Nintendo Boss Calls Skyward Sword's Menu System "Revolutionary"

[Logan Westbrook]

Nintendo Boss Calls Skyward Sword's Menu System "Revolutionary"

Skyward Sword's item menu is so apparently so good, it even impressed Shigeru Miyamoto.

There's a lot of new stuff in Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword [http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Skyward-Sword-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002BSC54I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319034847&sr=8-2]. There's a new setting and new items, but it seems that what's getting the bigwigs at Nintendo all excited right now is the game's new menu system, which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata describes as "revolutionary."

Like a lot of the best ideas, the new menu is very simple. Items are arranged in a circle and you select them by either tilting or pointing with the Wii-Mote. Hidemaro Fujibayashi said that once you knew the position of the items, it was possible to choose them quickly without having to look at the screen. He said that Shigeru Miyamoto was so happy with the system that the veteran developer actually doled out some praise, which Fujibayashi said had never happened before, at least not to him.

Fujibayashi wasn't the only person who heard kind words from Miyamoto about the system; he also talked to Iwata about it. "I think it was around the time you had just made that system, I remember very well that Miyamoto-san really bragged about it," Iwata said. "[Miyamoto] said, 'Once you get used to it, you can select items with unprecedented speed and without interrupting the flow of the game. It's quite unique.'"

It's probably worth adding a proviso for Iwata's comment and say that it's unique for a Zelda game; radial quick select menus have been popping up in videogames for years. Still, it's always positive to see a developer refining its interfaces, especially one with a reputation for making the same game over and over again.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword comes out for Wii on November 20th.

Source: Nintendo [http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/zelda-skyward-sword/0/2] via Official Nintendo Magazine [http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/31537/iwata-zelda-skyward-sword-is-revolutionary/]


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[Sir Broccoli]

...This sounds a LOT like the menu that Twilight Princess already has.

Just sayin'

 

[Frostbite3789]

In addition to what the guy above me said, it also sounds a lot like the menu system Bioware games have been using since, what? 2007?

Edit: Oh they said it's been in other games for years. Doesn't that just a little bit make the fact that he used the word 'revolutionary' straight up wrong?

 

[Delusibeta]

...This sounds a LOT like the menu that Twilight Princess already has.

Just sayin'

I'd probably be more likely to argue Brink's objective menu.

 

[Danpascooch]

Have the Nintendo employees been living under a rock? How is a radial quickselect menu "unique" in ANY way!?

I know Nintendo took a different evolutionary path than other gaming companies, but Christ! You'd think they'd at least take a peek at games made by other companies to see if they could learn an interface trick or two!

Leave it to Nintendo to pat itself on the back for reinventing the wheel (pun definitely intended)

 

[Blind0bserver]

I believe the last time I heard a developer laud their interface as being "revolutionary" it was Peter Molyneux talking about the menu-less system in Fabe III.

... that didn't exactly go well...

 

[WarCorrespondent]

Trauma Centre did this YEARS AGO. AND for the sequel as well.

God damnit Nintendo, can't you give me an update that fills me joy and fear of not being able to stop playing your games? But no, they finally fixed the menu system. Excuse me while I go change my underwear.

 

[Ayjona]

A "revolutionary" menu system? Good thing gamers have caught on to the common practice of the gaming industry to hype minor features with hyperbolic statements, otherwise the bar could have been raised far above Nintendo's reach this time...

 

[DasDestroyer]

I vaguely remember Ubisoft saying the exact same thing about the exact same kind of menu in Assassins Creed 2, and even then it wasn't revolutionary, afaik.

 

[yuval152]

itsn't it also like this in mass effect's and Human Revoultions?

 

[rutcommapat]

1: Copy someone else's weapon system
2: Refer to it using a word which makes all the quote whores on the Internet cum themselves
3: ??????
4: PROFIT

 

[imnot]

Wat.

Seriouslt nintendo? thats revolutionary!?

 

[Something Amyss]

...This sounds a LOT like the menu that Twilight Princess already has.

Just sayin'

REVOLUTIONARY! >.>

I believe the last time I heard a developer laud their interface as being "revolutionary" it was Peter Molyneux talking about the menu-less system in Fabe III.

... that didn't exactly go well...

Well, PM and Nintendo both tend to promise the moon, to similar ends. Commercial success and utter mockery.

Anyway, I mostly clicked "comment" because this seems more or less like how powers are selected in Bioware titles. At least, I remember doing this in Mass Effect, right down to the point that ordering a squadmate to use a power on the wheel didn't require looking at the screen.

There was a cell phone company, back a full two years after it was ruled Americans could keep their numbers when they changed mobile services, who advertised that if you chose THEM, you got to keep your old number: A right that as I said, was determined to be applicable to all mobile phone providers in the US a couple years prior.

I guess what I'm saying is, this kind of thing tends to work. It'd be like someone advertising an iPad rival by saying "revolutionary new interface!" to advertise the touch screen.

Though I'm not sure how much a menu system will sell a game, but still.

 

[wooty]

As long as the.gameplay is good, I couldnt care less about menus or the graphics.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

OH MY GOD, A RADIAL MENU SYSTEM!

Call the fucking press! Oh, wait, they apparently did. Jesus Christ, Nintendo. 'Hey, look at us, we ripped off like fifteen other games. Five years too late.'

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

He means revolutionary in that it goes round in circles.

Any other way would be crazy.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Dear Nintendo:
Does your amazing new menu system involve cheese in any way? No? Well, I guess it's not really revolutionary then, now is it?

 

[robotam]

Didn't the PS2 Ratchet and Clanks have that sort of inventory?
And I'm sure that wouldn't be the first.
We should make a list and send it to Nintendo.