Games of the Abstract: P.N.03 (2003)

 

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 4

Publisher: Capcom

One Player

Nintendo GameCube

 

The tale of the "Capcom Five" is one from a certain era, the early 2000s fascinating in hindsight as a generation I went through myself, playing some of the games of, but barely scratching the surface of despite having some knowledge of it from the time. The Capcom Five is a messy incident which can be covered up in hindsight in that Capcom, developing five games for Nintendo as exclusives for their GameCube console, got Resident Evil 4 (2005) from this. One game here saves this entire mishap in that, like now decades later a person even programmed Doom (1993) to play in a cash machine, Resident Evil 4 has been converted and released on countless consoles after, and will inevitably get to the point, if not with the sanctioned virtual reality version, someone will unofficially try to convert this for a machine not expected to play it when the technology, or someone with the know-how, experiments, a game of its era we still talk about and is still held in a high regard for that entire franchise even as it continued decades on. This mishap managed as well a second game, the cult legend Killer7 (2005), which is legendary for the time; whilst released in 2018 for Windows as a game no longer from Capcom, but entirely that of Grasshopper Manufacture, and of Suda 51, it is nonetheless a production that helps salvage was, with the history, a terrible misfire of marketing especially for Nintendo.

Capcom and Nintendo with this project was in itself an attempt by the later to resolve a huge mistake of their own - that, whilst beloved by a generation, the Nintendo 64 console was blighted by huge mistakes in its management, one of the biggest that, deciding to keep cartridges when other consoles used CDs, Nintendo alienated third party developers they had worked with before, when they wished to work beyond the confines of these technical limitations, losing them to their competition in that generation. Square infamously was the worst loss, where after a fruitful history together, they went to Nintendo's rival Sony and created a game like Final Fantasy VII (1997) for the original Playstation, itself a game of the generation we still talk of¹. Capcom did the same, and with the Capcom Five, this was a deliberate attempt to court developers back. Whilst games did come to the 64, including a conversion of Resident Evil 2 (1998) by Angel Studios, the future Rockstar San Diego, which is held as miraculous², Capcom worked with the likes of Sony and Sega with the Saturn, which did not do Nintendo favours.

The Capcom Five as a concept, when announced, would have been seen as a grand statement of reconnecting after this, and providing a boost for Nintendo from a highly well regarded third party developer. Capcom held a surprise press conference in Japan in November 2002, announcing five new titles for the GameCube: P.N.03, Viewtiful Joe (2003), Dead Phoenix, Resident Evil 4, and Killer7³. This was a fascinating time, when I was a teen reading of some of this coverage, and being a Playstation 2 owner, with tremendous hindsight, with this moment one of the many curious events of the period. By 2001, Sega dropped out of the console industry entirely and became only a software publisher, a downfall of a titan, as Microsoft took their place in 2001 with the original Xbox. Sony were going to win the sixth generation of this era with the Playstation 2, and Nintendo had the GameCube, with these five games offering a distinct selection to those at the time.

Resident Evil 4 was the biggest one of the five, from a huge franchise which was here however being made to sound like an exclusive for Nintendo, which would have been a tremendous shot in the arm for Nintendo, let alone having the other four too if they had succeeded as releases. Things went a bit sour when, only a time later, Capcom would announce that only Resident Evil 4 would be a GameCube exclusive⁴. Even if this game stayed a GameCube exclusive, Resident Evil 4 would become a monumental game for any console at this period, so Nintendo would have succeeded....as mentioned however, "if" is the word of the day as this game did get a Playstation 2 port, scuppering the advantage. It is a reminder that Nintendo, having eaten a lot of crow in this period, managed to survive because a) the Wii became a success as a console as did the Switch, but especially that b) they are the Disney of the video game industry who make sure their key characters, Mario their Mickey Mouse, kept them afloat.

