GameCube Advanced was lucky enough to join Nintendo's Pikmin 2 teleconference yesterday to discuss the launch of one of the more anticipated sequels for the GameCube this year. Although only select members of the press were invited to the event, we now bring the full transcript of the interview Q & A. Joining Nintendo's Tom Harlin and Bill Trinen are Takashi Tezuka and Shigefumi Hino, directing leaders of the project (NCL):

Biographies of Pikmin™ 2 Developers

TAKASHI TEZUKA
General Manager of EAD Software Designing Department
Entertainment Analysis & Development Division
Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Kyoto, Japan

Since joining Nintendo in 1984, Tezuka has worked as a designer on the Super Mario Bros.® and The Legend of Zelda® series and as producer on the Yoshi® and Animal Crossing™ series.

Tezuka was born in Osaka, Japan, and is a graduate of the Osaka University of Arts’ Design Department.

SHIGEFUMI HINO
Assistant Manager/Planner of EAD Software Designing Section
EAD Software Designing Department, Entertainment Analysis & Development Division
Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Kyoto, Japan

Since joining Nintendo in 1988, Hino has worked as the lead artist on Super Mario World® and Yoshi’s Story™; as lead artist and assistant game designer on Super Mario World® 2: Yoshi’s Island™ and as game designer on Pikmin™ and Pikmin™2.
Hino was born in Takasago, Japan, and is a graduate of the Osaka University of Arts’ Design Department.

And now, the full transcript:

Tom Harlin: Hi this is Tom Harlin from Nintendo of America. We want to welcome you all here today for our Pikmin 2 teleconference. We have the great honor to have with us today Mr. Tezuka and Mr. Hino, both from Nintendo Company Limited.. Mr. Tezuka has worked as producer on the game and Mr. Hino is the director, but they will tell you more about that in a moment.

Pikmin is obviously a sequel to the most innovative game of the year for 2001. It received the award from the AIAS. It received many other awards. So it's very exciting for Nintendo to be bringing this game back on Nintendo GameCube with such a great number of features that the original game didn't have, including new Pikmin, two-player cooperative, two-player battle, etcetera. I'm sure you've all had a chance to at least see demonstrations, if you've not had a chance to play the final game. And we'll allow you more time to ask about those particular features in a moment.

At this time I'd like to introduce Bill Trinen. He is from Nintendo of America. You've probably seen him on stage at E3 and other types of interviews. As a translator, he will translate for our guests at NCL. Bill also worked on the localization for Pikmin 2, so he is very familiar with the game. A lot of the great names that you can see in the game for the items that you pick up, you can thank Bill and some of the staff here for working with NCL so closely to determine great, humorous names for those items.

The format for today's call will be pretty straightforward. Both the speakers will provide a little bit of background on themselves and their role in Pikmin 2 and then we'll move directly into Q&A. So without much more of my babbling, we'll start out with introductions from Mr. Tezuka and Mr. Hino from NCL and we'll ask them to each introduce themselves now and provide a little bit of information on their role in the creation of Pikmin 2.

Takashi Tezuka: My name is Takashi Tezuka and in the development of Pikmin 2 I was involved on a producer level giving advice to the directors and the development team about gameplay and other elements. And that's all I have to say [laughs]. On Pikmin 1, I wasn't involved quite so much in the actual game development, but more kind of assisting Mr. Miyamoto in his work supervising the game development.

Shigefumi Hino: Hello, my name is Shigefumi Hino. I was one of two directors on Pikmin 2. We had two directors this time around. One was myself and the other was [Mr. Abe] from EAD. I was focused primarily on graphic design whereas [Abe] was focused on gameplay. I was very involved with the character elements in the game. And that's all.

Q: With the edition of Louie, how does this add to the complexity of the game?

Tezuka: In the original Pikmin there was only one playable character and now we have two that the player can control simultaneously. And really what that does is allow for greatly enhanced strategic elements in the gameplay. Players can now control character, set that character to a mission, and then take control of the second character, take a separate group of Pikmin and then begin working on that objective. And really what this allows us to do is increase the strategic element and allows the player to be more effective as they proceed through the game, and in that sense it provides the player more challenges and new excitement.

Q: Have there been any thoughts on Pikmin 3 for GameCube or perhaps for the DS?

