This comes from Atlus producer Shinjiro Takata and Nintendo producer Hitoshi Yamagami…
On the speculation there was about the project…
Shinjiro Takata: Everybody is pretty much off the mark with what they’ve thought about this game, but one thing that people got wrong the most in Japan—at the end of the first trailer we announced, there was a line that said—people who are fans of Japanese voice actors knew the voice of Yuichi Nakamura. He generally voices main characters, so they were saying, oh, Nakamura’s going to voice the main character. Actually, he voices someone completely different. They were off the mark there.
On how the project came together…
Shinjiro Takata: What happened was, in the process of making this game—the whole idea started when Mr. Hitoshi Yamagami, who is a producer at Nintendo, brought the idea of making a simulation, a strategy game, to Atlus. This was a problem, because Atlus is well known for making JRPGs. That’s our bailiwick. The next thing was, well, what do we do? Do we make it fantasy-based, because Fire Emblem is known for fantasy settings? That kind of fantasy game isn’t really what Atlus tends to put out, though. In the beginning phases of making this game, we really didn’t know which direction to push it in. Do we push it closer to Fire Emblem or to the modern setting of Shin Megami Tensei?
On how long it took to get to a point where that decision was solidified and production went forward…
Shinjiro: Deciding what to make it closer to, that happened a bit after Mr. Yamagami brought us the idea. The problem is, if you make it too much like a Fire Emblem game, then why doesn’t Intelligent Systems just make it themselves? The goal for this was to do something that the Fire Emblem series can’t do. In the end, the reason the game looks the way it does, the reason the content is the way it is, is because this is something we wanted to do as an Atlus game, a game only Atlus could make.
This information comes from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime…
“We focus on the here and now. We’re not like other players in the space that might show a little bit of something that is going to be years in the making. It’s simply because we believe that in getting the fan base excited, we really want to satiate that excitement as soon as possible.”
– Star Fox Zero’s Corneria mission uses the same layout for Corneria City as Star Fox 64 with a new coat of paint
– Fly under a bridge to save Slippy, boost past falling buildings, and shoot construction robots throwing metal beams
– Control the Arwing with the left analog stick
– ZR: fire lasers
– Can hold down the button for a charge shot
– Y: Arwing does a somersault
– Moving the right analog stick activates boost
– Pulling the right analog stick back triggers the brakes
– Tapping the right stick left or right twice does a barrel roll
– Move the Wii U GamePad to control where the Arwing shoots
– GamePad’s screen shows what Fox sees inside the cockpit
– At the end of the Corneria mission, it switches to an all range mode
– When this happens, Fox needs to shoot spider-like robots from climbing a tower
– Robots are invulnerable aside from a red target on top
– Need to use the cockpit view to shoot down the enemies
– After the spider robots, the Star Fox team needed to shoot laser cannons from a giant saucer
– Another demo at E3 set in Area 3
– This stage brings Fox McCloud into an empty space field with enemies to shoot down in all range mode
– After taking out a few ships Pigma Dengar flies in and turns the stage into a dogfight
– Pigma tries to fly behind Fox to get him in firing range
– Using the somersault and then a charge beam turns the tables on Pigma
– Hold ZL to shift the camera on the TV to focus on the action instead of behind the Arwing
This excerpt is from a GamesIndustry article with Randy Pitchford (Gearbox Software, Borderlands) and Amazon’s Mike Frazzini…
While much of the discussion covered larger industry trends, one question put to the participants specifically dealt with Nintendo. Considering the company has been putting out games with enviable Metacritic averages, why is it that Nintendo seems to have struggled so much in the market of late.
Pitchford said it doesn’t matter how good their games are if people don’t know they exist, and likened it to a common situation in movies. He said he’s noticed a trend whenever he goes to Rotten Tomatoes to look for the best films now playing.
“It tends to be that some of the highest rated things on Rotten Tomatoes are films I’ve never even heard of,” Pitchford said. “They’re indie things that are marketed not to me. Nintendo’s gotten really good at talking to Nintendo customers. But I think that Nintendo could at least lead more if they figured out how to talk to new people that they’re not already talking to. And that’s a very difficult problem.”
– Vote on a level to play
– Votes are randomly selected
– Each dungeon is structured into four main sections
– One dungeon: forest
– In the forest stage, the group is separated
– Start out by finding each other
– Reach a floating balloon with the key to the next area by forming a totem
– Walk up to a Link and press “A” to hoist them up on your shoulders
– The top Link in a Totem can interact with off-the-ground elements
– Second section of the dungeon has a room full of ChuChus
– Bow assigned to “Y”
– Third area has a puzzle
– Need to activate 3 switches on high pillars guarded by enemies and surrounded by a dark abyss and moving platforms
– Switches snap shut if you get too close
– Solve the puzzle by forming a totem formation with the bottom Link walking and aiming, the top Link firing an arrow at the right time, and the middle Link providing crucial height
– Fourth area has an enormous electrified ChuChu
– ChuChu is a see-through yellow blob with a red weak spot inside
– The boss sends steady streams of electricity out from four sides
– Hit it with arrows, and the boss will bring its weak spot up off the ground
– Form a totem two-high for the next hit, and three-high for the eventual third
– Send out 8 messages on the touch screen via different images
– Some of the available images help with practical concerns, like the Totem request or Throw suggestion, while others are more for fun
