Support NeoGAF

[Do The Mario]

The gamecube has a chance to turning it’s misfortunes around in its last year, some aggressive marking for the new Zelda and possibly a new platforming Mario title along with a cheap console price could mean a large increase in the user base before next the next gen!

If not at least I might be getting a new “proper” Mario game to play!

 

[Jonnyram]

can you translate the interview of the ex FF producer and FF sound producer??

Well, I've done my best... I apologize if anything is exaggerated from the true Japanese meaning

Also located here.

Uematsu
Although going independent implies a huge move, he doesn't see such a big change. Though it's true he left Square Enix, it wasn't because of any disagreement. Being there for close to 20 years has taken its toll, and the move to his own company gives a breath of fresh air to his work. He is still open to working with Square Enix, and if the chance comes around to work on their games he would like to take it. The name "Smile Please" comes about because he likes smiling, and he likes making people smile. It is the title of the first track on the first album he bought, Stevie Wonder's "First Finale", and represents a return to his roots.

Sakaguchi
Having worked with Uematsu for such a long time, they have a good working relationship and Sakaguchi likes the way Uematsu tells the story with his melodies. He would like to continue working with Uematsu in the future when his new RPG projects are further under way. He will continue to be involved in the Final Fantasy series as an Executive Producer, talking with the Directors and Producers of the series, in particular FFXII's Matsuno and FFX's Kitase. But he also has a strong feeling to make something new besides the FF titles.

Since last being interviewed four months ago, Sakaguchi has three projects underway. He can't talk about the platforms just yet, but he has been in talks with Microsoft and Nintendo. Of those three projects, one of them is well underway with the first part of the scenario complete. The system and controls are also developing form. The game should be announced sometime next year.

The first project
Uematsu is already involved in two of Sakaguchi's projects and will write music based on the scenarios. The two have both aged since the early Final Fantasy games and believe that the new games will be different from the FF games, and will be more deep. The first game will feature slightly atypical characters. Technically speaking there will be a levelling system, but it's more like emotional development. Rather than developing with singular big events, he wants to show the smallest changes of emotions constantly. There will still be big events with large impact though, just like the real world, as the characters are human. Author Kiyoshi Shigematsu is also involved in the project, writing short parts of the story, for example about the families or about a lover, so that the game is emotionally deep.

When the team first started making Final Fantasy, they talked of making 10 games in the series, and they also mention 10 games for this series, even though it could take 20 years.

 

[Jonnyram]

Uematsu's company's logo

Prototype art for Sakaguchi's company's first game

 

[Mama Smurf]

10 games huh? Ambitious. Wonder if the games will be more connected that the FF titles.

That art is awesome.

 

[Rorschach]

Aiiiiiieee awesome news.

 

[Kiriku]

Haha, funny logo. It made me smile at least.

If Uematsu considers Stevie Wonder to be his roots, that's ace! I can imagine he wants to make something different from Final Fantasy music, so going independent was a great move. Hopefully it will improve and develop his sense for composing music.

 

[Jacobi]

At gamefront.de they say Miyamoto didn't directly say Mario 128 was on GC ...

 

[SomeDude]

I hope Mario 128 doesn't end up on the Nintendo DS.

 

[wazoo]

It sold about 3 million, compared with about 10 million for Mario64.

4.2M

http://report.cesa.or.jp/english/whitepaper/index.html

 

[Jonnyram]

At gamefront.de they say Miyamoto didn't directly say Mario 128 was on GC ...

He was talking about GC games when he mentioned Mario 128. I don't know how many times we need to mention this in the same topic, but this interview confirmed that Mario 128 is intended for GC at least.

 

[Folder]

I don't believe it.

Oh, and this is the 4th time I read something like "Mario 128 is in development but I can't say anything about it". He said this several times before, so nothing new here.

Dude.
This is the first time he has underlined that it will be for GameCube in context. There has been speculation, in part fuelled by the chattering lips of various NOA staffers, which had pointed to the GameCube version being scrapped in favour of beefing up the mysterious Revolution’s launch roster. Apparently, this isn’t happening, though this will leave Nintendo with something of a quandary to overcome. Essentially, in order to provide Revolution with a Mario launch title, two teams will be required to work on two separate projects, further disassembling the franchise which is still recovering form the knock of confidence caused by Mario Sunshine.

Of course, Miyamoto might well be lying, that’s not outside the realms of possibility. To say right now that Mario 128, the only game of substance for the GameCube aside from the frenziedly-anticipated new Zelda, has been scrapped and shifted to a new platform would be akin to giving up on the current generation of hardware – simply not acceptable at this phase in its lifecycle.

 

[Akumajou]

"Mario 128 NEEDS to be a LAUNCH TITLE for REVOLUTION, Iwata/Shiggy."

I remember way back in 2000 or early 2001 hearing and seeing footage of a Mario 128 for GameCube, then in 2002 a game called Mario Sunshine was released.

I am a bit confused here, GameCube is doing good in sales in the US, it is no Playstation 2 but that console has exagerated sales numbers that really makes you wonder just who is buying these consoles, is it people whose PS2s die on them and they are forced to buy new ones or after a faulty modding? So since GC has a fairly good sales in the US and Japan it would make sense to have a new mario game on the GC, a mario game that would sell on a 1:1 ratio as opposed to a new console.

I am assuming that whatever new console Nintendo is making will be backwards compatible right? I would also hope that this time Nintendo has a regular DVD type drive that would allow you to watch movies on it so that PS2 and PS3 don't continue the traditional market dominance.

