Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment

This month’s issue of GamesTM has an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. The two developers talked about all things Mario, including the evolution of the character’s design.

Tezuka shared the following when asked about Mario’s appearance and how Nintendo has resisted the urge to modernize him:

“I do think it’s changed a bit… For example, in Mario 3 we made him a little cuter. And perhaps with the Tanooki tail and the cape we definitely added items and features so that there’s more variety in Mario’s actions.”

Miyamoto shared a few words on the subject of evolving Mario as well. He also stated that Nintendo keeps Mario close to the vest, and doesn’t allow other teams to develop the core titles since the company wants to be control of the character and his abilities.

“In terms of the 3D Mario performance, it has evolved, but we have always been consistent in trying to be cautious in terms of when you do a B-dash, how far he can jump or how many blocks he can break. We have made it a little bit simpler for players as it’s evolved, because there are more complicated things that we’re asking the players to do. In the original Mario when you’re stopped he can’t do B-dash, but you can do it now with more recent games. So we have made it a little bit simpler and tweaked it throughout the years. In terms of Mario games we definitely don’t have other teams develop it, because we do want to control it and manage those features.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 11 Comments

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword introduced us to the memorable character Groose. But as it turns out, this wasn’t his original name. While he may be known as Groose in the west, his Japanese name is Bado – essentially a reference to bird.

Groose’s localized name was created by former Nintendo Treehouse staffer Mike Drucker. On last week’s episode of the GI Show, Drucker talked briefly about how he came up with the idea for Skyward Sword’s character.

During a naming meeting, Drucker was told that Groose was a jock and sort of a jerk. Nintendo was also trying to stick with a bird theme with Skyward Sword. With that information, he went from “Bruce” to “Goose” to “Groose”.

We’ve included the podcast segment in which Groose is discussed below. The whole talk is actually very interesting though since Drucker spoke about his days at the Nintendo Treehouse (before eventually moving on to The Tonight Show!), so you should definitely give it a watch.

Thanks to Jake for the tip.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 27 Comments

Not all of Super Mario Maker’s content is available to players as soon as they boot up the game. Basically, you need to play around with the level editor for about 15 minutes before new tools and items are added.

In the latest issue of EDGE, Nintendo producer Takashi Tezuka spoke about Super Mario Maker’s unlock system. He told the magazine:

“This decision was part of our basic policy. We wanted the rewards to increase as you became more familiar with the game and to look forward to what would unlock the next day,” he says. “From our testing, we learned that if too much was available all at once then many players weren’t sure what they should do and didn’t have as much fun with the game. However, I do understand the feeling of wanting to unlock things earlier.”

Nintendo did end up changing Super Mario Maker’s unlock system right before launch. Previously, players would need to wait several days to unlock all of the game’s content.

Source

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 19 Comments

Well before the release of Super Mario Maker, there was some confusion as to whether or not the game would feature unique physics for the different game styles. It wasn’t entirely clear if Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U would all play like they originally did.

This is something that was pretty much assumed with so many people getting their hands on Super Mario Maker, but we can now officially say that all game styles are based on New Super Mario Bros. U. And in an interview with EDGE in its latest issue, well-known Mario developer Takashi Tezuka explained why Nintendo went in that direction.

Tezuka said:

“In the end we used the New Super Mario Bros. U system for all of the game styles. There was quite a lot of discussion about this within the team. Staff who had strong attachment to the original games expressed a strong desire to see implemented the same system they remembered. However, when players who are used to the modern Mario physics tried playing with the old physics, they found it much more difficult than they remembered. The original Super Mario Bros would only scroll to the right, so we tentatively made it so that it doesn’t scroll left in this game style. However, many people on the team complained that it was less fun to play. Still, we have left in some unique aspects to each game style, like how you can carry shells from Super Mario Bros 3 onwards, but you can’t throw them upwards until Super Mario World, and you can only wall-jump in New Super Mario Bros. U.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 5 Comments

On Wednesday, Nintendo pushed out a new Super Mario Maker update. The patch brought the game up to version 1.10. The small increase suggested that nothing major was introduced, and that was backed up by a single patch note from Nintendo: “Adjustments have been made to make for a more pleasant gaming experience.” So what was behind the new update?

Random Talking Bush, who is known for digging up information from game files, has passed along information that the Super Mario Bros. 3 goal star sprite is now fixed. A notice was also introduced saying that courses made by the Big N cannot be reported, and additional Nintendo-made course support was added. The only other files that have been touched are related to menus.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

The first off-screen footage of Terraria running on Wii U has come in. Check it out below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Wii U | 6 Comments

Comcept, Inti Creates, and Deep Silver announced a new release date for Mighty No. 9 today. The game is now confirmed to be shipping on February 9, 2016 in North America and February 12, 2016 in Europe. On 3DS, Mighty No. 9 will be shipping at a later date.

Today’s news was announced at TwitchCon. It’s also worth mentioning that the PC demo is live on Humble Bundle for Kickstarter backers.

Mighty No. 9 was most recently planned for September 15. However, the release date was shifted at the beginning of August.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in New Nintendo 3DS, News | 0 comments

Update: Bumped to the top. The page is now live, and there are currently ten that can be purchased (thanks CrossForte).

The standard New 3DS finally launched in North America today, but if you’re looking for cover plates, the only option thus far has been importing. That could be changing very soon, however.

An image has appeared on the Nintendo online store showing that New 3DS cover plates will be sold to U.S. and Canadian customers. You can check out the page here, though it’s currently blank. We do at least know that cover plates like the one pictured above should be going on sale soon!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 33 Comments

The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:

New 3DS LL – 19,811
Vita – 19,471
Wii U – 16,033
PS4 – 8,375
New 3DS – 4,672
PS3 – 2,411
3DS – 1,527
Vita TV – 739
Xbox One – 737
3DS LL – 729

For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:

New 3DS LL – 21,504
Wii U – 20,891
PS4 – 18,555
Vita – 9,018
New 3DS – 4,214
PS3 – 2,628
3DS – 1,275
3DS LL – 836
Vita TV – 462
Xbox One – 207

And here are the software charts:

1. [3DS] Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon – 151,823 / NEW
2. [WIU] Super Mario Maker – 54,544 / 192,785
3. [3DS] Yo-kai Watch Busters – 36,979 / 1,527,272
4. [3DS] Dragon Quest VIII – 24,758 / 758,874
5. [PSV] World Trigger: Borderless Mission – 23,334 / NEW
6. [PS4] Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 20,635 / 357,075
7. [3DS] Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer – 18,267 / 1,028,888
8. [WIU] Splatoon – 16,772 / 660,659
9. [PS4] Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 16,288 / 156,474
10. [PSV] Resident Evil: Revelations 2 – 15,932 / NEW
11. [PS3] Samurai Warriors 4 Empires – 14,297 / NEW
12. [3DS] Monster Hunter Diary: Poka Poka Airou Village DX – 14,034 / 73,490
13. [PSV] Saki Whole Country – 13,698 / NEW
14. [PSV] Samurai Warriors 4 Empires – 13,056 / NEW
15. [PS4] Samurai Warriors 4 Empires – 11,360 / NEW
16. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition – 8,244 / 332,663
17. [PS4] Destiny: The Taken King – 6,643 / NEW
18. [3DS] Rhythm Heaven: The Best Plus – 5,866 / 468,228
19. [PSV] Yunohana SpRING! – 4,561 / NEW
20. [WIU] Mario Kart 8 – 4,095 / 1,126,412

Source

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

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