GameSpy: What was the thought process behind the creation of the game?
Takahiro Harada, Producer: I have been involved in a variety of game genres and I always wanted to make the sequel to the Wario Land series, which was one of the most impressive titles that I have been involved with. I was thinking if I were given the opportunity to create the game, I wanted to create a game that can be easily played by people who enjoyed playing 2D action games such as Super Mario Brothers without feeling intimidated. I also wanted to avoid making a game just to show off the Wii Remote or the motion sensor.GameSpy: Who came up with the story for Wario Land: Shake It!, and how?
Takahiro Harada: The original outline which was written by the director was adjusted and improved by multiple team members, including producers.GameSpy: What are some of the differences that exist when developing Wii games versus more traditional videogames that aren't based around motion controls?
Takahiro Harada: Basically, there are no differences between creating traditional games and Wii games. If the gameplay would be better using motion control, I would use that functionally for creating my game. The joy of playing the game remains the same as before, but we are now able to create a game that was impossible to make before we started using motion control.
GameSpy: How long did it take the team to finalize the premise for Wario Land: Shake It!?
Takahiro Harada: Yes, you mean the hardest and harshest hours during development. The period before the content of the game gets determined is mentally the hardest part. There are many decisions to make before the actual production begins. For example, we have to decide whether it should be a shooting game, an action game or a puzzle game. Should it be 3D or 2D? How about the perspective? What should we showcase? Normally, there are many questions during this period and this title was no exception. It took more than six months just to finalize the premise.GameSpy: What was the single biggest obstacle to overcome during the development cycle?
Takahiro Harada: The most significant feature of the title is the hand-drawn graphics. It was very challenging to create the animation due to the large volume of hand-drawn graphics. For example, in order to modify Wario's mustache in a 3D environment we only had to work on the original model, but in 2D we had to redraw all the graphics of any Wario movements. They amount to nearly 2,000 in total due to the many movements of Wario, and it was unbelievably tough to work on all of them. Also, we do not reuse the background graphics, they are completely hand-drawn. So, it took an extremely long time to change the player path since we needed to erase changed sections and redraw the new path.
