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A portion of a Nintendo Power interview with Miyamoto...
NP: Which is developing [New Super Mario Bros. Wii]?
Miyamoto: The same team that did Super Mario Advance and DS New Super Mario Bros.--the same team through all those. Mr. [Takashi] Tezuka and M. [Toshihiko] Nakago are part of that group. Mr. Nakago isn't one of those people that comes out to the front, but Mr. Tezuka is the main one.
NP: How are the levels in New Super Mario Bros. designed for multiplayer gameplay?
Miyamoto: We really didn't think about designing the courses or levels for multiplayer. They're designed for that single-player experience. But it's just fun to have more people playing together. We really didn't go out of our way to build anything specifically for multiplayer. I think the thing that we really had to focus on was kind of the opposite--we had a single-player mode, and all we had to do was make sure that within this level that it could be played with more. So we couldn't create anything that wouldn't allow us to put more than one character in there, and that was kind of tough. We've got that [auto-scrolling moving platform]--if you make that the normal size, of course, you can't get all four players on it; if you make it too big it's too easy. So looking at that, that's one of those things that we had to work on specifically because we have introduced multiplayer.
NP: What can you tell us about New Super Mario Bros. Wii that you haven't told anybody else yet?
Miyamoto: Well, you did see the penguin suit, but what you didn't see was how the penguin suit lets you move in water. That's something we haven't shown anybody yet. And one thing that I was going to show people at the roundtable but I completely forgot to do was that once you freeze an enemy you can actually pick that enemy up and throw that ice blook. There are a lot of things that you can pick up and throw around, link [in] Super Mario Bros. 2.
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It doesn't mean it can't be fun, but it would've been nicer to have levels designed specifically for multiplayer.
I also fear that multiplayer is going to make things a lot more easier.
Reminded me of Kirby, where the ice power froze the enemies into little blocks, and when you hit them they shot off and could kill other enemies.
Are you thinking of Kirby games? Where you have the ability to freeze enemies and then kick/hit the block of ice into other enemies?
I really worry that Miyamoto is losing his touch these days.
Mario games are always focused on single player experience, even this new one. The multiplayer is and should be an after thought when designing the levels.
Forced multiplayer would only ruin the game.
@NeroSuferoth
It's only easier if you actually decide to cooperate with one another
@kirbyfan407
Kirby Superstar.
But uh...am I the only one who'd prefer this on DS?
No. I'd prefer it be on ds. If they aren't going to take advantage of what the Wii has to offer (possibly excluding that demo thing we don't care about), then they should not develop it for the Wii.
It would've been nice a more deeper game.
Nah, it'd be amazing on the DS, especially with online play, something that's sadly even absent on this Wii version.
I'm actually pretty interested for this title, and I like to hear that they aren't making the whole game designed for 4 players. I mean, how often is that gonna happen anyway compared to playing by yourself?
And honestly I think multiplayer has some likelihood to be harder than single... after all, having four people would make it a lot more frantic and you'd end up bumping eachother off cliffs and whatnot even if you're not intending to.
well if it had online play, like LBP, then we wouldn't need to worry.
I agree with the choice to make them work single-player...they just need to make sure the levels are fun both ways. I trust Miyamoto/the Mario team here.
"I really worry that Miyamoto is losing his touch these days."
Coming from the guy who is in love with Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort (two of his latest releases)?
Mario games are actually OFTEN designed around multiplayer...
Also look at 4 swords adventures. That game is clearly all about the multiplayer YET the team managed to make it very fun to play by yourself and all of the puzzles still worked.
I am sad that they won't have any 'teamwork' gameplay. It will be fun and I am still decently excited about the game, but the main hook here is you can play with 3 other people... that's the only thing keeping it from being just another typical mario sidescroller. Only seemed natural for them to go nuts and make puzzles like some players hit switches, everybody works together to push a boulder to progress and stuff like that.
It's too early to really judge the game though. I just wish they took a fresher approach as it seems kind of stale based on what has been shown off so far. Just my 2 cents.
That's the thing. Because it's single player focused it should've just been on the DS.
Then there would be no point in having multiplayer at all. How often do you find 4 players with a DS with the same game? For me, at least, it's never happened. At least with it on the Wii you have the option of 4-player multiplayer, even if it's still rare (for people not living near family or gaming friends).
Unless your argument is that multiplayer in a game not made for it is worthless, I don't see the point of it being on the DS. On the DS, anything more than 2 players really would be worthless/never used for the majority of users, I'd imagine. It would pretty much be an exact retread of NSMB, and people would be complaining about it. Heck, they already think it's too similar/it should be a WiiWare game anyway.
From what I remember, a lot of people were complaining that it would be multiplayer only...I don't see why there should be much of a backlash now, since it's almost proven that it works well based on the number of positive impressions (I realize it's different sets of people that don't like the decisions). Whatever choice they made, people wouldn't like it, even if it was a perfect made for multiplayer 4 player online game with Wii Speak. A lot of people prefer the solo experience.
not everyone has friends their age that A) give a damn or B) can take time away from their wives and kids and jobs and homes to dick around playing mario bros on my couch. that's being anal, and nintendo knows it.
nintendo needs to cowboy the F*ck up and understand that online is where it's at. i do like the idea that it's mostly a single player game, but why not make some multiplayer parts too? i mean this is 1805 after all...er i mean 2009, sorry, got confused there.
Now that is Great Fun
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