Just ahead of ARMS’ launch, Game Informer spoke with producer Kosuke Yabuki and art director Masaaki Ishikawa. The two developers tackled various subjects. The two were asked about the game’s early prototypes, whether it started on Wii U, the story of how people get extendable ARMS, Twintelle’s popularity, and more.

We’ve picked out some of the interesting excerpts from the interview below. You can access the entire discussion here.

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ARMS producer: ARMS and Breath of the Wild made on the same floor in Nintendo, would like to see ARMS become an eSport

Posted on 7 years ago by Zack in Switch | 5 Comments

In a recent interview with Time, ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki and art director Masaaki Ishikawa spoke at length about the game. A wide range of topics were covered, including how much of ARMS is luck versus skill, which control method the development team prefers, and how tools from the development of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were used in the development of ARMS.

On whether or not ARMS was designed with data from data aggregation tools that were used by the Breath of the Wild development team, Yabuki said this:

Arms and Breath of the Wild are made on the same floor at Nintendo, and we are able to use things that the Breath of the Wild team found useful. But it’s important for us to choose the right tools for the game. In development of this game, we looked a lot at the results of the battles, the overall picture of what character matches well with what character and what arms go up well against what arms. That information comes from humans fighting other humans. But we also use the artificial intelligence in the game to match A.I. against itself and look at that data. And of course the players who participated in the Arms test this last weekend, we looked at that to check and see if there are any balance issues.

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A few more Arms tidbits

Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 4 Comments

4Gamer posted its own interview with Arms producer Kosuke Yabuki yesterday. Most of the content rehashes what we covered extensively in Famitsu’s interview last week, but there are a few extra tidbits here.

First, Yabuki said that you’ll initially be able to choose from three arms in the final version of the game just like the demo. He hopes players will look forward to how this changes later.

Yabuki was also asked if players will be able to obtain new arms by defeating enemies. To this, he said that he can’t say yet, but would like to propose something that meets expectations.

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Arms producer on the game’s origins, more news about content to come, controls, more

Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 82 Comments

Famitsu continued its extensive Switch coverage this week by publishing an interview with Kosuke Yabuki, the producer of Arms. This is the first time we’re really able to hear from Yabuki about the game in-depth since its reveal at the Nintendo Switch Presentation 2017.

Yabuki explained to Famitsu how Arms came to be, talking about how it emerged as one of Nintendo’s various prototypes and wanting to try something new in the fighting genre. He also teased more content news to come (including characters, arms, and modes), touched on the controls, and more.

We’ve posted our translation of the interview in full below.

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Mario Kart 8 director on choices behind the Nintendo DLC tracks, small tweak to improve lightweight racers

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

Another interview with Mario Kart 8 director Kosuke Yabuki has popped up online – this time from GameSpot. Yabuki was asked about how the team decided on the Nintendo franchises for DLC tracks, revealed a small tweak made to improve the lightweight racers for collisions, and more.

Read on below for some excerpts from GameSpot’s interview. You can find the full thing here.

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Mario Kart 8’s items “are the most balanced in the history of the series”, devs say

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 25 Comments

Mario Kart 8’s items “are the most balanced in the history of the series”, according to developers Hideki Konno and Kosuke Yabuki.

While speaking with GamesMaster about the Blue Shells, the two developers said:

Blue Shells provide a certain level of tension that helps maintain the excitement right up until the very end of a race. Of course we pay particular attention to balance. Through literally thousands of races, we’ve made numerous adjustments to get it just right. In our opinion, the items in Mario Kart 8 are the most balanced in the history of the series.

I’d have to agree with Konno and Yabuki here. With the amount of time I’ve put into Mario Kart 8 thus far, I definitely get the impression that the items are very balanced this time around, especially compared to some of the series’ previous entries.

Thanks to joclo for the tip.

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Mario Kart 8 director on being free of gravity restrictions, updating the classic courses, d-pad controls

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

EDGE has put up its full interview with Mario Kart 8 director Kosuke Yabuki. We’ve already covered the most important bits, but additional comments regarding the game’s anti-gravity feature, updates for classic courses, and d-pad controls are now in as well. Head past the break for Yabuki’s words.

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Mario Kart 8 director on why the game lacks a track editor

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

It was nearly a couple of months ago that Nintendo’s Hideki Konno commented on why Mario Kart 8 lacks a track editor. Now the game’s director has weighed in as well.

While speaking with STACK, Kosuke Yabuki said:

You are referring to the tool that users can design the course freely, right? If so, we have decided to give it a pass this time. There are so many elements and features in Mario Kart 8 – in addition to ground, water and sky sections, there is now anti-gravity and it is required to design the tracks to utilise three dimensions. If we added a simple course editor, it wouldn’t be a very user friendly tool. When we develop a tool like this, we want to make sure it is easy to use for everyone, but in order to do so for a project like this, we would need many more innovations. It may come one day in the future.

Source

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Konno and Yabuki on how F-Zero led to Mario Kart, struggling with anti-gravity in MK8, Sunshine Airport came from previous entry’s development

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 4 Comments

IGN has put up some new comments from Nintendo producer Hideki Konno and Mario Kart 8 director Kosuke Yabuki. The two ended up sharing interesting bits about Mario Kart’s origins, the difficulty in implementing anti-gravity for Mario Kart 8, and how the racer’s Sunshine Airport course came about from a previous entry’s development.

Continue on below for a roundup of what’s included in IGN’s report, which you can find in full here.

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Mario Kart 8 director on the possibility of including characters outside of the Mario universe in future entries

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News | 3 Comments

Each entry in the Mario Kart series has adapted a fairly safe approach with the character roster. That does make a fair bit amount of sense when you think about it, as this is “Mario Kart” we’re talking about!

Still, some fans have been interested in seeing Nintendo shake the roster up by including characters outside of the Mario universe. Mario Kart 8 director Kosuke Yabuki recently commented on the possibility in an interview with Nintendo Life, telling the website:

We’re always considering ways to make the Mario Kart games more appealing, but I don’t think that just increasing the number of characters would make the game better. Of course, I’m not ruling out the possibility of such an approach in the future though.

Source