Metroid Database.com

Yoshio Sakamoto has been getting a lot of interviews lately, thanks to the excitement surrounding the latest release. The latest of these comes from UK magazine Computer and Video Games, which has a rather EXTENSIVE (but often off-topic) interview. It's definitely worth a read, though it's VERY difficult to understand what Mr. Sakamoto is trying to say thanks to a combination of italics and poor translation. Still, there's a lot of great material in here that's well worth digging through.

From initial concept to final product, Other M has been in development for around three years. Mr. Sakamoto is proud of the work that his team has done in innovating Wii controls and feels that the game demonstrates there is plenty of potential still left on the system, provided developers continue to challenge themselves. One of the most surprising things about this interview is that Mr. Sakamoto - and indeed, many of the development staff - felt completely satisfied with the outcome of the game. From the perspective of the developers then the game is a complete success. As for those who think otherwise...

Of course, there's got to be bad impressions as well as good ones. Even the negative ones I am looking forward to seeing.

Which ultimately shows that Mr. Sakamoto is adept at taking feedback seriously in order to improve his design abilities (and that he can hopefully know how to cut through the wails of all the whining babies out there from the fair reviews). As for whether or not we'll see a new Metroid by Team Ninja...

There's always the possibility and if the opportunity comes I'm very willing to work with Team Ninja once again... As far as I'm concerned I'm willing to work with them once again if the opportunity comes but, of course, before deciding anything I have to admit I have no idea about what I should do with this Metroid franchise.

Also, whether or not the next Metroid is developed in collaboration with Team Ninja depends on the type of game and story Mr. Sakamoto wishes to create - and whether or not the next Metroid will be a linear extension of Other M. I would personally like to see another Metroid game with the help of Team Ninja, but I am also wondering where else Samus will go in the future.

There was plenty of interesting discussion of Samus Aran as a character and the development of such iconic characters over a long period of time. Mr. Sakamoto admits that the mysteriousness behind Samus as a character might have been something that kept audiences interested in the series, and so future approaches with the series will find new areas of focus. As for myself, I really enjoyed learning more about Samus as a character; for me, Samus doesn't have to be an enigma to be interesting, and she still has plenty of mystery left about her.

Finally, the interviewer asked PLENTY of questions about Yoshio Sakamoto's thoughts regarding digital downloads and the second-hand game market. CVG seemed a bit TOO enthusiastic about this topic, dedicating roughly a quarter of the interview to it, and so Mr. Sakamoto finally responded, "I think I'd like to focus more on how to entertain people." Bravo!

Until next time...
Captain Commando