"If you think about it, Mario's jumping ability is actually ridiculous," Shigeru Miyamoto said in a 1989 interview. "He'd be the greatest Olympic athlete ever!"
That quote, pulled from a newly translated interview originally published in the Japanese Gamer Handbook, offers a rare window into the design philosophy that shaped some of gaming's most beloved franchises. The translation, published by shmuplations, reveals that Miyamoto was skeptical of realism-focused game design decades before the debate became a fixture of modern gaming discourse.
Miyamoto's Case Against Realism
In the interview, Miyamoto took direct aim at games that prioritized visual fidelity and smooth animation over how they actually felt to play. He pointed to what he described as "animation-heavy games which prioritize visual smoothness over responsiveness" as a core problem, making a thinly veiled reference to karate-style games, likely including Jordan Mechner'sKarateka, the predecessor to Prince of Persia.
His verdict was blunt: those titles offered "beautiful" movement, but as games, they were "pretty much failures."
The key here is what Miyamoto valued above all else: feel. Not fidelity.
- Responsiveness over smooth animation
- Player sensation over visual accuracy
- Expressive, exaggerated physics over real-world constraints
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Miyamoto's comments were made in 1989 and translated recently by shmuplations. The original Japanese context should be kept in mind when interpreting the directness of his remarks.
From Donkey Kong to Mario: Leaving Reality Behind
Miyamoto used Mario's own evolution as a case study. In the original Donkey Kong, the character jumped roughly his own height, which felt grounded enough to accept. But as the series progressed and Mario began leaping three or four times his own height, the design had already departed from anything resembling real physics.
Rather than pulling back, Nintendo leaned into it. The logic: once you've broken one rule of reality, you need an entirely consistent internal world to replace it.
"Worlds that seem like they could exist in reality, but don't," was how Miyamoto framed the goal. Programmers, in his view, are the gods of the worlds they build. But if those worlds don't feel convincing on their own terms, players simply won't want to inhabit them.
What most players miss is that this isn't just a stylistic preference. It's a foundational design argument: unrealistic games can feel more real than realistic ones, provided their internal rules are consistent and satisfying.
Mario's physics defy reality by design
Tom, Jerry, and Chaplin as Design Blueprints
So where did Nintendo look for inspiration when building these internally consistent, cartoon-logic worlds? Not to film or architecture. To Tom and Jerry.
Miyamoto explicitly credited the classic Hanna-Barbera animated series, along with the silent film work of Charlie Chaplin, as "vital fuel" for Nintendo's early game development. Both sources share a common thread: characters operating in a world that looks familiar but follows its own exaggerated, physical comedy rules.
A cat flattened by a frying pan bounces back. A man slips on a banana peel and tumbles in a perfectly timed arc. These aren't realistic events, but they feel right within their own logic. That's exactly the sensation Miyamoto wanted players to experience in Mario and Donkey Kong.
Here's the thing: this philosophy didn't just shape Nintendo's past. You can trace a direct line from Miyamoto's 1989 thinking to modern Nintendo titles, where exaggerated physics and cartoon-consistent rules remain central to the experience.
Why This Philosophy Still Matters
The realism debate in game design has never gone away. Franchises built on photorealistic presentation continue to dominate sales charts, while Nintendo's catalogue remains rooted in the same expressive, feel-first approach Miyamoto described four decades ago.
The translated interview is a reminder that this wasn't accidental. Nintendo's cartoon-inspired design language was a deliberate rejection of a path that Miyamoto believed was leading games in the wrong direction, even in the industry's earliest years.
You'll want to read the full shmuplations translation for additional context, as it covers Miyamoto's broader thoughts on game design, player frustration, and the role of hidden secrets in games during the same era.
Source: Inkl
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Where did Miyamoto's 1989 interview originally appear?
The interview was originally published in a Japanese publication called Gamer Handbook in 1989. It was recently translated into English by the fan translation site shmuplations, bringing these decades-old design insights to a wider audience.
Which games did Miyamoto reference as examples of failed realism?
Miyamoto made a vague reference to "karate games" that prioritized animation quality, widely interpreted as a reference to Karateka by Jordan Mechner. He praised the movement as beautiful but argued the games failed as playable experiences.
How did Tom and Jerry influence Nintendo's game design?
Miyamoto cited Tom and Jerry cartoons, along with Charlie Chaplin's silent films, as key creative references. Both feature characters operating under exaggerated physical comedy rules that feel internally consistent, which is the same quality Miyamoto sought in Nintendo's early platformers.
