Interview:Iwata Asks in Writing - Rhythm Heaven Megamix: Difference between revisions

!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|<small>This article is a reproduction of an interview done in writing between Iwata and the producer of Rhythm Heaven, Tsunku♂.</small>

!style="width:40%; color:#047ED7" align="left" valign="top"|Tsunku♂,<br><br>This is Iwata of Nintendo.<br><br>It’s been quite a while.<br>The release date of Rhythm Heaven Megamix is finally upon us.<br><br>Today I’d like to ask you about this software.<br><br>Just the other day I saw you on TV giving your "silent speech" at the entrance ceremony of your alma mater. There is absolutely no way that a third party could possibly imagine what it was like for you, someone who has always made singing his profession, to make the choice to give up your voice, but I do pray that you have a speedy recovery.<br><br>Given that you aren’t able to meet and speak like we always had¹, I’d like to ask you about this software in a different format - "Iwata Asks in Writing."

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!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|<small>1. Meet and speak: In the past Tsunku♂-san has appeared on "Iwata Asks" as the producer of the Rhythm Heaven series and chatted in person with Iwata-san. For more details please see [https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/ds/rhythm-heaven/0/0/ Iwata Asks: Rhythm Heaven] and [https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/wii/rhythmheavenfever/0/0/ Iwata Asks '''-''' Rhythm Heaven Fever]</small>

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!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|<small>※2 A total of three works = Rhythm Tengoku (Released in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance), Rhythm Heaven (Released in 2008 for the Nintendo DS), Rhythm Heaven Fever (2011 on the Wii). These are the three works.</small>

!style="width:40%; color:#047ED7" align="left" valign="top"|That’s great to hear. [[Interview:Iwata Asks: Rhythm Heaven/Vol. 2#Training your Sense of Rhythm|You have this pet theory that a person can "train their feeling of rhythm,"]] and I’m wondering whether you felt that the Rhythm Heaven series of games ended up doing that as intended?

!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|Just make it simple. Controls easy. Don’t lean on the characters. If the games themselves have rhythm and are fun that's all you need. Don’t think of it as a sequel, but as something that even people who are only aware of this title in the series can enjoy. Don’t make a hard game. I suppose that covers it all.<br><br>Also, for the very first {{tt|Rhythm Heaven|Rhythm Tengoku}} we made this habit of hiding "Produced by Tsunku♂" until the game was released, and how long were we supposed to wait with this one... We’ve had this weird habit.<br><br>Even though we should be able to march it around, "Tsunku♂ is OF COURSE producing this one too!" (laughs).

!style="width:40%; color:#047ED7" align="left" valign="top"|Tongue Lashing is in the TV commercials, so there are probably already plenty of fans that know it.

!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|There’s also the "remix" songs that appear at each juncture. There are a lot that are brand new takes on existing songs, so it’s that back and forth between the game-making staff and we sound staff, a collaboration between specialists. There’s this great "back stabbing" in a way - "We made this song with one image and mind and why on earth did you make this kind of completely unexpected game with it!" that just feels wonderful. You’d think, "usually you’d let the music guide you more, no?", but seeing the game making staff uninhibitedly weave in what they wanted to do or show felt amazing.

!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|I asked someone I met in New York to write the lyrics for I’m a lady now. We had plans for a 6-year-old girl to sing a song in English intended for the whole world.<br><br>I loved the melody and lyrics of the song Sono Hitotsubu no Ōkina Namida ni wa, so we had a singer from Ishikawa Prefecture, Hikaru Obashi, sing it.<br><br>Tokimeki no Story is sentimental. As a song it feels like the evening twilight, and I selected singers that would be proper for singing a fresh song to sing it.<br><br>What Nintendo’s tastes guided me to was the song Classmate. It’s a song that you’ll find after you’ve sunk quite a bit of time into the game, and from the beginning I had a rather concrete image for it, that I startled myself, moved to tears at the thought of what kind of game it might become. It’s bitter-sweet, and it’s wonderful in its rawness, which I think is a perfect match.<br><br>I would love for people to listen to these songs in-game.<br><br>And then of course I think for Nintendo’s team as well, they had a passion for Karate Man and we had several bouts of back and forth where the songs I wrote didn’t quite fit, and if I made a song just as instructed by Nintendo I’d rewrite it two or three times thinking, "But it doesn’t really line up with the image."<br><br>The second proposal I wrote for Karate Man had this furious guitar in a minor key, and that furiousness rocked - so while we didn’t use it with Karate Man, which comes at the beginning, we did use it during the final battle… Anyhow, it’s the kind of game where these kinds of things came up.

!style="width:40%; color:#047ED7" align="left" valign="top"|That’s what you meant when you mentioned how it was hard to write the song for Karate Man.

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!style="width:40%" align="left" valign="top"|<small>※3 Cooperative Multiplayer = Rhythm Heaven Megamix features a game mode that can be enjoyed with up to four people with one copy of the game, where multiple people cooperate to clear a stage.</small>

!style="width:40%; color:#047ED7" align="left" valign="top"|I’d also like to stress that it’s not just a "Best of" compilation. I’d like to finish with a message from Tsunku♂ to everyone reading this.