AlphaDream not interested in making Paper Mario, false endings talk in Mario & Luigi, more

Game Informer has a new interview up with Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam producer Akira Otani (Nintendo) and director Shunsuke Kobyashi (AlphaDream). In addition to the 3DS game, Otani and Kobyashi talked about the series in general as well as a few other topics. The two developers were asked about things like the possibility of the studio making a Paper Mario game (not happening), false endings in the Mario & Luigi series, and more.

Head past the break for some excerpts from the interview. You can read the full piece here.

On the Paper Mario: Sticker Star influence in Paper Jam…

AlphaDream: While we referenced all of the Paper Mario series games during production of this title, the title we were influenced by the most was definitely Paper Mario: Sticker Star. This is because we wanted to base the game on the latest data. We of course received advice and supervision from Intelligent Systems during production. We think that this is one of the reasons that we were able to refine our depiction of paper elements and better express the “paper-like” design in this title. If you look closely, you can see a white border around the paper characters, right? This did not exist in Sticker Star, but we think that this design makes it easier for the player to understand that “this is a paper character!”

On whether AlphaDream would consider making a pure Paper Mario RPG or original games…

AlphaDream: We have not thought about making a Paper Mario RPG. That series is designed in the style of Intelligent Systems, and we think that if we made a Paper Mario game it would be “not quite right”. While we would like to continue making more games in the Mario & Luigi series along with exploring new challenges, we are thinking about expanding our repertoire with original titles as well.

On why the Mario & Luigi games have false endings…

AlphaDream: We think that having an epilogue after the ending (staff credits) is “traditional” in a sense. This is because there are some players who wait for a punchline or epilogue to the story. In addition, we try to include additional elements other than the story (Hard Mode, music player) as much as possible. There are also players whose purpose in playing the game is more for full completion or challenges rather than just playing through the story. We would like different types of players to be able to enjoy the game for as long as possible.

On the change in how tutorials are handled in Paper Jam…

AlphaDream: We didn’t “remove” the tutorial for this title. (Laugh) There are actually tutorials (or guides) for all of the action and battle systems. In previous games, we had the game ask “Do you want to see the Tutorial? Yes/No”. Players who didn’t have any other information would have to choose “Yes”, but when they actually viewed the Tutorial it was information that they already knew. This time, we implemented a system where the game would detect whether the player was skilled at action games or not, and had the game display a detailed tutorial for players who were not as good at action games (who cannot get “Excellent” or perform Countering Attacks).

The tutorial is not displayed for players who are good at action games, leading them to think that “there is no tutorial for this title”. Of course, we show tutorials for all players for game systems that were newly implemented in this title, such as Trio Attacks and Battle Cards.