Nintendo’s Tanabe, Tabata imagine Metroid Wii U ideas, Tingle brainstorming
Metroid isn’t happening on Wii U… for now anyway. But Nintendo developers have no problem discussing hypothetical in which the GamePad could be taken advantage of.
First up is Kensuke Tanabe, the producer of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Island:
“Samus obviously has a lot of features [in her space suit]. There’s a lot you can do with that thing — once she pulls her arm up and pulls out that [metal flap] and does some of this stuff [Tabata pretends to punch buttons on her forearm]. I can see mapping some of that to the GamePad. I think that would be really cool.”
Nintendo project leader Risa Tabata also has a few ideas:
“I [told Tanabe], ‘What, you want to hook a GamePad on a Zapper [gun peripheral]?’ He said: ‘No, that’d be too heavy. Maybe something more streamlined. But like a Zapper-style thing with a GamePad feature on it or some device like that. I’d love to do some shooting stuff with something like that! Maybe some day.’”
And here’s the strangest thing of all: an idea from Tanabe to bring back Tingle.
“There’s no definitive plan or anything. It’s just me off the top of my head.”
“I know how hated the character of Tingle is in the U.S. I know that people cannot stand Tingle. But to me that challenge is: Could I take this character that is so reviled in the West and just [do] a complete turnaround and make him a beloved, fun character? The idea of that really just gets me going. I know we have made a Tingle game in the past, but maybe at some point down the road. …”
“It’s like love. It’s like romance: You meet someone and you’re like, ‘Oh god, I can’t stand that person.’ And then three weeks later, you’re madly in love — it’s that turn, that quick whip, that motivates [me] a little bit.”
“If we we ever get a really successful Tingle game, maybe we will have like a big Tingle statue out there [points to Nintendo’s E3 booth outside the room’s walls].”
