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Sakurai explains Kid Icarus: Uprising's contentious controls
The thing about Kid Icarus: Uprising is that, even though it induces carpal-tunnel syndrome, it's just so gosh-darned fun. Developer Project Sora's director Masahiro Sakurai has offered some insight into the control scheme and some tips for a more comfortable gaming experience – beyond "use the stand," that is."I think any game needs to provide new experiences and stimulating things to discover, but if we provided run-of-the-mill controls for it, that cuts down on the game's potential," Sakurai told IGN. "If a player used to touchscreen-based aiming played against someone used to right-analog control, the first player would probably dominate. The speed is on a whole different level."As for the pain in your hand, Sakurai has an easy solution: relax. "If there are players who say that it makes their hand tired, that's because you're applying too much force. Try to relax and work on building a rhythm to your control. Place the pen in the middle of the touchscreen; when you're flicking it, take the pen off the screen as you're sweeping with it, and stop right there. That's the basic idea." So in short, don't press too hard and try to be more elegant in your wrist control – it takes practice.Oh, and if you're a lefty, just know how lucky you are to be able to play Kid Icarus: Uprising with a Circle Pad Pro – left-handed controls almost didn't make their way into the game. "Considering how close to the limit we pushed the 3DS during development, it's a miracle that we were even able to provide support for left-handed controls at the point of completion. Providing support for independent analog control was something that was technically impossible."
Sakurai: 3DS/Wii U 'dual support' is 'key' for next Super Smash Bros.
The Smash Bros. franchise has remained relatively unchanged for the most part since 1999. Each iteration adds new stages, characters and graphical improvements, but the core gameplay remains effectively identical in almost every way that counts. This strategy has worked well enough over the last 13 years, but apparently its sustainability is on the wane."There is a certain dead end we come to if we just expand the volume of the game," said Smash Bros. creator and Nintendo legend Masahiro Sakurai during an interview with IGN. "I intend to change direction a little as we go ... The key to that's going to be its dual support for 3DS/Wii U."Sakurai corroborated previous statements that the next Smash Bros is still quite a ways away, saying that he's "really just getting started" and that development is still going to take time. "But," he concludes, "I'll come up with something that uses that link as the game's central axis, so I hope you're looking forward to it."
Kid Icarus: Uprising prototype began on Wii and PC
Before Kid Icarus: Uprising became the carpal tunnel syndrome-inducing good time it is today, it began development on the PC and Wii. In a new Iwata Asks column, designer Masahiro Sakurai shares the story of development and some neat prototype videos showcasing Kid Icarus: Uprising as it was way before its E3 2010 unveiling. At the outset, Sakurai's company Project Sora didn't even have 3DS dev kits, so they had to start on PC and Wii.The videos -- uploaded to YouTube by Siliconera and embedded above and past the break -- were created to illustrate Sakurai's vision to new dev-team members coming onto the project. Iwata admits the reason it took so long to get Kid Icarus: Uprising out the door was having to port the already established work on PC and Wii over to 3DS.%Gallery-145129%
Thank Kojima's son for getting Snake into Smash Bros. Brawl
Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima and Sora Ltd. head Masahiro Sakurai are friends. So when Hideo Kojima wanted one of his most famous characters, Solid Snake, put into Sakurai's fighting series, Super Smash Bros., all the two had to do was talk. "When I was developing Super Smash Bros. Melee for GameCube, Hideo Kojima contacted me and practically begged me to put him in there, but at that time we were deep in dev and it was too late," Sakurai told Kotaku back in 2006. Snake didn't end up in Melee, but did appear in the Wii's iteration of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl.So what drove Kojima to "practically beg" Sakurai to get Snake in the game? "My child likes Super Smash Bros., so we play it a lot together. And he told me that there's no character that you made in that game," Hideo Kojima told a group of interviewers late last week ahead of the Smithsonian's "The Art of Videogames" exhibit. Aside from his son's pleading, Kojima pointed to Metal Gear's low profile on Nintendo consoles as a second reason."As you know, we did make Twin Snakes, but generally speaking, there hasn't been a lot of Metal Gear on Nintendo platforms. So from that perspective, I thought it was a good way to expose younger people to this character, Snake," he said. It must be working, as Snake is one of Brawl's most popular characters.
