Sneaking Stories Past Miyamoto

Chris Kohler, editor over at Game|Life, has up a great interview with Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi. They discuss the development of the Mario and Zelda games, clarifying Shigeru Miyamoto's tense relationship with stories (and sentences), and discussing the lineage of the Mario titles: "In terms of spiritual successors, I've never found that to be the case. Whereas with the Zelda series, each game seems to follow pretty closely from the last with a few stylistic deviations. But Galaxy really feels like it went back to earlier roots with Super Mario Bros., in terms of trying to find that same tempo, that same feel. But for me, it's a matter of thinking what to do with each next step. There's nothing you really throw away. You think about these ideas and refine them constantly with every iteration of a game series. So for all the camera problems that you may have found in Mario 64 and Sunshine, even though we didn't realize how to fix those problems then, those solutions presented themselves over time and found their way into this game. I feel like you really can't have Galaxy without all of the things we learned from Sunshine."

Comments

Tutorial

[Philotic]

Hold the A button to walk softly. If Miyamoto detects you he will send his guards. Be careful!

Re:Tutorial

[CastrTroy]

Don't worry if the guards come, you can just jump on their heads.

Re:Tutorial

[LrdDimwit]

Allowed nothing. Word has it that Kojima literally begged them to allow Snake into the game.

linearity in galaxies

[kisrael]

In the Gamers Quarter forums, someone (Dessgeega I think) pointed out that while most of the levels in, say, Mario 64 are about exploring the landscape and solving the star problem, each challenge in Galaxies tends to be more or less linear, on many of the worlds you really are guided from place to place (since usually the star-travel is a one way trip.) So in a lot of ways it is more of an update to the more classic left-to-right formula than Mario 64 is.

You have to be a mature enough gamer to realize that linear doesn't always mean worse... and personally I like that they still offer some choice in skipping starts and going back to them later.

Re:linearity in galaxies

[SlashdotOgre]

I believe you hit the nail on the head; when I think Mario I want a platformer, not a sandbox game. Mario, like most Nintendo titles, have always seem to done better when sticking to their roots. A classical example of this is the early Zelda series. Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link, an excellent adventure/platformer in its own right, completely diverged from the style of the original Legend of Zelda, and Z2 was met with criticism. Whereas Zelda: A Link To The Past returns to its roots and did much better in terms of fan reception.

While I do believe evolution and experimentation are important, and this applies just as much to music and many other arts, at the same time I believe its critical to understand the heart of the original product and to be able to stay true with it in future iterations.

MG Levels Reminds Me of SMB3

[SlashdotOgre]

I'm about a quarter of the stars through MG (probably be done if I didn't get swallowed up by Mass Effect), and I have to say I've already ran across several levels that totally remind me of Super Mario Brothers 3 (my favorite Mario game by far, and one of my favorite games ever). The one that stands out the most in my mind so far is the Sweet Sweet Galaxy which totally reminds me of the directional scrolling levels in SMB3. I played through M64, and while I admit it's a solid title, I didn't care for it as much as either SMB3 or SMW. I'm not sure how, but they did a fantastic of capturing the heart of older Mario titles.

Re:EAD defined

[Dutch Gun]

I was actually more curious about what 'hakoniwa' was. Apparently, it translates to "Sandplay Therapy". Here's a link that describes the overall concept:

http://tcp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/93

Camera in galaxy

[ad0gg]

So for all the camera problems that you may have found in Mario 64 and Sunshine, even though we didn't realize how to fix those problems then, those solutions presented themselves over time and found their way into this game. I feel like you really can't have Galaxy without all of the things we learned from Sunshine."

Disabling changing the camera angle in most parts of game isn't fixing the problem.

A Clockwork Mario

[Dogtanian]

Don't worry if the guards come, you can just jump on their heads. Consider this- are computer games harmless? Imagine that a bunch of teenagers play out what they've learned in Mario games for real.

They go out at night dressed in red and blue costumes and viciously assault their enemies by jumping on their heads. This sounds more like something out of "A Clockwork Orange" to me. :-/

Drama and Design...

[7Prime]

Twilight Princess was the first Zelda that made me cry (possibly the first GAME that made me tear up). Super Paper Mario had a similar effect (even though the game, as a whole, wasn't quite as good), and Mario Galaxy's story book totally got to me. The storybook probably solidified Galaxy as my favorite Mario game... it just brought everything together, from an emotional standpoint, even if the rest of the game wasn't so dramatic, the storybook supplied that side of it, and that was enough. Not to mention, it was an amazing storybook. It seems like a story written for adults to feel like a children's story, but with all the depth of emotion required for adult enjoyment. I got a similar feeling from the game ICO, or from the story in Super Paper Mario.

On other things, one thing that Mario 64 really back-treaded with was the number of levels. More levels = more different types of gaming styles. Here's Mario 3 and Super Mario World with 70+ and 120+ levels, all with their own unique style and gameplay gimmicks. Then there's Mario 64, with maybe 12 levels. You find yourself repeating yourself a lot, and for little reason. Obviously, the reason was because 3D levels are infinitely more complex, require more space on a cartridge, and more time in the design process. Now, with DVDs, it's possible to have many levels, and the design teams have learned how to make 3D levels as efficiently as they had with 2D levels. That's one of the main reasons why Mario Galaxy starts to feel more like Mario 3 or Mario World. I really missed having lots of little levels, each with it's own style, and not spending hours playing one level over and over again, on different "missions". With about 40 levels, Mario Galaxy just feels more like Mario 3 than almost any other game.