Kensuke Tanabe and Retro discuss Donkey Kong Country Returns
Retro on how they moved from Metroid Prime to Donkey Kong…
“We’ve been working on this project since April 2008. Prior to that, we were working on experiments for our next project. And as I’m sure you’re aware, we had some staff leave, which made us question whether or not the projects we were working on — these experiments — were in our best interest at the time. So Mr. Tanabe and Mr. Miyamoto were discussing Donkey Kong Country, and asking “is there a developer around that can do it justice?” And we had just had this issue with the shift in personnel and we were open, so they approached us and asked us if we’d be interested. We couldn’t say yes fast enough. That’s kind of how it fell into our laps. Actually, it was Fate” which was the code word for this game since then.”
Tanabe on whether it was always planned to return to Donkey Kong Country in a 2D side-scrolling environment…
Tanabe: “From the very beginning, the whole idea was to make a brand-new Donkey Kong Country game — maintaining that, and fitting into the core of what makes the series great. And one of the things we wanted to do was to make sure the game stayed as a 2D adventure. But, of course, we did decide to take all of the backgrounds and the characters and fully render them in polygons.
Retro: “Yeah, it wasn’t really an issue of first-person or 3D. It was really finding the right developer, I think. And our approach was that this has to pay homage to the original franchise. When you grab the controller, you have to know that you’re playing DKC. But what can be bring to it, creatively, to make it new and fresh? That was more the perspective. It was always going to be a 2.5D, side-scroller homage to DKC, to stay true to that feeling. Our mission was, what do we do to incorporate a new approach? New features and what have you, to really be true to the fanbase.”
Tanabe/Retro on whether they’ve approached any ex-Rare employees about possibly doing the soundtrack…
Tanabe: “Just to let you know, there is no collaboration going on with Rare. Obviously.
From the very beginning, there was a very strong desire on Mr. Miyamoto’s part to offer up those original songs. Those original melodies. So those are the core of the music for this brand-new Donkey Kong Country.”
Retro: “Just an interesting note, the same composer that did all the Metroid Prime stuff is working with Nintendo’s composer on the NCL side, Mr. Yamamoto. We have a long relationship with him, and the goal was to use the familiar melodies but bring them into a more contemporary sound. We didn’t want it any other way. How do you have DKC without that soundtrack? So we updated it, using the staff we’ve used with all the other games we’ve worked on.”
Tanabe on what type of music (MIDI or orchestrated) will be used in the game…
“I don’t think that Mr. Yamamoto (who is at the heart of the music here) has really been thinking about doing a full orchestra, but he certainly has been concentrating on the elements that have made Donkey Kong Country music what it is. You know, the bass line and some piano arrangement as well. To make sure that those elements come out in this new game.”
Tanabe on the two control schemes in the game…
“Mr. Miyamoto had been saying from very early on, since he was involved in Jungle Beat, that he was very aware of the sort of campy idea of slapping your hands down much like Donkey Kong does when he ground-pounds. The idea that came from that was “Well, why don’t we let the player have that same sort of experience?” Because it’s sort of a very satisfying, ape-like motion. And that’s why we’ve focused on the Nunchuk + Wii Remote control scheme.
But that being said, New Super Mario Bros. Wii did come out and offer the option to hold the controller sideways in that classic style. So, in light of that, we also decided to bring sideways, classic control style to Donkey Kong Country Returns. It’s not available in the E3 version, but it will be an option in the final game.”
Tanabe/Retro on what they think will become the standard control…
Tanabe: “Well, everything started in our minds with that hand-slapping motion when it comes to control. So, in our minds, it’ll all about using the Wii Remote + Nunchuk control scheme. But I’d love to hear if Bryan has anything to add to that.”
Retro: “I think that as players start, they might initially use the core controller. But as they go on, I think they’ll graduate to the Remote + Nunchuk combination and get more precision and a little more gratification. There’s just a lot of physical involvement when you’re doing a ground pound like that.”
Retro on whether they thought the game would be perfect on the 3DS with the foreground and background elements…
“(laughs) I think that we’re concentrating fully on getting the game done, and I don’t want to waste energy on thinking about anything other than that.”
Tanabe/Retro on how closely connected Returns is to the SNES games…
Tanabe: “The control of Donkey Kong himself — the way he moves and his gait — that’s all very much referencing the original Donkey Kong Country series titles that have come along in the past. And you’ll also see several different aspects of the game that have been key to the series thus far, making an appearance here again — such as the way the barrel cannons blast you, the way you utilize barrels in the environment, or, as you may have noticed, all the mine cart stages. But naturally we’re not taking those elements in the same configurations and just updating them. There are lots of little tweaks to design and flow that make it a very new experience.”
