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did you know in earlier versions of donkey kong country cranky kong was actually a nice old man and not mean-spirited at all he'd say things like diddy you young pup boy i can't believe how much you've grown instead of things like you wouldn't know a good game if you were in it another change that the first level of the game jungle hijinks was originally named jungle japes the name jungle japes was later used as the name of the first level for donkey kong 64. donkey kong country 2 had its fair share of changes as well it was originally going to be a virtual boy game the virtual boy version didn't get very far in development only getting as far as a working title screen development shifted to the super nintendo when it became clear that the virtual boy was a flop the german version of donkey kong country 2's instruction booklet shows a character named mr x along with some text stating no one knows him or has seen him anywhere before mr x can also be seen on the front cover of the game's official german strategy guide and in issue 76 of nintendo power mr x never appears in the game and there are two theories as to why the first theory is that he was intended to be a boss for the gloomy gulch area but was replaced with creepy crow and the second theory is that he's an unused earlier version of the enemy cackle as both have no legs appear to be undead pirates and have the same type of sword the acclaimed donkey kong country track aquatic ambience had trouble being implemented and might not have made it into the game composer david wise was experimenting with ways to maximize use of the super nintendo's limited amount of ram when making the track and ran into multiple issues wise said that the track was reprogrammed several times over the course of five weeks but that it was ultimately worth the effort the equally acclaimed donkey kong country two tracks tiggerbrush symphony was almost scrapped as well the track was originally composed as a follow-up to aquatic ambience but a decision was made to not include any serene water levels like what the first donkey kong country had the track was reused for the game's bramble levels and according to wise it seemed to fit and was a good juxtaposition to the difficulty in negotiating through such a hard stage of the game [Music] during development of donkey kong 64 the team at rare encountered a game-breaking bug the game would randomly crash if played on a standard n64 but for whatever reason the game would run correctly if the n64's ram expansion pack was plugged in rare couldn't find a way to remove the bug and made the decision to ship a free ram expansion pack with every copy of the game this was the only way they could stop the glitch and according to developer chris marlow it ended up costing them a fortune there are also several changes during donkey kong 64's development one of the changes is that the kong's weapons were originally real guns opposed to the comical fruit and nut-based weaponry scene in the final game it's thought these changes were made to avoid controversy and ensure the game received a child friendly rating early screenshots of the game also show that donkey kong's treehouse originally had a shower stall in it with a poster of banjo and kazooie on the side interestingly donkey kong appeared on a picture in banjo's house in the beta build of banjo-kazooie but was replaced in the final version with an image of banjo's sister tutti banjo banjo-kazooie and dk-64 have more connections the text ice key can be found in dk64's rom the ice cube was one of banjo-kazooie's stop-and-swap items this could mean rare had plans of using the feature for donkey kong 64 as well as the banjo-kazooie games the donkey kong 64-level fungi forest was originally planned as a level in banjo-kazooie the level used to have the slightly different name fungus forest and wasn't implemented in banjo-kazooie because of time constraints the level was finished and put into dk64 along with the level's original background music the background music for dk island also came from banjo-kazooie's beta and the track was originally titled lost part of the game's famous dk rap was later censored a line of the song that refers to chunky kong saying but this kong's one hell of a guy the word hell was replaced with heck in later versions of the rap one last piece of audio trivia for dk-64 is that the game's composer grant kirkhope provided the voice of donkey kong nintendo have since reused the samples of grant's voice in mario golf toadstool tour mario kart double dash mario vs donkey kong the game boy advanced versions of donkey kong country and even an e3 demo version of donkey kong jungle beat there's also a track in a killer instinct arcade promotional video that sounds almost identical to the track for funky's flight in donkey kong country since the two games were developed around the same time this either means that killer instinct borrowed the track from donkey kong country or that the track was originally intended for killer instinct the opposite happened with banjo pilot as it actually started off as a diddy kong game called diddy kong pilot it was reworked during development as rare were acquired by microsoft and no longer had the rights to use nintendo characters early versions of the game even had playable mario characters like mario peach yoshi wario bowser and toad the characters were removed in later versions and only donkey kong characters were playable rare had plans of including a character named redneck kong but he was replaced with candy this was likely done to avoid [Music] controversy did you know the japanese release of donkey kong country has many differences from the international release and these differences can be seen the moment you start up the game the japanese version has a completely redone title screen with artwork taken right from the japanese box art unlike the international version's tile title screen which only allowed for a total of 16 colors per 8x8 tile the japanese title screen is rendered in an 8-bit color depth mode this allowed for 256 colors on screen resulting in a much higher quality image this version also adopted changes to several enemies in all other versions of the game the rock croc enemies are invulnerable to any sort of move but in the japanese version they can be killed by dk's hand slap attack when curled up into a ball interestingly this would later be possible in the game boy advance version of dkc another change is that it now takes diddy kong 2 hits to kill manky kongs the first hit will make manky kong flinch with a single frame of his death animation pushing diddy back much like with the clumping army enemies the japanese version also has numerous changes made to levels most of them making the game easier with things such as extra dk barrels added and enemies that were either repositioned or removed altogether a rather obscure change that was made is in the blackout basement level the japanese level stays dark for 46 frames and is illuminated for 77 frames compared to the international version which is 62 frames for both light and dark these changes are extremely unusual as it's often japanese developed games that are made easier when brought to the west the map icon leading to dk's treehouse is also removed in this version likely because it seemed unnecessary as the player can't access that part of the map anyways donkey kong also has several animations that went unused including an alternate victory animation when he wins a bonus game or defeats a boss and an attacking animation strikingly similar to the one dk uses in donkey kong 64. cranky kong has a walking animation that was scrapped but would later be recycled in the gba remake of dkc cranky also has a large amount of unused level advice and would originally give tips for nearly every level in the game while we're on the subject of cranky many fans are unsure about how he relates to donkey kong this is mostly due to different contradicting sources the donkey