In a recent interview, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto gave his thoughts on the most recent entries in his two most iconic series, Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Here is what he had to say:

What I’ve been saying to our development teams recently is that “Twilight Princess” was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing. And while, personally, I feel like “Super Mario Galaxy” was able to do some things that were very new and were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative in terms of how far we branched out with design. And so this is something I’ve been talking to both of those teams about.

Of course, as is customary with Nintendo, it’s very rare that we are able to announce any games until they’re ready for release, but I can say that these are themes that both of those teams are taking into account and the hope is that for both of those franchises, when we do release the next installments of the Zelda franchise or maybe the next Galaxy, hopefully they will feel newer and fresher than their most recent versions.

I would agree with what he said about Twilight Princess. To me, it just seemed like it was trying too hard to be darker and more like Ocarina of Time because a lot of (really annoying) people complained about the cuter, cartoonish look of The Wind Waker. Twilight Princess seemed to play it safe the whole way through, it was still a great game, but I didn’t find it as memorable or likable as The Wind Waker.

I (like many) was surprised at what Miyamoto had to say about Super Mario Galaxy, a game that quickly became one of the best reviewed titles of all time,  being too conservative in design. I suppose he may be referring to the fact that the quest of Mario Galaxy is to find 120 power stars, just as it was in Super Mario 64, and things along those lines, but the gameplay and atmosphere of the game were completely unique in and of themselves. But if anyone can make a game better than Super Mario Galaxy, it’s Shigeru Miyamoto, and if Shiggy (as I like to call him) thinks he can make Mario even better, than I would love to see what kind of awesome ideas he can come up with.

An interesting note, when Miyamoto referred to the “upcoming” sequels, he addressed them as “the next Zelda or Galaxy” as opposed to “the next Zelda or Mario.” Could this mean super Mario Galaxy will get a more direct sequel in the tradition of Yoshi’s Island (Mario World 2) and Majora’s Mask (Ocarina of Time 2)? One can only hope.

Oh yeah, Shiggy also said he loves Portal, and that is the biggest compliment a western game designer can get.

Mario for the win.