The Gamer's Quarter

[Harveyjames]

Shigeru Miyamoto is 55 today! Let's celebrate by talking about some of the man's best games and discussing his contribution to videogames as a whole! Or, you could use this as an opportunity to tell us why you think he's overrated, and was never really all that good in the first place!

http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/theman/interviews/030703.shtml
Here's an university lecture Miyamoto gave in 2003 which is a rare example of Miyamoto not TOEING the company line and talking candidly about the videogames industry. It's from the last days before Iwata took over, when Miyamoto was primarily occupied by the E-Reader, GBA to GC connectivity and Stage Debut. What I call his 'old man puttering around in the shed' period.

[dessgeega]

jonathan mann - miyamoto

(and it's "toeing", not "towing".)
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[GSL]

He could have been pulling the company line somewhere...

[Lockeownzj00]

I love this man. He epitomizes everything I adore about Nintendo's philosophy and videogames. He's the Will Wright of console games--vibrant imagination, and he's not afraid to use it.

[dessgeega]

i have no idea how involved he's been in the actual planning and development of nintendo games since the 16-bit days, but the original mario bros., super mario bros., doki doki panic, legend of zelda and donkey kong are all pretty revelatory.
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[Dracko]

I don't know why so many people suck his dick. I honestly don't.

He's made a few great games in the past (Well, okay. Only The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros., though Lost Levels was far better) and arsed about, while getting credit for many others, which aren't even that good, just because he happened to produce them.

I suspect he's just plain marketable and been a staple in the industry because he's so old and gives off a playful child image.

Though that interview was fairly interesting.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

i don't really want to rehash the "what has miyamoto actually done" discussion, but i pretty much agree with dracko.

none of the games he's been associated with since the super famicom have had the grace of those earlier works, anyway.

i have a hard time pinning down exactly what his design philosophy is. the goals of the original mario and zelda and later ones seem pretty incompatible.
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[helicopterp]

I like Super Mario 64 a lot!

(That was pretty much only for the curmudgeon.)
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

[dessgeega]

[Harveyjames]

Right, but your boy Miyamoto oversaw the whole thing. He's not the guy in the trenches, but he's still calling the shots. Even in the Mario and Zelda games he didn't direct, it's his vision presiding over them, as evidenced by how the Twilight Princess staffers make constant references to how 'Miyamoto told me to change x' during their interviews.

[dessgeega]

it's a good thing miyamoto was there to catch x! the game would totally have been ruined.

he is a genius of our age!
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[Harveyjames]

Uh-huh.

Feel free to pick at any tiny details you like and ignore the broader discussion. It furthers the debate no end!

I just can't believe you didn't pick up on 'You have to realize that this shit just wasn't in games before Miyamoto' which probably isn't true.

In the interviews, the staff liken Miyamoto's changing of small elements ('x') to a game of Reversi - he changes this here, and something else over here, and before you know it everything's changed. He's 'upended the tea table' and made everyone remake the game in his vision before they even knew about it. This is all in the interviews, you can check it out for yourself if you want.

I don't know what I did to deserve the hostility and derision that seems to greet my every opinion on these boards but it's starting to grind me down a little.

[chompers po pable]

shut up.

just kidding harvey! what would the world be like without a bit of sarcasm and derision, though? boooooriiiiing.

edit - happy birthday, shiggy. regardless of how much/how little weight the guy pulls in development these days, he's still the guy behind the original SMB and Zelda. cheers!

how was that harvey, that was like 3 weeks worth of built up serotonin. now i'll be depressed and angry for months, again. ;- (

[dessgeega]

[Harveyjames]

You're forgiven!

I'll just deliver my closing statement on why Miyamoto is an important figure to me.

The image I've built up of Miyamoto through reading interviews is that he's a simple but hardworking man whose greatest strength is that he has always approached game design from a non-gamer's perspective. This is from the official biography that gets trotted out every time Miyamoto is profiled, but I'll trot it out once more:

[Lackey]

Mario is the worst example of that though. It's a rigidly linear, authorial, game. You have a time limit and you can only go in one direction. With Zelda I can kind of see that intent but with Mario? There's nothing in the game to suggest that it's about either exploring or playing, it exists solely as a test of skill. There are some strategic choices to be made, and it's fine for a skill-based game but I don't buy it as a playground in the least.

I think Miyamoto is a fine game designer though. Happy Birthday to him.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[helicopterp]

Lackey, have you read the "Breaking the Law of Miyamoto" article in the latest TGQ issue? It's really good and makes some points that counter what you just said.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

In Mario, there are all these different routes to take through the game, what with Warp Pipes and all. Climbing that secret beanstalk and finding yourself in the clouds really does seem kind of special the first time you do it. Like real exploration. The game does a very good job of feeling like a network of interconnected paths, which is some feat considering it's just a bunch of levels that go left to right, and the levels contain many secrets (invisible blocks etc.) that reward constant revisiting and experimentation.

There's this feeling I have when I play it that although I know about a lot of the hidden rooms and warps, some are going to be hidden from me forever. It still retains a sense of mystery. I stand by Mario as a good example.

[dessgeega]

and mario does a good job of teaching you how to play with it and how to explore. really, read jeremy's article, it's very good.
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[Nana Komatsu]

I tried very hard the other night to beat SMB3 (the GBA advance port) just to see his name in the credits as something other than Executive Producer since I haven't in a long time. I couldn't do it, but more because I didn't really plan ahead before I got to world 8.

[Lackey]

I admit to not having a lot of Mario experience since I always find the first few stages really off-putting and I never owned a nintendo as a child so I never had a reason to power through it.

I will read the article though. I had started it before but put it down.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Harveyjames]

SMB3 is all about the planning ahead!

[Lackey]

That's a good article. Makes me regret skimming anything Mario related.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |