Acquire, the developer of the game, had plans, but Nintendo didn’t accept the studio’s concept… but at least we get to see it in a picture!

In Nintendo’s latest Ask the Developer, Acquire designer Hitomi Furuta revealed that they had given Mario a slightly different design in the past, but the big N thought it would have been too different from what we’d seen in previous Mario & Luigi games, so the design ended up having to be tweaked a bit… But how much?

“Our challenge was to create 3D visuals that would bring out the unique appeal of the Mario & Luigi series and differentiate it from other Mario games. I’m embarrassed to say this, but we weren’t aware of this when we started development, which led us to take a big detour. At one point, in our search for a new Mario & Luigi style, we ended up trying to present an edgier, more robust Mario instead. Then we received feedback from Nintendo that we should aim to make the art direction recognizable to fans as belonging to the Mario & Luigi series.

After that, we were able to focus on how to combine two things: the appeal of illustrations with solid outlines and big black eyes, and the charm of pixel animation with the two characters moving comically in all directions. I think that’s when we finally started to develop an art style that was unique to this game,” Furuta said.

Nintendo Producer Akira Otani added that from their perspective, Acquire’s character design didn’t fit their formula: “[Their concept] gave the impression of something different that was just like Mario, so we called a meeting to reevaluate the direction. We wanted Acquire to have their own unique style, but we also wanted them to keep what made Mario unique. I think it was a time when we were experimenting with how those two things could coexist.

At the meeting, the big N presented a document summarizing what makes the two protagonists in Mario & Luigi games what they are: “Even though we had enthusiastically pitched this rugged version of Mario, when I looked at it from a player’s perspective, I started to worry about whether it really represented the Mario that players would want to play. So when we got this clear direction from Nintendo, it made perfect sense to us. I think that’s when we first realized, ‘Ah, this is what we should aim for this time in terms of a 3D visual style from Acquire,’ and we were able to set the basic direction,” Furuta recalled.

Haruyuki Ohashi, the game’s director, said that they wanted to experiment a lot with a new visual style, but Nintendo convinced them of their vision each time. Otari responded by saying that it was a bit like letting go of Acquire, but all they achieved was to have Nintendo chase them down again.