Mario & Luigi | Prior to 3D Nintendo & Acquire Considered HD-2D for Brothership

During a new “Ask the Developer” interview with Nintendo, Mario & Luigi: Brothership Producer, Akira Otani mentioned that an HD-2D art style was a possibility, with Director, Haruyuki Ohashi then clarifying why 3D was the way to go:

Mario & Luigi | Prior to 3D Nintendo & Acquire Considered HD-2D for Brothership:

Akira Otani: There was a point where I thought an HD-2D approach like OCTOPATH TRAVELER could be a possibility. However, previous Mario & Luigi games were pixel art, and the artwork on the packaging, et cetera, consisted of drawn illustrations.

For other Mario games, the in-game visual design and the main illustration match, but because they didn’t for the previous Mario & Luigi games, I thought it might have been harder for customers to recognise what kind of game it was. I wanted to align the game and the artwork at some point. That’s why my dream was to make the next one in 3D.

Haruyuki Ohashi: I was also thinking since the planning stage that 3D would be a good approach to take if we were going to make this game. There were also several reasons why I thought 2D would be difficult. I created games using pixel art characters in the No Heroes Allowed! (7) series, and from that experience with pixel art animation, I could see how great the pixel art animation was in past Mario & Luigi games, both from a technical and stylistic perspective. I didn’t think it would be easy to make something on that level or even better. So I thought, in that case, challenging ourselves to make Mario & Luigi in 3D would enable us to add lots of new and appealing elements into the game that weren’t in previous ones.

For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 15, Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Chapter 1:

Ask the Developer | Mario & Luigi Brothership (Participating Developers)

• Akira Otani | Entertainment Planning & Development Division, Co-Production Group (Producer)
• Tomoki Fukushima | Entertainment Planning & Development Division, Co-Production Group (Associate Producer)
• Haruyuki Ohashi | Director, Acquire Corp.
• Hitomi Furuta | Designer, Acquire Corp. (Art Director)