Retro: “There are no crocodiles in the game. (laughs)”
Retro on whether Returns is a reboot or continuation of the franchise…
“Mr. Miyamoto’s guidance was, ‘You are making a better DKC.’ It’s a new game. Everything that people liked about DKC we’re taking and doing the very best we can to improve on them.”
Tanabe on what things Miyamoto didn’t like about the original game/wanted the team to apply to make Returns better…
“Mr. Miyamoto didn’t focus so much on what he didn’t like about the previous series. It was much more about what elements he wanted to make sure stayed intact and present in this newest game. For example, like we mentioned before he was very big on the background music and wanted to make sure that that fully represented in this new title. He was very big on things like the animation — just the way that Donkey Kong moved. So it was more about what he wanted to see preserved, rather than what he wanted to see cut”
Retro on what they have been able to do with Returns on the Wii, if they could match what Rare did in terms of pre-rendering…
“I don’t think we tried. I think we’re very competent art-wise, so I don’t think we ever looked back and said ‘Well, Rare did this, so we better do this.’ Artistically, we were more concerned about animation — and meeting Mr. Miyamoto’s expectation in regards to animation. We never really took art and applied it to what had been done in the past. That whole ACM rendering technology was such a departure and such a refreshing thing to see at the time, I just don’t think that today — that we know of — such a huge departure from DKC exists that we could apply to DKCR right now. So we didn’t make any comparisons. We’re very confident in our art team, and we think they did a good job.
If you haven’t yet watched the attract loop, I recommend you do. Because there’s some unique things in it that you won’t be able to play, but you might enjoy.”
Retro on what the dev cycle was like and how it compares to 3D development…
“Each level in DKCR contains about three times the detail of an average Metroid Prime 3 room, as far as the texture count and poly count. That has required us to really ramp up our technology to support that. We’re playing on the same platform, but with three times the content in any given level. That was a challenge. But I’m really happy to say that we have a very talented and passionate group of engineers who met that challenge head-on. The Metroid Prime 3 engine couldn’t run this content. And as far as the time it took, even though we were putting three times as much into these levels, we couldn’t take any more time to do it. So we’ve really had to improve our internal disciplines and our tools to support that kind of production.”
IGN: Did all of your expertise is developing Metroid Prime and all of the tools you created for that, did any of that apply to what you’ve created for Donkey Kong Country?
Retro on whether the expertise and tools from the Prime games was applied to Returns…
“Initially, it gave us the ability to rapid-prototype. We have, over the course of the project, been replacing and upgrading the technology constantly. Both in the tools and the renderers. The animation systems and collision systems in particular to support the new game. So we were able to get up and running quickly, but with everything underneath the development effort the engineers have been replacing a huge chunk of code. I’d say two thirds of it is entirely new code.”
Retro explaining that they’ve been constantly working on the game up to this point…
“Yeah, from an engineering standpoint we had to take about six months at least of saying we’re not going to do anything but re-tool, because we can’t work in this environment. Even though that sounds like a long time, when you’re talking about a new engine and new animation and everything else we’ve had to do, we’ve been able to create a lot of content in a short amount of time. So it’s taken a lot of effort. Not to mention the fact that you have an art team that’s been working in a genre that defines sci-fi, high quality in every little pixel, and we have to re-train them to make a DKC style game. And that took a little time too. Some of the first prototype artwork stuff was like, “This palm tree looks like a Metroid palm tree.” (laughs)”
Tanabe/Retro on whether there are a lot of subtle effects in the game, like the physics in the background and if it’s real-time…
Tanabe: “There’s both in there. Some of it’s pre-scripted and some of it’s engine-based.”
Retro: “In the case of the pillars toppling over in the background in this demo, those are scripted animations. But in other levels, such as in the mine cart level when it tilts up and down, that’s real-time.”
Retro on what effects they’re proud of that haven’t been seen yet…
“One of the things that I really love, and again it’s in the attract loop, are the silhouette levels. They’re really kind of monochromatic, two or three color levels. They really are in silhouette. And I think that really stretched us creatively, and taught us not to rely so much on graphics. It’s kind of anti-technology, and it’s very beautiful. You just have to see it. That’s one of my favorites. You go from these rich, deep graphics to a silhouette level, and it’s very refreshing. It’s a nice change. I enjoy it.”