kong country series states that cranky is the current dk's grandfather but in donkey kong 64 cranky refers to dk as his lazy good-for-nothing son and it seems as though rare wanted to maintain consistency with this statement as one of the head writers of the game lee loveday stated that the current dk is in fact donkey kong jr grown up and any statements that say cranky as his grandfather were to be ignored though given lee loveday's sense of humor some fans aren't sure whether to take this seriously dinky kong would later become kitty kong's japanese name and much like diddy kitty went through several different names before his was finalized some of the names suggested were baby kong dj kong and tiny kong the name tiny kong would be given to another kong character introduced a few years later the time of microsoft's acquisition of rare the studio had three known donkey kong games in development as rare no longer had the rights to use nintendo characters after the buyout all three games were being retooled to feature rare's own ips donkey kong coconut crackers became its mr pants and diddy kong pilot became banjo pilot but the one title that never saw release in any form was donkey kong racing for over a decade information about this game was limited as it didn't get very far in development but recently a number of details have surfaced about it as well as its retooled iteration saberman stampede in february 2014 a neogaf member under the alias shiggy posted several pieces of artwork from unreleased rare titles two of these games were donkey kong racing and the game dk racing was turned into saberman stampede the concept art for donkey kong racing reveals that cranky kong and lanky kong were going to be playable characters and that traditional go-karts were considered at one point during development almost two weeks following the artwork leaks more information about these titles were released in an interview with former rare employee lee musgrave who is the lead designer for stampede and who also created donkey kong racing's trailer he talked about how donkey kong racing wouldn't limit the player to a single animal saying that you would jump between different sized animals with different properties during a race and when the game was reworked as saberman stampede how many extra features were added to the initial design over the course of 18 months saberman stampede went from being strictly a racer to a more open world adventure in the vein of diddy kong racing and one of the key mechanics of the game would be raising the animals you rode this mechanic would eventually take center stage as the project continued to evolve to the point where musgrave described it as a cute version of grand theft auto set in africa due to lack of focus from the team and the fact that while it had some interesting mechanics was missing other important features such as a story the game was eventually cancelled ending development on what started out as a donkey kong themed racer musgrave is quoted in another interview saying i still look back to the early racing game design and think we could have done something great with that [Music] shortly after rare finished work on the gba port of donkey kong country 3 they thought about making an all new dkc for the nintendo ds as they felt like they had a good amount of experience with handhelds after porting the trilogy however it was merely a thought they had and they decided that making an all-new game on hardware they were still learning about wouldn't be the best idea choosing to tread familiar ground by porting diddy kong racing instead also considering that rare was owned by the competition nintendo may not have felt comfortable having them revive a franchise they themselves owned eventually donkey kong country 4 would become a reality in the form of donkey kong country returns which was released exactly 16 years after the very first dkc both games were released in north america on november 21st and the games that made up the trilogy would also be released in late november the newest addition to the series tropical freeze was slated for a november release in 2013 but was pushed back to february 21st of the following year the release date still holds some significance however as 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the donkey kong country franchise [Music] did you know similar to how cranky kong was an aged up take on the original donkey kong diddy began as a redesign of donkey kong jr in 2015 rare designer greg males shared pictures from a book titled donkey kong and the golden bananas over twitter showing some early concepts for donkey kong country one page shows diddy while he was still proposed as an update to junior but nintendo felt this redesign was too different to what came before they asked rare to either keep junior's old look or to make this new design an entirely new character rare felt the design fit their update to donkey kong's world and made him a new kong after a few naming attempts they settled on the name diddy a slang term for small in some parts of the uk diddy's final design was done by rare artist kevin bayless who he reached out to for further details bayless wanted a friendlier looking design in contrast to donkey kong's more ill-tempered look he also gave diddy a tail so he could grab onto objects or even use it as a spring diddy's shirt and hat were added to make him stand out from the greens and browns of the backgrounds and were colored red to match up with dk's tie the clothing idea also came from a series of uk commercials for tea brand pg tips where chimpanzees were dressed in various clothes the chimps were provided by toy cross zoo located very close to rare and is also where the team gained inspiration for other dk characters diddy was made to serve as a second hit for the player one that wouldn't get in the way for country the team wanted the game's screen to be as clutter free as possible taking inspiration from mario's changing in size male said diddy represented a visual health bar as well as making the player not feel alone on their journey as the series progressed player 2 became more integral to the gameplay than just soaking up a hit during development of donkey kong country 2 many names were brainstormed for its potential title possible names ranged from diddy kong country and kremlings the new batch to diddy kong in space even though he's not and diddy's quest for a decent name for his game the final title became diddy's conquest a pun on the term conquest that also referenced diddy stepping into the limelight many fans mistakenly refer to it as diddy kong's quest though early footage of the game shows it did take on that title for a short time diddy's character design was still receiving some tweaks even at this point nintendo veteran shigeru miyamoto and some of his staff sent sketches of logo ideas for diddy and dixie's hats though rare used none of them instead they inscribed the nintendo logo on diddy's hat and gave a rare pin to dixie though dixie's pin disappeared after rare was sold to microsoft the nintendo branding has stuck with diddy to this day this game also marked the debut of the yellow star pattern on diddy's shirt though these changes wouldn't be seen in game until the nintendo 64 era speaking of the n64 diddy kong racing wasn't a ditty centered game until very late in development in the months leading to its release the game was known as proam 64. an indirect update to the rc pro-am series that featured timber the tiger in the lead role banjo-kazooie was planned to be rare's big holiday title for 1997 but was delayed to the following summer to reach its full potential this left rare in a bit of a bind suddenly pro-am was their christmas game and they weren't sure if the brand was strong enough to grab people's attention the team decided to rebrand the game using diddy kong though nintendo gave them the choice to pick either diddy or donkey kong for the lead role in an interview with nintendo life artist lee musgrave said nintendo enjoyed the