Kid Icarus: Uprising gets left-handed mode with Circle Pad Pro
The Circle Pad Pro is expanding its leftward reach to include Kid Icarus: Uprising on the 3DS. Without the Circle Pad Pro, Uprising players will use the stylus to aim and rotate the camera (generally with their right hands) and the 3DS' built-in circle pad to move Pit on land. The Circle Pad Pro will allow left-handed players to aim with their dominant hand, while moving Pit with their right. Producer Masahiro Sakurai didn't know the specs of the Circle Pad Pro before Monster Hunter Tri-G was announced, meaning he wasn't able "to do anything big with it in the time we had," he told Official Nintendo Magazine. Still, Sakurai said he probably wouldn't have used the Circle Pad Pro too much because it "would end up being just the same as controls on other platforms and I think the quick aiming possible with the touch panel suits the game best." Right, "other platforms." Don't worry -- we know what you mean there, Sakurai.
Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS 'several years' away, Sakurai says
When Nintendo announced that Smash Bros. was en route to its Wii U and 3DS systems, longtime fans of the fighting series may have, in elation, momentarily forgotten how much time elapses during the announcement and launch. As creative lead Masahiro Sakurai explains in his weekly Famitsu column (translated by 1UP), the next game is "several years" away from completion. "It makes me cringe," he laments, referring to the two game projects being added to his plate. "And I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years, but the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members." Apparently all of his studio's resources are currently being poured into Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS. "We've got no plans whatsoever -- we've got two new games out there in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all." At least with these games, Sakurai knew ahead of time. With the Wii's Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo head Satoru Iwata announced the game before Sakurai even knew it was a project he would be working on. "With previous projects I had a game design document in place before forming a team, but with this I don't have the time for that. I won't be able to look at every aspect of the game and balance out all the characters by myself this time," he writes. Before the Wii U announcement Sakurai's studio, Project Sora, "had intended to make a 3DS Smash Bros.," but doubled up after seeing the Wii U. "If we went solely for the Wii U, the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race. If we made this game another extension over the previous one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay we can put in it." If your heart stops every time Iwata takes the stage at a press conference, just imagine how Mr. Sakurai reacts.
Kid Icarus: Uprising gameplay fresh from Nintendo World
One of the highlights of this weekend's Nintendo World 2011 event was a Kid Icarus: Uprising presentation, during which producer Masahiro Sakurai demonstrated the game live on stage. If you'd like to see that entire half-hour presentation, Nintendo has posted it on Ustream. If you'd prefer to just skip to the good stuff -- specifically, about five minutes of uninterrupted live gameplay -- go for the video after the break, courtesy of Nintendo 3DS Blog. And it is very good stuff, featuring both aerial and ground combat, against lots of flying eye monsters and even some boss types.
Sakurai on how he's preventing Kid Icarus: Uprising from causing eye strain
In a GamesMaster interview (the same one during which he revealed tentative plans for online play), Kid Icarus: Uprising producer Masahiro Sakurai discussed strategies for preventing 3DS users from ruining their eyes. "In my experience of development and actually using it," he said, "when you have a lot of objects flying towards the user I find that it's more likely to cause eye strain so during development I'm using objects moving away from the user which doesn't have that effect." It sounds like the 3D effects will be most notable for Pit's arrows and projectiles, then, rather than things being flung at the winged hero. The path of those projectiles is also noteworthy, according to Sakurai: "In standard shooters or FPS games you see the bullet travel to its destination and it's just a dot because it travels in a straight line," Sakurai explained. "But because of 3D technology you can use arcing shots and get a sense of a bullet travelling with real depth." Sakurai also mentioned that he had an indirect role in the system's development. "Early on, Nintendo were soliciting lots of feedback from within the company and from me. And I had very specific requests from Mr. Iwata in regard to what my ideal picture of the device was, etc." He didn't say what his specific recommendations were, but he did subsequently call the combination of the touch screen and the Slide Panel "very important" for 3D games.%Gallery-95653%
Project Sora 'testing' online multiplayer for Kid Icarus: Uprising
