Pokemon devs on Mega Evolutions – criteria, Slowbro over Slowking more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment
This month’s issue of Nintendo Dream has a lengthy interview with some of the folks responsible for the Pokemon games. The magazine chatted with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire director Shigeru Ohmori, Ken Sugimori (art director), Shigeki Morimoto (battle director), Kazumasa Iwao (game designer).
Some of the most interesting comments came about when the interview focused on the topic of Mega Evolutions. Nintendo Dream asked about things like criteria for Mega Evolutions, why Slowbro was chosen to go through the process rather than Slowking, and more.
Head past the break for our full translation of Nintendo Dream’s Pokemon Mega Evolution discussion.
Video: Designing the Star Wars toys for Disney Infinity 3.0
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Game Informer published a new video feature that provides some insight into the creation of the Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars figures. There’s also some commentary from Avalanche’s Jeff Bunker. Watch the video in full below.
Takahashi on how Monolith Soft’s approach to development has changed since Xenogears
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Nintendo put up a one-question interview with Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi over on its Twitter account. It asks: “How has making games in the ‘Xeno’ series changed since the team first worked on Xenogears?” Take a look at the image above from Takahashi’s full response!
More: interview, Monolith Soft, Tetsuya Takahashi
Playtonic on the Yooka-Laylee character names
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 3 Comments
Playtonic’s new 3D platformer is called “Yooka-Laylee”. As it turns out, those are also the names of the game’s lead characters. Yooka is the chameleon while Laylee is the bat.
So how’d Playtonic come up with those names anyway? In a new website interview, artist Greg Mayles explained:
It was planned like this from the start. Yes, that’s right. It wasn’t just a happy coincidence that ‘Ukulele’ splits so well into two character names, honest.
Actually, someone on the team picked up a Hawaiian dictionary and apparently ‘’uku’ means ‘a small brained person’ and ‘lele’ means ‘to fly’ or, excitingly, ‘to get off of a vehicle’. That’s definitely not a coincidence either.
Yooka-Laylee came to Kickstarter last week, and quickly surpassed its $270,000 funding goal. Over $2.1 million has been raised thus far.
More: Greg Mayles, indie, interview, Playtonic, Yooka-Laylee
HAL Laboratory working on some non-Kirby projects
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
Over the past few generations, HAL Laboratory has primarily worked on Kirby games. We’ve seen a few non-Kirby titles here and there (most recently with BoxBoy!), but that character is certainly the studio’s bread and butter. Interestingly, BoxBoy! director Yasuhiro Mukae recently informed Kotaku that “several” projects are in the works that are unrelated to the character.
Mukae mentioned:
Certainly, as you say, the Kirby series is HAL Laboratory’s main development focus, but we actually have several other projects proceeding along in parallel (not that I can give details on them right now, of course). We also have a few experimental projects in the works with smaller teams, so there certainly isn’t any rule that we must be involved with Kirby projects. Like I discussed in the first question, BoxBoy got its start as an experimental project along those lines.
I was involved in the development of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but I was also working on the BoxBoy experiment at the same time. Handling both projects simultaneously presented some big challenges, but creating a game with a new character like Qbby made me feel happier than I’ve ever felt before.
Once Kirby: Triple Deluxe development wrapped up, I was able to devote myself fully to BoxBoy. This happened right when it went from an experiment to an official development project, and full-on development began at that point. Some of the Kirby: Triple Deluxe team also joined the BoxBoy project right about then.
As I wrote earlier, our development efforts may be chiefly devoted to Kirby, but there’s no hard-and-fast rule that everything has to be related to Kirby titles. I’m getting the chance to be involved a lot more often with non-Kirby things, such as this BoxBoy project—though, again, I can’t give details quite yet.