fact that we chose diddy kong over donkey kong i think that it was us trying to build on the fact that diddy was ours and dk was theirs the team then changed a few things around to attach it to the new ip better with musgrave admitting it was a bit of a rush job having little competition in its release window diddy kong racing was the center of attention for nintendo's marketing it sold nearly 5 million copies and stands as one of the top 10 best-selling games for the n64 there were several attempts to create a follow-up to diddy kong racing with each one failing to release as intended if at all following rare sale to microsoft diddy kong pilot was retooled to banjo pilot and donkey kong racing was cancelled out right later around april 2004 studio climax created a gamecube pitch called diddy kong racing adventure a project that wasn't publicly known until november 2016 when gaming archivist andrew borman obtained the prototype and published a video on it like the original it would have featured an adventure mode complete with boss battles and multiple vehicle choices a roster 14 was planned and climax hoped to use the existing cast plus characters from banjo-kazooie and conquer in the event a character was unavailable a kong family member would take their place each character would have also had their own special moves such as timber unleashing a sonic wave roar attack and tiptup using a ring of turtle shells other proposed features included weather plus day and night settings several multiplayer modes and the ability to change vehicles mid-race an idea similar to donkey kong racing's animal mechanic the prototype was shown to nintendo but they passed on it one likely reason is that the rights to diddy kong racing are split between nintendo and rare and it may have been seen as too much of a legal hassle diddy made his debut in the mario series with mario golf toadstool tour he only started appearing in non-rare nintendo games after the two companies parted ways further showing that despite nintendo's ownership diddy was treated as a rare property before then donkey kong jr would appear in spin-off games and it may have stayed that way had rare not left early icons for mario kart double dash reveal that junior was planned for the game before diddy took his place diddy also didn't have his own trophy in super smash brothers melee whereas junior did as well as dixie kong and king k rool diddy would later become part of the smash series starting with brawl making him the first and only western character to be playable as of smash wii u and 3ds during rare's time with donkey kong programmer chris sutherland provided the voice for diddy his samples were reused in several later games with the most recent being mario golf world tour for 3ds where they were used alongside diddy's current voice katsumi suzuki diddy kong is also playable in more donkey kong country games than donkey kong himself has been did you know while official nintendo consoles found their way into china in the 1980s often by way of hong kong they were incredibly expensive to chinese consumers at the time consequently many chinese fans first memories of nintendo began with one of the many chinese famicom knockoffs one of the most popular famicom bootlegs was the subor video game system also known as hong baiji or the red and white machine these clone systems were so prolific that superstar jackie chan himself endorsed subor's line known as the little tyrant this was a series of computer keyboards marketed to parents as study aids to teach children programming in spite of this the little tyrants came with built-in famicom or super famicom clone systems complete with cartridge slots and knockoff controllers regardless subor held an estimated 80 percent of the gaming market in china in the 1990s and with the help of their famicom clones they earned revenue upwards of 1 billion won this model would not last however following parental outcry that video games were destroying the minds of the nation's youth china's government stepped in and passed the feedback regarding the launch of special operational video game arcades bill in june 2000. despite the bill's name seeming to target arcades it also addressed video game consoles stating the manufacturing and selling of any electronic gaming equipment plus its parts and accessories headed to china will be stopped immediately the import of electronic game equipment plus its parts and accessories through other forms of trade is strictly limited this ruling forever changed the gaming landscape in china leading many chinese consumers to switch to pc gaming in place of consoles nevertheless unlicensed famicom games continued to be developed and sold through china's black market well into the 2000s examples include harry's legend a game loosely based on harry potter and the philosopher's stone and final fantasy vii a complete 8-bit d-make of the playstation classic nintendo also refused to give up and decided to bank on a loophole as it turned out while chinese law banned consoles it didn't specify exactly what a video game console was nintendo entered a joint venture with chinese american software developer wei yen create the company iq limited in order to circumvent regulations the company released the iq player in 2003 to avoid breaking the law the iq player housed all of its hardware within the controller itself and connected directly to the television this allowed it to be marketed as a handheld plug-and-play gaming system rather than a video game console although it was released after the nintendo gamecube the iq player was essentially a handheld nintendo 64. the iq player sold for just 598 won or roughly 72 us dollars at the time according to late president of nintendo satori iwata this was intentional stating to reach a wide range of people in china especially those inland who are not as rich as those in coastal areas we thought we needed to deliver a cheaper console the iq player came pre-installed with dr mario 64 and included demos for super mario 64 star fox 64 wave race 64 and the legend of zelda ocarina of time these demos were timed and became permanently locked after running out the clock in an effort to curb the rampant piracy plaguing china's video game industry the iq player didn't use cartridges whatsoever to get more games consumers had to take their iq player's rewritable memory card to an iq depot kiosk there they could purchase and download games for around 48 1 or just under 6 each later gamers could also directly connect their iq player to the internet and buy games online via the iq at home service similar to nintendo's virtual console while the card could only hold a limited amount of data at a time it stored the user's download history allowing them to re-download purchases free of charge allegedly nintendo intended to bring more features such as online multiplayer to the iq player as well but these plans never materialized only 14 games were ultimately released for the iq player from classics like mario kart 64 and paper mario to more obscure titles like cinnamon punishment and custom robo as each iq player was the controller games such as super smash brothers could only be played in multiplayer mode through the use of the iq family package the device essentially served as a multi-tap allowing up to three additional iq swim controllers to join in on the fun the final game released on the iq player was animal forest or animal crossing as it's best known in the west the title came out on june 1st 2006 just over five months before the nintendo wii's launch in north america interestingly the back of the iq player's box featured screenshots of the legend of zelda majora's mask but the game was never officially released in china as every single game had to be approved by the chinese government before it could be legally sold it's speculated majira's mask's dark themes may have led to the game being rejected estimates vary on how well the iq player sold but it never became the runaway success that nintendo had hoped today the iq