There was no official mentor relationship between the two Japanese developers, but one of them clearly looks up to the other.
Renowned game developer Goichi Suda, better known as Suda51, has said that if he had to name a mentor, it would probably be Shinji Mikami.
Suda is the founder and CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture, a studio responsible for numerous cult successes, including Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, Romeo Is a Dead Man, and many other games.
In a roundtable interview with Automaton and GenDesign’s Fumito Ueda, he discussed his relationship with Resident Evil creator Mikami in detail, along with many other topics.
When asked whether he had a mentor during his career, Suda told Ueda that he did not really have one either. If he were forced to choose a career mentor, Suda said that he would choose Mikami.
Suda and Ueda revealed that the three sometimes go out for dinner together with Mikami, and Ueda added that Mikami has always been very kind to them. As Suda explained, the spirit of Mikami and Capcom still lives on at Grasshopper Manufacture.
“I originally made my debut at Human Entertainment while working on the Fire Pro Wrestling series. In that respect, Masato Masuda, the creator of the series, could be considered a mentor, but to me he feels more like the founding father of the franchise and a highly respected veteran of the industry than a mentor.
Even after establishing Grasshopper Manufacture, I continued to make games based purely on my own instincts, but when it came to developing Killer7, Mikami, the CEO of Unbound, taught me everything there is to know about action-game design. So if I had to name a mentor, it would probably be Mikami.
Mikami taught me something like a sense for frames. Until then, my internal sense of timing for adventure games and action games was completely different. Then I saw Mikami constantly making adjustments to the gameplay right in front of me, and suddenly everything clicked perfectly into place. It completely blew me away.
Since some of our veteran staff worked alongside Mikami on Killer7, Mikami’s and Capcom’s know-how still lives and breathes within Grasshopper Manufacture.” Suda said.
Ueda and GenDesign’s next game, Gen Atlas, was fully unveiled at this year’s Summer Game Fest, and we are waiting for further details.
