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Donkey Kong 64 originally had a realistic shotgun that horrified Shigeru Miyamoto

Donkey Kong's boom stick
by rawmeatcowboy
10 December 2019
GN Version 5.0

Throughout the course of a game's development, numerous elements get added, tweaked, yanked, and changed altogether. That's what happened during the creation of Donkey Kong 64, but there was one early element in particular that apparently horrified Shigeru Miyamoto.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Donkey Kong 64's creative director George Andreas said that Miyamoto went to RARE's offices to see an early build of Donkey Kong 64. As he was running through the build, Miyamoto spotted an in-game weapon that just didn't fit with the universe.

"Miyamoto-san, Iwata-san, and Howard Lincoln – chairman of Nintendo America at the time – came to our new studio. We switched on the game, they saw the rap, and then I started running around as DK. I swung on some vines, collected bananas, and they were beginning to really smile. And then I pressed the button to pull out the gun. It wasn't a textured gun that you might expect but a realistic shotgun with bullets flying out and with horrifying sound effects. You get so used to things being in development, even if it is a placeholder, and I completely forgot that it was in there. I'm shooting beavers, turned to my side, and see this look of horror on Miyamoto's face! Then he smiled and, taking some paper and a pencil, drew a coconut gun in front of us. It had leaves on it and he handed it to me. I looked at it and said 'Oh yeah, that's cool, we'll put that in' and the coconut gun was put in after that."

I think Miyamoto was in the right here. A coconut gun, while absolutely silly, makes a lot more sense than Donkey Kong toting a realistic shotgun. I'm not quite sure how the team thought that was a good idea!

[Link, Link]