Iwata
Miyamoto-san really persevered with Paper Mario this time. Exactly what was he particular about?
Tanabe
Aside from wanting us to change the atmosphere a lot, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of the project—"It's fine without a story, so do we really need one?" and "As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.
Iwata
That's a difficult task. In some ways that would be the exact opposite direction from recent games in the series.
Tanabe
Yeah. With regard to the story, we did a survey over the Super Paper Mario (24) game in Club Nintendo (25), and not even 1% said the story was interesting. A lot of people said that the Flip (26) move for switching between the 3D and 2D dimensions was fun.
24. Super Paper Mario: An action-adventure game released for the Wii console in April 2007.
25. Club Nintendo: A free, members-only point service run by Nintendo, begun in Japan in 2003, and 2008 in the US. When members purchase applicable software or game systems, register the serial number on the Internet, and respond to post-game surveys, they earn points and can exchange a corresponding number of points for special, not-for-sale items.
26. Flip: A move that Mario can use to switch between 2D and 3D maps with a single button.
Iwata
That project came together because of that idea. Kudo-san, you were in charge of the script, so what did you think about whether a story was really necessary or not?
Kudo
I originally saw it in a way that's similar to Miyamoto-san. Personally I think all we need is to have an objective to win the boss battle at the end of the game. I didn't think we necessarily needed a lengthy story like in an RPG. Instead, we looked at the characteristics of a portable game that can be played little by little in small pieces and packed in lots of little episodes and ideas. I always did like putting in little ideas, so I actually enjoyed it.
Iwata
It was just what Kudo-san wanted.
Kudo
Yeah.
Iwata
When it comes to characters, in the session of "Iwata Asks" covering Super Mario Galaxy, Miyamoto-san said that he was finally able to put the essence of Mario into words for the first time.
Tanabe
Yes, he did.
Iwata
He says that a Mario-like design follows from function, so when something otherwise comes into the mix, it doesn't feel right.
Tanabe
You understand the character from its design—like it has spikes, so stepping on it will hurt.
Iwata
When people vaguely sense something like that and can use logic to explain it, they want to share it. So talking about a Mario-like design might have been a big deal to Miyamoto-san at the time! (laughs)
Tanabe
But being unable to use new characters is pretty strict. Of course, we could not make any new enemy characters, and as for allies among the Super Mario characters, there's really only Toad in various colors!
Kudo
But personally, the more restrictions there were, the more excited I got. They may look the same, but we put in some elements in which their personalities are slightly different, so you can tell the difference and you think, "Hey! Are you that Toad from back then?" Toward the end of development, I could feel that I became one with Toad! (laughs)
Tanabe
You can't forget them, like when they have a bad personality, even though their faces are the same.
Everyone
(laughs)
Kudo
In addition to red, there are blue and green Toads. However, we held all but the red one in reserve, so we had to think carefully over when to use them. When we decided to put the ranger (27) in the forest, there was a weird vibe, like, "Green Toad…you're up!" (laughs)
27. Ranger: Some who protects the forest, as in a Park Ranger.
Iwata
Creatively, restraints aren't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of new attractive features come out of that.
Tanabe
That's right. At first, we were making a lot of individual allies as in a regular RPG, but when we decided to focus on stickers, in order to make a clear change with previous games in the series, it was like we started all over again by throwing out the system—including those characters—that we had made up to that point.
Iwata
You purposefully threw out the basic RPG structure.
Tanabe
Yes. We decided to make it so that players would face stronger opponents by throwing out the whole concept of experience points and levels in favor of gradually gathering stronger stickers.
I had actually been thinking for a long time that I wanted to get rid of the RPG experience points. In the Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (28) game, which Kudo-san and I worked on together, the player-character didn't develop at all. We adopted a system whereby they solved everything with money.
This time, we decided to do everything with stickers. We decided on a system whereby in battle, instead of attack commands, you fight by using the stickers you have gathered in the field or bought in town.
28. Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland: An RPG released for the Nintendo DS system in September 2006. This game was not released in North America.
Iwata
That's why we call it a "sticker battle adventure."
Tanabe
Right. The stickers have all kinds of offensive abilities, so sometimes you can easily win by thinking about applicability to certain enemies and using them in combination.
Iwata
I see.
