At first, Donkey Kong was going to use a realistic shotgun instead of his popular coconut cannon in Donkey Kong 64. Today we get some really interesting statements about it.
These come from a recent meeting of George Andreas, creative director of the game, with the Media GamesRadar. In the interview, he shared how Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s legendary creative, was horrified to see the initial realistic shotgun.
“Miyamoto-san, Iwata-san and Howard Lincoln, president of Nintendo America at that time, came to our new studio,” says Andreas. «We turned on the game, watched the rap and then started running as DK. I hung up on some vines, got bananas and they started to really smile. And then I pressed the button to take out the gun ».
“It was not a textured gun as one would expect, but a realistic shotgun with flying bullets and with horrible sound effects,” he continues. “You get so used to things that are in development, even if it is a provisional marker, and I completely forgot that I was there. I was shooting beavers, I turned my head and saw that horror expression on Miyamoto’s face! Then he smiled and, with paper and pencil, showed us a coconut gun. He had sheets and handed it to me. I looked at him and said: Oh yes, that’s great.
As you can see, it seems that Miyamoto’s reaction helped us to have a much less traumatic weapon in the final version. What do you think?