Discuss it in Talkback!

Famitsu interviews Miyamoto-san to round up its series of interviews with GameCube developers. Miyamoto-san talks about Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventure, Eternal Darkness, Zelda and game development. Read on to see what Miyamoto-san has to say about Mario Sunshine and Star Fox Adventures.

About Mario Sunshine

Famitsu: First we would like to ask about Mario Sunshine.

Miyamoto: Yes, but I cannot really speak about it until E3. Before the

announcements at Europe, public relations gave me a list of what I cannot

speak. I saw it so many times that I could memorize it. (laugh)

F: What kind of things are written are on it? (laugh)

M: Things like the number of stages and play time.

F: In other words, we know that the play time and number of stages are

determined.

M: I guess you can say that. Uh?

F: (laugh) Comparing Mario 64 with Mario Sunshine, has the gameplay changed a lot?

M: To be honest, we do not know until the game is completely done.

However, since the processing speed has risen, frame rate has also increased. As a result, movements are much more crisp and faster. When we made the transition from the Famicom to the Super Famicom, the side scrolling Mario became extremely smoother. If you imagine along that lines, you will probably get somewhat of the picture.

F: So you could say that the 3D Mario got a smooth upgrade.

M: That is right. Up to now, we have really worked hard to make the simple

and plain background come to life. This time since we have drawn and animate lots of things, we allowed the camera to freely move so you can freely go to places you want to go.

F: I see. Can you give us some more details regarding the background of the game?

M: Basically the setting is that someone is painting graffiti in this place. So for example, you erase the graffiti on streets. However, it would be boring if it was just only about cleaning up so we devised many other things.

F: Was erasing the painting graffiti planned from the very beginning?

M: The painting graffiti system was where we started when making the game. It really began during Mario 64 where we had this white clip board and players have to paint faces on it. We experimented with that idea, and now you can freely do many things like erasing the paintings on the floors of cities. How do we exactly implement this is our job, of course.

F: It is quite a new feature while building on the foundation of the 3D

Mario.

M: Yes. The action aspect of Mario is still there. On top of that we added the painting system.

F: In the past, you said that you really did not want to raise the difficulty level of action games.

M: Yes, but regarding Mario, it is a game where you have fun conquering that difficulty.

About Star Fox Adventures

F: Regarding Star Fox Adventure, you have released screen shots that seemed

to cause some of the most controversy among fans yet.

M: Well, just imagine it is not Star Fox.

F: That is easy to understand. (laugh)

M: Yes, unlike the previous shooting games, think of it as an adventure game starring Star Fox’s characters.

F: What led up to this?

M: I always wanted to create an adventure game out of Star Fox’s world.

Actually, as a project that never realized, there once was Star Fox 2.

F: Eh? Really. Was that before the N64 version?

M: Yes. We used Super Famicom’s FX chip to make the game. Among the games I developed, it was one of the few projects that never materialized.

F: What was the background of the game?

M: It had both the elements of shooting and adventure. We coupled the game with some short shooting stages. Overall it was an adventure game.

F: So that is been brought back this time.

M: Not directly, but there was that thought. Putting that aside, Rare who

was responsible for the development also wanted to make an adventure game

using animals. And then it became the current form.

F: I see. Looking at the screen shots, we feel that it resembles N64’s

Zelda.

M: Ah, the system is quite like Zelda. In addition, the game also includes things we wanted to do with The Ocarina of Time. For example, there are actions with using a stick. That is actually what we wanted to do with the Deku stick. Looking at the stills, it is really hard to tell, but it is quite interesting. (laugh)

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Stay tuned as PGC brings you the rest of the interview!