GoNintendo 'End of Day' thought - An in-depth Super Mario 3D World interview with Miyamoto, Koizumi and Motokura

I know I've pushed this a few times today, but I want to wrap the day by featuring it as the End of Day thought. I still can't believe this happened. It was only made possible because of all your support. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. See you in a few, short hours.

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It's 7:40 PM on a Monday night and I'm a million floors up in a New York City office building. At this time on any other Monday I'd be sitting with my laptop, working on GoNintendo while I wait to watch WWE Monday Night RAW. For something to pull me away from both GoNintendo AND WWE, you know it has to be important. Indeed the reason is important, which is why I'm trying not to pass out while hanging around a small group of game journalism folk. In just a few minutes, I'm going to be ushered into a conference room to have a video conference with Shigeru Miyamoto and other principle devs on Super Mario 3D World. This is without a doubt, the most important and nerve-racking thing I've ever had the chance to do for GoNintendo.

After a slight delay, the conference door swings open and we take our place at a table. There are microphones everywhere and a giant camera pointed right at us. The front of the room features two flat-screen TVs. One shares a mirror image of the conference room I'm in, while the other showcases a desk with the Nintendo logo behind it. On that desk sit plush dolls of Mario and friends, all decked out in cat suits. Soon, those characters will be joined by Shigeru Miyamoto, Kenta Motokura and Yoshiaki Koizumi. We hear muffled Japanese being spoken for a bit, then the translator says that Miyamoto feels it's a bit strange for us to be sitting at a table while we stare at their empty video feed. Miyamoto apologizes and the staff shuffles in. Yes, we are thousands of miles apart from each other, but that doesn't matter. It still feels like I'm sitting face-to-face with some of Nintendo's biggest devs...and for some reason they want to hear my questions.



Does anyone else on this 5-person journalist panel feel insanely nervous like me? Is anyone else as humbled as I am to be in this position? I'm sure some do and some don't, and neither feeling is right/wrong. This is just the type of guy I am, unable to fathom that I am in this moment right now. I'm a kid that grew up on Nintendo...I grew up on the games that Miyamoto made. I'm the kid that used to sneak into my parents' family room to play NES games at 3:00 A.M. on school nights. I'm the kid that used to pretend to be asleep when my Dad found during one of those late-night gaming sessions. All that lead me to running GoNintendo, which turned into my career. In turn, that has taken me to this very moment, interviewing Miyamoto and his cohorts. My entire life, both pleasure and business, came to be because of the work that Nintendo and its developers have churned out. This is my childhood, teenage years and adult life. This is the most amazing moment I've ever experienced...and I'll never feel worthy of it.

Thankfully for me, this video conference also happens to be a first for Mr. Motokura. He's worked on numerous Nintendo titles before, but this is the first time he's been invited to be a part of a video conference for an upcoming title. It speaks volumes for how far he's come and how important his input is on Super Mario 3D World. While he may never remember my face or this moment (nor should he), I can at least take some solace in knowing that this moment is a first for the both of us. When the session officially begins, I can only wonder if he's feeling the same nerves I am.

While I'm still trying to gather my thoughts, the conference call kicks off with Mr. Miyamoto walking the interviewers through the ins and outs of Super Mario 3D World. For Miyamoto, the use of the word 'World' in the title has a very deep meaning. It takes him back to the days of Super Mario World, when Mario had to prove himself on new hardware. It was time for new ideas and innovation. It was time to take Mario in some directions that he'd never been in before. A moment like this made it possible to shove off some of the so-called franchise mainstays thus far. These similar feelings surfaced during development of Super Mario 3D World. It was time to show what the Wii U could really do for a Mario game...and what Mario could do for Wii U.

