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Tons of Super Mario 3D Land details from the latest Iwata Asks

Posted on October 28, 2011 by (@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News

The latest Iwata Asks featuring Super Mario 3D Land has gone live and is now available in English. You can find a ton of details from the discussion after the break. Please be aware that some of the information pertains to post-game content.

– Normally Super Mario Galaxy would just move to the 3DS, but Hayashida wondered if this was the best thing to do
– Hayashida decided that his should should “reset” things, which was the keyword of this project (rethink rules from the ground up, etc.)
– Hayashida: “We put in everything that had built up since Super Mario Sunshine and made Super Mario Galaxy 2 to be a game that has everything.”
– Hayashida wanted to make a more compact game, something that is appropriate for a handheld
– The dev. team wanted this game to be more of an entraceway to 3D Mario games, even more so than Galaxy 2
– Also wanted to bridge the gulf between 3D and 2D Mario games
– Team returned to the original idea of reaching the goal pole at the end of the course rather than collecting a star, which was a big change for the devs
– Miyamoto was on board with the goal pole idea and suggested having the flag go up only as far as you touched the pole (instead of having it go all the way to the top no matter what)
– Miyamoto had wanted to do this since the original Super Mario Bros.
– Super Mario 64 team tried a goal pole once, but thought that the fun of playing in 3D was looking for something and going to different areas
– Careful to make courses that would guide the player
– Courses designed so you head to the right or advance deeper in to reach a goal
– Arrows and fences guide players as well
– The further you go in the game, the more the gameplay resembles a traditional 3D Mario
– Star Medals are like Star Coins from New Super Mario Bros. Wii; name changed because the Star Medals have the same function as the Stars in 3D Super Mario gmaes up till now
– There is “a magnificent development waiting” after you finish the normal stages
– Many of the bonus special stages practically equal the amount of normal stages
– Bonus stages came about as the team wanted to expand gameplay and make things more challenging, as well as include some fun ideas
– Special stages are like regular 3D Mario levels in that there are various objectives for you to complete (ex: find the star, collect red coins, etc.)
– There are some new stages among the special ones
– Luigi appears in the special world
– Luigi now easier to handle than before
– Volume comparable to the Super Mario Galaxy games
– Stages in the special world feature fast-paced scrolling or continuous enemies, and the Cosmic Clone enemies
– Time Attack is a reward for completing the normal stages
– Use StreetPass to compete for the best time on stages
– StreetPass even works with those who don’t have the game; pass by someone’s Mii and you’ll receive an item from that Mii at Toad’s house
– If you pass by the same Mii again, you’ll get something better
– Miyamoto wanted the jump to be higher when you run
– Long jump wasn’t included originally, but Miyamoto wanted it in the game
– With the 3DS, if you don’t hold it directly in front of you, the image will probably look distorded; this isn’t normally a problem with a normal game, but people move their bodies while playing action games
– Miyamoto said Mario Kart 7 doesn’t get blurry; this was because the kart was placed in an area where there is no binocular parallax
– Players look at their own kart while playing, so it doesn’t look blurry
– In Super Mario 3D Land, people look at Mario; reference plane adjusted to Mario to avoid blur
– This gave birth to the Recommended View
– Recommended View came into play very late into development
– Most people seem to prefer Normal View, but there is a decent amount that believe Recommended View is better
– Change between the views with the control pad
– Making Mario the reference plane was considered early on, but the team gave up on it since things popped out too much
– Player’s shadow falls right on top of enemies; this makes it easier to play if you don’t want to use 3D
– Tsujimura: The game testers had some interesting opinions this time. Like for those common scenes in which Mario falls to the bottom of a pit, people said, “It’s so high I’m scared!” So we readjusted the height once more.
– Jump aids dropped for the most part (no FLUDD, Flutter Jump, etc.) because 3D makes it easier to see the position of platforms
– Tanooki Mario is sort of a jump aid, however
– Hayashida hopes new players use Tanooki Mario while advanced players use regular Mario
– Before enemies had a tail, there was Tanooki Mario
– Team was thinking about how to pull the design together and needed a new idea
– This is when the idea of putting a tail on Goombas came about
– In Super Mario Bros., if you hit Bowser with a fireball, he turned out to be a Goomba; devs. wanted to put in an homage to that
– They thought they could have a Goomba use a Super Leaf to turn into a Tanooki-tailed Bowser
– Miyamoto was okay with this idea
– Tezuka suggested making more things have tails
– Enemy characters ignore Statue Mario
– Transformations carry over to the next stage, so every stage has to be programmed to respond to Statue Mario
– Boomerang Mario is an homage to Hammer Mario
– Use the boomerang to obtain some Star Medals
– Mario can chime out coins while wearing a Question Block
– Coins collect themselves automatically; first time in a 3D Mario title
– Tezuka didn’t like mean placement, such as placing an enemy right after a jump or an enemy right after a coin; devs. fixed those things as a result
– Many homages and highlights to past games
– Team was tinkering things up to the very end
– If you drop a stone in one of the pipes, a 1-Up will come out
– As you progress, you’ll see some illustrations with a nostalgic 2D touch telling you about the status of Princess Peach
– If you shake the 3DS, the illustration will shake as well in the game
– If you Game Over, you can go to Toad’s Hint Room to get a hint

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