Mario + Rabbids is misschien wel de grootste verrassing qua games van de afgelopen tijd, in een interview met Gamesindustry vertellen Grant Kirkhope en Davide Soliani meer over deze unieke combinatie.
In eerdere interviews onthulde Davide al hoe het eerste prototype tot stand was gekomen. Hij werkte daarvoor met zijn team drie weken aan één stuk door en maakte zelfs Mario en Luigi zelf, in plaats van bestaande modellen te gebruiken. In dit nieuwe interview praten ze onder andere over hun eerste ontmoeting met Miyamoto en Davide praat nog over zijn verwachtingen van de E3 onthulling, waarvoor hij zelfs zijn team op het ergste voorbereidde.
Davide over zijn eerste ontmoetingen met Miyamoto:
“My first project was Rayman for Game Boy. My second game was Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Wild Adventure, also on Game Boy.
“I was super proud of it. I remember a review saying that it seemed like a Nintendo game. So the first time I went to E3, I brought my Jungle Book game and I met Miyamoto. But I was so shy, like a little kid, that I just gave him the game and asked him to sign it, without even saying hello, presenting myself and explaining that this was my game. So, Miyamoto-san looked at the box like: ‘Hmmm, this isn’t my game.’ But he signed it anyway because he is such a gentle guy. When he gave me the signed game, which of course I still have, I went out of E3 and cried like a baby.”
The second time Soliani met Miyamoto was when the Nintendo legend visited Milan on a press tour for The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker in 2002.
“I called up every four or five-star hotel in Milan, pretending to be part of the team, to find out where he was staying,” Soliani admits. “It was a Saturday, it was raining, I had a fever, but I didn’t care. I waited there for eight or ten hours. I had brought with me all the games from Ubisoft Milan and I gave them to him. He said goodnight to us in Italian. It was a magical moment.
“I’m clearly quite crazy. I am a fan. I recognise that it’s not super rational.”
Grant Kirkhope’s eerste ontmoeting was echter een stukje erger dan een fanboy reactie:
“Yeah… my Miyamoto story is a bit worse,” he admits. “It was when E3 had moved to Atlanta [1997]. Nintendo had a party in a museum, and we all got hideously drunk. I saw [Rare founder] Tim Stamper talking to Miyamoto, and I introduced myself as the composer of Banjo-Kazooie, totally drunk. He just looked at me with the blankest expression, he couldn’t tell what I was saying. A while later, I was in the bathroom – and this is embarrassing – I was trying to pull down [Donkey Kong 64 designer] George Andreas’ trousers for a joke. I was on my knees and I looked up to see Miyamoto staring down at me. That was the last time I spoke to him.”
Davide was door de reacties op de leaks enorm bang negatieve feedback en bereidde zich en zijn team daarom voor op het ergste (uiteindelijk dus nergens voor nodig.
“When the game leaks, no one is happy,” Soliani says. “Also, let’s be honest, the reaction at the beginning was not ‘sceptical’ – it was a little bit worse than that. It was quite hard on the team morale to read some of those comments. I asked for Grant’s opinion, [since he] has way more experience than me. ‘Do you think they will love it? Do you think they will hate us? Do you think that we’ve done everything wrong?’ I was very, very worried. Because, you know, people on the internet can be very, very, very harsh.”
Grant continues: “Davide was completely panicking. I kept saying to him not to worry and that everyone was going to love it.”
That’s why Soliani had warned his team to prepare for the worst at E3. His best hope, he tells us, was that someone would think, “It’s OK for a strategy game”. A good result would be to come away with one E3 Award nomination.
Mocht je meer van het interview willen lezen klik dan hieronder op bron om naar GamesIndustry te gaan. In het interview vertelt Grant Kirkhope ook over toen hij in het uiterste geheim de eerste beelden zag toen hij werd gevraagd als componist voor de game.
Arme Miyamoto zeg… 😂
XD