Tezuka: Unfortunately we can't discuss any future development plans in detail here today, but obviously because the Pikmin brand and characters have been so well accepted, we do want to continue to take advantage of them and nurture that franchise to whatever extent we can.

Q: Much of the character art for the game is clay sculptures. Did you actually work in clay to create the characters?

Hino: Actually, all of those clay-looking models you see in the artwork were in fact sculpted in clay. We took those clay sculptures, took photos and scanned them to make digital versions of them and then combined the different individual clay sculptures into essentially collages, which became the final pieces of art.

Tezuka: One of the members of our illustration team, a fellow by the name of Yamaguchi, he actually was very passionate about doing this and worked very hard on creating the clay models and putting together the illustrations.

Q: Was the decision to do away with the 30-day time limit a result of public criticism?

Tezuka: With the original Pikmin our focus was on getting the player to try to escape from the planet within this limited time frame. The player was really challenged to try and work through the game within that 30-day time limit. This time what we intended to do from the very beginning was to create a game that would allow players the greater freedom to explore the world at their leisure, and take the amount of time that they want to get the know the world a little better. So that was our main focus and our main reason for removing the 30-day time limit. And we do listen to user feedback and look at ways to incorporate that in creating new experiences for the user. So on that side of things we did take some of that feedback into consideration as well.

Hino: One of the points that we want to stress most about Pikmin 2 is the fact that we have removed the 30-day time limit. In the original game we really wanted to create a challenge for players to strategize their way around the problems in puzzles within the time frame. Whereas this time around we really want people to be able to play the game they want, take the time they want, and really sit back and enjoy the world of the Pikmin to their heart's content. So I hope people will be looking forward to that.

And to be honest, although I think that Pikmin and Pikmin 2 are using the same game system, you're going to find in that playing those two games you're going to get very different experiences out of them. I would actually encourage people who played one game to also play the other because they will find that it is a completely different experience.

Q: For folks that have not experienced the first system, could you explain the 30-day time system and how that impacted gameplay?

Bill Trinen: The first game, and this game as well, feature an in-game timer. Where, because the Pikmin are very small creatures indigenous to the planet, they can't survive on the planet overnight because the larger nocturnal creatures will come out and consume them and eat them up. So the gameplay was centered around completing tasks during the day time and bringing your Pikmin back to your home base and flying into the upper atmosphere with them to keep them safe overnight. So while that system exists in Pikmin 2, in Pikmin 1 you would only have 30 game days to essentially collect all of the parts that were missing from your spaceship, which crash-landed on a planet, thereby forcing players to collect the parts within that time limit. In Pikmin 2 what they've done is removed the 30-day time limit so that players are free to play the game as long as they want. They've also added a new feature that includes underground caves, where a strong geomagnetic field underground essentially warps the space-time continuum and when you go underground into a cave time stops. So you can spend as much time playing underground without worrying about the day timer and then when you go back to the surface time resumes where you left off. So while the day-timer system does actually exist, you'll find that a single day can actually take much longer than it would in the original game. So on both those accounts the time system has changed pretty dramatically.

Q: How has Pikmin 2 been enhanced over Pikmin 1?

Hino: The Pikmin games have this very basic system where the player acts as a leader and gives the Pikmin tasks to complete. What we've done with Pikmin 2 is in addition to giving the player an additional leader character to control, we've added in new Pikmin colors. And while this doesn't necessarily increase the difficulty of the game, it increases the number of tools at the player's disposal to confront the tasks and challenges, the enemies and puzzles and what not, that they'll encounter in the world. It gives the player a higher degree of freedom to choose how they're going to face the problems or enemies that stand before them. We decided to try and make it more efficient and effective for the player to give these orders and give them more options, thus requiring from the player more leadership skills. And that's really the kind of feeling that we're shooting for: this idea that the player is really the leader of the Pikmin.

Q: Now that Pikmin 2 has been completed, any plans for handheld versions?

Tom Harlin: We haven't announced any plans for any future Pikmin games at this time. Although I think the creators really hope that everyone will love Pikmin 2 very much and will send many requests to Nintendo to make future Pikmin games.

Q: Pikmin 1 was critically received very well, but one critique of the game was its short length. Was there a conscious effort to make the sequel longer?