Below are some other noteworthy tidbits shared in Kotaku’s interview:
More: BOXBOY!, HAL Laboratory, interview, Kirby, top, Yasuhiro Mukae
BoxBoy! was originally going to have larger stages, less story
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News | 0 comments
Like most projects, BoxBoy! underwent some changes throughout development. The core idea of “creating boxes in order to make your way through puzzle landscapes” remained the same, according to director Yasuhiro Mukae. But there were a couple of things that changed in the final game.
Originally, HAL Laboratory was planning on creating “large stages that you could really sit down and spend a great deal of time playing.” The team also added “story elements in a move to encourage players to enjoy the game all the way through to the end.”
Mukae told Engadget:
More: BOXBOY!, interview, Yasuhiro Mukae
Koei Tecmo talks a bit about Yo-Kai Sangokushi, strong Hyrule Warriors sales
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments
During Level-5’s “Vision” event in March, a few new 3DS games were announced. One of these was Yo-Kai Sangokushi, which is a new collaboration title in partnership with Koei Tecmo.
This week’s issue of Famitsu has an interview with Koei Tecmo Games head Hisashi Koinuma. As expected, Yo-Kai Sangokushi was one of the things the magazine asked about.
Famitsu starts off by mentioning that he surprised by the fact that Yo-Kai Sangokushi is a collaborative title between Yo-Kai Watch and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This led Koinuma to say:
Romance of the Three Kingdoms has its 30th anniversary in 2015, so everyone in the company is excited. I think Yo-Kai Sangokushi is a fitting title to adorn the 30th anniversary. I’m especially happy that Level-5 president Akihiro Hino likes Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
More: Famitsu, Hyrule Warriors, interview, Koei Tecmo, Level-5, top, Yo-Kai Sangokushi
Warren Spector on Epic Mickey – dark concept art, couldn’t show Mickey’s teeth, wanted a movie
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii, Wii U | 6 Comments
Epic Mickey director Warren Spector held a Reddit AMA a few days back. Spector shared plenty of insight about the original game and its sequel, and tackled some very interesting questions. He was asked about topics like Epic Mickey’s dark concept art that never seemed to be realized, how he tried pitching a film based on the series to Disney, and the one thing about Mickey he couldn’t show.
You can find a full roundup of Spector’s comments below. They’re certainly worth checking out!
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate devs on the item drop rate, Tetsuya Nomura armor set, more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments
Siliconera has a new interview up with a couple of the developers behind Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. The site spoke with executive director Kaname Fujioka as well as executive producer Ryozo Tsujimoto. Between the two, they commented on topics like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate’s item drop rate, how the Tetsuya Nomura armor set collaboration came about, and more.
We’ve gathered up some excerpts from the interview below. The full discussion can be found here.
Playtonic talks a bit about bringing Yooka-Laylee to Wii U, still interested in amiibo
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
Playtonic intends to create 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee for various platforms, including Wii U. One of the reasons this has been made possible is due to the Unity engine (which the game is built on), as it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Playtonic may encounter some issues along the way, but the team is “looking forward” to bringing Yooka-Laylee to Nintendo’s console, and the team’s passionate Wii U technical director should help in getting it up and running.
The studio’s Gavin Price told MCV:
Our engine, Unity, is multi-platform. But we will see what happens when we try switching on all the dev kits we will be receiving in the future. We have still got that hurdle to come across. But we are looking forward to it. We have a very good technical director, and he is a big Wii U fan. So we will be looking for parity across all the platforms if we can. And it would be nice to take advantage of a few platform features or exclusive content.
The possibility of amiibo support is something that Playtonic has mentioned before. It’s something that the company still hopes to pursue, but there’s no news on that front just yet.
With any big company, these discussions don’t happen as fast as us as a team of seven would like. When we want to do something, we can do it tomorrow. But when you are working with partners, we have to work with them at their speed. So something in that area is still very much in our plans, and there is nothing that is impossible to overcome, so what we do with that we will reveal at the right time. But we know what our own expectations are, because we are fans of this stuff ourselves, so we know what is right and what is expected.
