Kid Icarus: Uprising’s Sakurai Defends Game’s Controls

Yesterday, IGN posted an interview with Masahiro Sakurrai, the creator of the 3DS game Kid Icarus: Uprising. In the interview, he explains that critics’ issues with the game’s unconventional stylus-and-stand-based controls aren’t warranted—and that they’re just playing the game wrong:

“If there are players who say that it makes their hand tired, that’s because you’re applying too much force. Try to relax and work on building a rhythm to your control. Place the pen in the middle of the touchscreen; when you’re flicking it, take the pen off the screen as you’re sweeping with it, and stop right there. That’s the basic idea.”

As for adding Circle Pad support to offer dual analog controls, Sakurai says that it wasn’t an intentional omission so much as it would’ve been “technically impossible” in the game:

“Considering how close to the limit we pushed the 3DS during development, it’s a miracle that we were even able to provide support for left-handed controls at the point of completion. Providing support for independent analog control was something that was technically impossible.”

Interestingly, Sakurai also compares the criticism of the game’s controls to that of Super Smash Brothers, the game he worked on with HAL Laboratories before he left to start Project Sora:

“Smash Bros. led to similar misunderstandings when it first came out. Some people, including within the company, commented that they couldn’t imagine a worse game. The project was really saved by the fact that people ‘got’ how to play it after it was released. If we had just listened to the complaints and instituted health gauges or command-based special moves, I don’t think we would have invented a new style of play that way. The controls here really aren’t that difficult, either, so I’m hoping that people will be able to get used to them.”

I don’t know. Whatever, man. All I know is that I’d like to still be playing this game—but the thought of the hand-cramps and back strain playing that thing gave me doesn’t make me too hot to go back. Stylus-based video games are really not my favorite. At all.

And I’m not a big fan of the controls on Super Smash Brothers either. Sorry, Landon.

IGN via Eurogamer