Yes. I am seriously telling you that.
I even provided interviews as sources.
And I said as a producer, not director.
Yeah, but you said 'outside of 1 he had no hand in it.' Been a producer, an advisor, and a director implies that you are a force in the development. You think when he talks people just ignore what he says?
The real question is do you seriously believe that there is a literal, physical "how to make Resident Evil" manual in existence, when that's not what Kobayashi meant?
Never even implied such a thing. A
manual? It's not a manual, it's a mentality, a way of approaching the themes, of willing to try and alternated how it works. If Mikami hadn't made RE1 the franchise wouldn't exist, even when the exects told him it was garbage, he also shifted the gameplay and focus from zombies and fixed camera angles to over the shoulder gameplay. Those things aren't in manuals, they come from a willingness to trying out new things and it requires the mentality and approach the games are lacking. He saw how the games were more of the same and took aggressive decisions to change the games into new territory. That's not really happening anymore.
Coincidence.
Influence.
Inspiration.
There are a bunch of possibilities but you choose the one that you personally believe, want to force on others but yet cannot prove.
Coincidence? What, seriously? It was a coincidence that the games, even the ones that weren't RE, which had Mikami's name in the credits, had a laundry list of similarities and when he left it was just another coincidence that they went with him... I guess people also stopped been influenced by him once he was gone.
Advise. Not order around.
What do you think happens when the people making the game don't know how to proceed? Do they google it? No, they look to their bosses, the people in charge of the production for advice and guidance. When Shinji Mikami gives you advice you don't just say 'well, it's not like he ordered me to.'
Yes, yes. No need to nitpick.
My point is that if Mikami suddenly admitted playing latter RE games (a little bit or the whole thing) for research in making TEW, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm not saying it totally happened.
Well, since you like to point out what he said in interviews I'll point to an interview:
It seems like everyone in the world is waiting for Resident Evil 5. Even your mum. Even the Pope. Even The Pope's mum.
But not Shinji Mikami. The creator of the Biohazard/Resident Evil series has already decided that he will not like the game and is planning to avoid it at all costs.
"I won't like it, because it's not going to be the game I would have made," he told Official PlayStation magazine, "It'll just cause me stress if I play it. I think it could be fun for gamers to play it, but not for someone who has developed Resident Evil games.
"If I see anything in Resident Evil 5 that isn't done well, I'll be angry!"
From the interviews and behind-the-scenes info, Mikami gives a lot of freedom to other staff members when he's not the director.
The one time (that I know of) Mikami ever intervened deeply was when he disagreed with Kamiya's idea for RE4 and took three months to talk Kamiya out of it.
And that was only after he told Kamiya that he can do whatever he wants, although it looked like Mikami regretted it for once.
Yes, he gives freedom, which doesn't equate to him sitting in his office counting money.
Why is DMC1 the only one that feels like a RE game? The only one with the atmosphere of one and still has heavy survival horror element?
Why is it that so many of the games with his name on the credits all pretty much have the same plot, progression, and conclusions (Go to isolated location, find opponents, fight last boss, flee location with timer counting down because it's about to explode, fight final boss again, use given weapon to kill off boss, flee location via vehicle and make it out )? That is the description to RE1+Remake, RE2, RE4, DMC1, and Dino Crisis. Actually, those are only the ones I've played, it's not that unlikely that it's also repeated on other games with his name on them. Even TEW did the whole bazooka to kill final boss thing.
There are just too many things present in too many places where the only commonality is his name for it to be just coincidental. I won't say he and he alone, that would be a disservice to the people that made the games with him, but to dismiss him entirely would be just as much a disservice to him and the work he did in each project. His level of involvement might vary but it is present.