotty younger brother situation that I remember made me grin more than a few times.

The combination of Steve’s slightly awkward manner, and desire to look cool, contrasted against Claire’s rough-and-tumble beauty inevitably makes for an interesting drama between the sexes.

The feelings Steve has for this beautiful woman he has met through sheer chance are painfully obvious. No matter how critical the situation may be, men are creatures that have a natural response to women. Steve’s self consciousness about his age and the clash between his natural impulses is something that we all have experienced. Though he is still quite wet behind the ears, he is interesting to watch from the point of view of an outsider.

For this game we had Shigechiyo handle Steve’s redesign as well

【SHIGECHIYO’s Design】

Steve will be given a more modern makeover, without tarnishing his original look. In addition to some extra “wild” touches, we are incorporating minute details that make him a more realistic looking prisoner. There was also the question of what Umbrella’s original purpose was for having this facility. This time around, to a certain degree we try to convey a sense that the prisoners are being supervised.

One more thing that makes Steve hard to forget is that he carries with him some baggage; a shadowy secret in his past, a dark side, related to why he was imprisoned on that island. At first he tries to hide its very existence, but little by little it comes to light. We learn that this dark side actually stems from Steve’s relationship with his father. Shadows are a product of light, and light cannot be completely separated from darkness. So in keeping with the “Darkside” theme, this is a tale of shadows and family.

When I think about it from the standpoint of a fan, I just remember the huge impact it had on me back when the game came out. Until then, the games in the series were numbered. However, Code: Veronica broke the mold and used a “codename” in its title – and a female name to boot. The title also didn’t give anything away, which only added to the game’s enjoyment. The fact that you didn’t learn what Code: Veronica actually meant until you reached the end of the game was a brilliant twist. This is the standard I want to hold Darkside Chronicles to.

The setting itself was also very different from that of other games in the series. Code: Veronica got away from the Raccoon City setting. It started out on a solitary island in the distant sea below the equator, and then moved even further south to Antarctica. No game in the series had ever experienced such a dramatic change of scenery. It broke the pattern of having a story start and finish in one place, and it put the player in a completely different world at the end of the game than the one they were in at the beginning.

I think that Code: Veronica was created to go against everything that had come before in the Resident Evil series.

I didn’t just want to bring that game to Darkside Chronicles, I wanted to everything that made it great! I wanted to give additional meaning to that story and to more closely knit it together with Resident Evil 2. I found that it wasn’t so difficult once I dissected both of them.

Code: Veronica itself is already on the darker side of the Resident Evil series. Its story is more emotional, more insane: Steve’s crush on Claire, the life-and-death struggles in a place all but forgotten by the rest of the world, and families on the verge of falling apart – Steve’s family and the insane Ashford family. These are stories that you can’t just chart on a timeline.

Including Code: Veronica in Darkside Chronicles was, in a way, inevitable.

Veronica's Darkness (2009.06.12)

Code: Veronica’s music is very distinctive. Especially the song called Alexia’s Lullaby. This song seems to paint the world in Veronica’s colors. Like the word “lullaby” suggests, it’s a very simple song, but you hear it a number of times during the game and it leaves quite a strong impression. Anybody who has played Code: Veronica and hears it will think “Oh yeah, that song.”

Other Resident Evil games are set in America and have a corresponding American feel to them, but Veronica carries more of a European gothic feel. This comes out not only in the rich gothic ornamentation in many of the game’s settings, but also in the story of the fall of an aristocratic family. So many elements, such as the German-style weaponry, the Central European carvings, the lone island and forlorn mansion create a complete backdrop for the gothic horror story of a noble lady who should have died long ago.

The genre of “gothic horror” has a lot of different definitions, but the main themes include a horror story rooted in and accented by the old culture of Europe. It might include old castles, ruins, mansions, and ghosts as well. All of these elements are present in Code: Veronica and tied up in a unique Resident Evil way.

While the first Resident Evil borrowed some of these elements, the Resident Evil games before Code Veronica were more of an American-style horror heavily influenced by the sense of panic imbued in American horror films. The fear in those earlier games was focused on the monsters, zombies, and the cruel organization controlling events from the shadows.

