Yes, Miyamoto DOES Dislike Story

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doing all sorts of interviews and stuff because the the Mario movie is coming very soon and in a recent interview he alleges to have clarified his stance on stories in games you know he's developed something of a reputation over the years of being anti-story and uh he wanted to put an end to that so here's what he said first of all it's not that complex stories are unnecessary that's not what I'm saying at all story is one way of explaining a game for example when there's an interactive game The Experience for everyone is different one of the most enjoyable things about a PC or a computer is that it provides the same thing to everybody that interesting aspect is something you have to keep pulling out as you keep playing and keep playing and keep playing I think story is just another way to pull out enjoyment from this experience another way to focus on that enjoyment is to focus on a gameplay experience that gets you to try things over and over again as I mentioned story is one way to explain the game and when that goes well sometimes people take the route when creating their next game of starting with the story for me the starting story is how to make the gameplay fun and that's how I begin thinking about and creating a game he says he doesn't believe that story is unnecessary it's just that's how I create games he's basically saying there's the story based approach and there's the gameplay-based approach and he prefers the gameplay based approach and so this article went out and everyone nodded their heads and went yeah see yeah hate stories at all everything he said makes total sense and I'm over here like I'm just like I'm saying I'm just like I'm over here I'm like I'm over here like whoa whoa there no no no no you you can't say he doesn't hate stories everything he just said was true those two things together do not make any sense Miyamoto is speaking truth in this interview he he you know talking about the the gameplay versus story thing that's true that's absolutely true but framing all of this in such a way as to suggest that he does not actually dislike stories as his reputation suggests no that that doesn't make any sense at all that is not the conclusion to be drawn from this interview if that interview were the only piece of Miyamoto lore that existed sure I'd take it at face value anyone would but it does not exist in a vacuum it exists alongside Decades of evidence very much to the contrary Miyamoto does dislike stories he does I I might catch a lot of flack for this I myself am not Miyamoto I can't really know what goes on in his mind Miyamoto is actually a pioneer of early stories in games you know like having a protagonist with a name and they're trying to rescue someone and there's a villain of the name everyone's got a name and there's like there's like a motivation to it like like as far as scenario goes yeah he likes a story but beyond that no no I I mean I mean like maybe he's eased up in recent years or something but we know for a fact that he has played a big part in actively trying to keep good stories out of Nintendo's games but let me show you what I mean when it comes to the subject of Miyamoto you know quote unquote not liking Stories the number one sore spot in all of Nintendo's history is Paper Mario sticker star for three games Paper Mario was a series that was all about having these great stories complex stories loads of characters that was just a part of its identity then sticker star came along and just stripped it all away there was no story just none it was the most basic Bare Bones premise possible and it's really funny because the discourse here has actually changed a lot you know like we were told that Miyamoto wanted them to remove the story and to stop using original characters so we were mad at him for years and years we were mad at him for that but then when new Paper Mario games kept coming out we started to realize that kensuke tanabe probably also deserves blame for the direction the series is gone maybe even most of the blame you know did he have to take miyamoto's suggestions as far as he did you know couldn't he have still given us more than we got but here's what's funny then people started swinging so hard in this new direction that now suddenly you've got people who are completely exonerating Miyamoto of any wrongdoing when this Miyamoto article came up I saw loads of people pushing the idea no miyamoto's completely blameless he was never against story tanabe is the only person who hurt Paper Mario and this is a false narrative this is revisionist history all you gotta do is go back to the original awada asks interview that started all of this there were two main things that mi amo said from the start of the project it's fine without a story so do we really need one and as much as possible complete it with only characters from the Super Mario World he said it in a way it fine without a story so do we really need one it's Miyamoto everybody knows that you do what Miyamoto says at Nintendo he always calls the shots that was not a suggestion that was just him that was that was him establishing the mission statement and from the very start of the project the bones of the project he said it didn't need a story he felt that not having a story was the foundation of this new Paper Mario again a series with an identity almost entirely defined by story and sure it must be noted that this decision could have been in response to the infamous Super Paper Mario survey which is mentioned here in this interview uh apparently people who took the survey said they didn't care about the story like less than one percent of people said they cared about the story in Super Paper Mario we can see we have logic so we can see you and I can see something about this survey was flawed like any even back then anyone could have told you no no maybe it's something to do with the skewed demographics of the people who were taking these surveys or a glitch in the Mainframe or just something like that I don't know but any Paper Mario fan can tell you that a paper Mario without a story is nonsense that's a nonsense idea to believe that story is not needed is to have a deep deep misunderstanding of what the series even is and what people are getting from it and I kind of feel like that opinion can only really come from a person who is staunchly anti-story otherwise they would have known how ridiculous that was and not even considered it even back then even around Super Paper Mario whatever you go anywhere anyone is talking about Paper Mario ask them what they think about the idea of a new game but without a story those people were laughing your face because it's just that absurd