DISCLAIMER
This the third of four English translations of the four “Nintendo Dream” interviews with staff from HAL Laboratory about various topics related to “Kirby Star Allies” that are available on the magazine’s site. All these translations were primarily done with the DeepL Translator tool, with some tweaks and small translations from my part to make them better, plus with some notes when applicable. I want to stress that I’m nowhere near being good in Japanese, nor am I a native English speaker to begin with, and again the translations were all based on translations from the tool I mentioned, that is an AI translator, so don’t take this as a serious translation neither a good one, but rather a “good enough” one for the sake of the Kirby English fandom, as these interviews contain really cool things about the game, but were never translated by anyone (understandably so, they are all very long, and translating is hard). So please read them expecting some sentences to not look the best, and don’t treat anything here as a confirmed translated fact; there may be mistakes. In particular, due to how pronouns work in Japanese, certain sentences could have wrong subjects, such as some sentences with “I” could be actually meant to have “we”. But, regardless, I’m confident in them; I reviewed them a lot, and did my best, so they are for the most part accurate.
For further clarification, these are not all the interviews about Star Allies from Nintendo Dream, they are only the ones that are available on the magazine’s website. There are others that were only present in physical copies of the magazine, but I don’t have access to them.
Kirby Star Allies Vol. 3 Interview The Ultimate Part 1 (from the July 2018 issue)
Bonjam! (Meaning: Hello!) “Kirby Star Allies” for the Nintendo Switch can be played by yourself or with friends, with up to four players. This is a multi-part interview with the developers conducted for the Nintendo Dream magazine.
This time, in addition to the General Director Kumazaki, Mr. Fuhrmann and Ms. Todo are making an appearance. We asked them about what they liked about the game and about “The Ultimate Choice”, a mode unlocked after clearing the main story. Please enjoy this interview along with the “Direct from the Source” interview where we talk about the development process, characters, and worldview.
＜HAL Laboratory Profile >
General Director
Mr. Shinya Kumazaki
General director of the “Kirby” series. He also writes the in-game text.
Design Director
Mr. Fuhrmann
Design team leader. Managed a wide range of projects including copy ability and characters.
Lead UI Design
Ms. Yumi Todo
Was in charge of many designs such as menus, logos, and user interfaces.
Q. The Waddle Dees rolling down hills. How many of them are there in total in the largest clump?
Kumazaki: It was programmed to be a mass equivalent to 1,000 Waddle Dees. However, that’s just the part on the surface, and if you calculated the mass inside, there would be more. It seems that the Waddle Dee’s hard work resulted in this form, but what happened to them is …a mystery. I think it’s an amount of material that only HD games can provide.
Q. Fuhrmann, what character and copy ability did you put the most effort into?
Fuhrmann: The most effort… it’s hard to choose! I had a lot of fun making some of the first 3D abilities, such as Yo-yo and Cleaning, but I still have a special place in my heart for the new “Spider” ability. When you fire a spider web and then use it as a foothold, and you go “boing”! I was particularly obsessed with the pleasantness of the movement. Surprisingly, many people don’t realize it, but the spider webs are only heart-shaped when using the “Friend Ability”. In terms of characters, I’d have to say Marx, one of the additional Dream Friends I was working on until recently! Marx is a popular character, so it was difficult to draw a line between a complete recreation of his old self and a modern interpretation. People who meet Marx for the first time can be surprised and say, “What is this?” and for people who know Marx I tried to make it convincing, so that they can say “That’s him!”. In fact, we started out with a much lighter specification, but the programmer in charge of the project added the old boss behavior, and before we knew it, he was half threatening us, saying, “Now if only the designers would make the motions…” (laughs) In the end, the character turned out to be very gorgeous.
Q. How did you come up with the idea of adding subtitles to “Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!”?
Todo: I think it started as a joking conversation between Fuhrmann, the design director, Shigeyuki Kawata, who was in charge of design, and myself, the lead UI designer, when we were supervising the design proposal. We said things like, “Wouldn’t it be fun to add subtitles?”, like “Blade of the Rotating Slash” [see note] for Sir Kibble, or “Just a Big Monkey” [see note] for Bonkers, “Maybe we can give each helper their own personality!” When I suggested this to Kumazaki, he agreed and said, “Well, I’ll think of some subtitles!” (laughs). It was fun to see the process of implementing the suggestions that came out of our conversations with everyone’s enthusiasm.
