Topic: How the old games were made

[TheouAegis]

I wish I could email these guys and let them know the very first time I played R-Type I picked up on some of the little things they felt people never noticed. I'm not a STG fan, but it's still a fun read.

Also note the description of the hit box. It wasn't a spoiler to me, I could tell the size of the hit box when playing. It actually makes programming collisions easier, too. Good on them.

http://www.glitterberri.com/r-type/the-creation-of-r-type/



Miyamoto and Yuji Horii discussed Dragon Quest, Zelda, and Mario. I think it's awesome that Miyamoto was like, "We'll hold off on releasing the SNES Zelda until after DQIV gets released." I kinda think it would have been interesting to see just how Link To The Past would have fared if released alongside DQIV.

http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/miyamoto-horii-discussion/


Edit: Okay, wow. Now it's starting to make sense. Both the R-Type guys, Miyamoto and Horii have all said when they're designing games, most of the time the first level ends up being the second or later level because the first level they make is often too hard. I wonder if that's what happened with SCV4. All those complaints about how certain aspects of the level seem chronologically out of place. That could explain it.

The future of RPG gaming, as forseen by Yuji Horii:

I think there are a lot of ways to go about making games on the Famicom. It’s interesting to think about what rules you’re going to have when making a board game, for example. If people get tired of RPG battles, maybe new games won’t have any. If everyone makes fantasy games, people might get sick of those as well. Then another type of game world will come onto the scene. Instead of each genre stagnating, people will release games that push their boundaries. RPG games, action games, simulations… I feel that RPGs might be split into 2 types, for example. In one type, the story will take precedence, and people will take it very seriously. In another, only the world will be established, and you’ll get to eke out your own existence. Wouldn’t that be interesting? To have an RPG that allowed you live your own life?

[TheouAegis]

Not so much about Metroid like the title says, but more about just developing games and working for Nintendo. This is Yoshio Sakamoto's feelings on designing 2D games (I've heard his criticism of 3D gaming on these forums before, and I think his accolades for the NES were echoed at GMC once too).

http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/yoshio-sakamoto-talks-metroid/



Tokuro Fujiwara on the real reason Ghost & Goblins got its reputation for being brutally hard:

Creating the game was exhausting. For awhile there, I didn’t feel like making a sequel. I conducted location testing in arcades. If the players that tried the game tended not to get stuck at a certain point, I’d have to hurry back to the company and redo that portion. I couldn’t let them get by so easily. There are tricks you can use to avoid dying, right? Once I figured out what they were, I’d quickly thwart players who attempted to use them. You’ll have to forgive me. [laughs]

Why you couldn't jump in Bionic Commando:

If the players had been allowed to jump, they would have grown too dependent on it. You ask me why I didn’t put in the ability to jump, but the game would’ve been ruined if I had! So, I did my best without it. That belief of mine lives on in other titles, including the later Mickey Mouse games. I was pretty proud of it.

[PFG9000]

Wow, very interesting stuff, especially the R-Type interview.  Thanks for posting this!

On a side note, what parts of SCV4 seem out of order to you?

[TheouAegis]

Various stages seem out of place when you look at the backgrounds. It would make sense that they changed up the order of the stages based on perceived difficulty but forgot to change the graphics.