Resident Evil 4 was ported to the Playstation 2, eventually being ported even to mobile phones and the Zeebo, a Brazilian and Mexican only console whose port was based on the mobile phone port and is its own subject for another time. Killer7 was to become a cult hit, but in hindsight more for bringing us Suda 51 into Western attention. Viewtiful Joe, Capcom's superhero pastiche, was well regarded, but was also ported to the Playstation 2. Then there is Dead Phoenix, a flying shooter game based in fantasy and riding a dragoon, à la Sega's Panzer Dragoon franchise, which was cancelled in 2003⁴, and was sadly a game which never came to be. The last, and with this long prologue worth having to built to this, was the sole GameCube exclusive and a maligned little title named P.N.03, a scrappy and imperfect production.

P.N.03 has been described as "unfinished", feeling in itself a curious mishmash of three different eras of gaming. One is an arcade throwback; one is a game from the aforementioned Sega Saturn era, a throwback to arcade games yet transitioning to the polygonal era of gaming; and an independently made Steam game, flaws and all, which is yet made with enthusiasm and, like a surprising amount of them I have seen, usually have a female protagonist even if entirely with a titillation edge to the character designs let alone also because a female protagonist blasting things is inherently fun. That could be seen as an insult with any of the comparisons, considering this is a Capcom game with Shinji Mikami in the director's chair, a huge name who helmed the first Resident Evil title, involved, but I say these comparisons with compliment, and aware that this struggles existentially with what the game wants to be.  

I like this game's aesthetic, a stripped down sci-fi world of a sterile white corridors, in a desert alien world, only populated by killer robots. The factor to consider, alongside its aesthetic touches, is that the game is not over ten to thirty hours long either, but an extra long arcade game which factors in my positives of the production, the halfway house of the classic arcade and trying to include modern polygonal games. The sole non-robot here is your lead, Vanessa Z. Schneider, a mysterious female mercenary who is hired by a faceless client to clear out a base of its killer robots, destroying the generators and clearing it out. Schneider, truthfully, was designed by a male designer, the press for her creation frankly embarrassing in hindsight in the choice of words to describe her⁵. Her sleek battle suit (meant to fuse to her spine) is deliberately shapely, but it is weird to say that as, beyond this, with where the character is positioned behind her, and that clearly a lot of the graphics and animation was devoted to her, Schneider as a playable character is no way near as bad as a fetishishtic figure as you could have had, and could have been really interesting in a more elaborate production as even the mostly silent protagonist.

You still have a game here about a woman who is just good at palm blasting killer robots in her dance moves, which sounds good on paper. The game has the vibe of something you could remake, and among those touches which can be elaborated upon, it is that, whilst the character is barely voiced in the cut scenes, she still stands out entirely because she always moves in a dancer's rhythm. She belongs to the archetype of characters who has music in her head to focus, like Ansel Elgort's lead character in the film Baby Driver (2017), whether she can break the fourth wall and hear Shusaku Uchiyama and Makoto Tomozawa's score, or has a rhythm to bob to when stood still or attacking robots. She pirouettes, twists when jumping, and the special moves I struggled to pull off (and gave up on) have a dancer's choreography of twisting her body like a dancer would. The music, by Uchiyama and Tomozawa, is thankfully good, so this factors in with a great personality touch.

In P.N.03, you can shoot, dodge, roll and jump, but you cannot fire at enemies whilst moving or dodging, forced to stay still to do so. This is the idiosyncratic touch of the gameplay itself, and where for me, the only true flaw comes in, in that this should have been an on-rail shooter, or fixed on a single plane per battle, the dodge and moving mechanics still possible to have and be vital as Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (2009) used perfectly. This was my first encounter with a GameCube controller, and the worst moments here were platforming, but especially arguing with the camera, from this period in the early 2000s where innovations were taking place still with struggles from the nineties which were still prominent such as the camera in multiple three dimensional games. The game inherently not designed for full movement and readjusting the camera, became a pain to do so when you need to be aware of enemies coming from any direction. This became a game of finding the right position for targets as a result, dodging left to right with a barrier involved if possible, getting shots on robots, maybe even picking off ones in the further distance if lucky, so this could be worked around thankfully. With bosses especially, when you need to avoid them (such as the tank one whose spin attack is an instant kill) the 3D movement becomes a pain, in a game which does reflect this decision being a poor choice. In mind that this was a clear decision made, when there are robots that charge at you, big flying ones which sways towards you like drunken vultures, and certain passages where you need to jump over laser traps, this entire aspect of the game weighs it down.

