In a recent interview with Famitsu, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed the nature and extent of his involvement in the next Mario game, Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS. “I kept my distance from the project at first, but became more deeply involved midway — I don’t think it’d be satisfying as a Mario game to everyone unless I made myself known on the little details.”

I’m glad ahead of time that he did. Although they can be tough to narrow down, the magic of any platformer is certainly in the little details – especially when it comes to control, on which Miyamoto went on: “Having a new control scheme can really erase that Mario-ness from the game, and you’d be surprised at how long that can go unnoticed during development. Still, the main points of it became clear as we discussed it — for example, how much acceleration Mario should have in order for his jumping to feel really good and Mario-like. I helped fine-tune the numbers behind all of that; it was a really fun part of development.”

Miyamoto also addressed the game’s ancestry: ‘[New Super Mario Bros.] has Super Mario World at its core, and this game has [Super Mario Bros. 3]. Part of that is because a lot of the staff is from the Mario 3 generation…” The great difference lies of course in the upcoming title’s very much 3D gameplay, combined with a map instead of a hubworld (which you’ll notice at 0:26 of the trailer below). Super Mario Bros. 3 is in fact the older game; its influence as a “core” might be most obvious in the inclusion of the Tanooki Suit. How much the parentage is felt beyond that is something for which we’ll have to wait and see!

Super Mario 3D Land will be jumping on a Koopa Troopa near you on November 13th, 2011 (North America) and November 18th, 2011 (Europe).