Wii U fans have already experience some Mario action through both New Super Mario Wii U and New Super Luigi U, both of which kept the gaming on a 2D plane. Miyamoto believes 2D Mario titles make it possible for absolutely anyone to pick up and play. They eliminate issues like camera control and players getting lost. You move left and right with simple controls, opening the game experience to old and young alike. That's not to say that Miyamoto doesn't enjoy 3D Mario titles, as he does have a huge fondness for them as well. He believes titles like Galaxy, Sunshine and Super Mario 64 allow you to fully explore a 3D universe. You can go where you want and explore every nook and cranny, which brings a joy to Miyamoto that is hard to match on a 2D outing. Super Mario 3D World is the culmination of the dev team trying to mix the best of both types of Mario games, just as Super Mario 3D Land did before it. Now that Nintendo has Super Mario 3D Land under their belt, they've taken what they've learned and applied it to Super Mario 3D World. In Nintendo's eyes, this is the best offering to all types of Mario fans, whether you're more interested in Galaxy or classic-style Mario.

This doesn't mean that all Mario titles from here on out will take the Land/World approach. Miyamoto makes it very clear to state that the dev team is very fond of the Galaxy style of Mario games. He says the team could very well return to that style of game in the future. With that said, right now Nintendo is focusing in on providing a Mario title that brings in as many fans as possible. While no one on the dev team made this statement, it's very clear that Nintendo wants Super Mario 3D World to be the game that makes you purchase a Wii U.



Believe it or not, the dev team thinks that one of the major elements that could bring players to Super Mario 3D World is the cat suit. This is why Nintendo first unveiled this power-up in early trailers and had the dev team wear cat ears at E3. They believe the abilities and cuteness that the cat suit offers will woo new gamers like never before. You'll have scratch attacks, pouncing, the ability to climb up walls...and a furry cat suit to wear! It's hard to deny just how cute the suit is, but Miyamoto and Koizumi both make it very clear that they hope the mechanics this suit adds will entice newcomers.

While Nintendo is very well known for marching to the beat of their own drum, they seem to be really thinking outside of the box with Super Mario 3D World. The idea of the cute cat suit is just one small part of the dev team's goal to think up both cute and scary elements. They want simple, unique concepts that may have never appeared in Mario games in order to hit all types of players. They even took into account the types of people you'll be playing with. During development, multiple devs were asked about what they do during dates with their significant others. You heard me right, Nintendo was doing boyfriend/girlfriend research among staff to see how they spend time together. This informal interview lead to a huge list of activities that Nintendo tried to manipulate into gameplay mechanics. They're hoping these mechanics will help players bond while running through the title. This is why keeping multiplayer local is so important to the team. They want to make sure you can see/respond to the faces of your playing companions. Miyamoto wants you to make those meaningful connections with co-op buddies by expressing your actions in-game and in real life.

Miyamoto also felt the need to interject with a point about online play. He knows some people are wondering why the game doesn't feature online co-op, which plays right into the ideas discussed above. That local experience of seeing the people you're playing with is very, very important. This was the case with Pikmin 3 and is also the case with Super Mario 3D World. Miyamoto does indicate that this could change as time goes on and technology changes, but for the time being, the local multiplayer experience is what makes the most sense for the dev team's goals.

I'm furiously typing down any detail slipped out as the interview goes on. I'm also trying to figure out a good question to ask the dev team. My mind flashes back to earlier that day, when I was sitting in a hot bath trying to soak away my nerves. I had my phone at my side, typing in questions to ask Miyamoto. Question after question that I would jot down, then erase. They were too dumb, too silly to ask. I didn't want to waste anyone's time. I slowly realized that I wasn't giving myself permission to ask any questions. I constantly felt my questions would be insulting to the team, which in turn, was getting me nowhere. I decide to just run loose in my head and write down any questions I could come up. Surely one of them would be interesting enough...right?

I snap back to reality and look down at my laptop to notice that my battery is running super low. Thankfully I packed my battery for this event. Well, at least I thought I did. In my jumble of nerves, I managed to wrap up my battery plug for travel, but never put it in my backpack. I'm sitting in the biggest interview of my life and I have a battery that's 15% away from death. I turn on a blank screensaver and turn my brightness all the way down. I'm trying to squeeze every bit of juice I can out of my laptop when Miyamoto finishes answering the previous question. The floor is open for a new question and I decide it's now or never. No matter how dumb my question is, no matter how nervous I may be, I'm getting a question in.