The sense this should have fully committed to being a throwback is in the scoring system, which does suffer from a structure which does not use properly, and forces you can wander larger rooms to each target. Multipliers exist if, with limited time, you can destroy enemies, and not being hit at all in one room increases the points. This, even the restriction on not being able to move and fire at the same time, does work really well, and there is only the sense that, having to make a new generation game, someone made the ill fated mistake of this as a free roaming shooter only because this was what was expected. The realisation this was also meant to be a killer app, as someone who really liked the game, as part of the Capcom Five is also ironic as this is as niche as you could have had as a title. The aesthetic being as stripped down as it is will put people off, as barring some outside desert scenes, most of this is in septic white or grungier futuristic rooms and corridors. The robots are thankfully varied for the game's length, be it little proto-drone planes or giant elephantine behemoths, almost too big to have credibly gotten through doorways, which can split into a robot double act of a land crawler and a bird-bot as if they came from a super robot anime. Many have missiles or life draining beams of death, or even more elaborate and deadly special attacks, which are very dangerous but thankfully are contrasted by good dodge mechanics (and glowing health orbs) to work around. You also earn continues and can buy them, although it is also practical to just quit, giving you the continues back when you are prepared to try again. Points also win prizes, as they are used in the store, for continues but also for the various versions of the suits for Schneider - offensive, defensive and all-round versions of different levels - which can all be upgraded.

There are only a few missions, with trial missions randomised courses where, upon completing all the rooms, you get a lot more points to spend in the store. There is, in terms of the story, not a lot here, a slight spoiler that at least this can complete the Bechtel test, of two female characters having conversations, even if this is an example which questions whether it succeeds the test guidelines or not as it is between our lead and an unseen client just telling her where to go. [Major Spoiler] That Vanessa Z. Schneider and the client are clones of each other, or one is the original and one the clone, one at least a computer representation, does raise the question whether talking to yourself count as progressive, as Jennifer Hale is the only voice actor in this entire game as a result. [Spoilers End]. This game was unfairly put in a place, in the middle of a marketing scheme which was backtracked on, especially as P.N.03 was the sole GameCube exclusive, leaving it the punching bag it should have not been. Outside of one which was cancelled, Viewtiful Joe and Killer7 were cult hits, and Resident Evil 4 an epoch game for many, leaving this stuck in an unfortunate time it did not deserve. In another context, and fine-tuned, this could have been more of a successful game than it was, and there is enough here, for me, that I loved to the point I wish it had been more readily available. Thankfully it is not one of the more expensive GameCube games ever made, but it's unfair place as the unwanted step child in this scenario, one which has vanished as Capcom has produced games on multiple consoles in the decades after, does feel mean for what is a throwback game that, with some polish, could have been even better than I argue it has.

A remake, whilst not financially practical nowadays, unless a drastic marketing scheme in the game's favour, would be perfect, or even to make the production available again. Unfortunately, ironically for a company who have had a tumultuous history with third party developers, Nintendo do not always preserve and make available their exclusives even when there is a fan base for then.

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1) Nintendo 64 Week: Day Two by Levi Buchanan, published by IGN Retro on September 30th 2008

2) DF Retro: why Resident Evil 2 on N64 is one of the most ambitious console ports of all time by John Linneman, published on Euro Gamer, part of the Digital Foundry articles, on December 9th 2018.

3) Capcom's Fantastic Five, published by IGN on November 13th 2002

4) Remembering Capcom's Great Nintendo Promise / Betrayal, written by Luke Plunkett for Kotaku and published on May 31st 2011

5) P.N.03 column: -2- Vanessa (in Japanese), written by Shinji Mikami for Capcom. Archived from the original on April 5th 2013, retrieved November 27th 2011..