interview

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 14 Comments

Shin’en has been working on FAST Racing Neo for quite some time. In an interview with KonsoliFIN, the studio’s Manfred Linzner revealed that Neo’s development kicked off at the end of 2012. The game began soon after Shin’en wrapped up Nano Assault Neo.

Linzner also spoke about how the team faced a “major challenge” to match or surpass other racers on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC from a visual perspective. The task was made all the more difficult since Shin’en wanted to hit 60 frames per second.

Below are Linzner’s full words:

We started with FAST Racing Neo right after we were done with Nano Assault Neo. So this was end of 2012. A major challenge was to get on par or even beyond what other racing games on PC,PS4 or XB1 offer visually. Those games are done by very large and professional teams (around 30x to 100x times bigger then us). Just the sheer amount of geometry you need to produce for that sweet ‘Nex Gen’ look is insane. Not even to mention the nearly impossible task to render that all at 60fps on the Wii U. Anyway, we liked that challenge. We feel we do our best work when being challenged. You need to find creative ways.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

Phoenix Wright is a character we’ve all come to love over the years. But did you know that he could have had a different name?

Alex Smith, a localization editor working on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, said he originally suggested the name Roger. ‘Pierce,’ ‘Xavier,’ ‘Marcus,’ and ‘Zane’ were also on the list of proposed first names for Phoenix.

Smith told USgamer:

“My original suggestion for Phoenix Wright was ‘Roger Wright.’ I had come up with a list of first names and a list of last names, and submitted that to Capcom. And, in those, ‘Phoenix’ was one of the first name options, but pretty far down on my list. And Roger was at the top. And ‘Wright,’ I felt, had to be the his last name, because of the pun in Japanese… ‘Naruhodo’ was used so many times in the text as a joke. Also, it’s just self-deprecating humor, where the one guy whose name is ‘I get it!’ just doesn’t get it. I needed something that was bold and like, ‘Yeah right, I got it!’ so he could say that and kind of own that attitude, even though he had no idea what he was doing.

“So ‘Wright’ was there, and ‘Roger’ was my first choice, because heroes—they like to have alliteration. Also, if you’ve ever seen the movie Airplane, [‘Roger’] is a great source of silly jokes as well. So that seemed like a name with a lot of potential. They ended up going for ‘Phoenix’ because they liked the heroism of it, and there was a comment from the Japanese dev team—they felt like ‘Roger Wright’ sounded too much like ‘Roger Rabbit.'”

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 11 Comments

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U launched in Japan last week. As such, Japanese magazine Famitsu sat down with director Masahiro Sakurai for a chat about the latest entry in Nintendo’s successful series. Some very interesting tidbits were shared, to say the least.

One of the topics Famitsu brings up is the inclusion of Duck Hunt. “The original Duck Hunt is a quite major game,” Sakurai said. He notes that the title could be the best-selling shooter game in the world since it was included with the NES in America.

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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.

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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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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.”

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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

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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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.”

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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.

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More: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, interview, Koichi Hayashida, Shinya Hiratake, top