Having played Super Mario 3D World a bit earlier that day, my thoughts drift to the control scheme. Super Mario 3D World uses an 8-direction control scheme just like Super Mario 3D Land did. There are 8 defined directions to point your character in, with the diagonal movement blending between the two directions you're pressing. This is quite different from Super Mario Galaxy, which gives you a full range of 3D movement over your character. Comparing the two control schemes makes for a completely different gameplay experience. Throw in the fact that you hold a button to run and you have a very different feeling in the controls department. Since Super Mario 3D World is on console and the team had admitted that the initial focus was on a strong single-player experience, I wanted to know why the SM3DL control scheme was retained for World's outing.

It becomes immediately clear that I struck some sort of nerve. There's a lot of pre-discussion among the team before this question is answered. All three devs are speaking to each other quietly, shifting the conversation between each other. Just as Koizumi goes to answer, Miyamoto grabs his shoulder and whispers a few more details into his ear. I become absolutely paranoid that I've asked a stupid question and that I'll get a two-sentence answer before the topic is dropped. Thankfully, I learn that isn't the case. The three-man team begins a response that takes up the better part of 10 minutes.

Between the three devs, the control scheme and approach to Super Mario Galaxy is discussed. The Galaxy series received high praise for a lot of things, camera work included. The team behind those titles put an absolutely massive amount of time into crafting a fully 3D Mario experience that did its best to not overwhelm players. Camera control was there, but most of the time you could rely on the game itself to handle camera positioning. The team also experimented with all sorts of level layouts in order to keep players from getting too lost. While those experiments can certainly be considered a huge success, it's the amount of trial and error that went into developing that title that helped the devs learn how to better approach a Mario title best suited to any player, no matter the skill.

This brings Miyamoto to discussing the importance of a classic Mario set-piece, the flag pole. After 30 years of Mario games, even lapsed players remember what the flag means. It signifies the end of the course...a goal for players to strive for. Sure, you might aim for the top of the flag or run straight for it, but most players know that the flag pole is your goal in any given level. It gives players something to aim for and guides their experience. Having that pole in a Mario game that strives to reach all types of players is super important to Miyamoto. It helps feed players through a level in order to keep them from getting lost. They know what they're looking for and how to approach it once in sight. No other measure of visual clues or game mechanics do as much strong work as the flag pole.

While the camera system in more traditional 3D Mario titles is free, that type of control can also confuse some gamers. Miyamoto admits that that sort of setup may provide a dynamic gameplay system, but it also brings a heap of troubles with it. Besides getting lost and having some players not being able to grasp the idea of a 3D camera, it has also been stated that some people experience motion sickness when viewing/using that type of camera. That was definitely an element that the team wanted to avoid, if not eliminate completely. On top of all that, you can't exactly have full 3D camera movement with 4 players running around. With multiplayer being an important part of gameplay, the team wanted to retain the camera elements of titles like those in the NSMB series. This keeps everyone in the action and aware of their surroundings.



As you can see, these positives and negatives of both the Galaxy and NSMB series made for some very deep thought on how to make the best 3D Mario game for all players. When the ideas mentioned above were ironed out and implemented, the control scheme formed around it. With a fully 3D camera confusing people and sometimes causing them to get lost in an environment, the team felt the same way about full 3D control. With clearly defined camera movements and goals in a level, the dev team felt it made more sense to stick with the 8-direction movement from Super Mario 3D Land. When playing 4 player, this allows characters to keep a better handle on movement while still exploring wherever they want. It's a level of freedom with restrictions that should help all players. Even with all that said, Koizumi and Miyamoto point out that in single player mode, you can feel free to use the GamePad's gyro controls to utilize a more 3D-style, organic and exploration-based camera experience.

