MTV interviewer bar none Stephen Totilo had a chat with several folks from Retro Studios about recent release Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and unearthed a few tidbits about how the Retro boys feel about their new game, their future, and developing for Wii.
"When we went to Japan and first saw the controller for the first time I got really concerned because there weren't a lot of buttons," Corruption director Mark Pacini told Totilo. "Luckily it just seemed to be a coincidence that in [planning for] 'Metroid Prime 3' we were already talking about a system where everything stacked: your beam, your missiles, the grapple beam—all the additional abilities you get for those weapons stack so you don't have to switch between beams, for instance. We definitely kept that in mind going forward because with limited buttons, we didn't want to make this game overly complicated." Pacini noted there were a number of other ideas explored that didn't work so great in real life and thus were cut, such as tilting the nunchuk side-to-side to control the grappling hook.
Art director Todd Keller has (as might be expected from someone whose livelihood depends on Nintendo success) good feelings about Wii's capabilities. "The Wii is a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go," he said. "We don't have a lot of depth with shader stuff, but we can make really good color palettes." Keller also spoke to his team's attention to detail, noting that texture detail—at double the resolution possible on GameCube—is something he's particularly proud of, but also how things like the mushrooms in Bryyo were done practically individually, to create a sense of variety.
The guys from Retro noted they're at work on another project now, and it's not a Metroid Prime game. They won't say just what it is, but they note they're not about to end up on the casual gaming trail, as Pacini explains. "One of the things we've always been told by Nintendo of Japan is they say they appreciate us as a studio because we make games they can't make. Their specialty is in the casual market. Their specialty is in the platforming and more traditional games... If people enjoy the kinds of games Retro makes, I don't think they're going to be disappointed about what we're doing."
"When we went to Japan and first saw the controller for the first time I got really concerned because there weren't a lot of buttons," Corruption director Mark Pacini told Totilo. "Luckily it just seemed to be a coincidence that in [planning for] 'Metroid Prime 3' we were already talking about a system where everything stacked: your beam, your missiles, the grapple beam—all the additional abilities you get for those weapons stack so you don't have to switch between beams, for instance. We definitely kept that in mind going forward because with limited buttons, we didn't want to make this game overly complicated." Pacini noted there were a number of other ideas explored that didn't work so great in real life and thus were cut, such as tilting the nunchuk side-to-side to control the grappling hook.
Art director Todd Keller has (as might be expected from someone whose livelihood depends on Nintendo success) good feelings about Wii's capabilities. "The Wii is a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go," he said. "We don't have a lot of depth with shader stuff, but we can make really good color palettes." Keller also spoke to his team's attention to detail, noting that texture detail—at double the resolution possible on GameCube—is something he's particularly proud of, but also how things like the mushrooms in Bryyo were done practically individually, to create a sense of variety.
The guys from Retro noted they're at work on another project now, and it's not a Metroid Prime game. They won't say just what it is, but they note they're not about to end up on the casual gaming trail, as Pacini explains. "One of the things we've always been told by Nintendo of Japan is they say they appreciate us as a studio because we make games they can't make. Their specialty is in the casual market. Their specialty is in the platforming and more traditional games... If people enjoy the kinds of games Retro makes, I don't think they're going to be disappointed about what we're doing."