Famitsu: Let us talk about Metroid Prime. Honestly, we think that fans of the series are worried. In short, they are worrying that Metroid is going to become Doom.

Miyamoto: Yes. That is often said.

Famitsu: (laugh) Well it is not that we are saying Doom is a bad game, but the first person shooting games have a tendency to appear as a foreign game.

Miyamoto: It is not going to become the so called “Western game.” We have no intentions for it to become that. People still think that despite the fact that we are working on the game together from Japan. People from overseas also said this kind of thing. It is probably because people seems like they tend to categorize games by genre. (laugh) Since we only released still screen shots, it gives you that kind of impression just by only looking at the screen shots.

Famitsu: I see.

Miyamoto: Well, Metroid is originally an exploration game. Of course you have situations where you are attacking enemies, but at heart it was a game where you had fun exploring. And if you look across the series, in Metroid games the rooms and passage ways are not very wide. Within that narrow area, if you take and move the camera outside of the character (editor note: a 3rd person shooter), it becomes relatively difficult to control. This is very detrimental to an exploration game.

Famitsu: I see.

Miyamoto: That is why we are very troubled if you tag Metroid as a jumping game. We think that Metroid is an exploration game, an adventure game. As a result, as an adventure game that takes place in narrow places, we chose the first person perspective because it was the best view. In other words, we never thought about making a “first person shooter.” So when this game releases, it should be an adventure game that sports a smooth controlling scheme.

Famitsu: We understand.

Miyamoto: Of course, we will always have the option to make a side-scrolling jumping Metroid game. When we want to make that game, we will. Metroid Prime does not mean that Metroid is going to stay forever in the first person perspective.

Famitsu: So you are saying that this time you decided to go with a first person shooter emphasizing on the adventure aspect.

Miyamoto: Yes. And when you look at the GameCube lineup, there are quite a lot of third person shooters. So you could say that the fact that Metroid Prime diversifies the GameCube lineup has also more or less influenced the decision.


Source: Planetgamecube