In a new interview, Shigeru Miyamoto explained the origins of Link… and they’re incredibly interesting.
Link’s design was inspired by Peter Pan, believe it or not. In making the character, Nintendo was hoping to create someone who would be easily recognized by his sword and shield. They also came up with the idea of giving Link a long hat and long ears, with his overall appearance coming close to an elf.
Miyamoto noted how at the time, long ears made you think of Peter Pan. Throw in the fact that Miyamoto is a Disney fan and the team ended up taking inspiration from the character. Takashi Tezuka created Link’s design.
Regarding Link’s name, Miyamoto said that the staff originally intended for the triforce to be made up of electronic chips rather than fragments. The first game would have taken place in the past and future with the main character traveling between the two periods. Because the character would be the link between the past and future, the team settled on calling him “Link”.
NotEnoughShaders conducted a massive interview with Shin’en’s Manfred Linzner. Linzner opened up on Nano Assault Neo’s gameplay and technical features, WiiWare and eShop, Wii U hardware, and much, much more.
There’s a comprehensive summary below, courtesy of NeoGAF.
Nano Assault Neo
– Online leaderboards, ‘survivor’ mode, local two player.
– Tunnel sequences from 3DS version not present in Neo, instead replaced with tunnel ‘races’.
– Uses the ‘C-Engine’, an engine Shin’en has used on around 17 games.
– In two player mode, the GamePad camera captures the second player (on the GamePad) playing, and displays this image on the TV for the first player to see. Image captures at 30fps. Can be disabled.
– ‘Missions’ take place of achievements. Missions success is ranked online.
– 100mb download size.
– 5.1 LPCM surround sound audio.
– Hoping for launch day and low price.
– Loading times almost reduced to zero.eStore/Digital
– Made profit on WiiWare, but felt the market was too small. Feels the 3DS eStore is a sign of Nintendo taking digital more seriously.
– Feels Nintendo is “listening to feedback”, including from developers.
– Had no restrictions from Nintendo in terms of size, content and gameplay for their digital titles.Wii U Hardware/Tech
– Hardware avoids “typical bottlenecks”, such as RAM latency.
– GPU “quite open”.
– Hardware has good optimisation potential, and components well balanced.
– Have had no problems with the CPU/GPU combination. Feels they’re a “good match”.
– GamePad streaming and camera capture do not put a burden on the CPU/GPU.
– Nano Assault Neo using a few tricks that are not possible on current generation hardware. States the modern Wii U GPU is capable of effects that can make Wii U games look better than any game on current generation hardware.
– Audio DPS used for 3D audio and lowpass filtering.
– Excited to see what developers do with the hardware over the years.Design/Company Philosophy
– Big focus on framerate. Always aim for 60fps.
– Enhancements made to the C-Engine for one game can then be used in other games on other platforms.
– Enjoy independent, smaller working versus larger, contractual working. Allows for full ownership of properties and engines, and full control of project direction.
– Influenced by arcade games from the 80s/90s.
– Enjoy first party Nintendo games. Thought Journey was really great.
– Happy with their relationship with Nintendo.
– Developing Jett Rocket for 3DS. Hoping to release it in the next few months. Planning another Wii U game, to be announced early next year.
Hurricane Sandy, for the most part, finished its course on Tuesday. Its effects were – and still are – being felt throughout the East Coast, however.
As a New Yorker, the entire experience was pretty frightening. There are a bunch of large trees scattered around the property – some of which could be healthier – so with each wind gust, I was concerned that one of them could come crashing into the house.
And man… I have never in my life heard the wind howl like it did. We honestly didn’t get much rain here (which probably helped out the trees’ stability), but the wind was enough to drive me insane. When you’re hearing those strong gusts for 12-24 hours, they’ll drive some terror in your heart!
I mentioned earlier this week that our power was cut on Monday. That was around… 6:30 ET. Obviously the lack of power brings about a huge amount of problems. It’s not until it’s gone that you realize how important electricity is in our day-to-day activities.
I notified Austin that he may need to take over NE/GE prior to Sandy’s arrival, yet I still had a pit in my stomach over the fact that I couldn’t contribute to the sites. Am I insane? Quite possibly!
Heading to a Wi-Fi spot during the hurricane was most definitely out of the question. Once the storm passed on Tuesday though, a friend luckily agreed to let me stop by for a few hours for some site updates.
That was basically what it was like throughout most of the week: searching for Wi-Fi spots, heading home at 4:30 ET so I could eat dinner before total darkness, and then spending seven hours in complete darkness. That’s what things were like around the Valay household before the power somewhat unexpectedly returned Thursday night.
Fun times! Well, no, not really.
No traffic lights. No lights in general. No people on the streets. Lots of fallen trees and wires. Property damage.
In the end I’m extremely grateful though. There are thousands upon thousands in the East Coast without power still, homes that have been demolished, and peoples’ lives that have been destroyed. I truly feel for the affected families out there and hope that some sort of normalcy can be established in the future.
Brief picture time!
That’s across the street here. A huge tree fell over and sprawled itself over the driveway, so the people inside this house were stuck inside (basically) until it was chopped up and removed.
A random downed wire. It’s kind of hard to make out in this photo.
These photos were taken a bit further down the block. Lots of trees on the house and on the ground. I’m not entirely sure if their house was severely damaged, but I can’t imagine things being too swell here…
Hopefully this week wasn’t too abnormal for you folks in terms of site updates. I truly apologize for not being able to maintain my usual routines.
Having said that, I really have to thank Austin and Patrick for helping me out. I’d say they were able to replicate updates on NE/GE very well.
Believe me… when I couldn’t get to the sites, it drove me bananas. I literally spend almost every available moment of my time on NE/GE-related activities, and since they’re such integrated parts of my life, being unable to update and not knowing what was going on wasn’t easy!
Nintendo’s Wii U page has been updated with a bunch of different specs for the console’s web browser.
It’s been reconfirmed that plugins such as Flash won’t be supported. You also won’t be able to save/upload images or video through the browser.
The full list of specs – browser engine, user agent, codecs, and more – can be found below.
Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion fans can look forward to a lot of replay value in the upcoming game. DreamRift creative director Peter Ong said that over 20 different endings will be included.
“The character rescuing and quest system in the game involves a lot of optional choices the player can make. These choices influence the ending of the game. In fact, there are over 20 different endings to the game, and many more ways to influence how the Fortress will grow by the end.”
Sounds like Power of Illusion won’t be one of those games that you’ll only play through once.