The fear in Code: Veronica focuses on the madness of man, and the fate of a noble bloodline. The story of that madness is told partly through Alexia’s Lullaby. The song holds something akin to an unexplainable dread that even some Mother Goose tales hold. As that music plays, you can hear the European operatic undertones that highlight the gothic story, which underpins the story of a bloodline’s collapse told in the game. That style of gothic horror is original to Code: Veronica.

The music in Darkside Chronicles is all original or else newly arranged, but I think we have been able to capture the essence of Code: Veronica very well. That’s because we are lucky to have Takeshi Miura working as the sound director for the portions of Darkside’s music that have to do with the Veronica story. He was the composer of the original songs in Code: Veronica.

Cavia is a superb company with a proven track record for quality. They create outstanding original brands, and I have actually worked with them on a number of great titles in the past. We worked on Capcom’s excellent Beatdown, which was jointly developed with Cavia. More recently, we created Umbrella Chronicles together. In my opinion, Cavia is a company with great creative vision and technical skill.

For Darkside Chronicles, I wanted to work with the same staff that I worked with on Umbrella Chronicles. I selected staff in order to get the very best quality into the game. I chose people who had experience with Umbrella Chronicles so I could put that experience to work.

Being conscious of people is very important when it comes to entertainment. This awareness is essential when trying to create something that’s fun. Of course the execution of a game involves mastery of the hardware and programming tools you are working with, but having a good understanding of the people making the game is absolutely indispensable. That consciousness is what allows a game maker to make his game better.

Cavia’s director Hiroaki Kotake was responsible for planning the foundation of the gun shooting action in Umbrella Chronicles. On Darkside, he had control of important factors such as game balance and difficulty. His work has really made this game exciting.

However, the most difficult thing is a consciousness of what your staff is enthusiastic about, and how to best use that enthusiasm to make something great.

People will often have differing opinions during development, and as a leader it’s difficult to get people to come around to your way of thinking. Opinions will clash, and sometimes creating games can feel like a mental battlefield!

Although it can be very difficult, I think that those conflicts of opinion are necessary. There’s no way to avoid friction when you get a lot of smart people with their own opinions together, but if you have a leader who can guide friction in the right direction, you will end up with a better result in the end. The director’s job is to guide that creative energy in the right direction during the whole course of production

A team with good results under its belt has already been through the crucible once so to speak, and therefore they have an advantage. Once the elements of Darkside Chronicles finally started to come together, I knew that the team’s experience really helped them. They were absolutely on the right track, and it’s obvious that Darkside has surpassed Umbrella Chronicles. Mr. Kotake has taken the awareness of his staff’s talents and opinions and given it shape in the form of Darkside Chronicles. He and his staff continue to put the finishing touches on the game.

I have to be honest, sometimes it’s downright scary seeing how heated things can get during the development of a game, but I hope you will enjoy the final product of that intense struggle!

Cut Scenes Taking Shape (2009.07.31)

Shirogumi inc. is creating the cut scenes for Darkside Chronicles, and Mr. Hidekazu Gondoh is directing them. Shirogumi has been doing CG animation for quite awhile, working on game cut scenes, TV commercials, and CG in feature films. They most recently worked on K-20: Kaijin Nijyuu Mensou Den (K-20: Legend of the 20 mysterious faces), and will be working on BALLAD Na mo Naki Koi no Uta (BALLAD: The unnamed love song) this September.

Hidekazu also worked on Umbrella Chronicles with me, and in my opinion he’s not your average director. He offers great opinions on the story which make the cut scenes even better in the end. Mr. Hidekazu’s mark has been left on the game’s story. He has especially strong feelings about the Veronica story which he was involved with.

I talked with Hidekazu from the beginning about how we wanted to do the cut scenes. We aimed to emphasize the games central concept of presence through the cut scenes, so they were suffused with a sense of reality. At that time, we weren’t exactly sure how we wanted to increase the realism of the cut scenes in the game, but I agreed with the director that we had to imbue the scenes with a raw, real feeling.

One other thing we aimed for was quality that exceeded the high standards set in Umberella Chronicles. That was an absolute must, and difficult since the cut scenes in Umbrella Chronicles were great. One thing we were careful and conscious of during Umbrella Chronicles was creating a sense of uniformity between the cut scenes and the gameplay itself. We didn’t constrain ourselves quite so tightly this time around, and we decided to let the more powerful aspects of the story come through with high quality CG this time around.