My question's response comes to a close and I can see the rest of the room starting to shift in their seats. I feel like my question hogged a lot of time during the interview, and while I feel like a jerk for having that happen, I'm also extremely happy with the response. It seemed like the team really had a ton to say about the question asked. I also hope that somewhere down deep, they realize that I understand just how mind-boggling tough it must be to come up with a control scheme that works for uber-fans to newcomers and everyone inbetween. My question went over better than I could have ever hoped, but there are many other wonderful tidbits to come from questions asked by my colleagues.

Before I know it, we've moved onto a question about the relationship between Mario and Mickey Mouse. As we've discussed in the past on GoNintendo, there was once a poll that showed that more kids recognized Mario than Mickey Mouse. This was a jumping point for Miyamoto to share his thoughts on that event. He wants to make it clear that he absolutely loves Disney and Mickey Mouse, but this poll really made Miyamoto wonder where the two characters would be 50 years from now. Miyamoto also recognizes that Mickey has been around longer than Mario and has evolved many times of the years, yet he still manages to stay fresh and meaningful to the hearts of many. He can only hope that the same will continue to happen for Mario as his career continues on. This is somewhat possible through the birth of new Nintendo hardware.

When Nintendo does bring new hardware on the scene, Miyamoto's first thought is about how this hardware can help evolve and change Mario. He also considers how this hardware can create a Mario game that brings in new players. New hardware brings new capabilities and control options, which can always open the path to new and exciting play experiences. While Miyamoto doesn't outright say this, it seems that he views Mario as the poster-boy for proving what new Nintendo hardware can do. It's almost like he takes it on as a personal challenge.

Throughout the years of Nintendo creating new hardware, Miyamoto admits that the dev teams would butt heads when trying to figure out how to evolve Mario. Back in the early days, some devs were really against the idea of taking Mario into a fully 3D world, as they felt it would take away from the series. Similarly, many years later Miyamoto saw devs that felt that the 3D movement of the Galaxy games was the most important element of the series. It seems that these struggles constantly pop up as each new Mario game comes around, but these back-and-forths between the devs help lead to new and innovative ideas.



These challenges also get passed onto players. Nintendo has tested Mario games with kids before, including some that have never played Mario games. Miyamoto notes that it's interesting to see how some newcomers take to an idea right awhile while Mario fans are shocked to see a new mechanic or power-up. These kind of tests make it very tough to create a new Mario game that is both enjoyable and easy to play for all the types of gamers out there. When you factor in people that don't even play games, the situation becomes even more daunting.

Now imagine all that work, but factor in the multiplayer aspect of it all. As mentioned before, the dev team focused on creating a rich single player experience at first. After that, developers sat down to figure out what could be added and changed to make it just as engaging for a multiplayer experience. This was a big change from New Super Mario Bros. U, where the devs focused on the multiplayer gameplay first. The different types of focus lead to big changes in the camera system, as Miyamoto wanted to make sure the camera was prioritizing the right type of action for the experience. The two cameras may share some of the same tricks, but they operate quite differently from one another.

While you're running around in the insanity of Super Mario 3D World, the team wants to make sure you pay great attention to the power-ups included in the game. We've all seen the cherry that makes a carbon-copy of yourself, the cat suit and the question mark block head, but there's even more goodies to check out. The already revealed Piranha plant that you carry around was birthed from the idea of carrying a Koopa shell. The cannon block allows Mario to fire off cannon shots to take out enemies. Miyamoto wants to point out that this is a first for Mario, as far as firing some sort of mechanical weapon goes. According to the devs, there may be even more power-ups than you expect.

Not only are there unique power-ups, but there's also some other mini-game style features that help to spice up the action. As seen in some of the trailers, you may have spotted Captain Toad wandering around cube-based levels. Turns out these are special levels where Captain Toad must collect hidden green stars. The thing making this mechanic unique is that Captain Toad cannot jump, so you'll have to find your way to each star by just walking. There's also 'mystery house' levels that give you just a few seconds to clear each portion of the stage before time runs out. In these mystery houses, you'll be able to collect yourself a bunch of stars the further you get into them.

