Lots of details from the Japanese Iwata Asks: Game & Wario
Nintendo has published the next entry in its Iwata Asks discussion series. This time around, Satoru Iwata sat down with Yoshio Sakamoto, Masamichi Abe, and Naoko Mori for a chat about Game & Wario.
An English version isn’t available currently, but NeoGAF member “StreetsAhead” did translate a significant amount of points from the interview. There’s talk about how the Wii U title wasn’t always planned as a Wario game, how Nintendo of America influenced the naming of the project, and more.
Head past the break for the full summary.
-Sakamoto was like an advisor on the project, as with previous releases.
-Goro Abe (SDP) was like the director, but relied on Ms. Mori from IS for lots of things during dev. She was director at IS of the project.
-Abe was asked to come up with a game idea to come pre-installed with the Wii U (like Face Raiders is with 3DS), and thought about what he could do. As he came up with ideas, he got IS involved.
-Ms. Mori was first brought onto the project in January 2011, when she first learned about the Wii U.
-It wasn’t originally planned to be a Wario series game. They wanted them to produce something to show off at E3 2011. This was ‘Shield Pose’.
-As it was going to come pre-installed with Wii U, rather than with the Wario series where they can do as they please, they needed to make something that would appeal and be playable to many people.
-Ms. Mori and the team felt bored as it was a more serious style than she was used to at first. They had to exclude their usual brand of humor and style. Sakamoto wondered if they were suited to this sort of game.
-Sakamoto was telling Abe that his ideas were great, while wondering if his team could really do them justice.
-The first time Sakamoto played Pirate/Shield Pose he said it should be more manic.
-Ms. Mori felt grateful for the permission to be a little more free.
-Moved from included-game to retail game in the Summer of 2011, once they’d finished ‘Pirate’ and felt there was too much content for it to be just included with the hardware.
-They were worried about doing HD Wario (making it realistic) but got advice from Komori at SPD who told them they should do it in the style they were comfortable with.
-They arrived at the scenario (a collection of games made by Wario and Co.) at the last minute before their deadline in December 2011.
-Iwata jokes that from the outside it was obvious that these three were always going to make a Wario game.
-Mori was sad that some of the scenario that they had made had to be dropped to make it a Wario game, but Abe points out they were able to re-use some of the ideas.
-There are 240 items you can get from the ‘gatcha’ machine.
-They originally planned on 100, but made nearly 300. They had to cut some in consideration of the menu.
-However, the 240 includes cards with play tips (about 69) and character introductions, but there are still over 100 micro-games with the gatcha items.
-Only using the game pad, even for multiplay, is an idea that comes from the time when it was an built-in game, because they couldn’t guarantee everyone would have Wiimotes.
-The team avoided using the word ‘mini-game’ during development. They were encouraged to think of each game as one that could be sold on its own, on its own merits. Therefore, each game has its own title screen.
-The title screens were designed to emulate NES box arts, by including things or scenes that don’t happen in game or different art styles.
-Each game has its own unique stage select screens and menus.
-Gamer has 22 micro games included, about 10% of a previous WarioWare game.
-Games had their own director look after it toward the end of development, because Mori/Abe couldn’t do it all by themselves.
-Arrow was Yoshikawa (Kirby Wii)
-Matsumiya (Band Brothers) did Kung Fu
-Tanabe (Paper Mario) and Tabata (Metroid Prime) both did Ashley and Island together.
-This was the first time at Nintendo that directors from different departments and teams have been involved in one game.
-Spent a lot of time polishing graphics, specifically on Island and Ski. Sakamoto thought Island looked fine, but when SDP designers saw, they told him it was not and it was the first time Sakamoto really understood what HD graphics meant for development.
-All three like ‘Gamer’ best. They also recommend Ski. Sakamoto likes it because of the young ladies you collect to trail behind you.
-Mori compares nearly being caught by the ‘Mother’ in Gamer to nearly having a car accident and slamming on the breaks.
-They chose not to use the WarioWare branding to avoiding confusing consumers into think this was just like previous games.
-They originally planned on calling it ‘Game of the Wario’ in Japanese, but the localization team at NoA suggested Game & Wario. Obviously, it’s a reference to Game & Watch.
-In Japan, WarioWare Inc. is know as ‘Made In Wario’ but that sounded weird in English, so was changed.
-Game & Watch also influenced the mini-game names. They’re short and clear, like the titles for the Game & Watch were.
-Gamer was originally going to be called ‘Mother’ but obviously, they couldn’t do that.
-Miiverse Sketch is a separate mini-game. You select one word from a list of four and have 1 minute to draw it. Once the minute is up, it’s automatically uploaded to the sub-community.
-Something special (a ‘continuation’) occurs if you collect all 240 gatcha items.
-Wario Ware is now 10 years old, as of March 21st. The team thought they’d beat the anniversary with the release, but it ended up coming after.