Of course just saying “We’re gonna make the cut scenes look better!” won't get it done. Actually executing those goals comes down to CG technique, and Hidekazu has that in spades.

Hidekazu took care of all the storyboarding, and actor’s motion capture performances were recorded at Shirogumi’s studio. After that, we recorded voices in Los Angeles. A lot of different steps and many people are involved in the process of creating the cut scenes for this game. It's a very tough job to oversee and control everything that goes into the creation of these scenes.

Right now we are in the process of finishing off the game’s final scenes. All the rough cuts I’ve been getting from the director are absolutely incredible. This is thanks to Hidekazu’s skill in direction as well as the technical expertise and hard work of the team at Shirogumi.

One of the guiding principles we kept in mind from the beginning while creating the cut scenes was the use of light and the overall mood of the lighting. We used lighting that was similar to the in-game scenes, but more dynamic and active. Another principle was character expressions and eye movement. Characters that might otherwise look a bit doll-like really come alive when their eyes are moving realistically. I was really happy about that small detail as it added realism to the scenes, specifically in Claire and Steve’s expressions.

I’m very excited that you’ll be able to see all of our work so soon. It won’t be long now!

Sound Recording Takes Shape (2009.08.07)

Most of the Resident Evil series is set in America, so the characters speak English. Of course this means that we have to record each character’s dialogue in English.

We have Japanese voice actors record the dialogue of games which are in Japanese, and there was even a time when development staff recorded the voices for games. That was fine back then, but now as every aspect of our games becomes higher quality, and as we try to appeal to a more global audience, the quality of in-game voice must increase as well.

The voice for the Resident Evil series has been praised as exceptional, and that is due in large part to holding the voice recording sessions in America. We recorded the voice for Darkside Chronicles in America as well.

We broke the recording up into a number of sessions. I went to one such session in Los Angeles in March.

Los Angeles has plenty of great weather in March, but I was closed up in the studio all day and couldn’t enjoy it at all. Also, we were trying to have the actors that worked on the older games work on Darkside as much as possible, so the actor/actress was often connected to our studio remotely to do their recordings. The role of Claire was played by Alyson Court and Ada Wong’s voice was provided by Sally Cahill. These actresses are both based in Canada, so they weren’t actually with us while we recorded. This technology is very advanced, and is very commonplace in the industry right now, but there are still drops in the connection, and since the actor/actress isn’t there in the room with you, it can be frustrating at times.

In spite of those issues, the studio was great because there was free coffee, donuts, fruit and salad. You could have as much as you wanted! It was always fun to munch on these snacks when waiting for a tech problem to get sorted out, or just while taking a break.

We worked with JUST CAUSE for the voice recording of this game. They are excellent at what they do in terms of voice recording and motion capture, and did great work on Resident Evil 5 in both of those areas. JUST CAUSE has a great sense of quality and a passion for games. They are a great partner to Capcom. I know that we will be able to reach our high goals for quality working with them.

The theme of the voice recording was “presence”.

We learned an important lesson about voice during Umbrella Chronicles. We learned that voice is extremely effective when trying to build tension. In Umbrella and Darkside Chronicles the camera advances automatically, so we are able to sync a dramatic conversation between characters that matches what’s happening. You couldn’t have such a fluid and natural conversation happening if you were controlling the characters movement directly.

We felt we had to set the bar for voice very high on this game, but just saying you want to have powerful voice acting that conveys a sense of presence is much easier than executing it. First, we create a Japanese script that flows naturally, correcting, editing and trying different things as we go. The next step is the very difficult task of translating the script. All of the voice is recorded in English, so special care and attention needs to be paid to the translation process. We cannot translate the script literally. Sometimes, completely different expressions need to be used in English. For example, there is the line “Mushikera!” (“You worm!”) in the Japanese script, however, there is no good phrase that means “You worm!” in English. This line is rather important in the scenario, so it had to be translated very carefully. In the end we couldn’t find something that got the meaning across exactly, so we settled on “You rat!” for the translation.

