Nate Bildhorf on humanizing Samus, voice actress revealed, more

Bitmob conducted the following interview with Nintendo of America’s localization producer Nate Bihldorff…

Bitmob: Why Samus? Relatively few Nintendo characters are made to be “real.” You don’t hear Link talking about Ganondorf or Mario wondering what Bowser is up to…yet you hear Samus talking about the Mother Brain, Ridley….

Nate Bihldorff: I don’t think it’s a matter of the folks at NCL [Nintendo Co., Ltd., the Japanese headquarters] going into a room, looking at a dartboard of all their major properties and saying, “That one! That’s the one we’re going to grow!”

It’s more that there’s always been in [Super Metroid director Yoshio] Sakamoto-san’s head a big story and a big background for Samus. You can take a look at some of the manga, which isn’t necessarily related to the games, but there’s clearly more story to Samus than has ever been shown in the games.

I think it’s very appropriate in this case. I think Samus, more than anyone else, is someone whose story we’ve always wondered about, whereas, for various reasons, you don’t really wonder about Mario’s past all that much. And with Link, there have been so many Links over the years, you can get lost looking at all those.

Bitmob: Why don’t you take this humanizing of Samus even further? From what we’ve played so far, she’s still pretty stoic and introverted. It’s not like players can really make a connection with her. Is this intentional? Maybe just baby steps in terms of developing her character?

NB: Well, I would hold off judgment on that until you’ve played the whole game because it’s an interesting mix. You have the monologue sections and then the real-time sections where she’s actually interacting with people, like with the [Federation] soldiers on the ship.

I think the monologue sections show the Samus that we all know, which is this sort of very reserved, totally cool, not-ruffled-by-anything Samus. This comes through in her voice, which is very matter of fact, “here’s what happened”…not necessarily emotion.

Once you get into the meat of the game and see some of the scenes play out, you’ll see that type of monologue is only part of the story.

Bitmob: Who is the voice actress? Someone we should know?

NB: I don’t think she’s worked in video games before. Her name is Jessica Martin. She’s done a lot of dramatic work…a lot of stage work. She’s a local actress up in Seattle. She did an amazing job and was great in the studio.

After the game launches, we may make her available to you [media], but I don’t think we’re allowing any contact before that, just because we don’t want her dropping plot points….

Bitmob: So I gotta ask: You have Team Ninja [Dead or Alive] developing the game. And we’ve seen Samus in a bikini or her underwear before. And those guys love their girls in bikinis. Did that ever come up in any meetings or discussions? That they’re going to have to put Samus in a bikini for Other M?

NB: [Laughs] You’ll have to get that answer from Team Ninja and Mr. Sakamoto, because that was all happening in the clouds above our heads. By the time the localization work started, all those decisions have been made. It wasn’t exactly something I put in my first email to the team: “Hey, are you guys doing anything with bikinis?” [Laughs]

Without giving anything away, you’re not going to see beach volleyball in the middle of this Metroid game. I don’t that’d be a surprise to anyone. But nothing that we’ve seen has raised any alarm bells for us. We trust that Team Ninja and Mr. Sakamoto will find a happy medium between classic Metroid gameplay and a little sexiness.

Check out the full interview here.