Yoshio Sakamoto - future 2d Metroid games could happen, making Samus cool, proving the control scheme of Other M, and more

The following excerpts come from the most recent Nintendo Power issue, which features an interview with Nintendo’s Yoshio Sakamoto…

- “It’s certainly possible that in the future we’ll go back to another 2-D Metroid using some of the ideas that have been generated on this Other M project. So please don’t get the idea that this is the end of 2-D Metroid games.”
- “There were certainly some members on staff who weren’t entirely comfortable with committing us to a single control scheme, so they would ask questions like, “Couldn’t we just make it possible to connect the Nunchuk and have an alternate control scheme in the game?” But I felt like that was essentially the wrong way to think about it. Like if you have to tack on other options like that, then you really are admitting defeat as a game designer. …I felt like I really needed to prove something about why this was correct for the Samus universe in the first place.”
- “We (Nintendo) would set forth a lot of design limitations where we’d say, “This is what a Metroid level looks like,” and set those forward as prescribed ways of doing things for a Metroid game, but these guys (Team Ninja) had all of their own ideas from working on so many 3-D games recently that there was the opportunity for a lot of fermentation between the conflict of our two ideas. During the development process, I was going to Tecmo every single week to play the latest build, and I was shocked by how much the level-design concepts were changing and evolving.”
- “I’ve come to think of her (Samus) almost as a daughter. I helped her grow up and I want to take her to as many high places as possible. I want to make sure that when she’s in a game, she always has the chance to look cool and look really beautiful, and also that she has the opportunity to experience new challenges. So her development as a character is really the most important thing to me, and as I mentioned, this is a “serious touch” game. It might sound strange that I have such strong feelings for the heroine of a game, but I hope those feelings aren’t out of place.”