interview

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 126 Comments

GameSpot recently spoke with Platinum Games’ Yusuke Hashimoto, one of the directors working on Star Fox Zero.

First, here’s what Hashimoto said about working with two screens:

“Those two screens, you can’t find that anywhere else. When we were doing Bayonetta 2, we just used that screen as a touch pad. With Star Fox, Miyamoto originally had the idea that he wanted to create a shooting game that used both of these screens, and then we said, okay, how can we combine this with Star Fox? Just having to use those two screens makes things interesting.”

“We’ve been working with action games long enough. We understand how the players play an action game, how they respond to an action game, how they’ll move, what they’ll do in the situational stuff. What we’re making here now, it’s totally a new learning experience for us, which is kind of fun to find out.”

Hashimoto also discussed the importance of nailing a solid 60 frames per second. The game not only runs at this speed on the television, but also on the GamePad.

“We’ve got them both moving at 60 fps, which is big for a lot of people, I think. But I think that it’s kind of a milestone in gaming, in a way. It’s not something that we have done ourselves before at Platinum, and it’s just not even something that has been done in gaming before. So it’s a lot of new challenges.”

Finally, Hashimoto briefly touched on Star Fox Zero’s delay. The decision was made in order to give the game more of a “Platinum feel”.

“We want to make it feel as great as possible. It’s easy to say [it was delayed] to increase its quality, or whatever, but that entails a lot, whether it be visuals, or controls.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 25 Comments

Microsoft is publishing Scalebound, a new Xbox One title from PlatinumGames. But as fate would have it, the project was originally imagined for Wii.

Director Hideki Kamiya recently spoke with GameSpot about his original ambition for Scalebound, which would have had players using the Wii remote to provide orders to dinosaurs rather than dragons. It also starred a little girl rather than the current protagonist Drew.

Kamiya said:

“If you look at the long span of it, the first idea [for Scalebound] was when we started the company and were thinking of ideas and games that we want to make. The idea popped up there, but then we made Bayonetta. Then after Bayonetta, we revived the idea and made a prototype but that prototype failed and the game got cancelled. It was put on a backburner for a variety of reasons and we moved on to The Wonderful 101.”

“When they first started, the idea was for a Wii game and we wanted to use a Wii remote to do the orders for the dinosaurs. You were in control of the dinosaurs, you were ordering the dinosaurs around, and they’d do cool things. Then after we made Bayonetta, we started the prototype. The first thing that I made a change to was making it a dragon game.”

“We changed the dinosaurs to dragons, but at that point the lead character was even weaker than [current protagonist] Drew is in the context of Scalebound. She was actually a little girl who was with these dragons. As we were making this prototype, I realized that I didn’t want to just be watching the fight, I wanted to be more participatory in the fight. And I started talking with the staff about how maybe we should change this to be a swordsman or someone a little bit older. This was when the prototype got put on the backburner, so to speak, and the project was halted. Then we made The Wonderful 101.”

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More: Hideki Kamiya, interview, PlatinumGames, Scalebound, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

Although a little bit of doubt has been cast on the future of the Chibi-Robo series, there is at least one developer out there who wants to see the series continue, and in its traditional form. Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash assistant producer Risa Tabata told USgamer in an interview that she’d like to see another adventure-style entry.

Tabata’s words in full:

“I actually wouldn’t call this ‘smaller’ at all, especially in terms of the game’s scope. I think a lot of people will be more than satisfied with it. Personally, however, I think it’d be great if we could release another adventure-style Chibi-Robo.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 34 Comments

Nintendo has tried a few different concepts with Chibi-Robo over the years. We know that it started out as an adventure game of sorts, but the series has since dabbled with photographs and now platforming. This is all intentional, as Nintendo seems to have struggled making the character a mainstream success.

Kensuke Tanabe, a producer from the company, recently spoke with The Verge about how it hasn’t been easy making Chibi-Robo resonate with all players. He also suggested that Zip Lash could be the last entry in the franchise if it doesn’t perform well.

“To be honest, this might be the last chance for us.”

“I’ve continually thought about ways to build this into a mainstream success. We’ve challenged ourselves in assorted ways along those lines, but I can’t say that we’ve found the answer yet.”

Tanabe went on to discuss Zip Lash’s origins:

“The first thing we decided upon was that we’d make an action game that took advantage of his plug and cord. We then placed the core of the gameplay on using it like a grappling hook, throwing it into a faraway edge and using that to traverse gaps and so on. As we kept thinking about ideas, we naturally settled on the 2D side-scrolling format. If the character can gain more recognition, I believe we’ll have a chance to produce another adventure-style game for a large number of people. I’m hoping that we made the right choice for this game’s play style.”

