Topic: Iwata Asks Capcom about Monster Hunter Tri

[NWR_Karlie]

Nintendo's president chats  about fishing, graphics, Classic Controller Pro and bundling the game with the black Wii.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=22868

 In the latest translated edition of Iwata asks, Satoru Iwata questions the Capcom duo Ryozo Tsujimoto and Kaname Fujioka, producer and director of Monster Hunter Tri for Wii.   They discuss some of the gameplay aspects such as the online world with freedom to choose to do your own thing, as it's not required to hunt monsters and take on quests all the time to learn strategies from others. Talking about fishing and cooking meat reminds Iwata of Nintendo's own Animal Crossing, and dives into the topic of fishing.    

The feature then focuses on the graphical aspect of Monster Hunter Tri. The team share  their experience with minimizing or even removing one aspect to be able to get better results in another, for both artwork and programming. Iwata comments that the Zelda team is under great pressure to deliver a great presentation after this game.    

For this series, Capcom found they had to think deeply about adapting the controls of the series for the Wii remote, as there are far fewer buttons than usual. During this process, Nintendo revealed the Classic Controller Pro, and for the first time in history they collaborated with a third party on the hardware design.    

The full transcript is available at Nintendo UK, with embedded videos of Monster Hunter Tri gameplay. Below is a small extract from the article:    

 Iwata:
 We had the Classic Controller Pro go on sale the same time as Monster Hunter Tri, but Nintendo would like it from now on if other software developers made use of it. We also released a new colour of the Wii console along with Monster Hunter Tri.

 Fujioka:
 I was really surprised when I heard that, too.

 Tsujimoto:
 IÂ’ve talked about this with Fujioka before, but we wanted to make Tri one of those titles you buy together with hardware.

 Fujioka:
 We had a strong desire to make a game that gamers would want to buy the hardware for.

 Tsujimoto:
 About the time we were talking about that, we heard Nintendo was really going to bring out a black Wii. At first, we thought, “Really?” (laughs)

 (EditorÂ’s note: In Japan the black-coloured Wii console was released simultaneously with Monster Hunter Tri. In Europe, the black Wii first became available in November 2009).

 Iwata:
 It was something you could not believe right away? (laughs)

 Tsujimoto:
 Yeah. Then when we saw it, the colour change made for quite a different impression.

 Fujioka:
 It makes you want to sit the console in certain locations. And the colour really goes well with the blue slot illumination. ItÂ’s very cool.

 Iwata:
 However, when we tried to make the black hardware, the materials didnÂ’t exist to satisfy NintendoÂ’s standards, so we had to make them. When I heard from the developers, I was flabbergasted. They said it was taking more than two and a half years to develop the materials. We just barely made it in time.    

[King of Twitch]

The last paragraph is hilarious.

[MegaByte]

The black plastic thing is baffling to me.  Even some of the early dev kits were black and there are black DS Lites, so I don't know what the problem could have been.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Black DS Lites were using all the plastic?

[MegaByte]

He's claiming that they had to actually design the plastic, not anything about lack of supplies/capacity.

[Caterkiller]

Interesting, so we could have had a black wii sooner or something?

[King of Twitch]

Yes, but they needed more material to make the black ones














I got nothin

[Caliban]

"Iwata: I can tell Nintendo’s staff has really been galvanised by you.

Fujioka: (laughs)

Iwata: I can tell they feel like you did what they hadn’t yet. Besides, the enthusiasm you put into it is apparent in the graphics."

Seriously... come on Iwata. They can't even make the game run at the full wide screen resolution that the Wii is capable of.

[MegaByte]

Yeah, it really only looks impressive in the tiny little boxes Japanese video game sites tend to use.  When I first saw it in person, I noticed it almost had a watercolor look to it, a strange blurriness-- now I know it's because it was running at a lower resolution and they were using shader effects or something to try and cover it up.  Still, it's a lot better than what most third parties have attempted recently and it's clear a ton of effort went into all the intricacies of the game.

[Caliban]

"Iwata: I think it has placed the Zelda team under a considerable amount of pressure. (laughs)

Fujioka: I doubt that! (laughs)"

*facepalm* Oh well. Next time have the SMG team work on the Zelda graphics.

[greybrick]

"Iwata: I think it has placed the Zelda team under a considerable amount of pressure. (laughs)

Fujioka: I doubt that! (laughs)"

*facepalm* Oh well. Next time have the SMG team work on the Zelda graphics.

I think this means that we are going to get another realistic looking Zelda. I suppose we should have been expecting that from the old concept art, but I was holding out hope for something different. The comparison probably wouldn't have been made had the visual styles been very different, but since Tri looks a bit like TP I think we know what to expect now.

[ThePerm]

lol at nintendo not excepting existing inventions and trying to reinvent something...ps3 is black, and of about the same shine standard as a white wii

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Does PS3 have the same anti-baseball bat standard as Wii plastic?