Tezuka: We did receive user feedback about the game length and this time we took some of that into consideration early on and realized that by removing the 30-day time limit that would actually increase the play time by giving the player the freedom to spend the time that they want exploring the world and completing the tasks that needed completing. in that sense, we did from the beginning look at ways to increase the volume and giving the users something more that they seemed to like very much.

Q: You have some battle modes in the game, which are welcomed. Any reason, though, that there is no cooperative mode to go through the main game?

Tezuka: We actually had wanted to include a two-player cooperative mode at one point, but looking at the game system and what some of our objectives were in the game, we decided instead to move the two-player into other areas of the game.

Hino: We did experiment with a two-player gameplay in the main game, but what we found was that if we were to design the entire single-player game around the possibility of a two-player cooperative mode, that would put limits on what we could do with the single-player game. Ultimately, based on those limits we decided that moving the multiplayer into a separate mode with the versus and cooperative maps, we could actually create a more interesting and fun single-player game.

Q: What have you done in the creation of the sequel to draw in gamers that are perhaps typically not interested in strategy-based games?

Hino: If you look at Pikmin 2 you'll see that the surface maps are very reminiscent of those in the original. That creates a similar style of play when you're on the surface of the planet. But with the addition of the caves in Pikmin 2, what happens is the player goes underground with a set number of Pikmin and they are no longer able to increase those Pikmin, removing some of the propagation aspects of the game. As they journey deeper underground, gradually they'll lose Pikmin in battle and the number of Pikmin that they have with them will drop. That makes the game feel much more like an action-oriented game than a strategy oriented one. I really think that Pikmin is a game that's very hard to categorize and put into a genre, but really I think it's one that has taken a lot of the strengths that Nintendo has, and a lot of what Nintendo has learned from the action games it's made in the past, and put them into one nice little package.

Tezuka: The nice thing that we've done with Pikmin 2 is that while we've added a lot of these action elements, we've also made the control aspects of the game simple enough that people who haven't been very good at a lot of the faster-paced action games in the past will be able to play the game and get to a point where they feel like they've reached the ending. In that sense, I think it's really a game that's broadened its audience over the first one.

Q: In Pikmin 2, what new improvement do you think is going to get gamers most excited?

Tezuka: One thing that we tried to do with both Pikmin games is really make the worlds feel like they're something very real, to the point that you could be playing Pikmin and stop and think that maybe there really are Pikmin running around in the world and doing these types of things somewhere beneath our feet without us knowing about it. One thing that we did to really improve upon that with Pikmin 2 that I think is a lot of fun, and should get people feeling excited and nostalgic, is that as you play though the game you'll notice some actual branded products in the game, with logo and markings that come from real-world products. Some of these are still in use today and some maybe you haven't seen for a few years. So in that sense I think it's going to be a lot of fun for people to play through the game, kind of exploring the planet of the Pikmin and then come across these real-world objects that will really stand out and that people will latch onto. I think we've really found a way to take this idea of the Pikmin being real and bring it to a new level.

Q: Any other Pikmin ads coming?

Tom Harlin: Overall Pikmin will be supported by $4 million in marketing in the US. There's obviously the TV commercial, which will run a pretty broad spectrum. There are also the cinema ads that you will see. There are a couple different options of that cinema ad, but one of them does include Pikmin. There have been two demo disc versions at retail that have included Pikmin, and a wide variety of some pretty cool POPs that are in store, as well as PR efforts, merchandising efforts, and inclusion on the Nintendo Street Team. So there has been a lot of support for Pikmin 2. There isn't a holiday promotion per se that has been announced that features Pikmin, but there has been a very strong marketing campaign so far and that marketing campaign is going to really ramp up in the next week as the game launches on August 30.

Q: Is the game designed to allow hardcore gamers to try and beat the entire thing, while letting novice players advance without clearing all of the hurdles?

Hino: Yes, that was one of our focuses. To give players the freedom to choose how they want to play the game. The first objective of the game, which is the primary objective when you first start off, is for the player to essentially collect money to repay the loan or debt that Olimar's company has fallen into. And so in trying to repay the debut, Captain Olimar and Louie go down to the planet on Pikmin 2 and start recovering treasures or doodads that you can find on the surface, and these get evaluated or praised for much they're worth.