player remains something of a collector's item but it's also used by speedrunners for its quicker scrolling text and load times compared to the original nintendo 64. this wasn't the only difficulty nintendo faced within the chinese market although iwata announced plans to release the nintendo wii in china by 2008 the console was never officially released in the country whether the chinese government blocked nintendo's efforts or nintendo simply gave up is unknown nevertheless the wii was popular in china's black market and spawned a host of knock-offs such as the v a plug-and-play gaming system marketed as an exercise machine nintendo didn't abandon the chinese market however and continued to release special iq branded versions of the game boy advance as well as the sp and micro as the gba systems were handheld rather than gaming consoles the iq game boys remained largely unchanged from their japanese and western counterparts iwata had high expectations for the iq gameboy line and hoped nintendo could use them to break into the chinese market within three to four years this was not to be as only eight games were ever released for the iq game boy in china that said evidence exists that more games such as mario and luigi's superstar saga had also been planned for release nintendo tried yet again with iq versions of the nintendo ds ds lite and dsi curiously while iqds games are region locked the iqds itself can play ds titles from around the world this is a handy feature as only 6 iqds games were ever released oddly enough a chinese localized version of big brain academy was featured in trailers for the iq lite but for whatever reason never made it to the stores nintendo waited on the 3ds in china only releasing an iq version of the nintendo 3ds xl however the iq 3ds xl's library fared even worse than the ds as the only games released for the system were mario kart 7 and super mario 3d land both of which came pre-installed the system also lacked the ability to access the nintendo eshop the iq3ds xl was likely hurt by its high price point of 1 1699 won or roughly 270 us dollars especially in comparison to the nintendo 3ds xl which could be purchased in hong kong for about 225 us dollars and had access to a larger library in 2014 china officially lifted its ban on video game consoles while sony and microsoft left at the chance to officially enter the chinese market nintendo had other ideas in an announcement that left investors scratching their heads iwata stated that rather than release the wii u in china nintendo would develop new machines for the country instead iwata declared we want to make new things with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have the product and price balance must be made from scratch meanwhile then president of nintendo of america reggie fizzame remained neutral on the matter when asked if the wii u would ever make it to china reggie replied china certainly is a market we're looking hard at in order to be effective in china you need the government to have a posture that is encouraging of our form of entertainment we need a value proposition that makes sense for the consumer base and thirdly you need content that's going to appeal to the consumer base when you see that we've got all three we'll be in a market like china sadly nothing came to fruition and neither the wii u nor a new iq system have been released in china the big n hasn't given up on china though in a bizarre move nintendo partnered with nvidia and aishiyi to bring a selection of wii titles to the nvidia shield in china in late 2017 chinese gamers could experience super mario galaxy the legend of zelda twilight princess new super mario brothers wii and punch out in 1080p or 68.1 or 10 us dollars each rather than port the games for the nvidia shield directly nintendo and nvidia created their own wii emulator instead digital foundry writer thomas morgan praised the emulator as a long way beyond what the excellent dolphin achieves nintendo really knows its own hardware and has clearly collaborated closely with nvidia in getting this release to run as well as it does in spite of nintendo's efforts their nvidia shield games only manage to sell a combined 22 760 copies as of march 2019 in comparison these games sold over 51 million copies combined worldwide on the wii more recently the iq website was quietly updated to redescribe the company as an official subsidiary of nintendo focused on handling the development and localization of nintendo's switch games after this and other mounting evidence nintendo's current president shuntaro furukawa officially announced a partnership with tencent holdings limited to release the switch in china furukawa isn't as optimistic as iwata once was admitting in the past our dedicated video game systems like the nintendo ds and nintendo 3ds were sold in china under the brand of iq limited but we cannot say these were a great success with that in mind we decided to work closely with tencent to do business in china we recognized that the chinese market is vast and attractive but looking forward we don't expect our video game business in china to easily expand this is not a short-term plan but something we want to work on steadily over multiple years since then local officials in the chinese province of guangdong have approved tencent's request to sell the switch with a test version of new super mario bros u deluxe news of this development caused nintendo's stock to soar but it remains to be seen if the switch's wild popularity in the rest of the world will translate to china [Music] did you know pikmin was not inspired by shigeru miyamoto's garden every nintendo fan has heard the origin story of pikmin where miyamoto was inspired by watching ants in his garden however in a 2011 interview on japanese tv miyamoto admitted that wasn't actually true the ant story was just a marketing gimmick a simple way of explaining the concept of a completely new type of game in reality the creation process was much more complicated for the first year of pikmin's development the game didn't include pikmin or any creatures resembling ants at all instead it starred two primitive life forms called adam and eve who had a ball for a body two eyes and a nose miyamoto stated at the beginning the idea was just to look at their life i thought it was an interesting idea watch their life was the theme give them love or make them fight act like god depending on the decisions they could make a nest and have children players would watch on as adam and eve protected their village from dinosaurs and wooly mammoths if successful they'd breed and expand their village footage of that early prototype was never made public but based on the developer's description it sounds like a prehistoric version of simcity on a smaller more intimate scale the developers eventually broadened the game to focus on 10 or 20 life forms instead of just two but miyamoto still had the mario 128 tech demo floating around in his imagination so he ordered for there to be over 100 creatures the scale grew and grew until the prototype was made up of several villages with the player wanting as many villagers to survive as possible but if some died in the struggle the game would continue a player character who later became olimar was added as a more interesting way of having a cursor the creatures who ultimately became the pikmin were first introduced as weapons the villager used as projectiles at this point in development the game wasn't set in a microscopic world according to miyamoto the villagers were comparable to primitive man and the pikmin weapons were as big as cats eventually the developers went to miyamoto's neighborhood to snap photos of forests and caves to use for the game's background and it was at that point someone suggested they make the villagers behave more like ants the idea was greenlit and the game was set on a new trajectory eventually the pikmin creatures supplanted the villagers and the project evolved into the game we know today this is where miyamoto came up with