July 14^th, 2005 (2:59pm) - Nintendo of Europe sat down with Richard Vorodi, game designer at Nintendo Software Technology (NST), and Kensuke Tanabe, the producer of Metroid Prime Hunters, in an interview that reveals some new information about the highly anticipated Nintendo DS Metroid game. In this interview, we hear the very first details regarding the game’s single-player campaign and why the gam won’t be a online multiplayer enabled Nintendo DS game.

Nintendo of Europe: Could you explain more about the different characters that will figure in the game? We’ve heard that there are six different bounty hunters in this game?

Richard Vorodi: Yeah, for the first time we’re really expanding Samus’ universe, and we’re really showing that there are new characters out there. There are going to be six in total and they’re going to be unveiled in time. At E3 we showed a character called Noxus, who’s really cool. All the hunters have really interesting back-stories, and we want to leave most of that as kind of a surprise for the players.

But to tell you a little about these characters, Noxus is a kind of spiritual being who’s trying to cleanse the galaxy of evil. But the character itself may be evil, so that’s kind of interesting. Then there’s Spire; Spire is one of the last of his kind, he’s a rock-based creature, trying to find out the origins of the disappearance of his race.

And then we have my personal favourite, this guy Kanden. Kanden is really cool because he was an experiment, he was designed to be an unkillable soldier who actually escaped the lab, and has since been out killing and doing bad stuff throughout the galaxy. He’s a real evil bounty hunter. As for the other characters, that’s a surprise. But they’re cool, trust me.

NoE: Another thing that all the different characters bring with them, presumably, is the need to balance their powers, if they all have different weapons for example? How do you go about making sure that the balance is correct in the multiplayer games?

RV: Well, in multiplayer we have a pretty big weapons system, and it’s going to be interesting for players to learn how to use these weapons; we have primary fire and secondary fire functions on most of them. And then on top of that, the Hunters themselves actually have an affinity, so some Hunters use certain weapons better than others. So that’s where the strategy and depth comes from in the multiplayer games.

NoE: What was the strategy behind not taking this game online?

Kensuke Tanabe: Really, we could have made this game online. But Nintendo’s vision of online play is different from that of other companies. We wanted it to be free, easy, and easy to access for everybody. To set up the kind of infrastructure that we needed, and to meet the launch date we have for this game, the two just didn’t match.

RV: Right, but I don’t think we look at it as a negative thing, because as we’re not focusing on the Internet we got to focus on the wi-fi stuff, so four players can jump in like that (he clicks his fingers theatrically for emphasis). And if only one person has the game, well, you can download it too, and then play with your friends. I think it’s going to be the perfect multiplayer game because of that.

NoE: So how many people can play together?

RV: This is a four-player game, even off one Game Card.

NoE: Can you tell us something about the single player game?

RV: Yeah, I think the single player game will help make Metroid Prime Hunters be a unique game in the series. We’re actually trying to change things a little bit; add some freshness and vitality. One of the things that players will notice right off the bat is that Samus is fully powered at the beginning of the game, and it’s not so much about her trying to find parts for her suit; she is looking for relics of an alien species that has disappeared, and she’s not alone.

So the other games were claustrophobic, and they focused on powering up to get through. This game is about being powerful, and being surrounded, and how the tension plays back and forth between sometimes being the hunter, sometimes being the hunted.

NoE: So can you tell us about the power of the relics? If you find a relic, what does it let you do?

RV: That right there is going to be a surprise for the players to discover for themselves.

NoE: OK. And can you tell us what your own favorite first person shooting games are?

RV: Yeah, that’s pretty easy. On the N64 there’s a game called Perfect Dark. Man, I must have logged 100, maybe 300 hours on that baby, it’s all me and my friends did, play that game. Recently there’s been some amazing games too. Half-life 2 on PC for instance is really pushing the boundaries.

KT: First I have to tell you that the first-person shooter is not a popular genre in the Japanese market. And the [only] first person shooter that I played through to the very end was Metroid Prime!

Metroid Prime Hunters ships for the Nintendo DS on October 17 and will be available for a suggested retail price of $34.99.