Zelda: Breath of the Wild director on the game’s reaction, timeline placement, approach to Ganon, more
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch, Wii U | 38 Comments
Game Rant was recently able to interview Zelda: Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi. Fujibayashi weighed in on the game’s early reaction, timeline placement, motion control puzzles, inspiration for the Divine Beasts, early concepts, and why Ganon doesn’t speak.
You can read up on these excerpts from the interview below. For the full discussion, head on over here.
Zelda director Hidemaro Fujibayashi would like to further explore design ideas used in Breath of the Wild
Posted on 7 years ago by Zack in Switch, Wii U | 11 Comments
In a recent interview with Gamerant, Hidemaro Fujibayashi commented that he would like to further explore the game design that was used to create The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As the director of said game, he would likely be in a position to do such a thing in future installments. His full answer to the question of whether open-world design will be the new standard for the Zelda series going forward, is as follows:
We can’t really say much at the moment but there are lots of things in this current game design we still want to explore. If, as a result of that exploration, we feel positive we can provide our audience with new experiences it’s possible this design could become the standard.”
While Breath of the Wild is a huge phenomena, it would still be quite a departure for the series to stray away from the design philosophy it’s adhered to so closely since Ocarina of Time. Only time will tell what the future holds for the Legend of Zelda now.
ARMS producer: ARMS and Breath of the Wild made on the same floor in Nintendo, would like to see ARMS become an eSport
Posted on 7 years ago by Zack in Switch | 5 Comments
In a recent interview with Time, ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki and art director Masaaki Ishikawa spoke at length about the game. A wide range of topics were covered, including how much of ARMS is luck versus skill, which control method the development team prefers, and how tools from the development of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were used in the development of ARMS.
On whether or not ARMS was designed with data from data aggregation tools that were used by the Breath of the Wild development team, Yabuki said this:
Arms and Breath of the Wild are made on the same floor at Nintendo, and we are able to use things that the Breath of the Wild team found useful. But it’s important for us to choose the right tools for the game. In development of this game, we looked a lot at the results of the battles, the overall picture of what character matches well with what character and what arms go up well against what arms. That information comes from humans fighting other humans. But we also use the artificial intelligence in the game to match A.I. against itself and look at that data. And of course the players who participated in the Arms test this last weekend, we looked at that to check and see if there are any balance issues.
More: Arms, interview, Kosuke Yabuki, masaaki Ishikawa
Thumper co-creator discuss Nintendo’s interest in Thumper’s use of rumble, making their own engine for Thumper
Posted on 7 years ago by Zack in News, Switch eShop, Videos | 0 comments
In an extensive video chat with Gamasutra, Thumper co-creator Marc Flury spoke at length about the game. Some noteworthy topics include the creation of an original game engine as opposed to using a popular, third party one such as Unity, and how the use of rumble in Thumper attracted the attention of Nintendo.
On the subject of Nintendo being interested in the use of rumble in Thumper, it seems that the game caught the eye of some Nintendo executives when it was being shown off in Japan for PS4 and PC. Flury was asked if he would be interested in working with Nintendo’s new rumble system, which we now know as the HD Rumble used in the Joy-Cons on the Switch.
On the subject of creating an original engine instead of using a pre-built one to make a game, Flury wanted to emphasize that this approach shouldn’t be seen as crazy and unrealistic as it often is. He believes a lot of the anxiety around such an approach in the games industry comes from a lack of proper education. He believes that it might be time for schools to rethink their approach to introducing programming to younger individuals.
Check out the full video below.
More: Drool, interview, Marc Flury, Thumper
Nintendo says Fire Emblem Switch is “going to be looking beautiful with great graphics”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 68 Comments
Nintendo announced a new Fire Emblem game for Switch a few months ago. We’ve yet to see a single image from the game, but it’ll apparently be worth the wait. Nintendo’s Kenta Nakanishi told USgamer in a new interview that “it’s going to be looking beautiful with great graphics”.