For this, which is kind of the first part of the quest, the player will go through and they can choose how they want to repay that debt. You can go after the treasures or decide what treasures they want to get, whether you're choosing the more difficult ones or the easier ones. Or, in fact, you could just go underground, play through caves and bring back the corpses of insects and have those go against the debt. Whereas for the more advanced gamer there is the secondary goal of getting every treasure, and finding every item and enemy in the game, and that's definitely going to give players a very long and challenging game to play, should they decide to accomplish that task.

Q: How much development thought went into the Piklopedia trophy system in the game?

Hino: No, actually I haven't played Super Smash Bros. Melee so I didn't try to create the same type of system. Really the goal for that was for players to really value the treasures that they are collecting in the game. So the idea was to not only give them this option to go in and look at the treasures, but really to do it with a lot of flair and put some really nice polish on it. As well, give players a lot of text, essentially a very deep backstory for each item that they can go through and read and get a lot of enjoyment out of.

Tom Harlin: A quick nod to our localization team here. A lot of the names of the items themselves add a lot of humor and an adventure element to the game. I know that people internally, even though they may have a good pool of items, have tried to collect specific items to find out what the names are or to see if they can find all the names of the items. And some of the names of the items in the game are...

Bill Trinen: ... very funny [laughs]. The concept behind the items and their names and descriptions is that most of the items found on the surface are objects that to you and I would seem very normal, but a lot of humor in the game comes from the fact that Olimar and Louie are looking at these objects as visitors from another planet, and then trying to determine what precisely each object is. In that, we see some very humorous interpretations, which then lead to some very interesting and humorous names for objects. I think people who played the game can attest to it, but some of the writers on the team went all out and pretty much hog-wild in naming them.

Q: How have the graphics been altered to differentiate from the first game?

Hino: With Pikmin 2 we had much of the same development staff that we had on Pikmin 1, and we ended up going with a very similar image of what we wanted to do with the natural world in the game. Having the same staff made the design and development process a lot easier. One thing that we actually struggled with after the release of Pikmin 1 was that we found that when users were asked about how big they thought the Pikmin were, people have very, very different ideas ranging from just a couple of inches tall to three, five, six-feet tall or more. And so one thing we really wanted to do was because we created the game with the idea that the Pikmin are very small things that run around at the very lowest level of the environment, was to really stress that. We did that no so much by using technology, but by focusing in on the size of the Pikmin in relation to other objects in the world using a lot of the familiar branded items, and creating those in a very realistic way proportionate to the Pikmin and the other items. We wanted to really give people a sense of the micro-scale of the environment that they're in.

Q: Anything you'd like to add?

Hino: I really think one of the biggest strengths of Pikmin 2 is that we've removed the time limit from the game. We've also added larger maps and more than doubled the enemies of Pikmin 1 and more than doubled the items. So there's really a lot more to explore and there's no need to rush any more. Players are free to take their time exploring this larger world, and whether that's deciding which treasures to go after or which enemies to fight, or whether it's deciding to simply watching the shadows go by in the world of the Pikmin or sitting back and enjoying some of the music and the songs of the Pikmin, I think people are going to get a lot more enjoyment out of this game.

Tezuka: I really feel that the Pikmin series is something that we here at Nintendo on Mr. Miyamoto's teams have passionately worked to create as a new genre and really tried to innovate gaming. I really think that Pikmin is something that's different from other games both in the style of gameplay and how you classify it. Even the music in Pikmin 2 is something that you won't hear in other games. I don't even know how to classify it, but we have introduced this bizarre system whereby the Pikmin kind of create their own music as you play the game. Not only that, but we've also introduced these new creatures to the game. You can watch them move and see them react to the environment and to other Pikmin and how they go after the Pikmin, and you can watch their animations and what not. It really feels like the Pikmin world, although a videogame, is a real world. I think with Pikmin 2 we're going to see a lot of people who didn't play Pikmin 1 who might pick up and play this game and thereby have their interest in the Pikmin series piqued and go back to Pikmin 1, and vice versa. I'm really looking forward to seeing how people react to Pikmin 2 and seeing what it can do for the series overall.

Expect full coverage including a review on Pikmin 2 soon! GCA would also like to thank Golin Harris and Nintendo for once-again a very informative Q & A session.