This is an engineering issue.  Nintendo has standards for these simple things that go a long way.

unlike RROD's and leap-year calendar dooms-days.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Yeah, it really only looks impressive in the tiny little boxes Japanese video game sites tend to use.  When I first saw it in person, I noticed it almost had a watercolor look to it, a strange blurriness-- now I know it's because it was running at a lower resolution and they were using shader effects or something to try and cover it up.  Still, it's a lot better than what most third parties have attempted recently and it's clear a ton of effort went into all the intricacies of the game.

Effort?  You mean like the lack of pointer controls in regular menus and the shitty targetting system for the Bowgun?  It's practically running off a modified RE4 WiiPort engine, yet they rip out some of the most basic, valuable things?  Is this a Wii game or not?

[Ian Sane]

I think this means that we are going to get another realistic looking Zelda. I suppose we should have been expecting that from the old concept art, but I was holding out hope for something different. The comparison probably wouldn't have been made had the visual styles been very different, but since Tri looks a bit like TP I think we know what to expect now.

I kinda figured that Nintendo had gotten into the groove where the cel-shaded look was being used for the portable games and the console games would be realistic.
 
The black plastic thing is so utterly ridiculous that you start to question Nintendo's sanity.  Two and a half years to make a custom black plastic when TONS of existing electronics already exist with black plastic including, you know, the Jet Black DS?  To me that's just a complete waste of money.

[Guitar Smasher]

What's more likely?  Nintendo's sanity is questionable and they can't even obtain black plastic, or there are certain manufacturing issues that prevented Nintendo from producing plastic they're satisfied with (reasons that aren't explored given that this interview is focused on MH3)?

Let's use a little critical thinking before we go calling them insane.

[KDR_11k]

Might have to do with the heat the Wii produces when it's in standby and using WiFi, no other Nintendo system gets that hot so the Wii might require different materials.

[Caliban]

I think this means that we are going to get another realistic looking Zelda.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too from what he said, but it's not what I want. Oh well.

[greybrick]

I think this means that we are going to get another realistic looking Zelda.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too from what he said, but it's not what I want. Oh well.

I just don't think it looks that good on the hardware, and it means that it is not likely that the entire world will simply stream. Wind Waker allowed the visuals to be consistently pleasant and be drawn at a great distance. I was hoping they would go a bit further down the "cowboy link" road and give us a sprawling western/desert zelda where different oases would act as islands did in Wind Waker.

I have also been hoping that Nintendo would make a modern day Zelda in which a person is born with Link's spirit, i.e. he is the incarnation of Link for his generation, and he finds himself compelled to kill someone that has committed a crime, because it is in his nature. It could be that a modern day ganon figure has kidnapped Link's girlfriend, or Link has seen a news report detailing a horrible crime that would somehow trigger his need to save the day. I imagine this game playing out as a sort of detective mystery- Zelda needs puzzles, no?- with a few intense action moments, and at the end the player would be faced with the option to kill someone to satiate Link/ right a wrong. I would hope that motionplus could be used to add weight to the situation, and before the game's plot begins in earnest it could train you in motions that could kill but in a different context such as using a squirt gun or hitting a baseball with a bat. Either way, you wouldn't actually have reason to kill anyone until the end, and the game would end after you make your choice. Perhaps it would make you live through the consequences in an epiloge. I imagine the whole thing would only take five hours or so to complete. They could call it, "Hero of Time". 

In my head that sounded a lot cooler.

[KDR_11k]

Honestly I'd rather have a more compact overworld to traverse on foot and later pegasus boots with plenty of stuff anywhere you go than a gigantic empty map that serves only as a justification for the transportation mode du jour (horse, boat, train, probably plane in the next Zelda, ...).

[Caliban]

I just want Nintendo to bring back the cel-shading.

[KDR_11k]

Cel shaded games tend to sell worse than realistic looking ones AFAIK, I think the majority of people out there prefers a non-cartoony look.

[Luigi Dude]

I just want Nintendo to bring back the cel-shading.

Never going to happen on a home console again.  The haters of cel-shading where way more vocal about it and made their presence known much more.  Not to mention after the realistic Twilight Princess went on to sell 3 million more copies then the cel-shaded Wind Waker, it doesn't really give Nintendo any reason to use cel-shading on a home console Zelda again.

The best anyone can hope for is if the Nintendo 3DS is around the same power as the Gamecube, at least the handheld Zelda's will be of Wind Waker cel-shading quality.

[greybrick]

I just want Nintendo to bring back the cel-shading.

Never going to happen on a home console again.  The haters of cel-shading where way more vocal about it and made their presence known much more.  Not to mention after the realistic Twilight Princess went on to sell 3 million more copies then the cel-shaded Wind Waker, it doesn't really give Nintendo any reason to use cel-shading on a home console Zelda again.

The best anyone can hope for is if the Nintendo 3DS is around the same power as the Gamecube, at least the handheld Zelda's will be of Wind Waker cel-shading quality.

Did you consider that the amount of Wiis sold may have had an impact on the sales of TP? Not to mention that there was little else to buy for the core gamer during the Wii launch, and that TP was on two platforms.

[KDR_11k]

TP was a launch game for the Wii, there weren't many of those around when TP came out and it wasn't an evergreen either.