Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Volume 1

Playing a 3D Game Like It's 2D

Iwata Miyamoto-san, looking back at the history of the Mario series up until now, we have only released one 3D Mario per gaming platform.

Miyamoto Yes, that's right.

Iwata But Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be the second one for the Wii console.¹ Did making it feel similar to when you made The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ² followed by The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask³?

Miyamoto I was going to say that, but you beat me to it! (laughs)

Iwata (laughs)

1 The second one for the Wii console: The first one was Super Mario Galaxy, an action game released for the Wii console in November 2007.
2 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The first game in the Zelda series to appear in 3D. Released in November 1998 for the Nintendo 64 system.
3 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Released for the Nintendo 64 system in April 2000, one year and five months after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Miyamoto Broadly speaking, yes. For The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, we simply adopted the 3D engine from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, because when you make a new game, it takes a whole year just to make the player-character movements.

Iwata That's right.

Miyamoto We had put a lot of effort and time into building an engine that would allow players to feel comfortable controlling the player's character in the game, so we thought it would be a waste to just build the courses and then call it done. So for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, we tried packing a high concentration of elements into an extremely compact world.

Iwata So you set a deadline.

Miyamoto That's right. I wanted the game to be made in one year. I thought if I set a deadline like that we wouldn't run loose making a bunch of unnecessary new fields. (laughs) And that led to the three-day system⁴.

Iwata Is that so. (laughs)

4 Three-day system: Within the game, the world will end once a certain three-day period has passed, so to keep playing the player must return to morning of the first day.

Miyamoto So just as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask built upon the foundation laid by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, in making Super Mario Galaxy 2, we reevaluated the spherical environments of the first Super Mario Galaxy and noticed some things.

Iwata Do you mean that you had not made full use of the benefits of spherical environments?

Miyamoto Right. 3D Mario games, started with Super Mario 64⁵, always had a miniature landscape the player could move around within freely. They were structured so you gradually came to understand the landscape. Stars were placed around here and there and players could tell just by looking which ones would be easy to get and which ones would be difficult.

5 Super Mario 64: The first 3D action game in the Mario series. Released simultaneously with the Nintendo 64 system in June 1996.

Iwata You can put off getting the difficult ones until you've improved a little.

Miyamoto Exactly. You went back and forth over the same course repeatedly and memorized the landscape. We made Super Mario Galaxy along those same lines, but when we looked back over it, there were lots of places where we could have added new elements to the same environments to make it more fun.

Iwata So development of Super Mario Galaxy 2 began with using the first game's environments exactly as they were.

Iwata Not 2, but 1.5. So you wouldn't get too carried away.

Miyamoto Right. We began with the intention of making a game labeled 1.5, but the development staff members were saying things like "It would be fun if we had more environments like this" and "Let's put in more new stuff." It was like "More, more, more!" and new environments started multiplying rapidly. The next thing I knew, more than 90% of the courses were new and I couldn't tell where we had kept anything from the previous game!

Iwata So in the end, it became 2 rather than 1.5.

Miyamoto That's right.

Iwata But that wasn't your only motivation for developing Super Mario Galaxy 2, right?

Miyamoto Right. (laughs)

Iwata It seems a lot of people are saying things like "Unlike 2D Mario, I get lost in 3D Mario" and "3D Mario is more difficult than 2D Mario, so I can't do it," and I had a feeling that you were determined to do something about that sometime.

Miyamoto Yes, but I think that we had solved a lot of the problems inherent in 3D Mario games with the first Mario Galaxy. You play on spheres, so if you run around them, you will always return to where you started.

Iwata So you can't get lost.

Miyamoto Right. And we noticed something while making Super Mario Galaxy 2. We often talk about 3D Mario games, but actually you're just playing in a world made in 3D. What's fun is the gameplay itself is often still 2D.

Miyamoto Well, even if the field itself is 3D, there are objects in it, and Mario. When you look at it from above, it's actually flat.

Iwata Oh, I see. So if the camera is directly above or straight to the side, you can easily play as if it's a 2D game.

Miyamoto Right. But while 2D Mario games only have scenes viewed from the side, 3D games are a refreshing change because they're flat, but also have depth.

Iwata Was your desire to create a flat style of play stronger this time than it was before?

Iwata And you can eat chili pepper this time.

Iwata I see.

Iwata Gravity flows in the direction of the arrow and suddenly someplace that you thought was the ceiling becomes the floor. It's a really unique course.

Miyamoto Yes. It feels like playing with a new toy. That course, too, is sometimes like playing a 2D side-scroller.

