Spoiler: Why Matsumi Sisters need to be lynched today
In an interview with Mario Kart 8 director Kosuke Yabuki, Yabuki went into great detail about how they struggled to make a brand new character to make their debut in Mario Kart 8. But once the creative ideas started flowing, something magical was born.
“In the initial stages of planning, I hired some of the best character designers in the industry to create more characters for Mario Kart 8 because we ran out of great Mario characters to use,” explained Yabuki, “We could have used Diddy Kong or Dry Bones again, but those characters are simply filler compared to titans like Baby Mario and Baby Daisy. We needed something fresh and on the first day, the design team came up with some wonderful ideas.”
The character designer who came up with Pink Gold Peach, Miyake Takuji, said that his ideas for brand new Mario characters would awe the masses. In his opinion however, he says that Nintendo chose one of his weakest designs.
“The design team did not know each other the first day so we held an icebreaker,” recalled Takuji, “We held a contest for the most unoriginal character for fun and it just so happened that Yabuki-san stopped by to see how we were doing. He walked into a room full of characters like Baby Metal Mario and Waluigi 2. Before we could explain what was happening, he looked at my Gold Peach and said that this character was perfect.”
“Afterwards, I was kept on the team for three years to help refine the character,” continued Takuji, “I was still getting paid so it did not matter to me. In the meantime, I created some more characters like Gold Mario for the new Mario Golf game. That is also why we had to change Gold Peach to Pink Gold Peach because players might have thought Nintendo was running out of ideas after seeing Gold Mario and then Gold Peach. I also tried to present a redesign of Wart from Super Mario USA to the team, but they thought he was not unique enough considering Yoshi was already in the game.”
And it seems that Nintendo’s decision to hire these character designers has paid off. Popular Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has already named Pink Gold Peach as one of the top video game characters of 2014 that are completely made out of gold.
“In the initial stages of planning, I hired some of the best character designers in the industry to create more characters for Mario Kart 8 because we ran out of great Mario characters to use,” explained Yabuki, “We could have used Diddy Kong or Dry Bones again, but those characters are simply filler compared to titans like Baby Mario and Baby Daisy. We needed something fresh and on the first day, the design team came up with some wonderful ideas.”
The character designer who came up with Pink Gold Peach, Miyake Takuji, said that his ideas for brand new Mario characters would awe the masses. In his opinion however, he says that Nintendo chose one of his weakest designs.
“The design team did not know each other the first day so we held an icebreaker,” recalled Takuji, “We held a contest for the most unoriginal character for fun and it just so happened that Yabuki-san stopped by to see how we were doing. He walked into a room full of characters like Baby Metal Mario and Waluigi 2. Before we could explain what was happening, he looked at my Gold Peach and said that this character was perfect.”
“Afterwards, I was kept on the team for three years to help refine the character,” continued Takuji, “I was still getting paid so it did not matter to me. In the meantime, I created some more characters like Gold Mario for the new Mario Golf game. That is also why we had to change Gold Peach to Pink Gold Peach because players might have thought Nintendo was running out of ideas after seeing Gold Mario and then Gold Peach. I also tried to present a redesign of Wart from Super Mario USA to the team, but they thought he was not unique enough considering Yoshi was already in the game.”
And it seems that Nintendo’s decision to hire these character designers has paid off. Popular Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has already named Pink Gold Peach as one of the top video game characters of 2014 that are completely made out of gold.
