After Eiji Aonuma left the Q&A Session earlier last evening, Shigeru Miyamoto came in to talk about several things, but most of the spotlight was on hit sure-hit coming on November 12 – Super Mario Galaxy.
I’ve been waiting for this game for a decade. I didn’t really like Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube. The FLUDD device wasn’t all that great – it was slow, when it wasn’t slow it was uncontrollable, it had to constantly be refilled, and it was annoying to listen to. That’s me being picky though. My biggest complaint with the game was that instead of introducing many diverse levels with a few stars each as its predecessor had done, Sunshine opted for few stages with more stars in each one. Sure, the stages were larger. Know how I saw it after a while? More of the same.
Luckily, all the footage and information on Galaxy suggests that this is the 3D Mario game we’ve been waiting for since after the Nintendo 64 launched. There will be six large areas, with over 40 galaxies and a total of 120 stars to collect. Not too shabby. Oh, and some Super Mario Bros. 3 music has been arranged for this game. Even better. Some highlights from Miyamoto’s Q&A session are found after the break, with some interesting answers from Shiggy himself.
Q: You said you had 120 stars in the game. Can you clear it without getting them all, and will you be re-using levels, assigning multiple stars to each location?
A: The structure is going to be very similar to Super Mario 64; you won’t need to get all 120 stars to battle the final boss, I don’t know if that will be Bowser or not.Q: Do you agree with Reggie’s comment that this is the true successor to Mario 64? If so, what does that say about Sunshine?
A: One of the great things about Super Mario 64 was that it allowed you to run around in a 3D space. I think with the gravity system and the spherical orbs you get that same feel. At the same time, the control is much simpler than we’ve had in the GameCube. Running with the control stick, jumping with the A button and shaking your hand is enough to get through the game.Q: Are you worried about the game being too disorienting?
A: We’ve been doing a lot of focus testing with the game and we’ve found that it’s less disorienting than the majority of 3D games that have been released so far.Q: Any land masses in the game that will be comparable to Mario 64 or Sunshine? And will Luigi be playable?
A: The interesting thing about this system is that because it’s all sphere-based, you can make them bigger and bigger. So if you make them incredibly massive, it feels like you’re running on a flat surface. So I think you can expect some big masses. As for the question about Luigi, that’s a secret.Q: How much of the game was Miyamoto’s personal vision and what was his role in the game’s creation?
A: With Mario 64, I was the main director. In this case, I’m more involved in game design. In one sense I’m even more involved in Super Mario Galaxy than I was in Super Mario 64. The game is being developed in Tokyo. I’ve had a number of trips to Tokyo to work on the game and now we have video conference calls so we can play and work on the game.
