Shinji Mikami Explained How Sweet Home Influenced Resident Evil

Bokeh Game Studios kicked off a new video series. In each installment, Founder Keiichiro Toyama will talk with a guest. In the first entry, Resident Evil Creator and Director Shinji Mikami appeared to discuss the game, how the earlier Capcom game Sweet Home influenced it, and zombies.

After talking about their pasts, Mikami began talking about Resident Evil zombies. He discussed the challenge and means of making them intimidating and scary, as well as providing ambiance. For example, he mentioned how they can suddenly rush up and attack. He also discussed the limited resources in the original. For example, he referenced the limited amount of ammunition.

From there, Mikami talked about how Sweet Home, a Famicom horror game from Capcom and fellow Resident Evil creator Tokuro Fujiwara, helped shape the Resident Evil series as a whole. He explained how the way it handled resources carried over. In Sweet Home, players’ five characters each have one item and can pick up and use others along the way. To escape the mansion and its ghost, you have to use each of the items they arrived with and ones found in the house.

Here’s everything Mikami had to say about his feelings for Sweet Home and its effect on Resident Evil.

That’s right, I really loved Sweet Home. One of the first creators I had worked with at Capcom was Sweet Home’s Director He was very talented and had this sensitivity to him. I could tell even if I was still a rookie. He would answer my questions.

Then, I remember [Tokuro] Fujiwara calling me for a meeting a few years later. He told me how Sweet Home’s system was good, but that the game didn’t perform well. We wanted to try again to push that game system onto a horror game. I truly enjoyed Sweet Home, so I completely agreed with him. I was honored I could work on that.

…It was a system that wouldn’t make you think of the human. In that system, the various items you held allowed you to progress in the game. It assigned each item to a specific character. A lighter would go to one character, another could have a vacuum, and so on. So you needed your friends, who had your items, in order to clear the game so you had to take good care of them. The point was how to survive in an environment with limitations.

In the end, that’s probably the main thing I took. The player has to make a series of choices with limited resources in order to survive. I kept that, then I made something completely different.

Here’s the first Bokeh Game Studio Golden Hour episode.

Bokeh Game Studio is currently working on Slitterhead.