Takeda at Iwata Asks: Punch Out!!

[shinigamihedgehog]

us.wii.com/iwata_asks/punchout/vol1_page1.jsp


For those of you who wondered what ever the heck happened to Genyo Takeda, go see what he has to say on Punch Out!!


One of the last lines in the interview brought my attention..

"Miyamoto:
We can look forward to that, but don't you think we are going to be getting a lot of requests from the people reading this for Takeda-san to make games again?"

I'm completely out of ideas, guys. How can we reach Genyo Takeda!? Will we need to buy like 200 copies of Punch Out!! each? At least I'll be contributing by buying both Super Punch Out! and Punch Out!! (Wii).


And sadly, no. The article doesn't mention StarTropics anywhere... Why exactly are they giving this franchise the cold shoulder again? I mean to the point where they aren't even interested in localizing it.

[parrothead1983]

We thought Computer Othello was the first, but Miyamoto said it's actually EVR RACE, which was released back in 1975, three years before Computer Othello. They also said that Nintendo's first game designer was Takeda himself, before most people thought it was Gunpei Yokoi.

It's nice to hear that, but there wasn't a single mention about the protagonist of the Super NES Super Punch-Out!! being Little Mac or not. However, when comparing these...



...to these, it made me believe that the old Little Mac is to the Punch-Out!! arcade protagonist, while the new Little Mac is to the Super Punch-Out!! arcade protagonist. Different look, same colored gloves. But why wasn't Little Mac's name mention? Most likely, they were rushing the Super NES game and Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II simultaneously.



It would be nice to have another Super Punch-Out!! either for the Wii, DS or any upcoming handheld or home console, but that's probably less likely, because I heard that they tried to put the Bruiser brothers in Punch-Out!! Wii, but after I read this from an interview with one of the Wii title's producers, Ken Yeeloy, about the Bruiser brothers:

Yeeloy: Yeah! The Bruiser Brothers! We had them in there for a while. They were part of our roster for a while, but they quickly fell out, because we felt that there were elements of them as we tried to develop them and tried to figure out how they’d fit in with the other characters, we felt they didn’t fit in as well. Some of that’s due to the personality types, but it also gave us an opportunity to create new characters. Like Disco Kid is a new character.

We tried to have a lineup of characters that we could evolve, but always have a bit of a nod to the original guys. I think when you play the game, you’re going to see that some of the puzzles are going to be familiar. There are elements of the puzzles that are familiar. Of course, there are new puzzles that we’ve added, but the hardcore guys are going to go, “Oh, I remember that.” You look at the characters and their personalities, and you go, “Oh, I remember him.” You look at the animation, and you go, “I remember how that felt in the old one.” We tried to do that in all elements in the game. In the audio—there are elements of the old game, and we’ve tried to update it. That’s what this game is all about—updating it—and we’ve really tried to make sure we’ve upgraded all elements of the game.

Source

This makes me think that the Wii title is as far as the Punch-Out!! series will go. Will there be another StarTropics? I'm pretty sure Zoda's Revenge is the last. I heard that it was just made for European, American and Australian Zelda-holics/adventure-holics.

[shinigamihedgehog]

Actually, Next Level has stated that due to the very positive results with Punch Out!! they'd be more than happy to make a sequel.

In fact, they have discussed so many things, like what if they included other Nintendo characters in the mix, but said that hitting Princess Peach in the face would be kind of ackward, so they ruled that out.

"I would love to make a sequel. I think with this first product, we wanted to make sure there was a definite, undeniable connection to the original. The sequel would be our opportunity to evolve the franchise further and add some cool, new things." - producer Ken Yeeloy

"The next Punch-Out!! would be different. Hopefully fans appreciate what we've done and that Punch-Out!! gathers strength in the marketplace as well as in pop culture. We've seen great online videos and fan content already. When the current title has gathered its new fanbase I would personally love to take the IP and the mechanic and give it a little twist. Cooperative, competitive multiplayer support or create-a-boss mode would be places to start but we'd need to come up with a new 'hook' like the motion controllers gave us in this iteration." - gameplay lead Bryce Holliday

Here's a link to what I'm talking about.

www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=10304


As for StarTropics... Yeah, my hopes are extremely low... Unless Takeda goes back and popularizes it NOW, I don't see ANY 2nd or 3rd party taking interest in a game as obscure as StarTropics... -_-

They could at least start by localizing the originals it in Japan, but if they don't even do that much, there's no way they'll make a 3rd sequel for the Western countries exclusively.

[Coralcola]

The following line caught my eye:

Iwata:
You were responsible for the mission of resurrecting games made by Genyo Takeda, Nintendo's first game designer. Why did you do this project?

Is Iwata still undertaking this mission? This seems very interesting to me that this guy was given "a mission" of this nature. It almost reeks of a fanboiz who's in charge who gives out orders like this to pay homage to an idol or something. Almost like something I'd tell one of my designers to do if I had lackeys under me, lol...

