Nabbit
Heading to Lorule? Rent your equipment here!
Shmuplations has translated two interviews with the parties responsible for Mario's GameCube outing. There is a wealth of interesting information in here, and a couple bits stuck out to me in particular:
These interviews are great reads though, I encourage you to check them out in full:
Miyamoto: In the beginning, Dolpic Town just had normal human tourists milling about. However, although this wasn't the Mushroom Kingdom, it still felt weird to have Mario talking to normal-looking people.
The athletic courses (Secret Courses) were something I absolutely wanted to include, since that kind of gameplay is Mario's roots. The perception of a Mario game among players today is that it's all about having a high degree of freedom. Still, I really think there should be a simple, obstacle-based platforming stage like the Secret Course in any Mario game. "I died 200 times, but it was fun!"—that kind of feeling. One thing I somewhat regret, is making it such that you have to clear the stage before you can advance forward. I think we should have allowed people to go the final stage even if they can't beat it.
I want Mario to be a game that all audiences can enjoy. Something that Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, even little children can easily pick up and play, and right away understand what's fun about it. However, I think Mario Sunshine turned out to be difficult for the average user. It's something I very much regret. I want someone who hasn't played a game in 10+ years to play our game, but I think such a person wouldn't know what's going on in Mario Sunshine.
And this doesn't apply to Mario only—I think it's a situation that video games in general are facing. Other famous franchises, if you take a player who's been away from games for a decade, and sit them down in front of something new… they're going be like, "huh? what's going on?" Mario is supposed to be an easy-to-understand game. Even if it's confusing at first, after playing for a day, you should be able to understand what today's games are all about. In that sense Mario is probably the best vehicle out there today for re-acquainting players with modern gaming. If you can stick with it for 3 days and not give up, I think you'll be able to re-integrate into today's gaming culture.
Tezuka: When Koizumi first showed me the plans for this game, he asked if he could change Mario's clothes. At the time I thought, "It's not really Mario if he's not wearing his traditional outfit…", but I gave the OK for a short-sleeve shirt. We asked a lot of people what they thought, and they said "I could see Mario in a hawaiian shirt, on some southern tropical island." I'm actually looking forward to seeing Mario in different outfits in the future. I think it would be a problem if he was dressed differently for the whole game, or long stretches, but I hope we can see different get-ups for Mario down the road.
These interviews are great reads though, I encourage you to check them out in full:
Super Mario Sunshine – 2002 Developer Interviews - shmuplations.com
These Super Mario Sunshine interviews feature a candid discussion between producers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and director Yoshiaki Koizumi.
shmuplations.com