User:Vyroz/Robobot Pre-Release Info

i'm at it again

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Kirby: Planet Robobot.

Development Timeline

• 2014
  • ?? - The game starts its development alongside Kirby Fighters Deluxe and Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe. The game was completed under 2 years.
• 2016
  • Mar. 3rd - The game is revealed in a Nintendo Direct event.
  • Apr. 28th - The game is released in Japan.
  • Jun, 10th - The game is released in the United States, Europe, and Korea.
  • Jun. 11th - The game is released in Australia.

Miiverse Posts

Like with Kirby: Triple Deluxe, a "Behind the Scenes" community was created for the game. Unlike the game before it, however, it didn't include developer posts; Instead, the community hosted three "Kirby: Planet Robobot Ask-a-thon" events, where the players could ask director Shinya Kumazaki various things about the game. The replies below were archived by the people behind "Kirby behind-the-scenes archive".

Ask-a-thon 1

The first Ask-a-thon, with lots of development info.

August 9th 2016 10:56 AM Reply

A reply to the question "How did you decide upon ‘Kirby: Planet Robobot’ for the game title?". Here, Kumazaki explains how the team came up with the game's title.

Initially, we’d planned to call it “Kirby: HAGANE” (“hagane” is Japanese for “steel”), but as Popstar would be populated by robots, we then leaned towards “Kirby: Robot Planet”. As titles go, this was far too literal and lacked impact, so we changed it again to “Roborobo Planet”. One last tweak and the result was “Planet Robobot”, which is in keeping with the playfulness of the Kirby universe. The name for the “Robobot Armor” also came up around this time.

August 9th 2016 11:03 AM Reply

A reply to the question "What was it that inspired you to create this game, and how long did it take to produce it?". This time, Kumazaki explain the development process of the game.

Since we ended up developing two Kirby games in a row using the same hardware - the first being Kirby: Triple Deluxe - this time, we wanted to do a completely different take on the world. At the same time, we were also hoping to attract a new audience. We thought a mechanized world would do well, since then it would be the polar opposite to the previous game’s warm skies and lush scenery. The concept for the Robobot Armor was then proposed as a means of performing new copy abilities unique to the mechanized world. Regarding the length of development, we worked on Planet Robobot in parallel with other titles such as Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe, and it was completed in under two years.

August 9th 2016 11:14 AM Reply

Answers to the questions "Was there a specific part of the creation process that you found especially challenging? And if you had the chance to redesign the whole game, would you want to improve any specific areas of it?". Kumazaki explains more about the game's development.

We were instructed by our producer to avoid any situation that might remind players of Triple Deluxe and I think that although this was a great idea, it was a nightmare to put into practice. We had limited development time and still had to make use of the assets from the previous game. Because we were using Triple Deluxe’s engine, a lot of the gameplay felt similar, so I was constantly fighting to preserve the Kirby series’ distinctive feel and yet produce something fresh and new. There were, of course, many things that I would have liked to refine or improve, but rather than regret not being able to address them, I try to use those shortcomings as motivation to look to the future and help myself do a better job next time. It’s a continuous process that never really ends.

August 9th 2016 11:24 AM Reply

Here, the director gives out answers to the questions "Is Susie Haltmann’s real daughter?" and "Is Susie a clone or a robot?". He also informs about scrapped ideas for the game's story, documented below.

I initially considered making it so that Haltmann, in his loneliness, created a robotic Susie who believed she was alive, but that idea was discarded to avoid overcomplicating the story. At the time, I also considered a scenario with one final twist, where you discover that Haltmann was actually a robot all along.

Ask-a-thon 3

The third Ask-a-thon.

September 7th 2016 1:53 PM Reply

Reply to the question "How did you decide which abilities would make it into the game?". Here, Kumazaki explains the struggles of implementing Copy Abilities.

In the past 5 or 6 years, we’ve gained over 10 new abilities so we’re always struggling to balance out the old and new ones. We were also restricted by development time and hardware limitations. But even from the perspective of game balance, once you go over 25 copy abilities, you start to see an effect on the frequency of each ability per stage and on the balancing for the new Robobot elements. Even with the limited number of abilities that made the cut, the command inputs make up for it with a wide variety of actions so it isn’t such a problem.

September 7th 2016 2:16 PM Reply

Kumazaki provides info about the Meta Knight's eye color: "In the moment that Mecha Knight+’s mask cracks, the player gets a glimpse of Meta Knight’s eyes, which appear to be yellow. Were they always this way?"

That’s quite a thing to spot. In Kirby’s Adventure on the Famicom (NES), Meta Knight’s eyes are indeed white. At that time, there was a limit to the number of colors you could use, so I think that white was chosen because it stood out more. 
They were also white in Kirby Super Star (EU: Kirby’s Fun Pak), but when we created the 3D model for this game, giving him white eyes somehow didn’t feel right. And besides, his eyes have always shone with a yellow glow from behind his mask. We were worried about how old-school fans might react to this, but for the purposes of the design, we settled on yellow eyes.

September 7th 2016 2:20 PM Reply

Here, Kumazaki gives out answers to 3 questions:

• No. 1: Did you increase the overall difficulty level for this game?
• No. 2: There seem to be a lot more cinematic effects this time. Was this deliberate?
• No. 3: The opening movie sequence was a lot shorter this time round. Why is that?

All right, I’ll explain. Regarding the difficulty, I think that you should still be able to complete the main game with relative ease (easy enough for a developer’s 4-year-old daughter to defeat the bosses in levels 1-3). But for the modes that are unlocked after completing Story Mode, we cranked the difficulty right up and challenged players to try and give it their best shot. Next, we used movie-like camera angles to reinforce the sci-fi theme. And during boss fights, we utilized pauses and moments of foreboding to give players with less experience in the action genre more time to orient themselves. And as for the opening movie, the reason why it’s so short is because last time we depicted key items and daily life in great detail. We decided to forego that this time because players are already familiar with those kinds of stage-setting scenes from the rest of the series. We instead chose to leap straight into the moment of the disaster.