the fake story about his eureka moment watching ants in his garden years later miyamoto also admitted he drew some inspiration from mule a 1983 atari game where players used dozens of robotic mules to extract resources from an alien planet mule even had mountain wampus players could hunt for extra resources similar to how iridescent flint beetles and pikmin reward players with pellets and nectar at some point in development adam and eve's names were changed to picky the japanese measure word for animals for example japanese people might say i have two peaky cats or three peaky dogs when the plant creatures replaced the villagers they took the name piki for themselves but nintendo ran into complications with the trademark so they ended up changing the name to pikmin there were quite a few changes late in the game's development pre-release footage shows olimar using his whistle to pluck pikmin out of the ground but miyamoto thought the mechanic made harvesting too quick and easy so he removed it two months before the game was finished however the whistle pluck feature is still hidden in the game's internal data and you can even unlock it in the final game using cheat codes and despite miyamoto's reservations the mechanic did eventually make its way into pikmin 2 as the pluck-a-phone the world originally featured a lot more puzzles but miyamoto felt they made pikmin feel too much like a game rather than a living breathing world so he ended up removing a lot of them as well multiplayer was originally planned with shigeru telling nintendo power the original idea was based on red pikmin vs blue pikmin a few unfinished two-player stages can even be found in the game's data references to a multiplayer option for the main campaign are also hidden in the data but the mode was never finished according to miyamoto there was another mode that didn't make the cut in the release version if the player fails to collect at least 25 ship parts within the 30-day time limit you get the game's bad ending with olimar's oxygen supply down to zero he's forced to launch his unfinished rocket into space but takeoff fails and the rocket plummets back down to the pikmin planet the bad ending was once meant to trigger a new mode featuring olimar's ghost where the player was forced to relive olimar's memories originally there was going to be more emphasis on replayability with fans expected to play pikmin from start to finish several times to experience all three endings but ultimately olimar's ghost mode never got made instead it was replaced with a cut scene showing the pikmin rescuing olimar from his crashed ship and turning him into a pikmin after the game launched in 2001 miyamoto challenged his team to ride the wave of momentum and develop pikmin 2 in just a single year but development ended up taking almost 3 years the massive delay was partly due to staff being temporarily shifted over to wind waker which was already experiencing delays of its own but the main reason pikmin 2 took as long as it did came down to quality control when miyamoto stopped by mid-development to see what the developers had made so far he thought the project was way too similar to pikmin 1. he was so dissatisfied with the game's quality that he ordered the team to change direction which had a significant impact on the release date just like the first game the pikmin team spent some time tinkering with a multiplayer campaign in the sequel but once again ended up scrapping it the game's director shiga fumihino explained why in a 2004 interview saying we did experiment with two-player gameplay in the campaign but we came to the conclusion that designing the entire single-player game around the possibility of a second player joining in would put limits on what we could do with the campaign ultimately we decided to implement multiplayer separately by creating verses and cooperative maps when pikmin 2 was released around the world a few dozen treasures were changed in different regions for example in japan the time capsule had a picture of a cat inside and the orboreal frippery was changed to a red maple leaf in europe probably because some fans mistook the original design for a marijuana leaf when pikmin 1 and 2 were re-released on wii years later they were updated with new motion controls graphical enhancements and an improved save system but according to shigefumihino the pikmin team discussed adding even more enhancements additional enhancements could have made the re-releases into something like a pikmin 1-2 deluxe but hino said nintendo later told the pikmin team both games should be released on wii as soon as possible so updates and enhancements were kept to a minimum when the original pikmin was in development miyamoto told his team that the next mario is pikmin but after the game's release sales turned out to be a massive disappointment it only managed to sell a little over a million copies and pikmin 2 sold even less than that for comparison's sake mario sunshine sold over 6 million copies and even wind waker which nintendo considered a commercial failure sold more than 3 million as a result pikmin 3 ended up pretty low on nintendo's list of priorities development on pikmin 3 consisted of just five team members conducting experiments on various hardware including on game boy advance and nintendo ds in a 2013 interview he specifically mentioned a ds prototype that was never made public although we do have some idea what pikmin ds looked like because nintendo filed a patent for it in 2005. about three years before miyamoto announced a new pikmin game was even in development the patent shows the player controlling groups of pikmin by circling them with the stylus ordering them to kill enemies and carrying their carcasses back to the onion the patent also shows pikmin carrying pellets and mentions picking flowers in short it depicts a handheld version of the traditional pikmin experience however miyamoto described it as a new type of pikmin game so it seems there was more to pikmin ds than what's revealed in the patent unfortunately it was never lit for full-scale production instead the handheld pikmin game fans ended up getting was hey pikmin which didn't even manage to sell half a million copies and garnered an average review score of just 69 after the game boy advance and nintendo ds testing miyamoto's team also experimented with pikmin 3 on 3ds then for quite a while they planned to release the game on wii but it wasn't until the wii u came along that the small team was expanded to around 50 developers according to miyamoto the wii u's hd resolution was his inspiration to kick production into high gear since it'd finally show each individual pikmin with much greater detail he also said nintendo franchises like zelda wouldn't have much to gain on a future 4k console but 4k could be a huge benefit for the pikmin series the more clearly you can see each pikmin the more you care about them and the more anguish you feel when your mistakes get them killed during pikmin 3's development miyamoto had the debuggers make sure the game could be completed without losing a single pikmin in his mind pikmin's sort of a mix between f-zero and saving private ryan telling japanese outlet for gamer that pikmin can be more heartbreaking than a war movie in saving private ryan a world war ii general orders a team of soldiers to march across german-occupied france to save just one man several of them die in the process which miyamoto likens to the player trekking across pnf404 at sunset to save one lost pikmin like the general in the film it's up to the player to decide those types of ethical questions for themselves miyamoto also produced the f-zero series and hopes fans will think of his racing games when they're playing pikmin 3. competing for the highest scores and quickest times by replaying again and again especially in mission mode about 30 percent of the team's ideas didn't end up making it into the game like online versus mode miyamoto said we gave up on that we wanted to include it in pikmin 3 but we would