There were a number of cases where the actors just couldn’t get a feel for the lines, and the presence which we were aiming for couldn’t be achieved. The first voice recording session didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped, so we took the time to hold some extra sessions to fix our mistakes. Through trial and error, the voice director and studio staff was able to more fully understand the meaning behind the brilliant words we had written. By giving examples of what kind of tension we were going for, and by providing videos which made the scenes and situations as easy to understand as possible, we were able to eliminate the problems. We were able to get all the voices, sighs, breathing, groans and whimpers that are necessary to conveying a realistic sense of presence.

We recently held a recording session for the game’s orchestrated music. The Resident Evil series has a long history of impressive orchestral music. We are always trying to find ways to make the music more and more impressive, which is why I love to visit the recording studio.

We recorded with the Tokyo Shitsunaigaku Kyokai Co., LTD (a Tokyo-based orchestra). Over 40 musicians performed on more than 13 types of instruments accompanied by a chorus of 30 singers to bring the soundtrack to life in spectacular fashion. The performance was awe-inspiring. I am sure the soundtrack will add another layer of depth to the game.

As you can imagine, recording an orchestra of this scale is no simple task. First, each piece of music must be analyzed and a musical role must be assigned to each instrument for each part of the song in a process called “orchestration.”

It’s often quite common that game music was not originally created to be performed by a live orchestra, and therefore there is often quite a bit of arrangement necessary in the orchestration process. Luckily our composer is Yoshihisa Hirano, an artist of exceptional skill. Mr. Hirano has created memorable music for many games and anime titles. He is also an accomplished classical composer. His skills make him perfect for the job of creating music for this game. His arrangements have made it possible to bring an amazing orchestral performance to Darkside Chronicles.

Previously on this blog, I’ve mentioned Takeshi Miura, another skilled composer working on the game who wrote an original piece for the Code: Veronica portion of the title. He also helped bring new life to the Resident Evil 2 music featured in this title, along with one other talented composer, Shusaku Uchiyama. Shusaku wrote music for the original Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 as well. He is currently a freelance composer. Having Takeshi and Shusaku work together on this project has been a wonderful experience.

All of the musical elements including superb original music, first-rate arrangements, excellent orchestration and the moving performance of the orchestra itself have combined to create a truly splendid musical experience.

Umbrella Chronicles was all about the big events that made up the rise and fall of the Umbrella Corporation, mainly from Wesker’s perspective. If you were to create a chart showing the major episodes in Umbrella’s history, the events in that game would be on it. On the other hand, there are also a lot of darker, more intimate stories that illustrate the Resident Evil universe that wouldn’t necessarily make the list of big events in Umbrella’s history. These stories are the concept upon which The Darkside Chronicles is based.

We use some of the great personal stories from Resident Evil 2 in The Darkside Chronicles. Resident Evil 2 was a darker, more intimate story compared to the chapters that we put into Umbrella Chronicles and I tried to highlight that difference when creating this game. Let me explain a bit further.

When I think back on Resident Evil 2, I see a game that had a lot of remarkable elements. It expanded the scope of the game from the fear found in a haunted house to the terror of being in a city overrun and on the brink of total destruction. The various supporting characters really start to fill out the universe; we meet the sexy and mysterious Ada, the young Sherry, and Brian the twisted police chief. I think Brian’s madness is really the scariest thing in that game! Ada and Leon’s love story is woven into this robust background which makes for a rich game experience with a scale far surpassing the first game.

In that sense Resident Evil 2 made Resident Evil much bigger while at the same time being more intimate. While in most other Resident Evil games the characters must escape from a biohazard and then face down elements of Umbrella, Resident Evil 2 tells the story of individual battles characters go through when they are caught in a desperate and dangerous situation.

These are the stories that would fall through the cracks when the history of the Umbrella Corporation is writ large: The bonds between Leon and Ada, between Claire and Sherry. The story of the collapse of the Birkin Family. These relatively insignificant stories make Resident Evil 2 an unforgettable game.

We focused on these intimate stories of love and family in The Darkside Chronicles. Tragic romance, the destruction of a happy family...

...isn’t that a bit on the Darkside?

The Presence of Horror (2009.05.01)

When talking about Darkside Chronicles, the first word that comes to mind is “presence”. By that I mean experiencing something that feels like it could actually exist. After completing Umbrella Chronicles we gave a lot of thought to what kind of sequel we wanted to make, and the word presence really captures the theme of the game.