There's also the inclusion of the new stamp system. There are over 80 stamps strewn about the game for you to collect, each one being added to a stamp book when you pick it up. You can then take these stamps and apply them to Miiverse messages. Miyamoto really likes this idea, as it lets those players with less artistic skill really put together some nice looking messages. Believe it or not, this idea came to the dev team when looking all the way back at Mario Paint. That title certainly featured stamps in a unique way and has finally seen an element revived all these years later. The team is hoping that these unique Miiverse messages will help connect SM3DW players with those on Miiverse that haven't yet checked the game out yet.



If it sounds like Super Mario 3D World is chock-full of new ideas and content, Nintendo agrees with you. That doesn't mean they've gone overboard, though. Miyamoto believes that you have to have moderation in a Mario game. All ideas presented simply can't be implemented, as some just don't make the cut and others aren't fully fleshed out enough to make sense for inclusion. If absolutely everything was tossed into a Mario game, Miyamoto believes the result would be an unplayable mess. Finding that sweet spot of unique and engaging content without going overboard is the real challenge. It seems the real gameplay breakthroughs seem to come from moving passed fixed notions of the series.

This idea of doing away with series staples helped to build Super Mario 3D World into what it is. Take for example, the cat suit. Miyamoto was pondering the moveset Mario has and why that is. In previous games, Mario might have to do a wall-jump to reach the top of a wall. Why is that something that has to stay fixed in the Mario universe? Maybe Mario could run up the side of a wall instead of having to jump it. This is clearly present in the Cat suit ability. This suit lets you scamper up the side of a wall to reach the top. Sometimes a wall might just be too high for even your cat-suited character to reach the top, which will cause them to slide down the side with their claws still dug in. Coincidentally, this happens to be one of Miyamoto's favorite elements of Super Mario 3D World...so much so that he mimicked the action/sound effects during the conference!

While development may sound hectic and hard to keep a hold of, Koizumi and Motokura say they really enjoyed the process. The main goal they had was to make an extremely fun single player experience with multiplayer features, which they feel they've achieved. This was accomplished by having the dev team go wild and contribute any ideas they had, which resulted in a great range of fun content. Even more appealing to Koizumi was the fact that he was able to include Peach as a playable character. This had been a long-time goal for Koizumi, which he finally achieved in Super Mario 3D World. Both devs mentioned that they hope the various characters included allow family and friends to have fun with the game.

Miyamoto ends the conference by saying that he truly hopes players enjoy the game by playing through levels with the different characters. Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad all have different abilities and play styles from one another. This will provide all sorts of unique paths and ways to mount challenges in each level. Sometimes you might even need a specific character to reach a hidden item or secret area. This variety is where Miyamoto feels some of the most fun is tucked away inside the game.

And just like that, the event was over. The dev team waved goodbye as we waved back...and then the video feed was cut. The hour-long interview that felt like it took 10 minutes had already come to a close. I sat there for a few minutes, staring off into space. I couldn't believe the experience I had and I still cannot now. I was even lucky enough to have my laptop battery hang in for the full event, wrapping things up with 5% left. When I finally snapped out of my shell-shocked nature, I packed up my gear, said goodbye to my colleagues/Nintendo staff and made my way out of the building. 8+ years of running GoNintendo had taken me to one of the most unbelievable moments of my life. A highlight of my career that will forever stick in the forefront of my mind...and it's all thanks to you.

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This moment, memory and opportunity would have never happened without your support. This is all because of your backing of GoNintendo. Every article you read, every comment you left, every podcast you downloaded and email you sent. Over all these years you have kept GoNintendo going. You're the ones that made this moment possible. I will never feel that I was/am worthy of having this opportunity. It was an unbelievable experience that I can never thank you enough for. I truly, greatly and deeply appreciate your dedication to this site.

Finally, I also have to thank everyone that Nintendo/associated with Nintendo that facilitated this interview. That fact that you saw fit to include me blows my mind. I cannot thank you enough for the opportunity.