According to a GamesMaster interview with Project Sora head Masahiro Sakurai (excerpted by ONM) 3DS flagship title Kid Icarus: Uprising might feature Kids Icarus, plural. "The online capabilities are currently being tested," Sakurai said. "There could be some versus play but we can't go into any detail. There are a lot of capabilities that expand on what was in the DS that people are taking advantage of." If anyone's going to make a 3DS online game happen, it's Sakurai, one of the few Nintendo developers to make an online game (Super Smash Bros. Brawl). But how would a versus mode work in an on-rails shooter -- score competitions? %Gallery-95653%
Masahiro Sakurai explains Kid Icarus' uprising on 3DS
Speaking to Techland, Kid Icarus: Uprising producer Masahiro Sakurai described how the new 3DS franchise revival came about. Essentially, all of the distinguishing characteristics of the game came into the picture separately. First, Sakurai decided that he wanted to make a shooting game for Nintendo's new handheld, which he knew would be more powerful than the DS. Then, according to Sakurai, "Mr. Iwata said, 'Maybe you might like to do some Nintendo franchise,' and I felt that if the match was good, then there's definitely room for that." Sakurai was thinking Star Fox, but "the game design incorporates a lot of different views; for example, flying and shooting sideways, or turning around and shooting behind -- and I felt that there were some restrictions with Star Fox in this regard." (Of course, Star Fox ended up on 3DS anyway.) It was only after coming up with the game concept that Sakurai learned of the 3D screen, and "quite by chance or luck, [Nintendo] found that to be a very good match with the gameplay idea." Sakurai also proved that he's basically as clueless as the rest of us about the renewed popularity of Pit, the protagonist of an inscrutable NES game about shooting mice, collecting hammers and being turned into an eggplant. "I think -- and you can recognize this from the original game, too -- that he has sort of this carefree, worry-free sort of air about him, and that, I think, provides a positive outlook for the player and relieves some of the stress that you get from more serious games." %Gallery-95653%
This Week on the Nintendo Channel: Sakurai does D.I.Y.
The Nintendo Channel is celebrating WarioWare D.I.Y. this week by showing how renowned developer Masahiro Sakurai decided to use the software. In the near five minute clip above, he takes us through all of the steps of game creation -- from basic concept to pixel art to gameplay mechanics. It's a brief yet inspired look at how anyone can create a game in Nintendo's unique new entry in the WarioWare series. Check out the full clip above, then be sure to head past the break for the rest of this week's Nintendo Channel content.
Renowned devs creating 'Big Name Games' for free WarioWare D.I.Y. DLC
Playing your own microgames in WarioWare D.I.Y. is great and all, but what if you could play 5-second microgames designed by your favorite developers, like 5TH Cell, Gaijin Games, and even Cave Story creator Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya? In the weeks following the release of the microgame creation suite, you'll be able to do just that. Every Monday from March 29 through July 26, Nintendo will make new microgames in its "Big Name Games" series available for free download through WarioWare D.I.Y. The first offerings will include the game Yoshio Sakamoto showed off at his GDC presentation, as well as a game from Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai. Team Meat and WayForward are also contributing games.
Project Sora shows off its smashing new office
What has Masahiro Sakurai's Project Sora studio been up to since opening in February? According to its website, the company is in the final stages of its hiring initiative, but it's also been moving. The new developer posted a photo tour of its new offices in Iidabashi, Tokyo, complete with a sound booth and a teleconference room for meetings with Nintendo of America.The room with the most furnishing is the office game room, seen above, which features an impressive array of consoles (including the dreamy Twin Famicom on the floor) and plants. "The cactus was a gift," Sakurai boasted. As for what Sora is working on in this new space: "Our project is a secret!"[Via Siliconera]
Project Sora hiring for non-Smash Bros. game
Last month, Nintendo announced the formation of Project Sora, a new studio created from the combination of Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai's Sora Ltd. and a pile of Nintendo's money. This week, the new company took out a full-page ad in Famitsu seeking new employees.The ad reiterates that Sora is working on "something that Nintendo can't create by themselves." Nintendo president Satoru Iwata also has quotes in the ad, which provide one small detail: "I am asking for something special here, something that isn't Smash Bros.," Iwata says. While it's entirely possible Sora or another studio is also working on another Smash Bros. title, the mysterious game that the developer is focusing on right now is something else. We don't even know which system it will involve!
