In a recent interview with Wired, Yusuke Hashimoto talked about what it’s like having Platinum Games work with Nintendo in creating Star Fox Zero. Yugo Hayashi from Nintendo also commented on his experience while working with Shigeru Miyamoto.
Here’s what the two had to say:
“This is the first time I’ve ever done this kind of collaborative design. It’s not just with Mr. Miyamoto, but also with Mr. Hayashi here. I’m struck by how fast this goes. The turnaround between the exchange of the two parties is very quick. It’s a kind of development speed I haven’t really seen before.” – Hashimoto
“The three of us are always working together and it’s very fun, but obviously when Mr. Miyamoto shows you something and is like, what do you think of this, and you have to come up with a good answer, it’s very nerve-wracking.” – Hayashi
Hashimoto later explained how Star Fox Zero isn’t intended to be “a simple game”:
“We don’t want to make it a simple game, by any means. The challenge for us is, how to make a game that feels good and challenging to play for lots of different people?”
Finally, Hayashi shared some details about the Walker transformation in Star Fox Zero:
“It is not a chicken. More like a dinosaur. Talking with one of the Star Fox character designers, since all of the characters are animals, he thought it would be better to make this design also more like an animal. That’s how we ended up like this. When you jump, it flutters its arms. That was all Miyamoto’s idea.”