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Iwata Asks: SM3DW - Cherry a mistake, dev team size, no tea table upending, Toad fans, returning to Galaxy

by rawmeatcowboy
14 November 2013
GN Version 4.0


Motokura: As a policy, I'd had everyone throw out ideas several times. For example, we had people come up with ideas for fun gameplay on an ice course.

Iwata: About how many people were on the team?

Hayashida: At first, about 40 to 50, but there were about 100 in the end. When that many people threw out ideas, there was about three times more than ever before. In any case, there was a ton.

Motokura: Not at all! We were able to have you, Miyamoto-san, take a look at builds of the game from very early on, and Hayashida-san was right next to me, so I was able to get lots of input during the process of making it. With regard to my task as director, I think we were able to proceed without any big problems.

Iwata: No upending of the tea table?

Motokura: Uh, no...right?

Miyamoto: No, no "upending the tea table" this time. Which is unusual.

Iwata: Did Double Mario also come from that deluge of ideas you got? Motokura Well actually...we discovered that when a staff member made a mistake with the placement tool and put in two player Marios. Iwata Huh? It was a mistake, but it worked? Motokura Yeah. When we saw that, we thought it was great! So we went ahead and put that in the game.

Koizumi: Talking about cuteness reminded me of how Toad used to look pretty plain, but because he gets cat ears this time his looks cuter overall. That and with how he can quickly dash around, I think he turned into an incredibly appealing character.

Iwata: Yeah. It may be rude to his fans to say it like this, but Toad is a surprisingly popular character.

Koizumi: Right. There's even gameplay this time that features Toad.

Iwata: Koizumi-san, I have to ask. What would you say to people who say that Super Mario Galaxy is better for Super Mario on a home console?

Koizumi Well...first of all, I say thank you.

Iwata: I can understand that. Your team made it! (laughs)

Koizumi: This may not be a direct answer, but personally, when we made Super Mario Galaxy, I had regrets about some things. I was able to do those things in Super Mario 3D World.

. . .

Iwata: You wanted Luigi and Mario to intermingle in a 3D Super Mario game.

Koizumi: Yes. Another regret with respect to Super Mario Galaxy. I think the deep-blue image of space and the impression you get from the title was more geared toward boys. I felt like a player-character you might want to choose besides Mario was necessary to convince, say, my wife to feel comfortable picking it up and playing. This time, we welcomed in Princess Peach, so you can play as a female character. In that way, I feel like we filled in a piece that had been missing.

Miyamoto: Just so there is no misunderstanding, I should point out that this doesn't mean we'll never make another Super Mario Galaxy game.

Koizumi: That's right. When we first started making Super Mario 3D World, Miyamoto-san asked me if this was going to be more like Super Mario Galaxy or more like Super Mario 3D Land. When we made Super Mario 3D Land, we had our eyes on the form of this game, so we made it this way without any hesitation.

Miyamoto: The same team can't make both at the same time. And we can't bring in a second party and slap the name Super Mario Galaxy on it. I suppose we could idealistically make both in Tokyo, but we want to do something new too, so there was that dilemma.

Iwata: Well, uniqueness and a high degree of freedom versus how easy a game is to understand are always polar opposites.

Miyamoto: Personally, I would like to take on a variety of new challenges with Super Mario Galaxy and design 2D Super Mario games in an easy-to-understand way within certain restraints.

Iwata: Either way, to fans of Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario 3D World is in no way a different beast that they won't be able to enjoy.

Full interview here


Another breakdown of information from the interview has been placed after the jump.



- Miyamoto “only needed to be involved with occasional spot-checks in areas where I wanted to take a closer look”
- Hayashida: “To be upfront about it, ever since we started developing Super Mario 3D Land, we thought about making Super Mario 3D World in continuation afterward.”
- The team originally wanted to include a multiplayer mode in Super Mario 3D Land
- Cat transformation forms a pair with Statue Mario
- When you turn into Cat Mario under a certain condition, he can make bonus coins appear with Ground Pounds
- Moving multiple Marios was considered before, but wasn’t tried since the team thought it’d be too taxing from a control perspective
- NOA staffers said Mario 3D World has a high replay value
- Free Camera Mode is in single-player mode only
- Captain Toad’s Adventure was put in so that players ” would try it out as a way to experience a game in which you control the camera yourself as you would in a 3D Super Mario game.”
- Motokura insisted on putting in the secret character
- This character loses its ability when in cat form
- This character also becomes a black cat when transformed
- The Luigi Bros. game and the secret character appear after reaching the end once
- Luigi Bros. appears on the title screen
- If you have New Super Luigi U data, you can play from the start
- Hidden Luigi pixels are included in the game
- A button can randomly assign characters before each course
- Can do a Ground Pound to steal someone’s double power
- Random selection is also available in single-player
- Hayashida on the stamps: “We had always wanted to do something with Miiverse, and I tried posting, but the world is full of people who can draw well. I can’t draw, so I couldn’t get into it.”
- Over 80 stamps are in the game
- Some stamps you get deep in the second half
- Mii characters of other people online show up as Sprixies
- When you clear a course, the ghost of the person who cleared it will replay through that gameplay
- Time Attack Ghost will appear, which is the ghost of another player who’s clear time is just a little faster than yours
- The team had a strong desire to call it “3D World” from the beginning
- Miyamoto realized “Land” was for handhelds and “World” was for home consoles
- Miyamoto: “Some opinions against it arose along the way, and there was a time when it looked like it wouldn’t fly, but it’s a name with a lot of thought behind it that suggests anyone can feel easy playing the game and that it’s a culmination of all the fun of a 3D Super Mario game, so the name had to be Super Mario 3D World, and in the end that’s what it is.”

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