Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was successfully Kickstarted earlier this year by WayForward Technologies, which is a development team that has long supported Nintendo consoles. The game released on Nintendo 3DS earlier this year, but it’s due to hit the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U on December 25. A second project is currently in the works for Wii U as well, called Shantae: Half-Genie Hero.
In a recent interview with Destructoid, WayForward’s creative director Matt Bozon gave some interesting answers as to why the developer continues to put Nintendo platform development ahead of other, more popular platforms in the mainstream. The answer boils down to WayForward acknowledging that Nintendo fans are the reason why many of their projects have been successful over the years and they want to return the favor by prioritizing development for those platforms.
We want to be first in line to make games for these legendary platforms. Whether they reach a massive audience or not, Nintendo fans occupy an extremely loyal corner of the game industry. They like intelligent design and visually iconic characters, and they typically understand that games of high quality take time. Sure, we want our games to appear everywhere and be played by everyone, but I feel we have a real connection with Nintendo and its fans.
We’re working to expand our fan base, but Nintendo fans got us here which is why we go the extra mile to serve them when we can.
If you’ve already played Pirate’s Curse and you’re curious if there are any new features being worked on for the Wii U version, the answer is yes!
In addition to off TV play, we’ve added HD menus and character portraits. The character art has become well known in its own right, having been created by Inti Creates, the developer behind the Mega Man Zero series. There are around 100 HD illustrations, and they’re worth a closer look on your TV. They’re in stereoscopic 3D on 3DS, but HD here and both look incredible. We also support Wii U Pro Controller, and the Wii Classic Controller Pro. The game plays remarkably well with these controllers. But if I had to pick one feature to call my favorite, it’s the HD portraits.
It’s nice to see developers be so frank in their dedication to Nintendo fans. Be sure to check out the rest of the interview at Destructoid.