Part 57: Beetle conspiracy in God Hand and Platinum Games exposed (addendum of Stage 3-4)
Someone in the youtube comments pointed out that in the previous video, the beetle flying away shtick is some sort of running gag by Capcom and Platinum Games, so I did a bit of research on the subject.
- Hideki Kamiya has something to say about beetles In his Bayonetta 1 let's play developer commentary:
"Incidentally, there's a beetle hidden in the graveyard scene a little earlier. It seems our lead animator Eijiro has very strong feelings about beetles. Apparently he hid beetles in Resident Evil 4 as well. On Bayonetta, he made the beetle on his own, and I never knew about it. The first time I actually saw it was while watching someone else's Bayonetta commentary on the web. Fair enough I suppose."
Kamiya is talking about Eijiro Nishimura (Motion Designer in Okami and God Hand, Character Motion in Resident Evil 4, Lead Animator in Bayonetta 1 and Animator in Metal Gear Rising). This guy is alright.
In Bayonetta 1, the beetle can be found resting on a tree at the deep left-hand side of the graveyard. If you move Bayonetta close enough to it, it will fly away.
- You can apparently find random beetles throughout RE4 as well as in Vanquish (a game directed by Shinji Mikami, the guy who made God Hand):
"The staff decided to screw with me a little bit by hiding some rhinoceros beetles in the game.
They did this without me knowing, so definitely be on the lookout for them in the game."
source
A gamefaqs user found one of those beetles "[...] in level 4-1 on a tree near the heavy machine gun drop pod. It doesn't do much besides fly away once you zoom in on it". Now I find this weird because Eijiro Nishimura didn't work on Vanquish, meaning someone at Platinum Games decided to carry on with the beetle fetish torch.
- Akiko Kuroda (producer of Bayonetta 2) talks about beetles in a blog post on the Platinum Games website:
"Some of you may already know, but we here at PlatinumGames have a continued tradition of hiding beetles in our games.
I haven’t heard of anyone finding it in Bayonetta 2, but it’s there! Get to looking.
Here’s proof!
There should be a good number of hints in that screenshot, so use that as a guide and see if you can find it. And yes, of course there’s one in the original Bayonetta as well. It’s said that those who find the beetles in both Bayonetta games will be rewarded with eternal happiness. Like you need it! You’re playing Bayonetta 2!"
