Mario tidbits from the latest Iwata Asks interview – secrets revealed

Nintendo has published a new “Iwata Asks” interview on the official Wii website. The interview once again focuses on the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., and, like previous interviews, contains a number of interesting nuggets about the series. You can check out a few of the details below.

– In earlier years, Miyamoto focused on asking questions such as “Is that fun?” and “Does that feel right?” rather than the essence of Mario
– Hiroyuki Kimura thought about making Super Mario Advance 5 for DS since people were asking about a fifth game around the time the system was released
– New Super Mario Bros. would have been Super Mario Advance 5
– Without the Super Mario Advance series, New Super Mario Bros. may never have happened
– Super Mario Advance series started when Satoru Iwata first came to Nintendo and saw a list of GBA titles in development, and noticed there were no Mario games
– New Super Mario Bros. Wii development began right after New Super Mario Bros.
– As Kimura presented a prototype of New Super Mario Bros. Wii multiplayer to Miyamoto, Miyamoto suggested there be 4 players instead of just 2 (prototype only included Mario and Luigi)
– Nintendo experimented with multiplayer in Super Mario Bros. 3
– Multiplayer featured simultaneous gameplay with Mario and Luigi, but scrapped the idea because the screen wouldn’t pull forward well when scrolling and players would fall even though they jumped
– While developing Super Mario 64, Yoshiaki Koizumi had some difficulty making Mario move in some areas, so Miyamoto used gestures to show how Mario should look
– One of the issues Koizumi experienced was making Mario swim, so Miyamoto was literally sprawled out on a desk and was doing swimming motions (this was at 2-3 in the morning)
– Disputes about the “cuteness” factor in Super Mario Sunshine
– Some suggested making the pole at the end of the levels in New Super Mario Bros. Wii bigger due to 4 player action, but the idea was scrapped since, if it was too long, players wouldn’t be able to reach the top
– Flagpoles (at the end of levels) aren’t used at the end of levels in 3D Mario games because Nintendo felt it would be hard to grab it