okay so sticker star is the classic example interpret that however you want but this this right here this is when we get into the real darning evidence and this is all the stuff I've talked about before all of this is but who cares been talking about it again yoshiaki koizum yes I'm doing my yoshiaki koizumi ramp I love doing my yoshiaki koizumi rant I could do it every day this man is one of the men running Nintendo and I don't think I'm alone in wishing that he was the man running Nintendo he understands that gameplay first and story first are two different ways to come at a game but he also understands that when you're playing to a large audience you want to please fans of both perspectives some people players customers some of them are gameplay first some of them are story first and if you're running a business which these people are the best way to reach both types of people are to give them both gameplay and story when it comes to Nintendo's you know primary traditional tentpole first party series yamarios use Zelda's you know so many of the fun and interesting creative scenarios we've gotten over the years have been Thanks to this man Link's Awakening is a beloved classic primarily because of its story and scenario and he literally snuck most of it into the game like secretly Miyamoto did not not want it there he actively unwanted it in the game he wanted it to just be like linked to the past but on Game Boy that's what he wanted but why why would he not want it there can you what's the reason I'm trying to trying to come up with a reason why could he not see that this stuff was interesting and would just make the game objectively better while the only reasonable explanation I can see is that he's anti-story he ended up disliking what koizumi did with Link's Awakening even after the fact despite the fact that every single other human being on this Earth that's not all though then there's the other weird extra creative fan favorite Zelda Majora's Mask they brought koizumi on out of pure desperation they needed to get the game done in a year and he said okay I'll do it but you gotta let me do whatever I want so they said okay and that weird creepy amazing game is the game that we ended up with that is what happens when you let the storm story be what it wants to be and you don't only focus on gameplay you get Timeless Classics when you do that then another great example Super Mario Galaxy everyone loves the Rosalina storybook it's the backbone of the game's story it's what gives the player so much motivation it turns the game into this delightful magical narrative experience and he had to sneak it into the game against miyamoto's wishes he had to sneak it in mimaru didn't want it and because of that Miyamoto made sure that in the sequel there was as little story and actual motivation as possible strip it all away it's all gone in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and this is not all speculation these These are this is a fish information koizumi himself said this in an interview you're right EAD the EAD is the Nintendo's primary development Studio EAD doesn't tend to focus on the big story in most of their games but I was the one coming up with the scenarios just on my own ever since the time of Link's Awakening but even at that time I felt like I came up with this entire scenario and a backstory for link but nobody really seemed to care they were always saying let's not try to push the story forward too much so I would sort of try to find sneaky ways to get it in without them noticing too much a lot of the EAD games that do seem to have a lot of story a lot of that came from my influence but those are aspects of the games that Miyamoto wasn't nearly as fond of and occasionally didn't like we tend to not only gravitate to these little stories in Nintendo games we Savor them we love them obsessively so many of Nintendo's games over the years would not have endured to nearly the same degree without their unique stories those stories haven't been super deep or anything no and it is true gameplay to a degree should come first gameplay is incredibly important a good story ain't worth much without that good gameplay and it's true that not every series needs to have loads and loads of deep story we've covered this a million times now but usually not always but usually games do need that little extra something special you know it is so easy to see how that little extra something affects a game's success and enduring Legacy it is an objective fact that it's important in a lot of cases if not most cases it is an objective fact when looking at the greater market and what that market usually responds to it is important and the only way you can't see that is if you are anti-story it's it's the only way you you have to not only be anti-story yourself in terms of your own tastes and and design philosophies but you also have to look and see how the vast majority of your paying audience does not agree with you and say I don't care you know because that's what Miyamoto does he is against stories and games he's proven that time and time again all right just how about just one more beating the dead horse broken record example okay Star Fox cool game awesome time for a sequel what's the story nah just tell the same story again it doesn't matter not important years later okay finally time for a modern Star Fox what's the story just tell the same story again who cares no one in the world would be okay with that decision except for someone who is anti-story even people who don't care that much about story are still probably gonna see the value in giving the story The care it deserves which is some some literally any at all even from a purely cynical business perspective anyone could see that that is what your audience is going to want this illustrates not just an indifference to story no that comes from someone who actively dislikes stories that's not gameplay first that's gameplay only and that is really all I wanted to say I just I'm not gonna let Miyamoto hand wave away years of this stuff with one interview I'm gonna Grump about it okay okay I'm done uh well I'm gonna go and as always when I spend too much time talking about Miyamoto and stories I have to try really hard not to think about all the incredible stories we could have had all these years all the medium quality games that could have been great all the great games that could have been even better because if I do that enough I will cry foreign

Channel: Arlo

Views: 272,853

Keywords: puppet, blue, monster, nintendo, miyamoto, shigeru miyamoto, story, stories, paper mario sticker star, super mario galaxy, star fox, interview, yoshiaki koizumi

Id: uabBloeOI-w

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023