Shigeru Miyamoto is one of the most legendary designers in video games, with his influences felt over the course of the past 30 years in gaming. His iconic creation of the Mario Bros. has led to Nintendo having one of the most recognizable brands in the history of franchises and according to Miyamoto, Mario could have featured in the upcoming Splatoon, if the development team wasn’t able to come up with a compelling character.
Miyamoto explains that during one of the internal tests for the development of the game, before any characters had been created, the team was playing around with the ink battle mechanic and attempting to brainstorm ways to use it with a unique character. Miyamoto says that during this early stage of development, the characters were lacking inspiration and were not unique. According to him, he told the team they could consider using Mario if the right character could not be developed. That’s when the team came up with the idea to use squid characters.
A few weeks later, they gingerly approached me with the squid-like character, and we decided on that direction right on the spot. The director and others who nervously brought the squid character to me must have been surprised with my positive reaction, but at the time, I didn’t accept it for lack of better options. I actually thought, ‘This must be it!’ It’s fun to nurture something so unique, and I’m glad that they were able to experience bringing it to fruition.
Fans of Super Mario Sunshine have been asking for the F.L.U.D.D from Super Mario Sunshine to make an appearance in the game for some time, so perhaps Nintendo will honor that considering Mario was almost the main character of the game.