Anyways, the old Nvidia Geforce released in 1999 was a 256bit GPU right? the ArtX GPU in GC is also 256bit right? and the ATI GPU will also be 256bit right? because last time I checked so far only Matrox released a 512bit GPU way back in 2002. It won't matter what CPU the next Nintendo console uses because whatever it is it will sure as hell be far more advanced than the PS2, GC, DC, and XBox CPUs so basically the next mario game does not need to be called Mario 128 or 256 or 512, to do that would be to play the old 90s console games and insult the general gaming public's intelligence.

 

[AniHawk]

I remember way back in 2000 or early 2001 hearing and seeing footage of a Mario 128 for GameCube, then in 2002 a game called Mario Sunshine was released.

That demo you saw was called "100 Marios." Mario 128 is the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II, or at least some here believe that.

 

[Kobun Heat]

That demo you saw was called "100 Marios." Mario 128 is the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II, or at least some here believe that.

The code name "100 Marios" was indeed on release lists for a while, and it did relate to that demo. At some point that game's name was changed to Super Mario 128. Technically, it refers to the same project. But it has probably changed over time. Any references to "the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II" are purely speculation fueled by nothing coming out of Nintendo.

 

[AniHawk]

The code name "100 Marios" was indeed on release lists for a while, and it did relate to that demo. At some point that game's name was changed to Super Mario 128. Technically, it refers to the same project. But it has probably changed over time. Any references to "the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II" are purely speculation fueled by nothing coming out of Nintendo.

True. SM64 II was just basically shelved as were EB64 and Kirby Air Ride (in the late nineties in is earliest form, I thought). My belief is SM64 II and SM128 are games in the same grouping where they were being experimented on and the concepts were either shelved or released as other games (like SMS, or incorporated in SM64 DS).

I thought 100 Marios was *only* a tech demo and nothing more, and that most of the team began working on a Mario game, but 100 Marios didn't turn into either one of those.

 

[Kobun Heat]

My belief is SM64 II and SM128 are games in the same grouping where they were being experimented on and the concepts were either shelved or released as other games (like SMS, or incorporated in SM64 DS).

Basically, looking back it seems as if the decision was made to hold off on a Mario 64 sequel until the GameCube. They probably made that decision early enough to be able to go back and totally rework what they wanted to do with the game, so ideas from the unfinished N64 version were brought over to Mario Sunshine.

 

[mj1108]

That demo you saw was called "100 Marios." Mario 128 is the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II, or at least some here believe that.

I remember reading something somewhere that 100 Mario's ended up becoming Pikmin.

 

[Akumajou]

AniHawk wrote:
That demo you saw was called "100 Marios." Mario 128 is the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II, or at least some here believe that.

Ah that sounds familiar but...

Kobun Heat wrote:
The code name "100 Marios" was indeed on release lists for a while, and it did relate to that demo. At some point that game's name was changed to Super Mario 128. Technically, it refers to the same project. But it has probably changed over time.

That also sounds more familiar. I think I may have seen both versions but it was such a long time ago...

Any references to "the continuation of the unreleased SM64 II" are purely speculation fueled by nothing coming out of Nintendo.

Basically that makes alot of sense since that speculation is probably coming out of rabid fans who assume that Nintendo is that predictable as to release something called Mario 128. It would have made sense to have had a SM64II on N64 probably requiring the 4MB expansion pack and being a 512MB ram cart.

But even Mario 128 on GC does not make sense like the name Mario Sunshine does since back in the SNES days alot of games were called "Super" and in the N64 alot of games added 64 to the title of the game. The Nintendo GameCube would really have to have a Mario Cube for a name, but that sounds stupid, Mario Sunshine sounds better and a sequel could be something like for example Mario World (note that the lack of Super would not mean that it would be weaker to SMW for SNES)

Now had Nintendo decided to call GC the Nintendo 128, then Mario 128 would make a hell of alot of sense.

AniHawk wrote:
I thought 100 Marios was *only* a tech demo and nothing more, and that most of the team began working on a Mario game, but 100 Marios didn't turn into either one of those.

Thats right, I also remember other GC or were they "Dolphin" tech demos? anyways, I remember seeing the infamous Pokemon Meowth's Singing Party as a tech demo that were shown at Tokyo Game Shows of the past (2000 or 2001) along with the infamous Zelda tech demo.

I wonder if anyone has links to a site that has those old tech demo movies...

 

[Kobun Heat]

These are just tech demo names, which almost always change in the final version. There is no way in hell that the retail product will be called "Super Mario 128", even if there ARE a hundred and twenty-eight Marios in it.

 

[snaildog]

I'll be very happy if it's on Gamecube (only suckers buy consoles at launch). I'm sure they lost a lot of good feeling abandoning the N64 at the end of its cycle - it's probably a smart move.

 

[Zerodoppler]

That demo you saw was called "100 Marios.

Was it now?

More info here

 

[Sunski]

100 Marios was a rumoured game based offf the Mario 128 demo. I remember someone here claiming that there were heavy developments on it like you could drop objects in the marios would interact like a toilet making them all form a queue.

Super Mario 128 - Judging by all interviews in the past 2 years - Is a platformer sequel to 64 and SMS and not related to the Mario 128 demo or the rumoured 100 marios games.

 

[Gchaime]

Didn't Pikmin evolve out of the 100 mario's demo?

 

[wazoo]

Didn't Pikmin evolve out of the 100 mario's demo?

yes, from a tech point of view.