In a recent interview with Eurogamer at Gamescom, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami was asked which of his games he would like to re-release if given the opportunity and his answer was quite unusual.
He seems to have rejected the possibility of a return to Dino Crisis, winner of a recent Capcom poll on the subject, questioning whether there is a “place” for a return of this game, given the success of Monster Hunter. Instead, he opted to remake Sweet Home, a licensed 1989 Famicom game with which he had virtually no involvement, yet it later served as the inspiration for the Resident Evil series, in which Mikami played a significant role.
During a conversation with Eurogamer’s Ed Nightingale and Goichi Suda, also known as Suda51, who co-wrote Shadows of the Damned, Mikami expressed to them, “Once I create a game, I have no desire to remake it. Therefore, I’m not interested in remaking any games I’ve developed myself. However, there is a game titled Sweet Home, created by another developer, which I would consider remaking since it’s not my original work. But regarding my own creations, I prefer not to revisit them.”
Sweet Home, for those unfamiliar with the tale, was developed under the guidance of Tokuro Fujiwara, who was Mikami’s mentor at Capcom and the future producer of Resident Evil. The game allowed players to assume the roles of various characters, each with distinct abilities, as they navigated a haunted mansion in pursuit of elusive murals. This game significantly influenced the initial stages of Resident Evil’s development, with the PlayStation 1 title initially conceived as a Sweet Home remake.
In an interview with Bokeh Game Studio in March 2022, Mikami said the following about the impact Sweet Home had on him as a creator:
“I loved Sweet Home very much. One of the first creators I worked with at Capcom was the director of Sweet Home. He was very talented and had this sensitivity. I could say this even when I was still a beginner. He answered my questions. Then I remember [Tokuro] Fujiwara summoning me to a meeting a few years later. He told me that the Sweet Home system was good, but the game didn’t perform well. We wanted to try to use this game system again in a horror game. I really liked Sweet Home, so I totally agreed with it. It was an honor to work on it.”
“It was a system that wouldn’t make you think about a person. In this system, the different items you held allowed you to progress in the game. She assigned each item to a specific character. One character had a lighter, another might have a vacuum cleaner, and so on. So you needed your friends who had your items to beat the game, so you had to take good care of them. The point was how to survive in a restrictive environment. After all, that’s probably the main thing I took. The player must make a series of choices with limited resources in order to survive. I kept that and then I did something completely different.”
Clearly, multiple factors hinder Mikami from creating a direct remake of Sweet Home, with licensing issues being the primary barrier. To properly undertake the project, permissions from the copyright holders and Capcom are necessary, which may prove challenging as Mikami now operates his own company, Kamuy Inc.
Nevertheless, it would be fascinating to witness a reimagining of the classic Famicom game, particularly as a chance to bring Fujiwara and Mikami together again.
