Working on New Super Mario Bros Wii with a new development team, Shigeru Miyamoto found himself questioning the bizarreness of Mario's world with its floating bricks and underwater fireballs.
"This time around, there were lots of discussions about judging what was 'natural' and 'unnatural', from the perspectives of myself and the rest of the team," the creative mind behind the original Super Mario Bros and the series as a whole said in a new "Iwata Asks" dialog between himself and Nintendo's president.
For example, "when fire that's been flying through the air enters the water, it would be "natural" to see it sizzling and giving off foam, wouldn't it?"
"If that's not possible then we should make it so that you can't use fire in that area," he added. "But looking back over previous titles in the series, the people who made those games believed in the way things worked, and didn't question whether or not it was 'unnatural'. They just thought that doing it that way made it easier to play."
One of the new additions in New Super Mario Bros Wii is the Ice Flower which freezes enemies. This is one of the power ups that have seen lengthy discussions among the development team. Should frozen enemies float or fall to the ground? If they fall, should they "shatter" or not? And what happens if a frozen enemy is hit by a fireball? And so on..
