Koji Kondo on the difficulty making Super Mario Bros. 3’s theme, why the title screen didn’t have music
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
In a recent interview with USgamer, Koji Kondo was asked about what soundtrack/piece of music gave him the most difficulty. Kondo pointed to one game: Super Mario Bros. 3.
As he explained:
The most challenging [piece] was the main theme for Super Mario Bros. 3. The [original] Super Mario theme itself was almost a little too empowering. That indelible impression it left in the user’s mind with how it matched up with what Mario was doing on the screen—that was a big mountain to climb when we started working on the music to Super Mario 3. I remember creating lots of different music in different styles, trying to come up with something that would match that game and be different enough from the original Super Mario theme. It was tough. It took me a long time to come up with something I thought would work, and it was really me and Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Tezuka—the three of us—right up until the very last stages of development, listening to all of these different music pieces that I created, before we finally settled on what we ended up using.
Any time you’re working off of existing music, and you’re revamping it for the next title, that’s just always a tough gig. And that’s true for every title, starting from the first [one]. It’s tough for me, of course, but maybe even more so for the people on my staff, who are working on different arrangements of music they didn’t even compose. They’re working on music that I composed, and now they’re having to go back and do some rearranging to match [music from] current games. So if it’s tough for me, I think it’s even tougher for them.
More: interview, Koji Kondo, top
Koji Kondo shares music trivia about various Nintendo games
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
IGN just published another interview with Koji Kondo, the man behind much of the famous music in Nintendo’s games. You can find the full discussion here, though we’ve pulled out a few excerpts below.
What you’ll find after the break is music trivia about various Nintendo games. Kondo shared tidbits about games like Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 3D World, and more. You’ll also find some comments about why he wanted the Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D development team to stay faithful to the sound from the original game.
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Captain Toad producer on the possibility of Toads appearing in more of their own games
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 5 Comments
Nintendo Life recently caught up with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker director Shinya Hiratake and producer Koichi Hayashida. Among the topics discussed include potential interest in having Captain Toad, Toadette and the other Toads appear in more of their own games down the road.
Regarding this, Hayashida commented:
Here in the development team we’ve really come to love Captain Toad and the Toad Brigade from Super Mario Galaxy! We’re really happy to have been able to make a game where they are the main stars. I hope we’ll be seeing them pop up in all sorts of other places in future.
Hiratake also shared an interesting comment when asked if there are any other franchises or Nintendo settings he feels would suit the diorama puzzle mechanics:
In Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, it feels like we managed to recreate the fun of the games we used to play on the NES, but with a modern twist. I worked on this project in parallel to the NES REMIX series [titles available on the Wii U eShop and 3DS] where we pick up some of the best bits from games on NES. I was thinking it might be interesting to turn some of the games there into box worlds like this too. Those of you who enjoyed the Time Attack mode in Captain Toad: Treasure tracker might also like the Time Attack challenges in NES REMIX. I hope you try them out and enjoy!
And lastly, it sounds like we won’t be learning what Captain Toad has tucked away inside his backpack anytime soon. Hiratake said, “I think we’ll keep the contents of Captain Toad’s backpack the biggest secret of this game.”
Ultimate NES Remix interview with Hayashida – origins and more
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment
A couple of days ago, a Miiverse interview was conducted with Koichi Hayashida about Ultimate NES Remix. Hayashida explained how the 3DS compilation came to be, revealed that the team wasn’t sure it it could be released until roughly a month before it was completed, and more.
You’ll find all of Hayashida’s comments below.
More: interview, Koichi Hayashida, top, Ultimate NES Remix
Koji Kondo talks music in Mario Maker – “robust sound editing functions”, but no music creation
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 16 Comments
IGN has published a short interview with Koji Kondo, who is heavily involved with the music-side of Mario Maker. Check out his comments below.
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Sakurai doesn’t think he’ll work on another Smash Bros. game
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 30 Comments
Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai addressed the series’ future in the latest issue of Game Informer.
Speaking about whether or not we’ll see another game in the series, Sakurai mentioned that he “can’t deny the chance for another.” He adds, however: “as for myself, I don’t think there will be.”
Sakurai spoke about how the goal with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U “was to provide extra merits to the game which go far beyond the sale price.” Limits have already been surpassed in terms of scope and content.
Sakurai does mention towards the end of his comments: “I also have trouble picturing someone else taking my place and providing all this value-added content without me.”
More: interview, Masahiro Sakurai, Super Smash Bros., top
Captain Toad devs on Miyamoto’s influence, making Toadette playable, more
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
IGN published a new interview with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker producer Koichi Hayashida and director Shinya Hiratake. The two commented on various topics, such as Shigeru Miyamoto’s influence on the game’s development, how Toadette was made playable, and plenty more.
Head past the break for a few noteworthy interview excerpts. Be sure to check out IGN’s full piece here as well.
Shin’en shares an update on FAST Racing Neo, sticking with Nintendo platforms
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U eShop | 9 Comments
We’ve still yet to see a proper reveal of FAST Racing Neo. The game was announced last year, and only screenshots have trickled in since then.
Shin’en probably hasn’t had much to say since the team is very busy with development. Art director Martin Sauter told Nintendo Life that FAST Racing Neo is the studio’s “biggest project we’ve worked on for a long time.”
It still sounds like Neo won’t be released in the near future. Shin’en has “something running and the gameplay is fine”, though content still needs to be added.
Sauter said:
Definitely, it is the biggest project we’ve worked on for a long time. It’s just much more work to get that quality level of racing on consoles this generation has given us, so we have to look at; we can’t deliver at a level below that. The Wii U is a great machine, so we need to add so many things to hit that level and we’re pretty sure we can achieve that, but it takes time to build it up and put it together. We’re in a good way though, we have something running and the gameplay is fine, so we just need to add content.
The core of the game is basically done. It’s just content now, which is a lot of work. We’re small, it needs time, but I’m very optimistic that you’ll see something that Nintendo console fans can be happy with.
More: FAST Racing Neo, interview, Martin Sauter
Scott Moffitt says eSports helped reignite interest in Smash Bros., talks Nintendo audience
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
alistdaily has a new interview up with Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America. You can find the full discussion here, though there are a couple of noteworthy excerpts that we’ve highlighted below.
On the topic of how eSports has played in the success of Super Smash Bros., Moffitt said:
There does seem to be a ton of pent-up demand for this franchise. ESports has helped to rekindle gamers’ love for this franchise and really prepare the environment for a fantastic launch. I do believe that the record sales are due to a lot of the pre-awareness activity that has gone on, including eSports. The 3DS game also helped satisfy gamers’ demand temporarily before the Wii U game. ESports is one of the things that has helped drive the pre-launch excitement for this game to a fever pitch.
Moffitt also said the following on how the Nintendo gaming audience differs from that of Sony and Microsoft:
Aonuma says Zelda Wii U’s visuals were inspired by Japanese animation
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 19 Comments
The last Zelda game, Skyward Sword, featured visuals inspired by impressionistic paintings. The new Zelda game for Wii U also takes inspiration from another source.
Producer Eiji Aonuma told Famitsu in an interview earlier this month:
“Everyone has been imitating this (snaps fingers) (laughs). I was told by many people that it was ‘beautiful.’ I thought about various ways to make the graphical style fit the vast new Zelda world; imitating the real world attached an important feeling of realism, and making it look different to the past [Zelda titles], this was done by drawing inspiration from Japanese animations.”
We’ll next be seeing Zelda Wii U at next year’s E3. The game itself is expected to launch sometime in 2015.
