The producers of
Okamiden realized they were in a pickle, marketing-wise, when they were finishing up the Western version of the game just as the 3DS and
Pok
émon Black and
White were being announced for the same release window. Capcom decided to thread the needle and send Okamiden out right between these two.
"Even though the news of the Nintendo 3DS was a bit earlier than we had expected," said producer Motohide Eshiro and director Kuniomi Matsushita in a postmortem on Gamasutra, "we decided that releasing the pan-Western versions of the game after
Pokémon and before Nintendo's 3DS would be our best bet."
The developers also revealed the inspiration behind Okamiden's partner system, which pairs the tiny Chibiterasu with young swordsboys, mermaids, Moon Tribe aliens, and others. "A child version of Amaterasu would only have half the abilities of the adult Amaterasu," they said. "It would be rather difficult for half of a god to save the world, but if there were a partner, then the two of them could work together to save the world."