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Capcom axes Clover Studio
By admin | October 12, 2006
Capcom Japan announced the dissolution of the young, independent development team “Clover Studio” basically in order to increase development efficiency. The team was created on July 1, 2004 in order for Capcom to create more games that were unique and creative, and was headed by a few of Capcom’s greatest creators, including Shinji Mikami (Biohazard, Biohazard 4), Hideki Kamiya (Biohazard 2, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe) and Atsushi Inaba (Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright).
It’s sad to see the development team go, because it was created for the sole purpose of doing something different. Before 2004, Capcom was a company that was guilty of delivering games that were sequels or derived from earlier games, so Clover Studio was a breath of fresh air for the company, even if it was composed of established Capcom reps. Clover succeeded and failed in ushering in a new age for Capcom; their first project was actually porting Viewtiful Joe to the PlayStation 2 and a majority of its work was creating sequels and spinoffs to that series.
Clover’s games did not break any records. Viewtiful Joe 2 sold poorly, Scratch! Viewtiful Joe on the popular DS sold even worse and Viewtiful Joe: Battle Carnival tanked on both the GameCube and PSP, releasing to lackluster reviews and gone unnoticed. Scratch! VJ was a game that made great use of the DS hardware, but the other two games did not have the impact the first Viewtiful Joe had.
As for their completely original projects, Hideki Kamiya’s Okami has garnered praise for its entertaining, interesting gameplay and thrilling art style, different from Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe. Shinji Mikami’s God Hand is also popular with die-hard gamers due to its soundtrack (by Grasshopper’s Masafumi Takada), hilarious premise and, depending on who you ask, fast, deep and fun combat, as opposed to his earlier, more relaxed Biohazard games.
While many gamers who loved Clover’s games will undoubtedly be crushed, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Both Mikami and Kamiya were great thinkers and game designers before they shifted to Clover, and they’ll definitely be returning to Capcom proper. They carry the kind of creative weight at Capcom that guarantees the development of projects they have in mind. Had Clover not been created, I firmly believe God Hand and Okami would still have been created, as Kamiya and Mikami were able to create unusual games like Viewtiful Joe and P.N. 03. And the reality is that Capcom’s games have the tendency to rely more on their creative thinkers than on the actual programmers and developers themselves. I’m looking forward to Kamiya and Mikami’s next projects.
Clover Studio’s developed games were:
- Viewtiful Joe: A New Hope (PlayStation 2, 2004)
- Viewtiful Joe 2 (PlayStation 2, GameCube, 2004)
- Viewtiful Joe: Battle Carnival (GameCube, 2005)
- Scratch! Viewtiful Joe (Nintendo DS, 2005)
- Viewtiful Joe: Battle Carnival (PSP, 2006)
- Okami (PlayStation 2, 2006)
- GOD HAND (PlayStation 2, 2006)
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