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Takashi Iizuka, the creative officer of Sonic Team, has again expressed interest in revisiting the Sonic Adventure titles with a new game.

This isn’t the first time Iizuka has commented on revisiting those prior entries. In 2018 for instance, he mentioned that he’d be up for a remake.

Nintendo Switch Sports Spocco Square concept

Although Nintendo Switch Sports is naturally about the sports themselves, the game introduces a new setting in the form of Spocco Square. In an interview shared today, the developers explained how the setting came to be.

Interestingly, Spocco Square wasn’t the original plan. Art director Junji Morii said Nintendo considered going with “a place where intercollegiate sports are played as well as a setting that looks like an ancient Olympian stadium.” In the end though, “none of them seemed to match the feelings that players would experience playing this game.” That led to the teaming coming up with “a gym where people could drop by more casually, with a stylish facility that makes everyone want to visit.”

nintendo switch sports character

Nintendo has provided a look at early character concepts that were considered for Nintendo Switch Sports with brand new concept art.

While the game ultimately has human-looking characters and Miis, the team almost went in a different direction. Early on, college students were considered. There was even talk of using robots that made it to the prototype stage.

Developers Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshikazu Yamashita, Shinji Okane, and Junji Morii revealed the following regarding character concepts for Nintendo Switch Sports:

Why Nintendo Switch Sports took so long

A bit over five years into the Switch’s lifecycle, we finally saw the arrival of Nintendo Switch Sports. The announcement took many by surprise as some thought this would be the type of title we’d see earlier on.

Director Yoshikazu Yamashita and producer Takayuki Shimamura explained the long wait in a just-published interview on Nintendo’s website. According to Yamashita, Yoshiaka Koizumi requested a new entry in the Wii Sports series. However, Yamashita felt “that there weren’t any sports left to be added.” That led the team to create gameplay “without swinging the Joy-Con controller”, but “it didn’t go well in the end”. After realizing they took the wrong direction, years passed and Nintendo went back to the drawing board.

Here’s the full excerpt from the interview:

zelda skyward sword hd development challenges

Tantalus has opened up about the development of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD on Switch, including the challenges involved.

CEO Tom Crago discussed the game on a recent episode of the Fragments of Silicon podcast. To start out, he commented on the technical challenges. Tantalus ended up boosting the resolution and frame rate, as Skyward Sword HD runs at 60 FPS and a maximum resolution of 1080p.

chrono cross interview future

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition finally saw the return of classic RPG after two decades, and producer Koichiro Sakamoto spoke about the remaster during a lengthy interview.

Square Enix recently published the discussion with Sakamoto on its site. In it, he commented on why this was the right time for Chrono Cross to return (and revealed that work started with the 20th anniversary in mind), the challenges involved with the remaster, the future of the Chrono series, and more.

Below is the full interview:

zelda twilight princess hd switch tantalus

There are a few first-party Wii U games left that fans are hoping will be brought to Switch, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. Thus far though, it has yet to happen.

Tantalus – the team behind Zelda: Skyward Sword HD – originally worked on Twilight Princess HD for its release on Wii U in 2016. However, according to CEO Tom Crago, the company hasn’t asked the company to work on a Switch port yet.

live a live development length

In a recent interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu, original Live A Live director Takashi Tokita spoke about how the team made the upcoming Switch release a reality.

In addition to explaining how the remake ended up in HD-2D, Tokita spoke about the game’s short development cycle, which began at the beginning of 2019 and continued through the pandemic.

Our translation of his full comments can be found below.

To say the least, Metroid: Other M was a different take on the classic franchise. Nintendo handed primary development off to Team Ninja, the team behind Ninja Gaiden. The title also took on a greater story emphasis compared to past entries. Ultimately it earned a mixed reception.

As it turns out, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime initially had very high hopes for the title. On the latest episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast, he singled out Metroid: Other M as the game that didn’t hit the mass market the way he originally expected.

Donkey Konga worst game Reggie Fils-Aime

What’s the “best worst game” former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has played? That honor goes to the rhythm title Donkey Konga.

Reggie spoke about his disdain for Donkey Konga during an interview with G4TV this week. As it turns out, he had the belief that this particular game “was going to hurt the Donkey Kong brand.”


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