have had to make other sacrifices to include it so we've decided to focus on the single player and local multiplayer aspects which are really fun but unfortunately no online multiplayer for pikmin 3. a fourth playable character codenamed d in concept art shown at e3 2012 was also scrapped but even before d was created and cut miyamoto originally planned to include olimar he said actually when we showed pikmin 3 at last year's e3 there were four captains but when you have four playable characters it becomes too complicated to switch between them so in the end we decided to reduce it to just three captains even though i made that decision myself up until the middle of development i still thought olomar would be playable olimar wasn't a playable character in pikmin 3 on wii u but he did make it back into the game seven years later along with louis in pikmin 3 deluxe's side stories but what about the question fans have been wondering for years where is pikmin 4 when gamespot asked miyamoto in 2016 he told them when we're in development we have to create a list of priorities and it has been hard to kind of fit pikmin 4 into that list then a year later he told eurogamer i've been told not to share anything about this from pr but i can tell you it is progressing after the disappointing sales of pikmin 1 and 2 a third game was such a low priority it took nintendo almost a decade to finish and just like its predecessors the third game barely managed to sell a million copies as a result pikmin 4 is probably still in its early days the same way pikmin 3 spent 5 years with a skeleton crew experimenting with different ideas with any luck future hardware with higher resolutions might reignite miyamoto's enthusiasm or outstanding sales of pikmin 3 deluxe could provide nintendo justification to devote their resources failing those two possibilities fans eagerly anticipating pikmin 4 might be in store for another long winter ahead [Music] did you know the original kid icarus was almost developed entirely by a single person game developer toru osawa approached the higher ups at nintendo with a proposal for a new action game even though osawa was an unproven rookie his proposal was approved although he had a positive start osawa began to feel neglected by his co-workers and ended up creating the game's design document and sprite single-handedly yoshio sakamoto another designer at nintendo finished work on metroid while kid icarus was in development he returned from vacation to find osawa alone slaving away on kid icarus in the middle of summer realizing that the project stood no chance for meeting his december deadline sakamoto brought the metroid team on board to finish the title and since both games used the same engine the metroid team were an actual fit the bulk of the game was created during a torturous work cycle spanning several months staff members worked round the clock and even slept on cardboard boxes in the office during all-nighters the building's heating was turned off after business hours to conserve energy making autumn nights particularly harsh osawa also got married during this time and requested three days off for his honeymoon but the game was so far behind schedule that he was called back into work on the second day production continued through december and didn't end until just three days before the game was planned to release despite not considering it complete osawa was forced to submit the game for printing he was simply told if this doesn't have any bugs it's finished the north american version of kid icarus was released several months later and received some extra polish this included a staff role at the end of the game and coloured backgrounds for the game's ending cutscenes both versions include the same four basic endings where pit is transformed into various forms ranging from a lowly farmer to a fully fledged angel depending on the player's performance the us release includes a fifth ending not found in the japanese version where pitt receives a kiss from the goddess palutena similarly the japanese release also features its own fifth ending where pitt is transformed into a spec nose kid icarus was released on the famicom disk system in japan making it technically superior to the western version most notably the disk system version had three save slots for players to use and also tracked high scores the nes version instead used a password system to save progress there's a hidden feature in both versions where the player can haggle with the shopkeeper to lower the prices of items on the disk system this was done by talking into the controller's built-in microphone nes players would instead have to press both the a and b buttons on a second controller the 3d classics re-release of kid icarus on the nintendo eshop was based on the disc system version and included its enhanced features several aspects of kid icarus's design were inspired by osawa's own life the overall setting and enemies came from his interest in greek mythology and the specnos enemy was inspired by the prominent nose of the game's composer hirokazu tanaka the game's eggplant wizard was spawned from asaw's own love of eggplants but was also a reference to the eggplant men in wrecking crew there was also a type of enemy introduced in kid icarus known as tomatoes which bear a striking resemblance to metroids in both design and behavior the name komato actually comes from kamitoro idol meaning metroid child the game's sequel kid icarus of myths and monsters was released in 1991 in north america and europe however it wasn't released in japan until 2012. japan's first chance to play the game was through the 3ds virtual console following the release of myths and monsters the series was dormant for almost 20 years although no games were published during this time there was at least one attempt to revive the series for a year starting in march 2007 game developers at factor 5 worked on a grittier more mature reimagining of the series the project had the code name icarus and was planned to be a third person shooting game with flight combat elements little progress was made and nintendo was seemingly unsatisfied with the direction factor 5 were taking and decided against turning factor 5's project into a full game after the release of super smash bros brawl in 2008 former nintendo president satoru iwata took brawl's director mashihira sakurai out for dinner iwata revealed that nintendo had been working on a new handheld system and asked sakurai to help develop a game to show it off sakurai immediately began brainstorming ideas for the game and settled on a concept for a shooter game he wanted the player to engage in air battles on the way to a destination which would then turn into a ground battle initially conceived as a new franchise sakurai wondered if the game should be part of an existing series iwata told him to do whatever he please said the decision was made to retool the project as a revival of an older property one of the franchises sakurai considered was star fox however he wanted flight to be shown from multiple angles with the character being able to turn around or even fly sideways sakurai felt this dynamic movement didn't fit star fox presumably because the series uses less agile machines and sticks to a single perspective during gameplay kid icarus a story of an angel who couldn't fly seemed to be a perfect fit for his concept of air battles transitioning to land so the project became kid icarus uprising nintendo's new handheld which would then become the 3ds was far from finalized at this point and sakurai was the first person outside of the company to know of its existence because of this there were no development tools available and the team started out making the game on pc and even the wii sakurai personally disliked games where story took presidents over gameplay so in order to ensure development on uprising went smoothly he wrote the entire script himself with every character in the story being designed around their gameplay the script originally included