Intervista ai creatori di Mario Galaxy tradotta in inglese

La trovate sul sito inglese di Nintendo, cioè qui.

Koizumi:

When I first saw the Wii Remote, I thought it was a great opportunity for a new challenge. I wanted to limit the number of buttons you used in this game to two. Typically, Mario's basic action is the A Button jump. However, on a spherical map, it's pretty difficult to try to jump and stomp on an enemy.

Shimizu:

Koizumi-san even went as far as saying "Making the characters jump in a 3D action game is absurd.".

Koizumi:

So we made a new move for Mario, the spin. With this move, you're able to tell the distance from the target even when the camera is looking straight down from above, making it easy to defeat enemies. You can knock out an enemy by spinning, and from there you can take your time to jump and stomp your enemy. During the early stages of development, the spin was activated by rotating the Control Stick on the Nunchuk. But during the development process, it was decided that a tilt sensor was to be included in the Wii Remote. So we changed the spin so that it could be activated by a slight shake of the Remote. This way, the gameplay has become more intuitive, even for those people who usually don't play video games.

Shimizu:

In a 3D action game, the most basic action you do is running. While you are running, the easiest way to attack is not by jumping, but by spinning. So in Super Mario Galaxy, running and spinning are the basic actions.

Iwata:

So it's not a game about jumping?

Koizumi:

Not all stages are spherically shaped, and there are definitely stages where you can enjoy jumping action. If there weren't, it wouldn't be a Mario game! (laughs)

Shimizu:

Originally, you were able to spin as much as you wanted. If you kept shaking the Wii Remote, you were able to defeat as many enemies as you liked. But then Miyamoto-san said, "Let's change it so once you spin, you won't be able to spin again for a little while. That way, you'll learn to time shaking the Wii Remote, and while you can't spin, you'll have to deal with enemy attacks. It would be a lot more fun", and it became the way it is today.