Inti Creates wasn’t originally planning on making any Mega Man Zero sequels
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in DS, GBA, General Nintendo, News | 13 Comments
USGamer put up a massive piece that recounts the history of Inti Creates. There are plenty of quotes mixed in from Takuya Aizu, the company’s president.
One of the more interesting topics concerns Mega Man Zero. Aizu first explains how Inti Creates originally wanted to kill off X, but Capcom intervened.
The main concept that we wanted to explore was Zero killing X. We wanted to come up with something really sensational. There was something about Mega Man Zero at first that we felt wasn’t quite right — it wasn’t true to our idea of the character. So we tried to resolve that by coming up with this dramatic concept.
Within the team, there was no resistance at all. In fact, right up until we went to master the game, the plot played out with Zero defeating X. However, Capcom as a company… it didn’t serve well for the company to have a series in which X is the hero and then another title where that same hero gets killed off. And so because of that, at the very, very, very end, like right before we sent the game to be manufactured, we had to change it so that the X that Zero kills was actually a copy. We didn’t have time to change the game play, though, so just the story changed slightly.
More: Capcom, interview, Inti Creates, Takuya Aizu, top
Splatoon devs didn’t want the game to be based on a Nintendo franchise
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 7 Comments
GamesRadar was recently given an opportunity to speak with Hisashi Nogami, producer of Splatoon. During the chat, Nogami spoke about how the team wanted “to not get too caught up in Nintendo’s already existing franchises”.
He said:
“We went through a period of creating lots of prototypes. We didn’t want a franchise-based game, so we made a bunch of prototypes and one of those prototypes happened to be the game that became Splatoon. The idea was ‘something fun, something new, something different,’ not ‘a shooter.'”
Nogami also spoke about how playing other games has some impact when creating new titles:
“The development team is made up of people who play games a lot, and among them are people who play shooting games a lot, including Mr. [Yusuke] Amano, one of the game’s directors, who I’ve heard has spent his college years playing Perfect Dark. As game designers who play games, you can’t really help observing things you like and don’t like, and having those have some degree of influence on your thinking. The best way to express this is that it forms a base of thought that you bring into game development, but it doesn’t directly influence the game development.”
More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon
Nintendo on its evolved approach to HD development
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
This month’s issue of EDGE has an extensive feature about Splatoon. Naturally, a great deal of the piece focuses on the Wii U game, but the magazine was also able to ask Nintendo EAD general manager Katsuya Eguchi an off-hand question as well.
Discussing how Nintendo’s approach to HD development has evolved over the course of working with Wii U, Eguchi said:
“As you say, HD development tends to need a lot more people due to the higher standards required. The question of how to secure the necessary programmers and designers is one common to all companies in the industry, and everyone has to find ways of dealing with it. For example, if you increase the number of staff, there will be a greater difference in skill levels between them, which makes managing quality control extremely important.
“However, what’s really critical is making sure that this increased number of staff aren’t doing any unnecessary work. It hurts to imagine just how many people’s work would be wasted if we had to redo something. Being able to judge what needs to be done is the key to making sure that people and time are not wasted. This applies not only to decisions about specific features after development has started, but also to the starting point itself – what kind of new game to make, for example. That is critical, and getting it wrong runs the risk of the whole project amounting to nothing.
“It’s normal that, when a company decides what to start developing, the opinions of the people at the top of the organisation are given the most weight. It makes sense because the people in those roles have had a lot of experience and success stories. However, Nintendo is an entertainment company, and good ideas for entertainment can come from anywhere… Young people are also more sensitive to new trends, developments and technologies that are appearing. We are trying to use the opinions of this younger generation even at the start of a project.”
More: interview, Katsuya Eguchi, top
Bravely series producer thinking about Bravely Third
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 2 Comments
Thus far, we’ve seen Bravely Default and Bravely Second. There’s no question that the series will continue, and producer Tomoya Asano is already thinking about a third entry.
Speaking with Famitsu this week, Asano said:
“I don’t know what to say about that at this time [with Bravely Second releasing soon] but I already have some ideas for Bravely Third in my head. If Bravely Second sells well, I plan on presenting plans for it right away. Thank you for your continued support.”
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures should be out soon on 3DS
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News | 0 comments
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures finally came to Wii U earlier this month after a considerably long wait. The 3DS version hasn’t launched yet, but that should be changing soon.
FreakZone’s Sam Beddoes has confirmed that Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is finished and is currently going through the approval process.
