Tanabe/Kelbaugh on tutorials, Tropical Freeze’s difficulty, will “be lucky” to maybe work on another Metroid someday
USGamer has a few new quotes from Nintendo’s Kensuke Tanabe and Retro’s Michael Kelbaugh. Between the two, they commented on tutorials, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and the possibility of returning to Metroid one day. You’ll find a roundup of the quotes below.
Tanabe on tutorials…
“Personally, I really, really detest tutorials. When I pick up a game, I want to play it! So when a game is holding my hand, telling me ‘Hey, do this,’ and ‘Hey, do that,’ I’m like, will you just let me play already!?'”
“For games that I’m working on, I do not want to include tutorials. Think back to the older generation of games — those games did not include tutorials. It could be because some of those games were really simple, but, players would learn the control scheme, they would learn what to do and how to do it, and all of that was very carefully calculated by the designers. I believe the addition text-based tutorials really is just a way for the developer to work around having to put in the work necessary to create a game that doesn’t need that tutorial in the first place.”
Kelbaugh on Tropical Freeze’s difficulty…
“If we had made it easier, it really wouldn’t have been a Donkey Kong Country game. So the challenge was ‘How do we make it true to the franchise of Donkey Kong Country yet make it more accessible for less-skilled players?’ And we added features to make it more accessible for a younger audience… These features are at the liberty of the player to choose: You can choose to play without those features — at a higher skill level — or you can choose to use features which make the game a little more accessible.”
Kelbaugh on Metroid Prime…
“You’re not going to find a larger bunch of Metroid of Metroid Prime fans than at Retro studios. We’ll be lucky to someday, maybe, work on another one. There’s a lot of people in the studio left over from Metroid Prime that are very passionate about Metroid… If the fans keep asking, then maybe we’ll answer.”
