The newest Iwata Asks provides an insight into not only Star Fox 64 3D but also the origins of the very first game.

The Star Fox series is now 18 years old and while it only has a handful of games it is still loved by many Nintendo fans. Soon those fans will be able to get their hands on Star Fox 64 3D, a 3DS remake of the N64 classic (known as Lylat Wars in Australia and Europe originally for legal reasons). As with any Nintendo release Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata sat down to chat to the team behind the game as part of the Iwata Asks series.

Shigeru Miyamoto recalls the origins of the series and how he requested that the characters be animals, rather than robots or aliens that were rife in Japanese sci-fi at the time. Upon being asked if he thought animals in a shooting game were a good idea he apparently retorted with "That's precisely why it would have impact!" Thus a series was born and the world was given Fox, Andross, General Pepper, Falco and Peppy, for better or worse, and each character was designed to draw upon Japanese mythology.

The main character Fox was conceived due to Nintendo's location in Kyoto at the time of development. Mr. MIyamoto noted that in the game players fly through arches, which reminded him of gates at Shinto shrines such as Fushimi Inari Taisha. Inari is a Japanese god associated with foxes and so the idea of a fox character began. In addition to this they were close to a boy's baseball team called Inari Foxes and thus an idea was born.

It wasn't just Japanese mythology and folklore that inspired Star Fox however. The packaging for the original game featured puppet versions of the characters, inspired by the British television show Thunderbirds. Apparently Mr. Miyamoto dreamed of the production company coming to Japan to negotiate a deal to make a Star Fox puppet show but alas it never happened.

Fans of the series will be aware that for a while Star Fox 2 was in development for the SNES to take advantage of new technology Nintendo invented that would allow for greater processing. While it never materialised many ideas, such as being able to fly around 360 and having a tank, did make it into Star Fox 64. Upon realising the greater possibilities they had due to the N64's abilities the team wanted to make it more like a movie and thus they created a storyline that ran throughout to try and engage with the audience.

While Link remains mute and Mario is limited to a number of set phrases the characters in Star Fox actually talk quite a lot, something uncommon for Nintendo now yet alone back when the N64 version came out. Apparently the reason for this was to add heightened drama to the game, again making it more like a movie, and this led to behind the scenes drama as well. The team soon realised that all possibilities had to be accounted for, so while you may want to have a character say "I'm going down!" they also had to say the same for going up, right and left. Some of the lines are actually expressions of the team's feelings while developing the game. One such example is Peppy's line "Never give up. Trust your instincts."

Shigeru Miyamoto decided to release the game for the Nintendo 3DS pretty early on in the console's development because he felt it would allow for him to showcase the 3DS' ability to display depth, particularly in regards to the length of the lasers fired. With the improved graphics the 3DS offers the team worked hard to bring the game up to modern standards and note that in a few cases its actually easier to perform some of the trickier stunts in 3D than it was in 2D.

One month before the end of the game's development Mr. Miyamoto once again "upended the tea table" by asking if they were going to use the gyro sensor, although it is quickly noted that he actually mentioned it at the start of development too. He felt that as gamers could purchase Star Fox 64 on the Virtual Console it needed something new and unique and now playing with the gyro sensor is like having your face "buried in the screen".

Of course using the gyro sensor on a 3D game isn't easy due to the viewing angle but Nintendo is quick to remind anyone that the 3D display can be turned off. In addition to this the controls can be switched instantly, so if you're using the gyro sensor you can start using the circle pad without having to change any options as the game figures it out. For anyone wondering if Nintendo plans for any more Star Fox games we'll leave you with Satoru Iwata's words:

"The future of Star Fox depends on the reception it finds."