Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, and Brandon Sheffield answer Alex Jaffe’s questions on A Minecraft Movie, canceling people in gaming, and most importantly, the SCRUMPI II. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.
I don’t think Sakurai will ever deliver a “passion project”, for two reasons:
he’s an intensely calculating, outcome-oriented person who understands that virtually nothing they do can or will reach as many people and have as big an impact as Smash; there is no greater “passion” for him than making popular, successful games
he works on royalties
that’s not to say he doesn’t have a creative ego—I suspect that his big motivation for returning to Kirby Air Ride is that he feels it wasn’t sufficiently understood in its day and he wants people to thoroughly Get It this time around.
Shu Takumi’s post-Ghost Trick career is odd: he wrote the AA x Layton crossover and wrote/directed the Great AA spinoff but had little to nothing to do with any of the mainline games from 4 on, and Great AA’s like eight years old now, so I have to imagine he is or was working on original games between now and then and that they were going nowhere.
re: Nintendo and the stage/actor conceit, there’s also that anecdote from the Goldeneye devs about how Miyamoto wasn’t comfortable with the level of violence and wanted them to add some sort of framing device that’d show you weren’t actually killing people—the team went with a movie-style credits roll, but Miyamoto’s suggestion was a post-credits scene with Bond visiting all his foes in the hospital.
My guess was he’s just gotten stuck in management duties and hasn’t gotten to actually direct anything - I’d prefer if he were working on something new though!
The timer was brutal in that lightning round. I thought it was a fun idea, but perhaps a bit more accessible if the timer started off more generous and decreased as the game progressed. You need some time to ease into a flow with a game like that imo.
The first ‘G’ game that came to mind for me in the lightning round to follow up Animal Crossing was ‘Golgo 13,’ which would have screwed things up even more than Qix! (Yes, I know it’s subtitled ‘The Secret Episode’ or whatever, but in the heat of the lightning round I don’t know if that would have come up…)
On Jack Black and Tenacious D in Question 3, I brought this up among friends when the film launched and they pointed out that he’d followed up that social media statement, reported in places like the Guardian, saying “Tenacious D will return”. Their social media’s been boosting Kyle Gass’s solo tour in the interim, so I think that the narrative of Black throwing Gass under the bus (that I certainly subscribed to) was overblown and the tour cancellation was more to avoid any retalliation for Gass’s comment of the sniperly variety. Looks like they did something for LA recently.
fyi for anyone else interested. i think that galaxies showcase is on the 17th. i think it was said as the 15th on the episode: https://www.galaxiesshow.com/
Growing up I would often find my Gameboy Color tucked away by my dads reading chair or in the magazine bin in the bathroom with Ms. Pacman in it. My brother and I were lucky that my dad was so tired of having to share the GBC that we were gifted GBAs very close to launch. I think Ms. Pacman stayed in there ever since, moving between the bedside table and bathroom for the last 22 years.
I think the thing about the Borderlands movie is it came far too late with the ideal audience not being seeped in the culture that it first found favor in and I feel it just wasn’t ever culturally relevant enough for an adaption that altered the tone to really resonate with anyone. These are real comfort food titles for anyone I know who plays them.
I also love that I’m don’t know if Brandon was making a SBR joke or not on Q#6 and that Ash still found it funny regardless.
Nintendo really went after the celebrities for the DS era promotion in the west. I actually forgot about the Rhythm Heaven CM but I somehow remembered Carrie Underwood did the Nintendogs one??? It was specifcally for the DS lite. I actually even owned the color she is using in the commercial too
IGN got a BTS with Beyonce?!?? It is so unnatural to hear her speak at length about anything anymore I forgot she use to do interviews and stuff back then.
The most memorable celeb grab for DS era was Utada.
They managed to use Easy Breezy lyrically appropriately. You would never know the criminal cringe with how quickly that clip ends lmao.
She was on-board for almost the whole life span of the DS phat, and I up until my teenage yrs was a famous Tetris hater. I thought it was boring and braindead whenever I watched my mom play it growing up. I remember reading Utada’s blog about managing to beat two of the nintendo assassins at sent into a promo event for Tetris DS, I then brought it on a whim that summer. My best friend who shared my detest for Tetris told me to guess what he bought over the summer break, and I said “Tetris DS? I did too lol”. We poisoned our entire friend circle because of Download play. Everyone ended up buying it for themselves.
The event was the stuff of dreams that I wish Nintendo did more of. She played like 30 fans before playing the Nintendo staff- just washing ppl. I didn’t know she was beating everyone ass like that until I saw the video yrs later.