“Instead of trying to come up with a character we thought would be a commercial success, it was more like we first had the Chibi-Robo character, and then we thought about what kind of game we could make that’d portray this character in as attractive a way as possible. It’s kind of fun along those lines, like taking an artist I’ve found and trying to mold him into a famous creator. That, of course, also creates its own unique challenges.”

If Chibi-Robo does manage to capture success, it’s possible that he’ll appear in other places… liker Smash Bros. perhaps? Tanabe said: “If we receive an offer, we’ll think about it.”

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More: Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash, interview, Kensuke Tanabe, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

YIIK may have a chance of landing on NX. Andrew Allanson, who is AckkStudios’ co-director for the project, told Nintendo News that the port is likely to happen if the Big N’s new system supports Unity.

Allanson said:

“Oh man, I know as much about NX as everyone else. If Nintendo’s new console supports Unity, we’ll bring YIIK to it. Unity is sort of like “program once, port everywhere,” so it’s a matter of, I’d say, around six weeks per console. It’s pretty short!”

Allanson also spoke about how YIIK will use the Wii U GamePad:

“… one example is the record. When you fight with Alex’s main attack (the spinning record), there’s a Wii U-specific move called Record Scratch where the GamePad becomes a virtual turntable.”

“You can do a bunch of DJ-style things that are exclusive to the Wii U version. The other moves have been tailored, so you execute them on the GamePad as well — albeit in a slightly different manner.”

YIIK is on track to launch via the eShop and other platforms this winter.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News | 7 Comments

Runbow may have a chance of landing on the 3DS eShop. The studio’s Tom McCall said in an interview with Nintendo Life that the team is very much interested in the idea, and it’s something they’re looking into. Whether or not a 3DS port can actually be realized remains to be seen.

Take a look at the full interview below.

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More: 13AM Games, indie, interview, Runbow, Tom McCall, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 31 Comments

In the latest issue of Famitsu, the magazine has an interview with Spike Chunsoft president and CEO Mitsutoshi Sakurai. Spike Chunsoft handles the Zero Escape series, and is perhaps best known for its work on the Danganronpa franchise.

Sakurai spoke about a number of topics, including the company’s interest in NX. You can find various quotes from the interview below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 15 Comments

Nintendo UK recently put up an interview with Martin Sauter from Shin’en. As you would expect, the discussion was entirely about FAST Racing Neo. Sauter commented on a number of topics, including the locations in the game, difficulty, controls, Easter eggs, and more.

You can find a number of excerpts from the interview below. The full piece is located here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment

This month’s issue of GamesTM has an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. The two developers talked about all things Mario, including the evolution of the character’s design.

Tezuka shared the following when asked about Mario’s appearance and how Nintendo has resisted the urge to modernize him:

“I do think it’s changed a bit… For example, in Mario 3 we made him a little cuter. And perhaps with the Tanooki tail and the cape we definitely added items and features so that there’s more variety in Mario’s actions.”

Miyamoto shared a few words on the subject of evolving Mario as well. He also stated that Nintendo keeps Mario close to the vest, and doesn’t allow other teams to develop the core titles since the company wants to be control of the character and his abilities.

“In terms of the 3D Mario performance, it has evolved, but we have always been consistent in trying to be cautious in terms of when you do a B-dash, how far he can jump or how many blocks he can break. We have made it a little bit simpler for players as it’s evolved, because there are more complicated things that we’re asking the players to do. In the original Mario when you’re stopped he can’t do B-dash, but you can do it now with more recent games. So we have made it a little bit simpler and tweaked it throughout the years. In terms of Mario games we definitely don’t have other teams develop it, because we do want to control it and manage those features.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 27 Comments

Not all of Super Mario Maker’s content is available to players as soon as they boot up the game. Basically, you need to play around with the level editor for about 15 minutes before new tools and items are added.

In the latest issue of EDGE, Nintendo producer Takashi Tezuka spoke about Super Mario Maker’s unlock system. He told the magazine:

“This decision was part of our basic policy. We wanted the rewards to increase as you became more familiar with the game and to look forward to what would unlock the next day,” he says. “From our testing, we learned that if too much was available all at once then many players weren’t sure what they should do and didn’t have as much fun with the game. However, I do understand the feeling of wanting to unlock things earlier.”

Nintendo did end up changing Super Mario Maker’s unlock system right before launch. Previously, players would need to wait several days to unlock all of the game’s content.

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