As promised, Nintendo of Europe held a special developer talk with producer Yoshiaki Koizumi about Super Mario Odyssey at Gamescom 2017 this week.
The Nintendo Switch exclusive looks to provide players with the sense of travelling to new places around the world and discovering things that they have never seen or experienced before, and, in wanting to showcase how they have achieved that goal, live gameplay footage with the moustachioed plumber hunting for Power Moons around the Luncheon Kingdom was shown.
“The theme of this kingdom is something that I personally always look forward to when I am travelling around. That’s food!” Koizumi explained. “And this week in Germany I have been enjoying trying lots of different foods that I have never eaten before. And, I especially liked schnitzel!”
He went on to add: “The kingdom was partly inspired by Italy and other European countries. Europe has a really rich variety of food cultures and cuisines, so, when we were thinking of making a food-themed Kingdom, it seemed like a natural choice to give it a European flavour.
“I also think this Kingdom has quite a unique art style in the game. Some Kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey look quite similar to our own world. An example of this would be New Donk City, but some of them, like this one, have a more surreal or cartoon-like vibe to them.”
When it was pointed out that the Luncheon Kingdom inhabitants look distressed, Koizumi explained: “Well, there’s a big cooking pot at the top of the volcano. This pot belongs to those fork guys, but this big bird has come down and he has kind of taken over the pot.
“I bet you’re wondering what’s inside the pot? Well, it’s this Kingdom’s most famous dish called Stupendous Stew. But, Bowser’s also got his eye on the stew…”
Super Mario Odyssey will release exclusively for Nintendo Switch worldwide on October 27th.