That’s not the only thing Nakanishi recently said about the project. This past weekend, we reported him noting that Switch “should be able to offer a completely different Fire Emblem, breathing life into our characters like never before.”
More: Fire Emblem, interview, Kenta Nakanishi
Niantic says Legendary Pokemon and PvP battles coming to Pokemon GO this summer in new interview
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 4 Comments
Some long awaited content finally appears to be heading to Pokemon GO this summer. In an interview with Brazilian newspaper O Globo, Niantic VP of Strategic Partnerships Mathieu de Fayet indicated that the game will be updated with Legendary Pokemon as well as player-versus-player battles.
Fayet’s statement is translated as follows:
“Because of the huge success, we had to delay some planned news. Now, we are working in announcing new updates for this summer (Northern Hemisphere), like giving more value to the choice of teams, launching Legendary Pokémon and battles between the players. One thing which we learned with ‘Ingress’ is that the game sustains itself if we are capable to create social interactions between the trainers, and we are working on that.”
Although not an official confirmation, things are definitely looking good hear. Niantic did also recently teased that this summer would be “legendary”.
More: interview, Mathieu de Fayet, Niantic, Pokemon GO
PlatinumGames reconfirms Switch project
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 22 Comments
Famitsu was able to interview PlatinumGames’ Atsushi Inaba at BitSummit last week. Naturally, Switch came up during the discussion.
Inaba praised Switch’s easy-to-play-anywhere aspect. Also, he thinks you can play Switch game both casually or seriously and the platform accepts heavy AAA titles or even very casual games made of just small ideas. Therefore Switch fits well with indie scene and also with the coming video game scene.
Inaba also believes that t synergy between PlatinumGames and Switch is good. He was able to reconfirm a project for Switch developed by PlatinumGames, which he thinks will be “interesting” or “fun”.
More: Atsushi Inaba, interview, PlatinumGames
Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have interest in making a new Advance Wars
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 26 Comments
It’s been years since the last entry in the Advance Wars series. That doesn’t mean Nintendo and Intelligent Systems lack interest in the franchise, however.
Eurogamer spoke with Nintendo’s Hitoshi Yamagami and Intelligent Systems’ Masahiro Higuchi about the possibility of a new Advance Wars. When asked about a new game in the franchise, the two said:
“Personally, I’d love to do Advance Wars, but since it’s harder to create relationships between its characters compared to Fire Emblem, I don’t have a clear idea of what kind of setting it could have.” – Yamagami
“The Advance Wars series is one that I personally have a lot of interest in. I hear some of the staff here saying that they want to make one too, so if we have a chance it’s something I’d like to do!” – Higuchi
More: Advance Wars, Intelligent Systems, interview, top
Level-5 CEO on current state of the Yo-kai Watch series, wants to bring back older players
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 30 Comments
This week, Nikkei published a new interview with Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino. It included talk pertaining to topics such as The Snack World and Inazuma Eleven, but also the state of the Yo-kai Watch franchise.
Nikkei pointed out that Yo-kai Watch 3 has sold over two million sales across three entries – Sushi, Tempura, and Sukiyaki. Hino noted that he can’t deny it has fallen much compared to the times of Yo-kai Watch 2, which launched in Japan three years ago. Sales of related products are also accompanying it – think toys, etc.
More: Akihiro Hino, interview, top, Yo-kai Watch
Capcom COO’s Switch comments fully clarified and translated
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 28 Comments
Japanese publication Toyo Keizai recently spoke with Capcom COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto. Switch was one topic that came up during the discussion, and it’s actually something that we already covered a couple of days ago.
Since there has been some confusion about what was actually said, we decided to translate Tsujimoto’s full comments. Our understanding is he does not actually state explicitly that Ultra Street Fighter II will directly influence Capcom’s support for Switch, including how it sells.
In any case, on with the translation:
