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GoNintendo 'End of Day' thoughts - Nicalis' Tyrone Rodriguez answers way more Cave Story questions than he should have!

by rawmeatcowboy
22 March 2010
GN Version 3.1

gonedc

I can barely contain my excitement for Cave Story. To finally have the game on a console is fantastic. I’ve played the PC version countless times, both with keyboard and joypad. Still, there’s just something to be said for playing the game with an actual Nintendo controller, be that Wiimote or Classic. I’m going to try and get to sleep, but I think my over-excited feelings are going to keep me wide awake! See you in a few, short hours.

I told you that Mr. Rodriguez was a good guy. Not only did he make us the awesome site skin you’re seeing right now, he also went completely out of his way answering your Cave Story questions. He was supposed to answer 5-10 questions from you guys, but as you’ll see below, he answered way more than that. I sure hope you guys get the answers you were looking for!

We thank Mr. Rodriguez for his time and effort put into answering these questions, as well as allowing us the opportunity to ask them in the first place! The user that submitted the question will have his/her name in bold, and the answer from Mr. Rodriguez will be plain text.

For reference, you can find all the questions that were asked right here

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Ravsters
I think you need to decide what kind of game you’re making, what kind of features you want, then stick to them. Also, it’s really important to be realistic about all dates and schedules for each person involved. Add more time to schedule to allow time for error. If you compact your schedule too much a single mistake will have a domino effect on everything behind it.

We’re working La-Mulana and NightSky with more games to be announced later.

Coffeewithchess
If you’ve never played Cave Story you’re looking at around 10 hours of gameplay, easily. I’ve beaten Cave Story hundreds of times and it still takes me a few hours to get through the whole game each time.

Hiltz
I’m very proud that we were able to work directly with Pixel and bring his game to more people. This is the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my career to date.

Roflinator
If there is a big demand for Cave Story 2 I think he would at least consider it.
My favorite part? I think it’s just being able to work directly on a game I love so much. Imagine being responsible for remaking your favorite game.

Rikku
Maybe ;)

Mattib
We’ll have an announcement on Australia and EU sometime soon.

60fps
See above.

Dinner Sonic
Right now we don’t have plays for a co-op mode. I think it’d be a lot of fun, but there’s a lot about Cave Story that makes a two-player mode difficult in some ways and almost impossible in others

Chopperdude
You’ll have to wait until you play to find out :)

dskartmasta
What took so long? We’re perfectionists and that’s a huge part of it. We were really aggressive with what we wanted to include in our first WiiWare game. Each mode added at least three or four weeks; coding, implementation, testing, tuning etc. Considering we have five new modes times three/four weeks each, you can see how it can all add up. This doesn’t include translation and iteration time etc. If I had to ask myself the same question I’d instead ask, “Why’d you announce so soon?”

loserdork
1. I’m more a fan of the 2D Metroid series’ gameplay because it remained consistent in its quality and style throughout the different consoles. Castlevania games have been hit and miss with a lot of them getting retconned by IGA. However, I do love Dracula X for the PC Engine. I have it on disc for the PC Engine, PSP and now for Virtual Console.

2. Cave Story feels like it belongs on a Nintendo console, particularly give its original style and look. I’m not talking color palette or exactly resolutions, but the overall atmosphere etc. That’s not to say a different version of Cave Story wouldn’t be a fit for PSN or XBLA

3. We, as developers, have to make better games and hope people pirate less. That’s really the only thing we can do. When the economy goes down, so does consumer spending. I need to convince you to play my game and the only real way to do that is focus on quality–even if it means delays.

4. I can see why, even if I don’t entirely agree. Look at guys like Pixel or NIGORO–they still get it and they’re quite Japanese. But other Japanese developers haven’t necessarily been able to adapt to a globalized market and seem to have lost the touch that made developers like Treasure so magical. I still love Treasure, though.

5. That really depends on where you look at gaming. If you’re talking disc games, we’re going to see more big-budget games with less gameplay and more fluff–think God of War III. We’re also going to see a lot more free-to-play with in-game transactions. It’s like the middle-ground for games is going away–it’s either really expensive or really quick and cheap.

6. Unlimited budgets don’t necessarily make games better, you just wind up with too many cut-scenes and then it turns into a bad movie with interactive sequences in between. If you put a gun to my head, I’d probably make an MMO combined with Rainbow Six, but focus on the CO versus the FPS part of it. No magic missiles or dragons.

7. There are a lot of guys I’d like to work with in the game industry, but honestly I feel pretty lucky to say we’re working with Pixel, we have Nicklas designing NightSky and publishing La-Mulana on Wii for NIGORO. I’m pretty content right now.

