Metroid Database.com

Part 2 of the Iwata Asks: Metroid Other M interview has finally been translated. This 6-page article runs down with key developers from Team Ninja and Taiyo Kikaku(who worked on the CG). Here are some key highlights for the TL,DR crowd:

• The team was highly excited and anticipated working on the game. All were in complete disbelief when the idea of the collaborative project with Nintendo was in front of them.
• During development, Sakamoto will reject ideas with candor; without hesitation. (This may seem harsher than it really is: Japanese business culture should be considered.)
• Kitaura's storyboards took 6 months to create, much to the chagrin of Taiyo Kikaku. According to Nagasawa, it was the largest project they had ever worked on.
• The art director and level designer from Fusion and Zero Mission were highly challenged by Sakamoto's concept and worked very closely with Team NINJA.
• Over 10,000 emails were exchanged among the staff related to cinematic production. Communication was top priority.
• Extreme attention to detail for the cinematics meant a heavy amount of redoing and reworking scenes.
• Metroid: Other M "barely fits" on a Dual-Layer DVD disc.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with a remark to think about Other M as a whole. During development, when the in-game cinematics featured a purple, Gravity Suit-clad Samus, Sakamoto thought it looked very strange and was not satisfied. Therefore, as many know, the Gravity Suit is now depicted by a purple "glow" in the game. The art director justifies this change by relaying a "100-year-old eel sauce" metaphor:

Morisawa: Yes. When you go to an eel restaurant they say things like 'our sauce is over 100 years old'. But this doesn't mean the sauce has stayed untouched in the pot for 100 years. They're constantly adding new sauce to their pot, matching the tastes of the age, and I think the flavor of the sauce changes quite often.

Iwata: So by using this theory that it's OK to change things little-by-little, much like the '100-year-old sauce', you were able to make yourself agree to changing the game.

Morisawa: Yes, I was able to agree... Or rather, I could put myself in a position to understand it... (laughs). Well, even though I try to protect tradition, I think it's important to be able to create new things without being tied down by it.

Maybe, just maybe we can learn something from this and move on from our own ideals about the Metroid series...

--Infinity's End