He said:
The 3DS version has stereoscopic 3D, as well as some dual screen features, similar to the GamePad features on the Wii U. It’s all done and going through Nintendo’s approval process.
Project X Zone 2 devs on development, story, improvements, and surprises
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 7 Comments
Update: Fixed first names for Morizumi and Ishitani.
Bandai Namco officially unveiled Project X Zone 2 last week. After the announcement, Famitsu caught up with a few of the game’s developers for an interview. The magazine spoke with Kensuke Tsukanaka (producer, Bandai Namco), Souichiro Morizumi (Monolith Soft, development director), and Koji Ishitani (development producer, Monolith Soft).
Famitsu starts by asking when development on Project X Zone 2 kicked off. According to Morizumi, the team was “considering the project and playing new entries of featured games” after Project X Zone’s Japanese launch. Work truly began after the team received feedback from the western release in 2013.
Tsukanaka also said, “The release had very good reputation in North America and Europe. So given the situation both domestically and overseas, we started to create the sequel.”
Xenoblade talk – cut ideas, Shulk in Smash Bros., New 3DS porting difficulties, and more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii, Wii U | 2 Comments
Game Informer was able to conduct an interview with Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi, Nintendo, and Monster Games about Xenoblade Chronicles. Takahashi was able to speak about the original game while discussing cut ideas like wanting to have the ability to fly. He also revealed Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai wanted Shulk in the Wii U/3DS games, and had the idea for the bathing suit skin. Other than that, there’s some Xenoblade Chronicles 3D-specific comments from Monster Games.
We’ve rounded up all of the various quotes below. For those that are interested, you can find Game Informer’s original article here.
Gust looking to reach a new audience with Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments
It’s rather rare to see an Atelier game outside of a PlayStation system these days. But with Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland, Gust Corporation has decided to bring this latest entry to 3DS.
Given Gust’s goals with Atelier Rorona Plus, it makes sense for the game to be on Nintendo’s portable. Series director Yoshito Okamura told Japanese website Dengeki that the company wants to expand the franchise to a more diverse audience.
Okamura said:
Naturally, when you shift to a different platform, the age demographic changes as well. In light of this, we have the super-deformed versions of the characters. However, even if there are many Atelier fans in their 20s, the age range goes up to people in their 40s as well, since many fans from the Mary games are still supporting the series.
More: Gust Corporation, interview, Japan, Yoshito Okamura
Renegade Kid, KnapNok, Yacht Club, and 13AM talk about the lack of innovative GamePad usage
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 3 Comments
The Wii U GamePad is a perfectly fine controller, but it’d be tough to argue that developers have tapped into its potential. Even Nintendo has not yet produced a string of titles that truly show what it’s capable of. For the most part, titles we’ve seen thus far use the GamePad for off-TV play or as a map.
NintendoWorldReport reached out to four indie developers as part of a new article that touches on the lack of proper GamePad usage. You can find a collection of their comments below.
Renegade Kid’s Jools Watsham
“Nintendo helps promote…as much as the game helps to promote the innovative qualities of the Wii U.”
“If you’re going to dedicate your time and effort to taking advantage of the unique features of the Wii U, you need for it to pay off in sales if you’re going to be able to continue making games for a living.”
“The GamePad is clearly not the revolution that the Wii Remote was. There, I said it.”
“The Wii U never lived up to its own potential, even from its creators. You have to lead [by] example, and Nintendo are the kings of doing this, but they failed to deliver with the Wii U in terms of utilizing their own platform, which has resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“It’s not like the Wii U has failed gamers in a general sense, but in regards to how well the GamePad has been utilized, overall [it] has unfortunately been somewhat of a failure. And that is Nintendo’s burden to bear.”
Choice Provisions on the CommanderVideo trophy in Smash Bros.
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment
There were a few unexpected trophy inclusions in the new Smash Bros. One of these was CommanderVideo, the star of the Bit.Trip series.
CommanderVideo’s inclusion in Smash Bros. Wii U came about thanks to some persistence from Choice Provisions. The company reached out to Nintendo, and that’s pretty much all it took!
Associate producer Dant Rambo Nintendo Life:
We were the ones to approach Nintendo. We’ve always loved the idea of CommanderVideo showing up in a Smash Bros. game in some capacity, and thanks to our longstanding relationship with Nintendo, we were able to make it happen!
But yes, the “process” here was really just us emailing Nintendo a lot and being annoying.