Maybe we should contact Iwada about an ST3 then, *wink*. It's not like there's a laundry list of other potential "ressurections" that formerly fell under Takeda, eh?

[shinigamihedgehog]

That's pretty interesting, Coralcola. How could I miss that?

The question is, how the heck do we contact Mr.Iwata!? And if we contact him, how can the few of us in this forums convince the guy to ressurrect StarTropics, when the guy shows so little respect to the franchise as to not even import it! Or is it that maybe he "let us have our way" with it, as in to say that we have games exclusive to this side of the world like them?

My Japanese is fluent enough to write a letter... but we know there are around 200 trash cans on the way from the entrance to Mr.Iwata's office, and it'll most likely go to trash can #1...

[parrothead1983]

If they are going to make another Punch-Out!!, then it better be like the remake or sequel to the SNES Super Punch-Out!!, especially if they bring back Little Mac's blond-haired look while making the plot take place during or after the SNES Super Punch-Out!!.

For the StarTropics side, they'll either make StarTropics 3 a WiiWare title with 8-bit graphics (like Mega Man 9), remake both the original and Zoda's Revenge into a two-in-one DS card or make it 3D either for the Wii, WiiWare or Nintendo DS.

[shinigamihedgehog]

To be honest, I prefer the Nes Little Mac look. It's just that there are so many blonde main characters out there.. And Little Mac represents simplicity at its finest.

No huge spiky blond hair, no big sword, no groundbreaking powers... Just a tiny, tan, black-haired guy, using simple boxing moves. While the SNES incarnation of L.Mac is cool too, they should've given him an actual name... But of course, Super Punch Out! gameplay wise is far superior. I like the whole resting while your opponent is standing up thing.. and the counter moves, and the punch rushes.. It's all so great, so yeah, I, like you, hope the next game is more influenced on Super Punch Out!

If they had thought things through they could've made Snes Little Mac to be the final boss in Punch Out!! so that the sequel would focus on his glorious comeback to the ring, and face Giga Mac.

--

Anyways, Punch Out aside, I wish I was as hopeful as you, PH. StarTropics 3 feels closer when WE work on a fan project, rather than reading Nintendo news such as this.

So yeah. I'm all up for 8-Bit, 16-Bit, or blocky 64-bits, as long as we get a sequel.
But that still seems so far away... Literally. We need to get Iwata or Takeda's attention somehow.. When we see ST localized in Japan, THEN and only than can we start getting hyped for a sequel.

[parrothead1983]

Why do I want the SNES incarnation of Little Mac? I never have heard of anything related to the Punch-Out!! series until one day when I went to elementary school and saw someone playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. I never did get to play it, but in 1996 or 1997, when I went to see my step-mother and step-sister, they had the SNES Super Punch-Out!!. That was the first Punch-Out!! game I've ever played. I laughed at Gabby Jay shouting "Yay!" and Bear Hugger making raspberry sounds when punched in the belly. I also enjoyed Little Mac's move set and his "Right on!" taunt. His NES incarnation looks pretty plain, in my opinion. It makes me compare it to Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo series, especially in his dotted-eye look. I understand that a lot of people grew up on his NES look and don't want to get rid of their childhood memories with it, but I believe it's the SNES version deserves a turn for those who only grew up with the SNES Super Punch-Out!!. It takes place after the NES versions and was almost not released in Japan, because it was more like Nintendo of America's game than Nintendo of Japan's. I wonder if the Japanese Virtual Console details for the SNES Super Punch-Out!! mention Little Mac?

---

To remind Takeda and show Iwata anything StarTropics related, why not upload your fan art to Pixiv (a popular Japanese artistic community like deviantART) and videos to Nico Nico Douga (a very popular video-hosting website) about the StarTropics series. These may require you to either hire a human translator or learn Japanese yourself.

[shinigamihedgehog]

Aug 7, 2009 16:21:15 GMT -5 parrothead1983 said:

To remind Takeda and show Iwata anything StarTropics related, why not upload your fan art to Pixiv (a popular Japanese artistic community like deviantART) and videos to Nico Nico Douga (a very popular video-hosting website) about the StarTropics series. These may require you to either hire a human translator or learn Japanese yourself.

Arrrr!! Why didn't you say so sooner. D=

j/k Thanks for this info, PH.

I know this doesn't increase chances by a whole lot, but it's a way to reach over to Japan at least.
I know some Japanese, though I wonder if it's enough to translate the comics.. Oh well, I'll just have to see.
Should I upload my Super Smash Tropics over there? Even though it's in english?

[parrothead1983]

This idea may cause several other Japanese gamers to gain interest in the series. Post everything you have. Be sure to include the StarTropics name in Japanese along with its English counterpart to make it easier for Japanese users to find them.

[shinigamihedgehog]

Thanks again for the info, Parrothead. I'll start making my comics prettier now, so I upload them there.

Colorful comics tend to get more attention than mere rough sketches with dialogues on. XD