Iwata

Miyamoto Right. That's why I think it's easy to play. And when it comes to spheres, there's something called a drill this time.

Iwata I saw a video of it. Mario holds a drill, digs into the earth, and comes out the opposite side of the planet.

Miyamoto Since you play on spheres, we wanted to be able to pass through to the other side of them. And that's how we used the system of the previous game as a foundation for making a new game that players could comfortably enjoy.

What I Learned Talking with the Producer

Iwata This year, 2010, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of the first Super Mario Bros.⁶ And it's actually been 14 years since the release of Super Mario 64.

Miyamoto Has it really been that long? Starting with Super Mario 64, this is the fourth 3D Mario game. Working on the series all this time, we've run across quite a lot of challenges.

Iwata What kind of challenges?

MiyamotoOne was finding the right way of thinking about how to make Mario games. Take, for example, Super Mario Sunshine⁷, which was an action game using a water pump.

Iwata You could use the pump to shoot up into the sky.

6 Super Mario Bros.: A side-scrolling action game released for the NES system in September 1985.
7 Super Mario Sunshine: A 3D action game released for the GameCube system in July 2002.

Miyamoto That's right. It's a game that uses water, so we decided on a southern isle for the setting, and thought having it be a resort spot would be a good idea. And since it's a southern island, you have to go there by plane.

But if you go by plane, it would be weird for Princess Peach to go all alone, so we sent Toad along with her, and thought she needed an attendant, so Toadsworth is there, too. Princess Peach is there with her parasol open and her attendant standing by, but if that were all, it would be pretty lonely for a trip to a resort island!

Iwata The island needed to have inhabitants.

Miyamoto Right. You need inhabitants and other tourists. We had quite a discussion about that. We thought other tourists would kill the mood, but we at least needed inhabitants, so first we created the Piantas. We decided on the Piantas and the water pump, and only then began designing the enemies.

Iwata So you started making the enemies after you had first established the setting to a certain degree.

Miyamoto Right. And that was completely different than how we had made games up to that point.

In the first place, Mario was the character who was not allowed to be hit by any enemies. But just dodging enemies couldn't make Mario more fun game, so we started thinking about how Mario could beat his enemies. That led us to the idea of Mario Bros.⁸, where you would hit the floor from underneath.

8 Mario Bros: An action game released in 1983 in an arcade version and for the NES system.

Iwata That's where the turtles came out, right?

Miyamoto Yeah. Because turtles are a good example if you think of something that's flipped over. (laughs) We had made games that way up to certain point, but it was a completely different approach to first decide on flying to a resort island where people called Piantas are living and only then start thinking about opponents.

Something I started wondering about when we made the first Super Mario Galaxy was how we decided which characters are good and which ones are bad. Often when a new employee would draw a character, I would say, "That's no good," and they would say they didn't know what was wrong with it. I would have to explain why it was no good, and I'd say that with the characters that appear in Mario, it's very important that players be able to tell just by looking at them what their function is. It's easy to understand once you put it into words, but that was the first time I had ever done it.

We overcame a design problems as we made the first Super Mario Galaxy in that way, but another issue was story. I kept wondering if a story was really necessary for Mario games.

Iwata That's been a hot topic ever since Super Mario Sunshine.

Miyamoto Yes. Koizumi-san⁹ was the director of Super Mario Sunshine and the first Super Mario Galaxy. This time, he oversaw Super Mario Galaxy 2 as producer. We've been a good team for quite some time.

Iwata You guys have worked together since Super Mario 64, so you've been together about 14 years.

Miyamoto Yes. He came up with the scenario for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening¹⁰, so he's good at coming up with stories.

Iwata In the session of "Iwata Asks" over The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Tezuka-san¹¹ said Koizumi-san is very romantic. (laughs)

9 Yoshiaki Koizumi: In addition to developing the 3D Mario games, he has been involved with such games as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Flipnote Studio. He is at Nintendo's EAD Tokyo Software Development Department.
10 The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: The first game in the Zelda series, released for the Game Boy in June 1993. Then in December 1998, a remake named The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX was released for the Game Boy Color.
11 Takashi Tezuka: He has participated in development of numerous games, including games in the Super Mario, Yoshi and Animal Crossing series. He is General Manager of the Software Development Department of Nintendo's Entertainment and Analysis Division.

Miyamoto Yes, he is. And he's also good at animation. I've always watched over him to make sure he used those strengths but didn't go overboard. Ever since Super Mario Sunshine, however, I'd felt there was something not quite natural about certain developments. I had, of course, talked about that with him all along, but when it came to certain central elements, there were areas we had each somehow avoided bringing up.