Nintendo opens new studio helmed by Sakurai
Nintendo has announced the opening of a new Tokyo-based studio named Project Sora. The studio will be helmed by Smash Bros director Masahiro Sakurai, who seems to have been given complete creative freedom for the project. The official website is relatively bare at the moment, but includes a dialogue between Sakurai and Iwata, in which they discuss the studio's direction.Information regarding the studio's first title is sparse, though Iwata says that it is "something that can be made because Nintendo is backing you up, but is also something that Nintendo could not make." He also indicates that it doesn't fit in the Touch Generations catalog, hopefully meaning it'll be geared more towards hardcore gamers. "If one were simply considering effective use of funding, we'd have went [sic] with a plan similar to Touch Generations. But that's not I wanted."We're intrigued to find out more about Project Sora, but it's very early days. Give them a year or so and we should be hearing a lot more about what they've got cooking.[Via GI.biz]
Sakurai: 'Another Smash Bros? I'd have to give it some serious thought'
During a recent interview with ONM, Masahiro Sakurai talked about his latest game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, among other things. What might be of most interest to us all is that he's apparently willing to work on another Smash Bros. game."It's interesting, because after every Smash Bros. game I've made, I've always felt at that time that I've left nothing out," he says. "However, I also understand that there are millions of fans out there who love the series so if Mr Iwata came to me in a few years time and asked me to make another one, I'd have to give it some serious thought." A few years? You're kidding! We want another game now. And can we get less things cut out of the game this time around, please?%Gallery-26316%[Via Go Nintendo]
Sakurai to spill beans on what makes games fun
The obvious choice aside, we can't think of many game designers who are better qualified than Masahiro Sakurai to discuss how to make fun videogames. Which is a good job, really, because the Smash Bros. and Kirby creator has been booked by DiGRA, Japan's Digital Games Research Association, to deliver a talk on what makes games enjoyable.Don't go getting excited, though. Sakurai's speech, entitled 'Game-ness,' will be delivered at the Fukutake Hall Running Theatre at Tokyo University's Hongo campus, and to an audience of only 150 people. If by some chance you are located near to the venue, know that DiGRA members get in free, while student non-members pay ¥500 (roughly $5) and all other non-members ¥1000 (approx $10).We wonder what games he'll use to convey his message? Bringing up Brawl or Kirby might seem a little conceited, but those are two of the titles we would use.[Via Develop]
GDC08: Sakurai on Super Smash Bros. Brawl development
At a surprisingly sparsely attended Friday morning session (relatively speaking), Masahiro Sakurai detailed the development processes behind upcoming super smash hit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. First, he apologized for the game's North American delay, saying "Reggie said he would make a whole lot of extra copies to make up for that." Well, thanks ... we guess? First, he explained the construction of the team, saying they were "structured like mercenary horde." Since Sakurai works as a freelance designer (his company is really just two employees, including himself) he assembled the 100+ person team for Smash for this project, and not everyone was full-time. Moving onto the most obvious topic: character selection. With Smash's extensive roster, Sakurai said most of the characters were "finalized in planning documents" before production even began. One of the few exceptions was Sonic, says Sakurai. "To tell you the truth, the decision to include Sonic was not made until 2007." Apparently, even some Nintendo characters could not be included because of "rights issues" -- we're not sure which characters he may be referring to. %Gallery-8530%
Sakurai has "no plans" to port Smash Bros. to the DS
To be honest, we never really thought about the possibility of Smash Bros. on the DS. In a recent interview with Masahiro Sakurai, however, Matt Casamassina of IGN asked the genius game creator if there was a DS port in the works.Once Casamassina asked the question and touted a DS version as the "next logical step," we found ourselves agreeing with him. The DS is in need of more good fighters, so why not one filled with Nintendo characters? Sure, there would be limitations, but it could work.Of course, as soon as we started to fall in love with the idea, our hearts were crushed. While Sakurai said that there would be no control limitations when bringing Smash Bros. to the DS, it just isn't something that he'd be interested in working on. Cementing the issue, he said, "I personally have no plans to do this myself. If, in the future, such a thing was to be planned, it would be up to Nintendo to decide how and when and in what way they would like to create that sort of game."Although this doesn't rule out the possibility of a DS port at some point, we're not sure if it would even be worth it if Sakurai wasn't involved. How about you guys? Do you agree with Casamassina that Smash Bros. is "perfectly suited" for the DS? And, if so, would you still want the game without Sakurai's touch?
A few things you won't find in Smash Bros. Brawl
While you already know tons of information about the upcoming Smash Bros. game, you should probably know what not to expect. Many of your hopes and dreams have given birth to compelling rumors, but it's time to put those rumors to rest (and never wake them again).Masahiro Sakurai managed to clear up some things in a recent interview with IGN -- things we may have already known, but didn't necessarily want to believe -- so check after the break to see what's not in store for you this March (or June).%Gallery-10206%%Gallery-6869%