Choccy
We’ve included Boss Rush, Sanctuary Time Attack, Curly Mode and Hard Mode–all of which were supposed to be DLC/AOC. I hope that keeps you busy for a while, if not we did something terribly wrong ;)

Starwolf_UK
The hardest part for Cave Story, and not necessarily other games, was the feeling of responsibility to fans. I wanted to make sure we did our best. This alone made every decision we made pretty important.

Totodile
I think I addressed it before, but it comes down to being perfectionists. We tried our best to get everything right and that takes time. However, now that the project is complete I can tell you that trying to get everything right in a game as important as Cave Story can create more “what if’s”.

However, to be clear, we initially intended the game to be released around May/June ‘09 time frame–it was just our hope to try to finish it early for fans. We never gave a concrete “this is the exact date” type of statement until Nintendo did on February 24th.

assparrowgoose
1. The main purpose of translating the game from scratch was to get Pixel’s exact meaning where possible. With two languages as different as English and Japanese, we have to keep in mind cultural and literal differences. But there are points we wanted to clear up or translate more directly.

For instance, there’s a point early on in the game (not a spoiler at all) where a character says, “嫌い!” (ki-ra-i!) . The fan version translated this as, “You creep-eyed freak!”, but this should literally translate to “I hate you!” We translated it to the latter.

2. Due to the massive amount of text we won’t be able to translate it to other languages. Given Europe’s segmentation and number of languages it’s really difficult to quality-control into languages we aren’t familiar with. I just don’t have the confidence into getting it localized into other languages if I don’t know what a localization company is typing in our name. Last time I checked data, about 1/3rd of Europe can speak and read English. That’s a decent ratio.

3. No rumble feedback. We wanted to keep the game like it would have been on a real 2D console.

Luigifan
I think Kevin covered this already, but it’ll be 1200 points or $12USD in the US.

ady486
See above

Eternal Rain
Regarding the main character’s name, if you play the game, you’ll have to decide for yourself. I would agree it’s considered a spoiler, but you’ll have to give me your opinion on it. I don’t want to say much for the sake of your and others who haven’t yet beaten the game.

Jet Pilot
I’m a consumer, too…and I’m not the biggest fan of paying more than I have to. I can tell you if you have to buy a $20 points card that leaves you 800 points, which is just enough for Super Metroid–the game that inspired Pixel to make Cave Story.

Red
We’re working on it! :)

Baust528
We’ll eventually cover some of the ideas and features that we either tried and didn’t like or considered and didn’t do for one reason or another. For now, enjoy what we did include in the Wii version.

LoaMcLoa
A sequel is up to Pixel. I can tell you that we won’t make a sequel for the purpose of cashing in on the popularity of the game. He spend five years making the game and we’ve spent a significant amount of time working together. We both agree that the bar is quite high for Cave Story and to do a sequel, it has to be done for the right reason and done correctly. It would have to be better than Cave Story to be perceived as good as the first.

Dakaggo
Pixel has been working on an RPG on and off for a while, but he’s prototyping something called Soaprun right now.

Macormoses
Word of mouth is the best form of advertising in many ways, assuming you have a good product. In this case, we have a good game with a lot of effort put into it. People will hear about it, then it’s up to then to try it. I know that 2D artwork isn’t for everyone, but the addition of Easy Mode does make it more accessible to people who may otherwise not play or beat the game.

I don’t see the games as niche, but I’m wrong based on their financial success. All the examples you’ve given are some of my favorite Wii games, but it’s really up to players to break that image and pass the word of how great these games are.

James Fox
1. Definitely hardcore-oriented, but I think Cave Story has a good story and characters. So much that players who may not play a Metroid or Castlevania would probably play through Cave Story, if they knew what they were missing out on.

2. We’re including a lot of content for $12. We probably have one of the largest WiiWare games available into the foreseeable future by a big margin–Cave Story will take you much longer to beat than probably Mega Man 9 and 10 combined. Mega Man 9 and 10 may cost $10, but they’re each about $20 by the time you’re done paying for “unlocking” their content (it’s probably not downloading anything, by the way).

Dammit_Joey
Right now we’re pretty content having finished the game on WiiWare. We need to make sure our friends in Europe and Japan get it ASAP, too.

Fudgeo
I could list off a bunch of bullet points of what the Wii version has that the PC version doesn’t have. If you marginally enjoy the PC version you’re going to love playing it on the Wii, it’s a much better experience being able to sit in front of your television on your couch with a Classic Controller.

Mackormoses
We can suggest a price, but like any retail store, Nintendo is free to decide the final price on anything it sells on its Shop Channels.