[note]: The subtitles mentioned in the answer all went unused, so I just translated them. The original Japanese for them are “斬撃の回転刃” (Sir Kibble’s) and “とにかくデカイ猿” (Bonkers’). I used the official adaptation from the English Star Allies localization for the image caption, as that is a final one; the original Japanese title is “リターントゥ斬刃”, which translates to “Return to Cutter Blade”.
Q. Why is it that in “Star Allies”, the remaining lives are now in triple digits and recorded?
Kumazaki: In recent years, game overs have become much less of an issue in action games, which have become much more restart-friendly. We thought about getting rid of the lives, but it would cost the existence of the 1UP item, and we felt a little sad that it would no longer be a culmination of the series. So we thought it would be good to have the remaining lives be like a score, so we made it possible to reach a high number of lives. And as a little bonus, when you get to the end of the game, you get a crown on Kirby’s icon, which makes me a little happy.
Q. What do you want people to see most from a design director’s perspective?
Fuhrmann: The characters, backgrounds, and UI are all more beautiful and detailed than ever on an HD console, and I’d be happy if people thought things like “Cute!” and “Pretty!” when looking at various things. We also wanted the “Friends”, who are arguably the main characters in this game, to be as attached to the game as Kirby, so each of them has their own special dance when they clear a stage. They also have their own unique reactions when you leave the controller idle on a stage, so please take a moment to look around Kirby’s world.
Q. How did you decide on the illustrators for the celebration pictures?
Kumazaki: First of all, I gathered information from my candidate ideas and from Todo and other internal staff members who were familiar with the artists, and we began to consider them. The worldview depicted has its own individuality, and the overall balance of the drawings included those that seemed to have a high affinity with Kirby, while taking into consideration the balance when the eight drawings were lined up.
Q. Why do some bosses have a different effect when you hit them with Friend Hearts after defeating them?
Kumazaki: During the development process, when we were talking with Nintendo, one of the ideas they gave us was “It would be great if you could make bosses join your team one after another.” As you can imagine, we couldn’t make Whispy Woods into a friend, but we had plans to make King Dedede and Meta Knight into Dream Friends, so we made it happen for them. Then I thought it would be more natural for the rest of the members who were influenced by the Jamba Heart in Pop Star to have something happen when making contact with a heart, so I made it happen with Whispy Woods, like a nostalgic secret technique. And to give you a hint of the backstory, I made Pon and Con necessary to be brought back to their senses with a heart, and hinted that it would work for the Pop Star bosses.
Q. What kind of process did you go through to make the controller play the Green Greens song with HD Rumble?
Kumazaki: When I learned about the dream-like function of being able to feel the number of objects in the controller and how they felt thanks to HD Rumble, and you feel the number of objects in your mouth when Kirby sucks them in, I was like, “Woah!”. I asked the programmer what was possible to do with that, including the technical aspects. The programmer in charge, Nagata (Mr. Masayuki), said, “We can make a musical scale,” and we realized that Green Greens was possible, and although we couldn’t make it an essential element of the game because it could be turned off, we succeeded in enhancing its presence by incorporating it as one of the last surprising elements. It’s the only piece of music not created by the sound team.
Q. It’s amazing that the number of enemies you inhale and the feel of objects can be transmitted through HD Rumble! Tell us more about it!
Kumazaki: I think the Green Greens song played on vibrations is quite an episode, but we tried a lot of different things. I wasn’t sure how much we could incorporate, but by the end, Nagata, who was in charge of the project, had gotten used to it and was able to use it in a variety of situations. It is possible to create simple vibrations automatically based on the sound effects, but that was not enough, so we carefully adjusted the vibrations one by one. My favorite vibration is the feeling of hitting on Star Slam Heroes, the feeling of a planet being shattered. Also, in the scene where the second movement of Void Termina is played, the throbbing and pulsating of that fetal movement was an important part of the final battle suite, making it more emotional.
Q. What was the most difficult part of the user interface (UI) design?
Todo: I think the hardest part of the UI design was how to communicate the controls. “Star Allies” is a game that supports a variety of play styles, so you can play it alone in handheld mode, or you can share Joy-Cons with multiple people. I went through a lot of trial and error with Tatsuya Kamiyama, the sequence director, to make sure that no matter what controller you use in any situation, you won’t get lost. For example, the tutorial signs that appear in the stages change depending on the controller the player is playing with at the time. We put a lot of effort into not only making it look cool and cute, but also making it easy to use so that people of all ages can play without hesitation.
