oichi Suda's Killer7 polarized many in the game community, with some viewing it as a case of stylish presentation masking a bewildering storyline and odd gameplay, while advoctates praising its uncompromising originality. In either case, the game didn't exactly set the GameCube on fire. Now, Suda's Grasshopper Manufacture is getting ready for a Wii release. The game is a departure from most games in the console's lineup, with a heavily stylized look and extreme acts of violence. We talked with Suda about game violence, the Wii's controller and more.

Game Informer: I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve just submitted this game to Nintendo for approval. Is that correct?

Suda: Soon. It’s very soon. We’re just working out a few bugs.

GI: How does it feel to be so close to being finished?

Suda: There are still those bugs to fix, so we’re feeling a little bit anxious.

GI: When we talked last year, you were still trying to figure out exactly how you were going to be using the Wii’s remote functionality. What was the process like figuring out how to make it work?

Suda: In the very, very early stages of the concept, we had in mind that we didn’t want to just shake the controller. I knew that it wouldn’t work well. I knew that having you perform a combo with the button and having the final blow be one swing would be better. I’d heard that a lot of American users actually like shaking in every direction with the Wii’s remote, so I had some doubts at some point, too. I knew that to have a real refreshing and exciting action game you’d need to use the buttons at some point and that using the action to perform the finishing blow would be enough. We tried it both ways and watched people playing, and then I knew that I was right. Everyone was really excited to be playing it the way it was designed. If people had to swing the controller from the beginning to the end, they would get really, really tired.

GI: Did you do a lot of focus testing?

Suda: As I said, we already had the controls in mind and we didn’t really do a lot of focus testing to see if the other way of controlling the game would work.

GI: Did you play Red Steel, and if you did, what did you think of it?

Suda: I want to make new games that players haven’t seen yet. I played Red Steel for some reference, but I didn’t want to make the same game.