Retro/Tanabe on if there was other content they wanted to show at E3 but weren’t ready to…
Retro: “Well, it’s not time constraints. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There were a half-dozen things that we were asking Mr. Tanabe, ‘Can we show this? Can we show this?’ (laughs) He can tell you more about his thinking on that.
Tanabe: “Well, the thing is, if I was to put together an E3 demo that had all of the stuff that I wanted to show people, it would be huge. It would be massive. People wouldn’t be able to get through it. And so what I decided to do was really keep things pared down, for two reasons. The first is that I want to make sure that people are surprised and delighted when they play the final version of the game — when they get that production version in their hands and there’s all these great things for them to discover for the first time. Additionally, I felt like as this is sort of the debut of the game, keeping it pared down to elements that people would remember fondly and things that were representative of the series itself. So, a jungle stage. The mine carts that are so iconic for the series. Just a nice beach front to sort of set the scene. And then a boss fight, to show people what to expect and to remind them of what’s come in the series before. But rest assured, there is much more.”
Retro: “One thing I’ve learned in working with Mr. Tanabe is that he’s very, very concerned about the player. I don’t want to speak for him, but he wants the player, once they buy the game, to experience surprise and joy. And you don’t want to give that away. So he’s an advocate for the player, and we’d rather hold back the majority of the good stuff for the audience. And he had that same formula for the Metroid series.”
Tanabe/Retro on whether they consulted the Tokyo team (Jungle Beat) or if they took inspiration from their game…
Tanabe: “As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t really pull a lot of inspiration from the EAD Tokyo Donkey Kong game. But I will say that the feel of Donkey Kong and his animation, some of that has been inspired by the previous title that Tokyo did.”
Retro: “Really, the people involved in this project are Mr. Miyamoto, Mr. Tanabe and those of us at Retro. The first week that we knew we were working on this project, we played every single DK game. We wanted to just immerse ourselves in Donkey Kong. We made everybody play through all three of them. And people were saying, “Dude! This is too hard!” (laughs) But that’s where we drew inspiration, was from the old DKC stuff. And we played all the Game Boy stuff. How do you improve on something unless you’re very, very familiar with it? I think that’s where we’ve gotten most of our inspiration — going back and playing those games religiously. Stepping back 12 years and trying to get into the head of what made this game fun.”
Retro on those who would question if they can do a side-scrolling platform since they’ve only done the Metroid Prime games up to this point…
“I think that we’re getting that question a lot. And, really, a good developer makes a fun game. To lock any developer into a genre is, I don’t know . . . our goal is to make fun Nintendo games. Very high quality. And whether it’s a first-person shooter or an RPG, we welcome any of those challenges. So I get a kick out of reading all these posts that say, “Oh, it’s gotta be this FPS DKC.” It makes me laugh — because they’ve really pigeon-holed Retro as making exclusively FPS-style games. Right? And I think that if you were to apply that principle to EAD or any of Nintendo’s other Japanese developers that would be a huge mistake. Because they go from Mario, to Zelda, to Kirby — so to apply that kind of formula to a Western developer, well, it’s just odd for me to think that. Because it’s a change of genre to us, but it’s challenging in the sense that our goal is the same. Our goal is to make a fun, great Nintendo game. And I think that a good developer should be able to make that transition.”
Tanabe/Retro on how much more development there is…
Tanabe: “Well, right now it’s slated for a Holiday release. So it’s going to be out by then. And I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”
Retro: “I’ll tell you this — making a Nintendo game, you’re never done. You’re never done. That being said, we make changes until the final, final, final second. And that’s when it goes through lock check and debug and everything. And we stretch that timeline to the second they stamp that disc. And, in fact, we’ve had to burn a couple of gold discs because they just didn’t feel right…We will make this date. We’re at the stage where just last Friday we started development of the last level of the game. And we have months of polish ahead. We’re at the stage where most developers would say the game’s 90% done. When all the assets are complete, that’s when, in Nintendo’s eyes, the game is just half done. (laughs) Yeah, when we say we’re in the final stages — right now, we have a bucket full of nuts. So we’ve built the components of the game, but it’s far from being polished…The tools are there, and we’re almost done making the contents of the game, but we’re miles away from it being Nintendo quality right now. Well, actually, we’re months away. (laughs)”