The story behind the making of “The Ultimate Choice”
From here on, we’ll be talking about “The Ultimate Choice”, a fun and challenging mode unlocked after clearing “Guest Star ??? Star Allies Go!”. It contains spoiler information, so please read this after you’ve played through the game thoroughly.
What is “The Ultimate Choice”?
In this mode, you fight against bosses in a series of battles, a familiar experience in the Kirby series. This time, you can choose the number of fights depending on how spicy it is.
— Why is it now possible for players to freely choose the difficulty level?
Kumazaki: I saw a curry shop where you could choose the level of spiciness, so I decided to go with a food curry theme with Kirby (laughs). I thought it would be nice to be able to choose the difficulty level at the beginning. The series’ familiar “The Arena” is a difficult element and a bit too maniacal for me. As a developer, I wanted to raise the level of satisfaction up to the ending of the game, where the main story is cleared, and from there on, I wanted to let the players challenge themselves with a variety of copy abilities, because that’s the depth of Kirby. But thankfully, many people said, “I want to see what happens after that!” and many people wanted to play until the end. We are grateful for that, and we hope it comes true.
— This is where the real work begins, isn’t it? (laughs)
Kumazaki: For that sense of accomplishment, we have to make the difficulty level so that only selected players can complete it, right? If a core user clears a level that anyone can clear and you say, “Congratulations!”… they won’t be satisfied, right? However, it tends to be difficult to develop in a normal way, so that part is really difficult to find the right balance every time (bitter smile).
— If it’s too easy, you won’t feel a sense of accomplishment.
Kumazaki: That’s why we came up with this idea, so that a wide range of players can get some sense of accomplishment at a difficulty level they are satisfied with. You can freely choose up to four players to take on the challenge together, and in the early stages, that are relatively simple, players can say, “I did it!” and earn some degree of satisfaction. You can even mark the mode as completed.
— If you use an amiibo, you can get recovery items, which will increase your chances of clearing the mode.
Kumazaki: Once you’ve cleared a certain level of difficulty, you’ll want to try a harder one next, right? Surprisingly, many people are able to clear the mode even if they make it one level harder. There are a variety of options, and if you bring along a Friend who can heal, such as Chef Kawasaki, you can win while you protect yourself with your Stone ability. The level of difficulty varies greatly depending on the Friends you choose to go with. Even more than being able to choose the difficulty level, the choice of Friends and other factors increase the possibility that many people will be able to complete the mode.
— So that’s what it was.
Kumazaki: As a culmination of the Kirby series, how can we make the hard mode enjoyable for people who don’t like action games? That’s the idea behind this mode. There are people who are happy to have a hard mode, people who work hard because they feel obligated to do so, people who just want to enjoy the story, and people who aren’t good at action games and are at the limit of just clearing them; there are various types, right? I thought it was a great idea that this time, the Arena had a broader and deeper frontage, just like Kirby, and that players could freely adjust the difficulty level to their liking.
— Just when I thought I had cleared the mode, a higher difficulty level appeared. The thing that surprised me the most was Kirby’s face (laughs).
Todo: One of the things I was in charge of, and I think I did a particularly good job, was the difficulty selection for “The Ultimate Choice”. I was in charge of the idea that the amount of hot sauce in the curry would increase with each difficulty level, and Kirby’s expression would become more frightened. It was fun drawing Kirby’s evil face on the maximum difficulty level…! I would like to show this to anyone who likes the Kirby anime that was aired in 2001.
Kumazaki: I wasn’t sure about calling it “Soul Melter”, but it’s hell from here on out, so… only if you like it! [see note] It’s just how I feel (laughs). There was an idea to divide the game into an EX mode like “The True Arena” in DS’s “Kirby Super Star Ultra”, but since just clearing the mode normally tends to be difficult, I thought that by using a gradation of difficulty, people of all ages would be able to experience clearing the mode.
[note]: Soul Melter in Japanese is “魂が飛び出る辛さ”, which translates to “Soul Ejecting Spiciness”. 辛さ however can also mean “pain”; it has sort of a double meaning here. And, yes, Kumazaki does say “hell” here, 地獄, although it is different from the 黄泉 that used for Morpho Knight, that is closer to “Hades” or “underworld”.
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