Sakamoto discusses the impact of Samus being a woman, Other M development, interest in working on Metroid again and something new
Sakamoto on whether or not Samus’ gender was fixed from the beginning…
“When we were almost done with the development of Metroid, one of our staffers casually suggested ‘Why don’t we make Samus Aran a female character to surprise the player?’ Back then I thought it was a nice idea, but I couldn’t foresee what a huge impact this would have on the future of the franchise. Up to this day, I’m thankful to the person that came up with this idea, although I honestly can’t recall who actually made the suggestion.”
Sakamoto on key features in the Metroid series/what development was like with the first game…
“Almost all of the elements which now define the Metroid series were decided in the first Metroid game. Back then, we didn’t have enough time, we didn’t have enough resources, but we still had to make this game. And we had to work fast! A young designer came up with the very basic structure and we knew our game would come out for the Famicom Disc System. But even before we started working the launch date was decided. We weren’t able to increase the amount of memory we had for the game and we were not allowed to make major changes to the core engine – but we had freedom in terms of game structure. In a way, we were stuck; stuck between high walls and we had to think of a way out. This is the feeling we also put in the game. Maybe, you could blast a little hole in the wall? This might lead you to another room or corridor. This is how the basic structure of the game came about.
So we could blast a hole into a wall. That got us thinking – what else could we do, can we perhaps go up? So we came up with the ice-beam. The ice-beam is also the result of rational thinking. We had very limited memory. So we decided that Samus should be able to jump on frozen enemies and use them as a platform. And that was a great help for saving memory. All we had to do was change an object’s colour and by simply changing the so-called collision-check the former enemy suddenly becomes a stepping stone; a really nice gameplay element that hardly requires any memory at all. So the original Metroid was the result of a lot of hard work and many of the features were hit upon by coincidence.”
Sakamoto talking about how different game development is today compared to 1986…
“Being able to have all these resources for any given project, sometimes it’s really nice, but there are also negative aspects to this new freedom. Of course, we have many, many possibilities with the current systems and were able to do almost anything we wanted. But still, as a developer, we have to keep our minds on the budget. And at the same time, being able to do anything you want is not necessarily a good thing. When we can do anything we can think of, it’s very important to remember what’s really necessary.
And when we see that a certain element of a game is not working properly, then we must have the courage to pull the plug, even if this particular part of the game was almost completed. With Metroid, we were lucky enough to rarely get into this sort of situation. So while we have many more possibilities, we are still working under some serious constraints. Time, especially, is a very important resource. So in the end, the difference between now and then is not that remarkable anymore.”
Sakamoto on if there are any important elements that he had to cut from Other M…
“When it comes to smaller stuff, there are several elements that we cut. We often said ‘Let’s just try if it works out – if works, that’s fine and if it doesn’t, well, we’ll just scrap it.’ But when it comes to the larger elements of the game, I don’t think we’ve ever had really serious cuts where we were almost done with a huge part of the game and then had to abandon it. Looking back, we actually often went the opposite way. When we were not satisfied with a certain part of the game, we didn’t remove it, we just added elements and polish until we were happy with it. A project of this magnitude takes lots of time and money, so the most important time is the beginning of the development, when we do the initial planning. If we do a good job there, we can avoid many problems in the long term.”
Sakamoto on how movies and inspiration derived from them factor in the whole Metroid equation…
“I’m a great fan of movies myself, I’ve seen quite a number of them. And sometimes these movies influence my game ideas in subtle ways. On the other hand however, I don’t think I’ve ever consciously used an idea from a movie in one of my games. My understanding is that fragments of every exciting, interesting idea and setting are piling up in my mind as I consume movies or books. In some fashion these show up when I’m working on a game. So it’s certainly possible that one or another element that reminds you of Alien shows up in Metroid. But Alien was certainly not the only inspiration for the game. Concerning the cut-scenes of Other M, the situation is a little different again. Even though I was the one responsible for choosing which one would be in the game, the team at D-Rockets is responsible for the contents and direction. And of course they also have various sources of inspiration.”
Sakamoto on how he came about making a long, complex storyline told via cut-scenes and voice acting in Other M…
“Until now, Nintendo has never made a game with such an expansive storyline and such elaborate storytelling as Metroid: Other M – but the first thing that came to my mind when I started thinking about a new Metroid for Wii was that Samus should really talk a lot. I wanted long, cinematic cut-scenes. These were necessary because in the new game I wanted to show Samus’ inner self, her personality and her history. What kind of person is Samus? What’s going on inside her? To achieve this, we needed the dialogue and the cut-scenes.
But at the same time, the new Metroid is of course a videogame, and as such it’s imperative to offer the highest possible quality in terms of playability and content. So I started to think about what kind of a team I would need to make all this happen. For the actual gameplay, I was very lucky to meet these splendid guys at Team Ninja. And for the cut-scenes, we struck a partnership with the very talented people at D-Rockets. So at the beginning of the development, I talked to these people and briefed them in detail on my ideas and concepts for the new Metroid. We quickly agreed on the direction we want to take with the development of Other M.”
Sakamoto on what came first: the story or general gameplay systems…
“Before starting to actually work on the project, I already had some rather vague ideas. Based on that, I fleshed out the outlines of the story and finally thought about the way we would create the cinematic cut-scenes and what sort of gameplay should go along with it. When we started the actual development process, the first thing I had to do was to flesh out the whole storyline and think about the way we could integrate story and gameplay. Which elements are necessary, how could we tell the story most effectively. We wanted to achieve a seamless switch between the cut-scenes and the gameplay segments. So in the end, we worked at the same time on the story and the gameplay.”
Sakamoto on what made him return to the 2D format…
“As I said, I wanted to emphasize Samus’ story in the new Metroid. And to emphasize this story I wanted to avoid a possibly too complex control-scheme. From the beginning, it was clear to me that I wanted this game to be 2D. By going the 2D route, I thought we could integrate the storyline more seamlessly. I think going 2D is the most efficient way to tell this story.
Of course the game is not really 2D, but 2D-like… it plays as elegantly and simply as the old 2D-games. And you´re right, the gameplay is hugely based on Metroid Fusion which I also directed a couple of years ago. Back then I learned a lot; after all Metroid Fusion was the first time we tried to integrate a large story into a Metroid game. With Other M, we wanted to go a few steps further. We really hope that many new people will discover the whole Metroid franchise with Other M, and these newcomers will certainly also like the relatively easy controls.”
Sakamoto on the story feeling maternal…
“Yes, Samus calls Mother Brain simply Mother in the introduction, but I would not over-interpret this. I just felt that letting Samus shout ‘Mother!’ instead of ‘Mother Brain!’ would sound more natural. But when it comes to the baby, it’s different. I didn’t want Samus to think of it as Baby Metroid or anything like that – it’s simply the baby. I also told the people localizing that they should stick with simply ‘baby’ and not add anything. I put particular emphasis on the translated term having the same meaning as ‘baby’.”
Sakamoto on what he’s up to now, and whether or not he’d like to work on another big AAA title or something more personal…
“Honestly speaking I do not have a particular project which I’m working on right now. But if it comes to game-making, I have to admit that I’m a rather greedy person. If someone asked if I would like to make another Metroid, I would say ‘yes, certainly’. But if someone was to ask me if I wanted to do something other than Metroid next, I’d also say ‘yes’. You know, I always want to do something new, something different. And now I’m trying to identify what I want to do and what I should do. So if we meet once again in the near future, I might give you a different answer. But right now I have to say ‘I don’t know.'”
