Star Fox Zero – talk of the Platinum partnership, multiplayer a possibility for the future, amiibo, more
This information comes from Game Informer’s interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, game director Yugo Hiyashi, and Yusuke Hashimoto of Platinum Games…
On how the partnership with Platinum came to be…
“The way I tend to make games nowadays is to work with a smaller team internally to make the core of the game. Once that’s done, I look inside and outside Nintendo what would be a good development team to work on this game. And right about that time, it was when Bayonetta 2 was finishing up. It occurred to me that Platinum would be a great company to work on Star Fox. Now we’re working very closely. We’re working the same way we would with an internal team. We have meetings every day. We’re looking at the ROM every day.”
On whether multiplayer will be making a return in this installment…
“Multiplayer has always been something that we’ve focused on in the previous Star Fox games. Obviously in Star Fox Assault, it was a big part of it. During the course of that, we started to feel that the single player wasn’t getting enough attention or was being lost in the shuffle. This time, we’re really focused on the single player experience and figureing out how we can use the two screens to create a really rich single player experience for Star Fox.”
– He isn’t writing off this type of gameplay in an online environment down the road
– Unclear if that emerges as an add-on or a separate game
“Once we get people used to the system, it’s possible in the future as in Splatoon, set up some network feature and allow people to have one-on-one combat in that way. It’s something we’ll see maybe in the future.”
On branching paths…
“The Corneria map does have a branching path within it, but another big thing we’re focused on this time is that once you clear a stage, you’ll get a second mission on the same stage,” Miyamoto explains. “You’ll have a different set of goals.”
“In terms of what you saw in Star Fox 64, with the actual map with the different planets and lots of different branches, this time it will be simpler, but more variety in terms of different missions on the same planet. We want it to be that you can complete the course of the game in the same amount of time you would spend watching a movie, so it’s a cinematic experience. While there are still some branching paths, the main thing we are focusing on is having second and third missions available for each planet.”
– Won’t be an option to take different paths through the galaxy
– No option to tweak difficulty
“As everything around the player is getting more extravagent, the core gameplay is getting simpler. With Star Fox, what I wanted to achieve was having players actually aim at things themselves. It was very important to me, and I’m happy to see that even beginners are able to aim at things and shoot them. The biggest thing this time is that there are no bombs this time. You have to aim.”
– Scoring mechanic that awards points for defeating enemies
– The team believes that players will work to better their performance over time
“I think one thing that’s interesting about having the two screens is that it opens up a lot of strategies and ways to attack each course,” Miyamoto says. “You might see someone else playing something a different way and that will change your experience and add to the replay value. In this game, we have a point system like we had in Star Fox 64. But in Star Fox 64, taking out every single enemy in a stage was kind of impossible. Now with these new controls and being able to look around, it’s actually an achievable goal to shoot down every enemy.”
– Coins and medals scattered throughout the game.
– These won’t be used to unlock different decorations for your Arwing, but that will be a feature with a different unlock scheme
– They also won’t be used to unlock other characters for your squad or upgrade your craft.
“Being able to collect something and gradually beef up your weapons is something that’s very common in these types of games,” Miyamoto says. “While I do think it’s fun, I want to focus on making a game that’s fun without that kind of element. I want to keep it simple and pure.”
On amiibo…
“It would definitely be great to get a Slippy Amiibo, but the Amiibo lineup is so full now. Obviously, there’s a certain amount of them getting sold out. So just filling the repeat orders is kind of a challenge right now. It might be difficult. Making more of those is way harder than filling new orders of games.”
“One function we’re thinking of is that there’s already the Fox Amiibo and the Falco Amiibo will be out by the time Star Fox comes out. Tapping those will give you a small bonus in the game.”
