Hideki Kamiya discusses the road to Wonderful 101 in new Iwata Asks

Hideki Kamiya, the director behind upcoming title The Wonderful 101 and past games Viewtiful Joe and Okami, "struggled" with each and "spent a lot of time on trial and error," according to a recent Iwata Asks interview.

Speaking with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, Kamiya said that after being appointed the director of Resident Evil 2, he "messed up in a big way."

"As a result of saying okay to everything that came up, it turned out horrible," Kamiya said. "We had to scrap what we had spent a year and a half making.

"So everything that didn't work out was my fault as director. Resident Evil 2 was receiving attention as one of Capcom's new big titles, so the news quickly spread throughout the company. I felt like people were staring at me in the company cafeteria and saying, ‘That's him! That's the guy who ruined Resident Evil 2!' It was a shock, and very hard."

Kamiya experienced director troubles even after the project. When working on Okami, Kamiya overhauled the game's original, realistic look to its current Japanese ink-wash style. However, Kamiya still had problems with the game's direction.

"Partway through, it was like a sim, so we were putting in elements like making fields and roads and building houses, but it wasn't fun at all," Kamiya said. "Day after day passed and I was still wondering what it was supposed to be."

Viewtiful Joe, meanwhile, was Kamiya's first experience in making something from scratch.

"When I made a map myself, all sorts of problems would arise later on," Kamiya said. "For example, at the start, I would make a platform for jumping, but in the end, you could just walk along the ground without even using it ... It simply wasn't fun, so I placed an item called V-film in the air to have players jump."

Check out the full interview on Nintendo's website. A demo for Kamiya's current title, The Wonderful 101, arrived in Europe and Japan last week; it's currently available in North America as well. For more on the game, check out our hands-on preview.