three additional chapters that were scrapped early in development while he wanted the game to feel fresh sakurai also wanted to make it feel part of the kidakura series he boiled down the series appeal to three main elements the difficulty the music and the silliness of the game setting these three concepts formed the core principles around which uprising was designed kid icarus uprising is known for numerous nods and references throughout the game but few are harder to find on the game over screen for instance holding down on the d-pad or circle pad will cause an 8-bit grim reaper from the original kid icarus to appear and in chapter 5 there's a level 8 intensity gate that leads to a room with images of a shop from the original kid icarus on the walls did you know the original f-zero was developed in only 15 months this relatively short development period was put in place to make sure f-zero was a super nintendo launch title and that the system's pseudo 3d mode 7 graphics were showcased from day one a direct sequel to f-zero was originally planned for the super nintendo but it was cancelled however the unfinished sequel was touched up and released exclusively in japan as bs f-zero grand prix for the super nintendo satellite add-on the game featured a new league along with new tracks like mute city 4 and introduced four new playable vehicles the blue thunder the luna bomber the green amazon and the fire scorpion an additional sequel called bs f0 grand prix 2 was also released on the satella view and showcased 5 new tracks there's been a few f-zero titles that were never released outside of japan one example is an expansion kit for the f-zero x that was released on the nintendo 64 disk drive this expansion gave players access to a track editor a custom vehicle creator a new cup and a new soundtrack presented in stereo sound in addition to this there were three new vehicles to select the super falcon the super sting ring and the super cat these were upgrades of the white cat the fire stingray and the blue falcon though the nintendo 64 disc drive and its games weren't released in the west the super falcon can be found in the regular f0x rom files the vehicle can be accessed using a game shark device suggesting that both nintendo 64 disk drive and the expansion kit were intended for a release outside of japan at one point the game was never localized due to the commercial failure of the nintendo 64 disc drive a direct sequel to the gameboy advance game f-zero gp legend was released exclusively in japan called f-zero climax like the f-zero x expansion kit the game came with a track editor climax also introduced 5 new characters who were first seen in the f-zero anime which the game itself was based on the japanese version of f-zero gp legend also came with an e-reader feature allowing players to scan special cards that were sold separately the cards let players unlock characters new tracks and challenges this feature was dropped in the western release of the game possibly due to the waning popularity of the e-reader all of the unlockable content was instead made available by completing in-game cups and challenges there was also an f-zero game in development for the virtual boy called zero racers which was planned to release in fall of 1996. the game was shown at e3 and even had in-game screenshots published in an issue of nintendo power it would have featured three circuits each consisting of five tracks and four playable vehicles one of which was the origami a completely new vehicle the game was cancelled most likely due to the commercial failure of the virtual boy the arcade counterpart of f0gx f0ax can be found within the data of f zero gx although ax isn't playable through conventional means it can be accessed using a cheat device a number of unused models can also be found within f-zero gx is wrong this includes a flag a fairly detailed memory card a pylon test cones and a coin the coin was possibly intended for use within the casino palace track evidence of two unused tracks can also be found in the game's rom one of the tracks is labeled aur and can be only found in the japanese release all that remains of the track is a dummy placeholder image suggesting it was cut early in development the second track is called stage double zero and consists of the drivable area from the screwdrive track with assets from sand ocean and the collision data from the twist road track it's unlikely that the track was meant to be playable and was only in the game's code to stop the track viewer from crashing when it tried to load slot double zero one course which was shown at e3 in 2005 but didn't make it into the game was a recreation of the track's silence from f-zero x in the international releases of f-zero gx many of the stage graphics and backdrops were either altered or blurred with all the japanese texts swapped over with alien symbols the venue casino palace was originally named vegas palace in the japanese release the name could have been changed to avoid any connections with the real-life resort city las vegas multiple vehicles and characters in the series have also been renamed outside of japan mighty gazelle was originally named mm gazelle octoman was originally called octman and the skull was named arbin gordon blood falcon's vehicle the blood hawk was originally called the hell hawk in maximum velocity for the game boy advance the vehicle's wind walker and sly joker were originally called crazy horse and dirty joker in the japanese release as the wind walker's pilot niechi is a native american the name could have been changed due to the original name being viewed as racially insensitive two characters in f-zero gp legend also had their names changed in the west ryu suzaku was changed to rick wheeler and haruka misaki's alias miss killer was renamed luna rider this was likely done so that the game lines up more closely with the english dub of the f-zero anime [Music] multiple characters in the f-zero series have connections with other nintendo franchises two of these characters are james macleod and mr e.a.d james mcleod has a similar appearance to the father of fox macleod from the star fox series who is also named james mcleod his biography reads that he was the leader of a flight squad known as the galaxy dog and that he later converted his combat plane into an f-zero racer to compete in the grand prix mr ead appears to resemble nintendo's mascot mario and features his iconic mustache as well as a star man on his belt his name comes from nintendo's entertainment analysis and development division which was abbreviated simply as ead this division of nintendo also developed most of the main series mario games as well as f-zero and f-zero x the character octamen appears as a boss in star fox command for the nintendo ds where he fights alongside the angler empire he is however depicted as having only four arms instead of eight one of the endings for the game also has fox and falco entering the g0 grand prix and converting their ships into g0 racers in both f-zero and star fox the ships are equipped with g-diffuser anti-gravity systems the arwing from star fox as well as f-zero's blue falcon and the fire stingray also make cameo appearances in super mario rpg in the aeropolis venue a giant robbed the robot from the port town venue can be found hidden inside the outskirts behind the buildings f-zero gx also contains multiple references to sonic the hedgehog and other sega franchises as the game was developed by the sega owned developer amusement vision in the bonus ending cinematic for zoda eggman's glasses can be seen on the mr ead hulk iii from the super monkey ball series can be seen on billy's belt and pj's vehicle the groovy taxi is possibly a reference to the crazy taxi series one event is often cited as a reference but in fact isn't your place on the track is restored by a flying saucer after either falling off the track or getting destroyed it was previously thought that this saucer was being piloted by chow now that we have access to better tools