Metroid Database.com

Minna no Nintendo Channel, the Japanese equivalent of the Nintendo Channel on the Wii, has uploaded an extensive interview with the lead developers of Metroid (Yoshio Sakamoto, Yousuke Hayashi of Team Ninja, and Ryuzi Kitaura of D-Rockets), discussing design decisions behind the game's controls and story. This is also the first time we've heard from Mr. Kitaura about the project. While a lot of it is talking heads, there is plenty of new gameplay footage with Samus battling a wide range of enemies from Space Pirates to Novas (the crawling fire monsters) as well as plenty behind-the-scenes footage. Unfortunately, the video is currently in Japanese, but hopefully Nintendo will be translating this for the Nintendo Channel very soon... Thanks to Robert Mboro for the news tip!

UPDATE: Neon_Icarus from the NeoGAF forums has posted some of the video's highlights:

- Because you have a very limited amount of buttons on the Wii-remote, the controls have to adapt to your enviroments a lot. For example, depending on the enemy a different finishing move is possible.

- Goal was to make the movement from cinematics to gameplay seamless.

- Bombing walls to discover items in the 2D Metroids and investigating the enviroments in the first-person view to find items have the same kind of feeling to them.

- Because Samus is not "very good at living like a normal human being", and doesn't talk much, when it came to choosing the voice actress [Ai Kobayashi] they wanted someone who could speak in an unsophisticated, direct manner, rather than someone with very good technique.

- Because Sakamoto wanted Other M to have the same feeling as the 2D Metroids, the shooting animation (Samus raising her hand to shoot) was made as quick as possible.

- The guy from D-Rockets wanted to have more Zero Suit in there. While the armor protects Samus during battles, it also covers her feelings, and thus is not so good for human drama. However, Sakamoto was adamant that Samus would not take of her armor unless it really suited the story and the situation. They wanted to portray a strong, cool Samus, who has powers other human beings don't.

In addition, D-Rockets spent about two months on a cutscene that was eventually cut. While this must have frustrated the studio, cutting video that no longer fits is a sign of good editing.

Until next time...
Captain Commando