Iwata You had worked together for so many years, but some things were still unclear between you.

Miyamoto Right. When making the first Super Mario Galaxy, I had said Mario games didn't need a story or movies, but before I knew it, there were quite a few movies and a substantial amount of story. When it comes to movies, you can pretty much stick them in at the end of development.

Iwata That's when all the separate elements come together.

Miyamoto So at the end of development, I was like, "Huh? It's getting more and more like The Legend of Zelda!" (laughs)

Iwata After you had said there didn't need to be a story! (laughs)

Miyamoto Right! Because I'd had that experience with the first Super Mario Galaxy, we talked beforehand this time about cutting out such elements, but I began to get the feeling during development that those things were not sufficiently cut off.

Iwata You said you would cut out, but things just don't work on your way as you go along.

Miyamoto It wasn't happening. I showed a version of the game to Tezuka-san and Nakago-san¹² partway through development and they both said something was wrong.

Iwata When two guys who had worked on Mario¹³ for so long said something was wrong, you knew something had to change.

12 Toshihiko Nakago: He has supported development of Nintendo games such as those in the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series ever since the days of the NES system. He is president of SRD Co., Ltd.
13 Two guys who had worked on Mario for so long: Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago talk about the Mario series in this "Iwata Asks" interview.

Miyamoto Yes. I had been keeping an eye on the action elements, and had checked the course designs, but I had mostly left the more theatrical elements to the team.

Iwata I see.

Miyamoto I knew I couldn't leave the game as it was, so one Saturday afternoon, I met Koizumi-san outside the company building to have a long talk with him.

Iwata Oh, you told me about that the following week over lunch. You said you had talked with him for about four or five hours and figured out quite a lot. You seemed relieved, as if a fog that had been around for years had suddenly lifted. (laughs)

Miyamoto Yeah. (laughs) I hadn't really talked to him that way for a long time. We were like a married couple that had grown used to each other and not talked heart-to-heart in the many years since their wedding suddenly having a long chat after the children have left the house. (laughs)

Iwata Ah ha ha! (laughs)

Miyamoto But talking over fundamental issues like Koizumi-san's views on the importance of story, the function of stories in games and what kind of a game Mario is, I learned something important.

Iwata And what was that?

The Most Important Thing Is Resonance

Iwata What exactly do you mean?

Miyamoto Unless you're careful, there's a tendency for games like Mario that can be played by children to gradually become childish. Those making the game tend to unconsciously make them that way.

Taking how Mario's line can be scripted as an example, they even propose to write, "Where'd my mommy go?". When someone in their fifties like me hears their player-character speak childishly like that, it doesn't quite sit right. After all, Mario wasn't a game only for children in the first place. As I make a game, I try to keep in mind that guys in their fifties will play it, too.

We go back and forth about other issues, as well. "Can we make Mario speak?" "No, Mario is the player, so he shouldn't talk." Like that. But he does say things like "mamma mia," so someone will be like, "Wait wait... He's talking, isn't he?!" (laughs)

Iwata (laughs)

Miyamoto But that's not necessarily a bad thing. When it comes to whether a game should be childish or less childish or Mario should talk or he shouldn't...

Iwata Those things aren't essential.

Miyamoto Exactly. I realized when I talked to Koizumi-san that those things aren't essential. Whether or not the game world resonates with you as you're playing the game is what's most important. For example, when you watch a big-budget movie, you may be amazed by all the pyrotechnics, but at the same time, something isn't quite striking home with you.

Iwata Because it's not resonating.

Miyamoto Right. It isn't resonating, so you can't get into it. As for Super Mario Galaxy 2, we wanted a suitable amount of story and movies, so we made lots of new enemies, but we wanted this game to be fully elaborated in keeping with the essence of this particular game. If we hadn't, some players would think things like "Why is this enemy here?" and be jarred out of the experience.

Iwata The game wouldn't resonate with them.

Miyamoto I came to notice that my way of making games may have been to seek for resonance. I didn't necessarily want to include story or not include story. Rather, I have been making games that I hope will resonate with players, I now think.

Iwata I suppose that has a great deal to do with why New Super Mario Bros. Wii¹⁴ found such a large following around the world.

14 New Super Mario Bros. Wii: An action game released in December 2009 for the Wii console.

Miyamoto I think it's because we were able to give people something that they felt a connection to.

Iwata It resonated.

Miyamoto I think so. When enemies resonate with you, you willingly engage with them. You notice things like how a certain enemy wasn't scary, but the next time a similar one appears, its color is a little different and it spits out two rocks instead of one, so you think it must be tougher. You reason things out for yourself and put them to the test. This kind of interaction is interesting. The more of it there is, the more a game will resonate. And I think you can sense certain inevitability of your being there in that.

