Sakurai, Ichimura discuss Smash Bros., Kirby, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dragon Quest, attracting new gamers and more
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 7 Comments
The latest issue of Famitsu featured a discussion between Smash Bros. and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai and Dragon Quest series producer Ryutaro Ichimura. The two had a lot to say, and covered various games/series such as Smash Bros., Kirby, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dragon Quest. Additionally, the two talked more broadly about gaming and conversed about such points as attracting new gamers. You can check out what the two had to say below.
“A lot of people around the world have interacted with Smash Bros., and a lot of Japanese people have interacted with Dragon Quest. In that aspect, they’re both games that’re easy to approach and easy to play with.” – Ichimura
“Kirby’s Dream Land was the first game I ever made, but I had no intention of making it a mainstream game. I really narrowed down the audience to beginners only. That’s because, at the time, no matter how much fun the Super Mario Bros. games were, they were still too tough for normal people and kids. I could feel people drifting away from games, and it bothered me. In the midst of making Kirby, a lot of the team started wondering if we were maybe making it too simple. But I think it was necessary for us to consider people who hadn’t played a game before, and I think doing that earned us fans that wouldn’t have been around otherwise. That’s the same creative approach I take with Smash Bros. It hasn’t changed at all today.” – Sakurai
“I grew up playing the Dragon Quest games ever since I was a grade schooler, and they served as a gateway to this great new realm of gameplay called RPGs to me. I’ve gone from playing them to making them, but I can’t afford to let myself forget about what it’s like as a player. I need to make a game that anyone young or old can pick up and unwittingly get addicted to.” – Ichimura
“The thing I always have the most difficulty with in DQ is the hero character, who never speaks and never gives his own opinions. If the hero shows his own emotions, that runs the risk of alienating the player.” – Ichimura
“We generally don’t have the characters talk in Smash Bros. either. That can makes things interesting sometimes, or maybe boring sometimes… With Brawl, we had game modes that played out with the story, and they wound up being like these silent films where we had to keep each character’s personality but couldn’t have them talk. It’d be easier to have them talk, but that’s unfair to the characters in the game who can’t talk, so we decided to keep all of them silent instead.” – Sakurai
“I don’t think there are many games today that really attract new people. That’s why I think games need to be simplified a bit. Kid Icarus might be called a FPS or a third-person shooter, but if you took someone who didn’t know games and gave him the latest FPS and a controller with ten buttons and two analog sticks and told him to start playing, he’d never be able to. That’s why Kid Icarus is really easy to control. It gives people who gave up on the genre a chance to take a step back into that world. Even though I’m a pretty hardcore gamer, I think that’s very important.” – Sakurai
“That’s something you can do because you’ve delved so deeply into the genre and are so familiar with essence of what makes it fun. You’re able to lower your sights precisely because you have a heavy gaming habit. I really understand that, but as a producer, I suppose my approach is different. The way I see it, the main issue before us to figure out how to make games proliferate in the realm of entertainment. One way to do that is position the game front and center, then prepare a bunch of alternate entryways that aren’t games, like manga or anime or merchandise. Having all these entryways results in a single piece of entertainment, and as a producer, I feel it’s my job to link all that together.” – Ichimura
“I suppose our root motivation is the same. Kids and normal people can’t create games, so that’s why we’re here to make them instead. We need to keep ourselves aware of that going into the future.” – Sakurai
Thanks to Robert for the tip!
Incredible: Sonic & Knuckles Mushroom Hill Zone remade in 2.5D
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Videos | 11 Comments
A fan has remade the Mushroom Hill Zone from Sonic & Knuckles and has showcased his work in an impressive video. It’s got pretty much what any Sonic fan would want in a game like classic music, natural physics, and different level gimmicks. You can check out the reinvented level above.
Ubisoft dev believes Nintendo will release new console first
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii | 7 Comments
This information comes from Scott Pilgrim Vs The World game designer Jonathan Lavigne…
“If consumers are willing to embrace new technology then for sure we’ll see a new batch of consoles, but we’re more likely to see that in the form of peripherals like Kinect on Xbox 360 and Move on PS3 rather in a whole new console. We’ll probably see Nintendo have the first real new console because they’ve really lasted a long time on refurbished Gamecubes with the Wii.”
It’s very possible that we’ll see Nintendo introduce their next home console before other companies. However, I don’t think we’ll see it until 2012 at the earliest. Next year Nintendo will be concentrating most of their efforts on the 3DS.
Destructoid having an exclusive third party Nintendo game reveal
Posted on 14 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
Looks like we have a good reason to pay closer attention to Destructoid.com in the coming days:
We don’t want to say too much, but I can assure you that this bit of news will be a total trip. We will have a critically acclaimed third-party Nintendo developer in the house to show off, for the first time, a brand-new game that is most likely going to be awesome. All their previous stuff has been, after all!
Hmm… I’m not entire sure what this could be! As the source post suggests, we could be looking at the BIT.TRIP FATE reveal, or maybe it could be something totally different! I really don’t know!
Capcom names Kazuhiko Abe CEO and President of Capcom USA and Capcom Europe
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment
SAN MATEO, Calif. – August 23, 2010 – Capcom, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced the appointment of Kazuhiko Abe to CEO and President of Capcom U.S.A., Inc. and CE Europe, Ltd. Abe is responsible for the overall management of North American and European business operations and will oversee the activities between the U.S. and European offices in order to promote efficient international operations.
Abe joined Capcom in 2003 as General Manager of Management Planning and in 2006 became the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Capcom in Japan. Prior to joining Capcom, Abe worked for various institutions such as The Mitsubishi Bank and telecommunications service provider Hikari Tsushin, Inc. before taking the role of Executive Officer at Intuit Kabushiki Kaisha.
What do YOU think? How to make your game sell
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Features, General Nintendo | 18 Comments
Photos of Nintendo’s GamesCom booth
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Pictures: Every Mario game ever made
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Random | 4 Comments
“Metroid and Me” video
Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii | 4 Comments
We posted this video a couple of months back, but we finally have it in English and in direct-feed. Check it out below!