Responding to a question from Wired Game|Life’s Tracey John during a recent press event, Shigeru Miyamoto said the future of Super Guide-like features in other Nintendo games is uncertain.
“With a feature like [Super Guide] we were able to create it for new Super Mario Bros. Wii because I think from the outset we intended to develop this type of system and include it in the game,” he said.
Depending on “priorities” in future titles, he continued, something like Super Guide “may or may not be included; we can’t really promise that it’s going to be part of every game going forward.”
The key, he said, is evaluating each title and seeing what — if any — similar hint system would work.
“Just using a game like Legend of Zelda,” he says, for example, “it brings up almost a Pandora’s Box of questions in terms of ‘do we show people how to solve puzzles?’ How much of a puzzle do we solve in order to help them understand the puzzle?’ Are there puzzles in the game that we have to show them the entire solution in order for some people to understand it?'”
“So it can be a difficult system to apply to some games, but we do see some value in it, and we’ll look at each title individually,” he concludes.
While many games offer hints (which sometime straddle the line between hand-holding and subtle), there aren’t any games that offer up play-through “videos” (in-engine AI-controlled, or otherwise) like the “Super Guide” found in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Miyamoto mentioned people using strategy guides or turning to the Internet to solve in-game problems, and offered this up as a solution to keeping players in the game.
Provided it’s not forced on the player, is this something you’d mind seeing in future games?
