[News] Iwata Asks Interview Regarding Wii Fit's Sound Design

This is a rather interesting interview, and gives a lot of insight into the sound design process of Wii Fit. The entire series of interviews, for that matter, really provide a broad look at how Wii Fit was conceived and developed. Anyway, the main points from this interview (regarding the sound/music, at least) I highlighted below. Toru Minegishi did all of the background music for Wii Fit, and Yohei Miyagawa was the sound effects programmer.

Wii.com - Iwata Asks: Wii Fit

Spoiler:

Minegishi
The Zelda games and Wii Fit sit on really opposite ends of the gaming spectrum, so my first impression was, "This is going to be really different." Having said that, I had an interest in body balance long before I started working on the Zelda games.

Iwata
Why is that?

Minegishi
I play the drums, which requires you to move each arm and leg individually at the same time. In other words, it’s an instrument that forces you to keep a good body balance to play properly. That’s why, as I became more serious about my drumming, I started becoming more interested in the structure and balance of the human body. If you were to visit my home, you’d find my bookshelf full of books related to all that! (laughs)

Minegishi
I’d never told anybody about my interest in balance, so this was really a coincidence. Anyway, that’s why when I was given this assignment; I actually thought it was right up my alley. Besides, I had worked on games like Talent Studio that didn’t fit in with Nintendo’s powerhouse games like Zelda, and I thought that having had experience in completely different projects would allow me to approach Wii Fit with a more open mind.

Iwata
I’d like to ask you about the sound first. I think that the music in the Zelda games is emphasized quite a bit, as it’s designed to play in a fantasy world and give added impact to the emotions felt by the player. However, users of Wii Fit will be listening to the same music on a daily basis, so the music for this game shouldn’t stand out quite as much. Also, I would think that music that will be listened to every day should be something enjoyable, not something that will get on your nerves. In that regard, it must have been difficult to create the kind of sound that, unlike with Zelda, needed to put users in a pleasant mood on a daily basis.

Minegishi
It’s true that with the Zelda games, some people play just so they can listen to the music, so sometimes we needed to really emphasize the overall sound. But with Wii Fit, I needed to back off a bit and create the kind of music that would support the game rather than stand out on its own. Add to that the fact that players would be physically interacting with the game instead of sitting down…

Minegishi
I had to work on it many times before getting it right. For example, I’d initially decided to use nothing but live instruments to produce that warmth, but as a result the music started going in a completely different direction than the on-screen design, and it just felt jarring. So to give the music a more expansive feel and to make sure it didn’t deviate too much from the tone of the graphics, I added subtle bits of synthesiser music, for example.

Iwata
Did you do anything special with Wii Fit from a sound programming perspective?

Miyagawa
Wii Fit includes quite a few of the ideas which (Koji) Kondo-san10 is very serious about that utilize the interactive nature of video games, although doing that is something of a tradition for Nintendo sound teams. Specifically, we’ve designed the sound so that depending on how the player proceeds, Minegishi-san’s background music will change. For example, in Hula Hoop ® , the music becomes livelier with every hoop that you catch.

Iwata
It really does get livelier the longer your play.

Miyagawa
It’s a lot of fun watching someone play Hula Hoop ® , but some people might find it difficult to get the hang of it when they try it out because you don’t actually feel the hoops on your waist. The thing is, all you need to do is swing your hips fast, and Hosaka-san, who made this game, wanted us to somehow indicate this through sound. We ended up working on a solution until the very last minute. What we ended up doing was increasing the pitch of the music every time the rotations got faster.

Iwata
Well, then. I suggest we get all the details from them later on! (laughs) This isn’t really a sound effect, but whenever you get on the Wii Balance Board it says something. There obviously aren’t any bathroom scales in the world that talk, so what I want to know is, how did you manage to create such a lovable voice for it?

Miyagawa
I have no idea! (laughs)

Miyagawa
All we did was hire a voice actor who fit the image we were going for so we wouldn’t have to alter it much later.

Iwata
Finally, I’d like to ask you to leave a message for the customers about what you’d like them to look for in Wii Fit. In Minegishi-san’s case, that’ll be what he’d like the customers to listen for! (laughs)

Minegishi
As far as music goes, I’d recommend listening to the Step Basics music, which matches the step rhythm pretty well. This was bounced back and forth between Hosaka-san and the sound team for quite a while. Step Basics is a simple aerobic exercise, but it really does blend well with the music, and I think it’ll prove to be a lively, enjoyable experience. But rather than recommend a particular sound detail, I’d like to point out, as I mentioned earlier, that I designed all the music and sound effects in Wii Fit to cheer on and support people trying to improve their health and make Wii Fit a comfortable place to be. As such, I’d like to encourage everyone to stick with Wii Fit and keep up their training efforts.

Miyagawa
The trainers in this game are fully-voiced. This is something that EAD has rarely done, so I hope you enjoy this aspect. There’s one more thing I’d like to mention. Most yoga instruction materials are quite bland and lack feeling, don’t they? However, in Wii Fit, the trainers will keep an eye on your movements, so if you get off the Wii Board in the middle of an exercise and slack off, the trainer will notice and tell you off or ask you to come back.

How ya doing, buddy?

Thanks for the link. I love the song that plays during that DDR-like exercise (Step Basics?) from the trailer.

There's nowhere I can't reach.