Even though it was the first title in this series, I was able to achieve quite a lot with Umbrella Chronicles. It serves as a great overview of the entire Resident Evil series and provides arcade-style shooting gameplay that is easy for anyone to pick up and enjoy. It was a really cool experience that the user had total control over, and I’m really proud of that achievement.

Of course, there were certain things I want to see done better this time around. Many aspects of the game I want to improve can be summarized with that word, “presence”. We will put that feeling into the game while retaining all the above-mentioned points.

Darkside Chronicles is a horror themed / Arcade shooter.

One of the things I love about Resident Evil is its horror aspect. Resident Evil puts the player in a desperate situation, forcing them to survive by using limited ammo and health-restoring herbs wisely, as well as occasionally forcing players to run to survive. I want to use that tension to make the player feel like they are really there.

In Umbrella Chronicles, a strong feeling of presence was one of my team’s goals in making use of a first-person perspective. Umbrella Chronicles was a very complex game in many ways, and we did a good job, but I still think that we could have nailed the horror aspect of the game a little better. As a developer, looking back on your last project and accepting its shortcomings is the best kind of feedback. It helped me realize that there was still a lot I could do with this type of game system.

I used a lot of the feedback from Umbrella Chronicles to help perfect that feeling of presence in this game.

The camera was the first thing that we worked on. The viewpoint of a person who is surrounded by horror and wrapped in tension is not steady like a movie camera, but rather moves quite violently. In order to convey that tension and sense of presence more effectively, in certain places we used a camera that really moves as if it were attached to a person’s face.

One other thing that we focused on was the presence of your partner. Seeing your partner being grabbed by zombies on-screen or watching monsters sneak up on them really highlights the fear of being attacked.

We also paid special attention to the in-game voice and used it to great effect. We recorded screams, death rattles and confused voices which our voice actors pulled off wonderfully. Not only that, we added many more layers to the voice acting, including panting and shortness of breath as well as a high degree of distress in the normal conversations of the characters. I’m really proud of how recording all those little details helped us to bring the characters’ feelings of horror to the forefront.

Of course these aren’t the only things we are doing to bring that feeling of presence to the player. My team and I are working hard day and night experimenting with and implementing a huge number of game elements that will bring that feeling of presence to everyone who plays Darkside Chronicles.

I hope you’re looking forward to “the presence of horror” in Darkside Chronicles. Keep checking for more updates!

Invitation to the Darkside (2009.09.04)

note: while I wanted to have these blogs in chronological order, I broke that to include Invitation to the Darkside within this post because of the topic

Now I’d like to go back to the meaning of “Darkside Chronicles” for just a moment.

Even when we started this project as the sequel to Umbrella Chronicles, the Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica scenarios were to be the primary focus. These stories were left out of Umbrella Chronicles, and I had some regrets about that. But now, since we were doing a sequel, I didn’t want to just tell a story in the traditional way. I wanted to be a little unorthodox.

When I reexamined the scenario of Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica, I noticed some things they had in common.

Claire plays a major role in both titles, and both titles take place very close together on the Resident Evil time line, so there is a good deal of continuity in their storylines. And, neither title is solely about a corporation or organization, per se; they both are narratives about individuals who find themselves caught up in terrifying situations. At the time, there were some things that were a little confusing and unclear, but I think Leon and Claire, the star characters of these two titles, did a good job of helping to tie up loose ends.

Umbrella Chronicles is, as its name suggests, an objective documentary-style account of past events, which tries to do away with any human emotional elements. The basic style of Umbrella Chronicles is to not depict the emotions of the characters more than is necessary.

But, I like emotional stories, and I believe that since horror evokes in us the emotion of fear, it isn’t altogether different than say a dramatic story of the lives of people. So with that in mind, I thought for the next “Chronicle”, why not tell a dramatic personal story?

When you look at Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica as an emotional, dramatic story, underneath you’ll notice something ominous and dark that is not just viruses and zombies. At their core, both of the stories are about human weakness and desire. It is the darkness inside of people that makes us fear.

In Resident Evil 2 there was the darkness in the Birkin household.

In Code: Veronica there was the darkness in the Ashford Family.

The darkness inside. That is one of the themes of this game. Why did the Raccoon City incident occur? Why wasn’t the development of Biological Weapons stopped?