The Last Fig Leaf?

Meanwhile, inside Square's Development Department, smoke curled thickly through the air.

Sakaguchi Hironobu sat in front of the monitor, his beard rough and unshaven.

Final Fantasy VII was Square's first appearance on a next-generation console, and they had to go all out.

Over at Capcom in Osaka, Tsujimoto Kenzo was frowning at a proposal Shinji Mikami had handed him.

On the cover of the proposal was a zombie looking back over its shoulder, the art style gloomy and horrifying, completely out of place beside Nintendo's family-friendly atmosphere.

"Isn't this a little too scary?" the head of the Sales Department hesitated. "E3 is a public venue, after all. A theme like this—"

"Scary?" Tsujimoto Kenzo laughed instead. He slapped the proposal heavily onto the desk. "Scary is exactly what we want. Right now the streets are full of bouncing mushrooms and plumbers. Players have long since gotten sick of them. Shigeru Miyamoto is responsible for making sweet dreams; then we'll be responsible for making nightmares."

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at Osaka's bustling night view. "Approve Resident Evil's E3 exhibition plan. Since this is a 'software-first' exhibition, then software that can scare grown adults into wetting their pants is what best proves the power of the hardware. Whether it's Sega or Sony, as long as they want to prove their machines are for adults, they absolutely won't be able to refuse this bloody feast."

"Besides ports like Street Fighter Alpha, this is Capcom's real debut on the next-generation console platform, so naturally we can't put on too mediocre a show."

As for Hudson's Kudo Hiroshi, he seemed even more pragmatic.

On the phone, Kudo Hiroshi said to the development team in Hokkaido, "These past two years, our funding situation hasn't been ideal, but we can't be