to examine the game's assets it's clear that these creatures aren't ciao at all did you know nintendo was developing a fire emblem game for the nintendo 64 disc drive simply titled fire emblem 64. shigeru miyamoto confirmed in an interview that work was progressing on the game and that it would most likely release after mario rpg 2 in the latter half of 1998. it took until that time however for the game to be officially announced by august of 2000 a different game titled fire emblem maiden of darkness appeared on listings for nintendo's space world event only months before fire emblem 64 was cancelled maiden of darkness would release his fire emblem the sword of seals but whether or not these two games are related is unknown it's possible that assets from fire emblem 64 were used in fire emblem path of radiance for the gamecube as suggested by early unpolished screenshots that said an even more complex theory exists regarding the disappearance of fire emblem 64. around the release of the fifth game in the franchise fire emblem thoracious 776 series creator shows out kaga left intelligent systems create his own company tiernang their first game would be emblem saga a successor to the fire emblem series for the playstation however just before the game's release the title was changed to tier ring saga and the in-game emblem items were left unused though they remained the game's code while these changes were likely implemented to avoid a lawsuit from nintendo the lawsuit came anyway and tiernang had to pay a hefty fine for violating the law of unfair competition a law which protects against the unauthorized use of intangible assets not protected by trademark or copyright laws as a result of these events in their chronological proximity it speculated that the cancellation of fire emblem 64 and tear ring saga are linked although many assumed fire emblem came to the west thanks to martha roy's appearance in super smash brothers melee boosting the series popularity it was also due to the successive advance wars in an interview with edge magazine the director of advance wars kintara nishimura stated it seems that advance war shifted nintendo's attitude over western taste this is understandable as both games have similar strategy elements and presentation the first game in the series to come to the west was fire emblem on the game boy advance this game which was actually the seventh in the series began the trend of making western releases of fire emblem a bit easier than the original japanese versions in the japanese release of fire emblem titled fire emblem blazing sword players can link up to a copy of fire emblem the sword of seals if the games are linked lin story which serves as the sort of tutorial and prologue can be skipped the sword of seals was never released outside of japan so this wasn't an option for western players for them lynn's story is mandatory along with that many of the game's bosses had their stats slightly lowered overall in the next game fire emblem the sacred stones some of the characters had increased growth rates as well as base stats then in fire emblem path irradiance the base stats of some units are boosted as well and the maniac difficulty is removed entirely and replaced with an easy difficulty easier than the normal difficulty of both games fire emblem radiant dawn however disposed of this trend and included the normal hard and maniac difficulties but named them easy normal and hard in the western release a decision which might have led to the critical complaints about the game's difficulty on the subject of difficulty fire emblem awakening came with a bit of controversy over the inclusion of casual mode a mode of play which removed the permanent character that the series was known for just as it was among fans the inclusion was heavily debated within intelligent systems in an interview fire emblem awakening's project manager masahiro higuchi stated that he was on the side that we shouldn't include casual mode to the end however awakening wasn't the first fire emblem game to feature casual mode it was introduced in the japan-only release fire emblem new mystery of the emblem heroes of light and shadow it's likely that this mode was included as intelligent systems was faced with the possibility of fire emblem awakening being the final installation in the series due to the declining sales of recent games in the series fire emblem awakening would be the last game in the franchise if it didn't sell at least 250 000 copies in response to this the developers wanted to include as many features as they could such as downloadable content marriage children a player avatar and the return of casual mode having the game take place in the modern day real world setting was even suggested but dismissed for fear of alienating long time fans the game has sold over a million copies worldwide today and broken several previous sales records for the franchise in fire emblem path of radiance and fire emblem radiant dawn grayson leanne and bo luke speaking ancient tongue as demonstrated by a unique font to represent their dialogue the text is in all english despite how intricate the font looks so the character's dialogue can be easily translated this language can also be found in the background of some of the menus in path of radiance which when translated read doubt that the stars are fired doubt that the sun does not move down truth to be a liar but never doubt i love this is a direct quote from hamlet's love poem to ophelia from shakespeare's hamlet fire emblem path of radiance contains quite a bit of cut and hidden content there's a set of icons from the super nintendo and gba games and its data despite the game being on the gamecube the icons are from genealogy of the holy war and on but don't have the same palette as it did in those games path the radiance is unrelated to any previous fire emblem game so it's likely that these icons were merely placeholders path the radiance also featured the ability to link up the fire emblem the sword of seals in the same fashion that the blazing swords did but had to disable it in the western releases for the same reason the character illustrations from the sword of seals are still in the game's data but cannot be accessed without cheat codes while stats for many of the npcs who appear in path of radiance can be found via cheat codes there is also a set of stats for a character named heather who does not appear in path of radiance but is playable and radiant on fire emblem contains an impressive amount of references to various mythologies historical figures and geographical locations marth from the storylines which take place on the fictional continent of urchinaia is named after mars the roman god of war in the continent of udraw the setting for genealogy of the holy war and thoracic 776 virtually every character and location is based on norse and celtic mythology yugdraw itself is derived from yggdrasil known as the world tree in norse mythology during the desperate development period for firearm awakening the developers entertained the idea of taking the story to the planet mars but iguchi swiftly shot the idea down this was perhaps a result of the references to roman mythology in previous titles the release of super smash brothers melee helped finalize mart's name in the west but not before a fire emblem anime featuring a prince mars was released in japan in 1996 the anime is based on the third game fire emblem mystery of the emblem and only consists of two episodes a dubbed and subtitled version of the anime was released in america in 1997. six years before the first fire emblem game would see the same treatment it's thanks to this anime the japanese voice actor for prince mars hikara midorikawa now does the voice of martha in the super smash brothers series as [Music] well you

Channel: DYKG Clips

Views: 119,539

Keywords: nintendo, nintendo games, donkey kong, pikmin, f-zero, kid icarus, fire emblem

Id: jPYa8iX_xZg

Length: 59min 33sec (3573 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021