New 3D Mario coming to DS?

June 28th, 2006, 16:01 Posted By: wraggster

In the grand scheme of things at Nintendo, you probably won't be all that familiar with the name Takashi Tezuka. However, you'll definitely know his games, having worked with Shigeru Miyamoto since the original Super Mario Bros. on NES. These days, Tezuka is general manager of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development department - the group responsible for, among other things, Mario's major titles.

Now, in an interview with GameDaily.biz, Tezuka has hinted, amongst other things, that a new proper 3D Mario game could well be in the works for the DS. When asked whether Nintendo ever considered following up Mario 64 DS with another 3D platformer, Tezuka revealed that the 2D New Super Mario Bros. had been planned all along, admitting however that, "I'd love to [do another 3D Mario on DS]! I can't say anything more than that".

Moving onto Zelda, Tezuka gave his opinion of Twilight Princess - a game that NoA's Reggie Fils-Aime has described as "the best Zelda ever made". Offering his slightly more humble opinion, Tezuka stated that, "I think everybody's going to have a different opinion [on whether it's the best] depending on what you're looking at when you play...". He continued, "There are a lot of different factors that will influence or impact that decision. I think this is a game that [the team] has taken a lot of pain and a lot of care to make, and that's definitely evident from beginning to end that you can see the amount of work and detail that's been put into the project... Even to the point where I'm [sometimes] surprised and will go, 'Who's responsible for this amount of detail, for this one section?' This is amazing even to me".

As for the forthcoming DS Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, Tezuka explained Nintendo's decision to resurrect the cel-shaded visuals of Wind Waker, "It's actually kind of a long story, but just to give you the original kernel of the idea, it was actually two years ago at E3, I was on the bus with some of the people on the Wind Waker staff and they were all saying how enamored they were with that graphical style and the Wind Waker Link model, and they were saying how they just want to use him more.

"One game wasn't enough because they liked it so much, and they were already talking about the DS at that time at Nintendo anyway. And they thought, 'Well wouldn't that be fun? Let's try it and see if we can do it on the handheld.' So it was actually two years ago that they started talking about doing this, and just because it came from a love of that art style." What's more, Tezuka assured fans of the style that, "If the fans want it, then we will keep making it."

Finally, Tezuka revealed a few nuggets regarding Nintendo's plans for the newly-announced Wiimote speaker, giving some insight in what we can expect from the feature. "If you're playing a game where you're taking turns, players 1-4," he explained, "if it's your turn your controller could go 'ding, da, da, ding!' and that's kind of a neat thing [...] I think [the speaker] strengthens the impact of the game for each individual player and some of the effects that we're conveying or the experiences that we're trying to convey to the individual player. This is one tool that we can use to heighten that."

Via CVG

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