GungHo talks Puzzle & Dragons: Mario Bros. Edition – development, gameplay bits, no DLC, more

Very recently, Japanese website Dengeki Online interviewed a couple of folks from GungHo Online Entertainment. The website sat down with Daisuke Yamamoto and Kazuki Morishita for a chat about Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition.

The origins of Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition go way back to the release of Puzzle & Dragons Z, GungHo’s first attempt at bringing the popular series to the 3DS. Morishita was asked by Dengeki about his thoughts about the game at the time of its release.

Morishita states that during the planning phase of Puzzle & Dragons Z – roughly summer 2011 – there weren’t so many children with a smartphone. GungHo brought the title to 3DS since they wanted to give children the chance to try out the franchise. “We have seen extremely skilled children after the release, so we think it went as planned,” Morishita said. Puzzle & Dragons Z also managed to sell 1.5 million copies, so it surpassed GungHo’s expectations, and the company believes a breakthrough was made in expanding the Puzzle & Dragons audience.

Dengeki next asks if the Puzzle & Dragons collaboration with Mario/Nintendo was born as the ideas behind Puzzle & Dragons Z took off. Yamamoto and Morishita responded with the following:

Yamamoto: That’s right. We want to spread Puzzle & Dragons to the world so the target isn’t just kids. However, there is certain pressure in using Mario characters everyone knows.

Morishita: Mario is a superhero and likewise his creator, Mr. Miyamoto, is legendary himself. I was in the fourth grade of elementary school when I encountered Mario for the first time, so the Super Mario series is like a holy ground for me. Because of that, I’m working very hard.

Seeing as he values Mario and Miyamoto highly, Dengeki was curious about the sort of problems that arose from making Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition under pressure. Morishita said: “I too grew up with Nintendo games so I was nervous to give Miyamoto a presentation. When I showcased how to play Puzzle & Dragons, my hand shook while moving orbs (laughs).”

Dengeki soon moves on to some concrete discussion about Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition. Given the evolution element of Puzzle & Dragons, the site wondered if Mario and Peach will evolve in the game.

GungHo is handling this aspect a bit differently. Characters from the Super Mario series will “transform” as opposed to “evolve”. Mario can transform into Tanooki Mario, Koopa Troopa to Koopa Paratroopa, Goomba to Tower Goomba, etc. Yamamoto commented, “We got various ideas from Mr. Miyamoto and we are making the game so that we don’t lose the feel of Super Mario.”

On how orb designs were decided, Yamamoto and Morishita responded:

Yamamoto: At first all orbs were mushrooms with different colors but it was hard to see at glance so we ended up using a different Super Mario item for each element. Fire orb is fire flower, darkness orb is poison mushroom and so on. I think that it is easier to understand when designs for elements vary.

Morishita: The health recovering “heart orb” is the only one from the Puzzle & Dragons series.

Dengeki also mentions how there seems to be extreme care in making the sound effects in Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition.

Morishita: When getting 1UP or entering a pipe, catchy sound effects make the game feel like Super Mario, in my opinion.

Yamamoto: As the jump sound differs from game to game, we had trouble to decide which to use, having the younger generation of developers on board. Well, personally I’m from the NES era, so we came to agreement of using the sound effect from the first Super Mario Bros. (laughs).

Finally, we have an important update regarding DLC… in that there will be none.

Morishita: We are making it so that if you buy one game, you can play all the content so DLC isn’t planned. I’d like to arrange a tournament in which Score Attack stages would be used at Gungho Festival after the release.

Yamamoto: The aim is world championship, right?