Mario from Mario & Luigi Could Have Looked More "Rugged" & Edgy
Art Director Hitomi Furuta shared how the artists created the character's design.
Nintendo
Mario from the player-favorite Mario & Luigi: Brothership could have looked "edgier," as Acquire Art Director Hitomi Furuta shared in a recent interview.
Hitomi Furuta said that their challenge was to create such 3D visuals that would "bring out the unique appeal of the Mario & Luigi series and differentiate it from other Mario games." She shared that at first, the devs didn't realize that, which led them to a "huge detour." Hitomi said that the design of the main character could have been different from what ended up in the final version: "And in our search for a new Mario & Luigi style, at one point we ended up trying to present an edgier, more rugged Mario instead..."
Take a look at early concepts for "rugged Mario":
Nintendo
Nintendo
But then the devs received feedback from Nintendo, which said that they should "aim to make the art direction identifiable by fans as belonging to the Mario & Luigi series." After that, they narrowed down their focus to combine two things: the appeal of illustrations, which could feature, for example, solid outlines and bold, black eyes, along with the "charm of pixel animations," showing the characters ' comical chaotic movements. According to Furuta, that's when the creators finally started to develop an art style unique to the game.
Nintendo Producer Akira Otani also explained that the early designs of a "rugged" Mario "gave the impression of something different that just resembled Mario," and a meeting was called to reassess the artistic direction. According to Furuta, at the meeting, Nintendo showed the creators a document describing the core features of Mario and Luigi in the series. With that direction from the company, the creator realized that they should stick to the original character's design, which was known and loved by players.
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