Chibi-Robo! – Zip Lash vehicles tease, amiibo talk, would be “shiny” on Wii U, message for fans
Siliconera has posted its full interview with Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash assistant director Risa Tabata and series producer Kensuke Tanabe. The two teased more vehicle stages for the game, talked about the related amiibo, spoke about how the series would be “shiny” on Wii U, and left a message for fans.
You can find excerpts about these topics below. The entire interview is located on Siliconera.
On other vehicle stages besides a water ski…
RT: That’s a good question, maybe we can give a hin-
KT: Woah woah woah, we can’t say anything about that yet!
RT: (laughs) Right! I guess you can find out when the game is released!
On the Chibi-Robo amiibo…
RT: We actually thought it’d be a perfect pairing from the start. Chibi-Robo is only 10 centimeters tall after all, that’s pretty much perfect for an amiibo! There are people who might be against the idea, since the character isn’t that popular. It was a bit of a challenge on our end to push that forward, but we did push for it, and we were able to do it. I had a lot of ideas on how to utilize the Chibi-Robo amiibo and present that to everyone [involved in making the decision] at the company to realize that there is potential, that it would be worthwhile to have.
KT: While there was challenging stuff to overcome, once we had a prototype of it, we showed it around internally, and the reaction to it primarily came from girls who thought the character was really cute or really adorable. That was a really big step for us in terms of its realization.
On how the amiibo can be used in the game…
RT: Sure, if you use Chibi-Robo within the stage, then he will turn into Super Chibi-Robo. He’ll turn gold and a lot of his parameters are increased. His battery life is twice as long, the cord length is upped slightly, and he’ll be able to take advantage of that to go through stages faster or get through harder parts without concern or running out of battery power, and so on. That’s not all that he’ll do though. There are some other ideas we have that are still cooking, so please look forward to that!
On how they would approach making a Chibi-Robo game on the technology offered by the Wii U…
RT: Well, one thing we’d be excited about is making Chibi-Robo very, very shiny! Since the system is hi-Definition and all…not just Chibi-Robo, but the environment! Like in Pikmin 3, actually.
On what they want people to know about Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash! or Chibi-Robo in general…
RT: Well, first of all, I would really love for people to give the game a try and become familiar with the character of Chibi-Robo. In a way this is sort of re-launching the character. Tanabe has always been working closely with Miyamoto, and in that way, we do have a very solid idea on how side scrolling games should be as a Nintendo franchise. That’s especially true in Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash! where we introduce actions that players haven’t really experienced yet in a side scrolling game, but with the promise that the foundations for have really been formed by experienced game creators. I hope everyone looks forward to that.
KT: (jokingly butting in, Tanabe says) I’d love for you guys to purchase the game and let us move the series forward!