Iwata Ah, I see. The concept of resonance can explain an awful lot.

Miyamoto You can apply it to figuring out the difference between interesting TV shows and uninteresting ones. Rather than wondering whether the general scenario is interesting or not, what's important is whether the characters that appear in it are realistic.

Iwata What kinds of characters appear in what kinds of situations.

Miyamoto So even though a television drama may feature a general milieu that would usually be of no interest to you, if the characters that appear in it look like real people in your own life, the show will resonate, and you'll be able to get into it. I think video games are the same way.

Iwata Today's discussion is a little deep. (laughs)

Miyamoto It's something that has been interesting me greatly these days. (laughs) Along with how games are unique for their interactive nature.

Iwata You made Super Mario Galaxy 2 so it would resonate. How has that changed the impression it makes?

Miyamoto I had Tezuka-san play it and tell me what he thought. Right away, he said the tempo had improved.

Iwata Is that because the excess elements had been trimmed away?

Miyamoto Simply put, I think it was because he was able to enter into the world of the game naturally.

Iwata I see. The world resonated with him.

Lastly, are there any other features of the game you would like to point out to players?

Miyamoto Well, we named it Super Mario Galaxy 2, so we aimed at creating a game that would be enjoyable for people who had played its predecessor.

And then, one of the challenges of 3D games at the moment is that there are lots of things you have to learn at the start of the game, so there are lots of tutorials at the beginning. Tutorials are nice for helping people to remember the controls for the first time, but they're a pain for people who already know the controls.

Iwata They want to say, "I already know all that, so just let me go on ahead!"

Miyamoto Yeah. But you have to make them.

Iwata That's an ever-present dilemma.

Miyamoto Yes. We run up against that every time we make a Mario game, but we wanted people who had played the previous game to be able to jump right into Mario Galaxy 2, so we confined the tutorials to something called Tip Network that you only have to look at if you want to. That way, if you want, you can put the pedal to the metal right from the start.

What's more, it's a quite substantial game with, I'd say, about 20% more material compared to its predecessor. When I play it alone late at night, I get worked up and pound the table and shout!

Iwata Hmm. I'd like to see that. (laughs)

Miyamoto (laughs) It's a tough game that makes you always want to give it another shot. So if there's anyone out there who really wants to master it, it presents a good challenge.

And, of course, new players will be able to enjoy that particularly Mario-esque, mysterious world such as they've never encountered anywhere else. For example, if Mario takes a big jump off a small sphere, he'll spin around it forever! (laughs)

Iwata That sounds fun!

Miyamoto It's difficult, though. It isn't easy. But the pleasure of overcoming those challenges is the real thrill of an action game. There are places that will confuse complete beginners who have never played a 3D action game before. To be honest, we were worried about that right up to the very end.

Iwata You looked so worried that I was wondering if there was any help I myself could give to the team.

Miyamoto Yeah. It really helped when you suggested including a DVD called Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Beginners with hints for beginners. At that point, we wouldn't have been able to put so much in the way of tutorials into the game itself. We had cut down on the tutorials in the game so that players familiar with the previous Super Mario Galaxy could dig right in, and that DVD allowed us to more than make up for that.

Iwata We also included special footage of the development team showing off their skills, so players who are confident in their own skills will also definitely derive some value from watching it.

Miyamoto Using the second Wii Remote controller to help out is another thing we have made more prominent this time. It's quite convenient if two players can cooperate, so I hope people will check that out, too.

Iwata By the way, you also drew up the text yourself, didn't you?

Miyamoto Yes, that's right. It was my first time since Super Mario 64. At first, when I heard there wouldn't even be 5,000 instances of text, I got all smug and thought I would take them all down myself, but toward the end of development, I was like, "Aw, I'll just take care of cleaning the ones in really important places!" (laughs)

Iwata (laughs)

Miyamoto I said something like, "The rest is up to you," but then, for the first time in a long while, got to stand around nitpicking the lines everyone else wrote.

Iwata It's funny to hear about how much you got into it. (laughs)

Miyamoto It was a heck of a lot of fun.

Iwata Fun?

Miyamoto It was probably a big inconvenience for everyone else, though. They were probably like, "Does it really matter?!" (laughs)

Iwata Ah ha ha! (laughs)

Miyamoto I think I was so picky because I really wanted the game to resonate.

Iwata Even with guys in their fifties! Just last year, in December, I joined their ranks.