Eiji Aonuma says tech difficulties don’t prevent elements from being added to Zelda games
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii | 0 comments
Technical difficulties do not prevent Nintendo from adding certain elements to Zelda games. That’s according to series producer Eiji Aonuma, who was speaking with GamesTM last month.
Aonuma gave an example by discussing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Aonuma said “it was a technical challenge to make Link’s sword swings match the motion controls completely,” and he also had some concerns as to how the feature would be received by players. However, the team ended up pursuing motion controls because Aonuma felt “in the end many users would enjoy the unique gameplay”.
Aonuma told GamesTM:
More: Eiji Aonuma, interview, The Legend of Zelda, top
Aonuma always thinks he’s making his last Zelda game, but ends up wanting to make another one in pursuit of perfection
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Eiji Aonuma has been heavily involved with The Legend of Zelda since Ocarina of Time. Given how he’s played a major role in the series for over 15 years, it’s only natural that thoughts crop up about moving on. There’s one major element that keeps Aonuma going, however: the pursuit of perfection.
Aonuma admitted to GamesTM in its previous issue, “I always make these games with the thought that this is going to be my last.” But he ends up having regrets and wishing certain things could have been implemented, which motivates him to work on another Zelda title.
“I guess that could come to a close if I finally make a perfect game,” Aonuma said, “but perhaps I would not be able to create such a thing even if I spent my whole life on it.” Aonuma understands that he’ll one day have to stop making Zelda games, so before that happens, he “really would like to create something as close to perfection as possible not too far into the future” and “retire with no regrets.”
More: Eiji Aonuma, interview, The Legend of Zelda, top
Ubisoft was hesitant to go forward with Child of Light due to Beyond Good & Evil’s lack of commercial success
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GameCube, General Nintendo, News, Wii U eShop | 7 Comments
It’s no secret that Beyond Good & Evil did not perform up to Ubisoft’s expectations. While the game was met with a great reception from critics, it wasn’t a financial hit.
The fact that Beyond Good & Evil was essentially a commercial failure still causes Ubisoft to be cautious today. According to Child of Light creative director Patrick Plourde, the publisher was hesitant to move forward the project.
Plourde told GamesIndustry:
“If the game is a missed opportunity, then it’s going to be a missed opportunity for years. Even when I pitched Child of Light, they mentioned Beyond Good & Evil. They said ‘Beyond Good & Evil was not a success, and we made that mistake once.’ And it’s like, yeah, but it’s 10 years ago… If somebody tries something and fails, there are going to be repercussions for other people. For me it would be a shame if that happens. I don’t think people are malevolent or evil about that. It’s just if it fails, they’re going to be careful greenlighting other projects like that.”
Miyamoto, Koizumi, Motokura on Mario 3D World’s clear pipes, appealing to advanced players/newcomers, more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
Eurogamer has posted up some Super Mario 3D World interview session bits from Shigeru Miyamoto, producer Yoshiaki Koizumi, and director Kenta Motokura. The three commented on the game’s clear pipes, appealing to advanced players as well as beginners, and more. Head past the break for the full Q&A roundup.
Mario 3D World devs on game’s engine, difficulty, no DLC; plus art style, working with an external studio, more open Mario, Miyamoto working on small projects
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 7 Comments
Gamekult recently conducted an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Kenta Motokura. As you can tell by the title of this post, it’s filled with tons of interesting bits about Super Mario 3D World and Mario in general.
As far as 3D World is concerned, the three commented on the game’s engine, difficult, DLC (and a bunch of other things). General topics include the possibility of introducing a radical art style for Mario, working with an external studio, a more open Mario, and Miyamoto’s plan to work on smaller projects.
You can find the full interview roundup below (note: Google Translate used). You can also find Gamekult’s piece here.
Aonuma: Nintendo will be “a bit more careful” choosing Zelda art styles in the future
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
Nintendo tends to make use of various art styles with the Zelda games. We’ve seen approaches that have been realistic, cel-shaded, and even impressionistic.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker most definitely introduced the biggest change in the series. No one saw the cartoon-like visuals coming, and the style initially caused quite the uproar. It’s in part due to Wind Waker’s original reception that it seems as though Nintendo will be more cautious with art styles in future Zeldas.
Eiji Aonuma, speaking with GamesTM this month, said the development team “will be a bit more careful in the future” with regard to the visual direction of Zelda entries. That being said, Aonuma would be willing “to break new ground again” if an approach was created that would appeal to the developers and players.
Aonuma told the magazine:
“We encountered an awful lot of problems from the drastic leap we took with Wind Waker. I think we will be a bit more careful in the future, but if we find a new approach that not just the developers, but also the users would enjoy then I think we will want to break new ground again. But we haven’t found such an approach yet.”
Thanks to joclo for sending this our way.
More: Eiji Aonuma, interview, The Legend of Zelda, top
Getting Wii Sports Club online was “a brand new challenge” due to the complexity of gyroscopes vs. buttons
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 3 Comments
The following is an excerpt from the latest round of Iwata Asks about the development of Wii Sports Club. Specifically, these quotes relate to the game’s online functionality (Miiverse included) and how the team (including folks from Namco Bandai, who helped the game along) tackled various issues that they came across:
“When we thought about how we want people to have fun with Wii Sports on the new hardware, the Wii U console, there was no way, given the expectations, that we couldn’t prepare online gaming. So as we began development, we set online gameplay of Tennis — the representative sport of Wii Sports — as our first goal. [We wanted to] pour our energy into how we could make [online gaming] fun.”
“In a typical online game, the information of the button presses are sent to your opponent, and the inputs are synchronized between the players, but for this game you have to send complex information from the gyro sensor and accelerometer of the Wii Remote Plus controllers, in addition to information from the buttons, which was a brand new challenge.”
– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura
Specifically regarding Miiverse:
“So we thought about how [Miiverse] should work. But if we were to simply implement Miiverse to a sporting game, the winners would probably write cheerful comments like ‘Yay! I won!’ But I bet the losers would hardly write anything at all, like ‘Oh I’m so frustrated I lost.’ We were concerned that Miiverse would become a cruel place. We also thought many people who play Wii Sports would have never played competitive games online.”
“Everyone has a hometown or someplace where they live, so we thought about setting it up in a way as if at first you join the sports club in the area where you live, and if we made sports clubs for the various states and provinces, each of the regions could compete.”
– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura
More: interview, Iwata Asks, top, Wii Sports (series)
Reggie talks using mobile devices for marketing, Nintendo TVii will see continued updates, more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 3 Comments
Nintendo doesn’t plan on putting any of its franchises on smartphones. However, that doesn’t mean the company is opposed to the use of such devices entirely.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, speaking with CNET, spoke about how Nintendo is consistently considering the mobile space from a marketing perspective. He also pointed out the importance of exclusive IPs like Mario and Zelda so that consumers understand they can only experience these series by picking up Nintendo hardware.
“We’re constantly thinking about how to leverage mobile as a marketing vehicle. How do I give little tastes of content, little experiences that then drive the consumer back to my hardware environment?”
“That’s why we’re so focused on having content exclusive to our platform. When the consumer wants to play Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, they have to purchase our hardware to do so. And that preserves our overall financial model.”
