May 19, 2004 - At the Game Developers Conference in March, Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma met with select members of the press to talk about the next console installment in the Zelda franchise. At the time, the title now known simply as Legend of Zelda was still being referred to as "Wind Waker 2" and very few details about the adventure had been released.
For unexplainable reasons known only to itself, Nintendo would not permit IGN to post the two-month-old interview with Aonuma until after the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2004 had ended. Not begun -- but ended. With that in mind, we present readers the full interview.
Please note that some of the information in the interview is outdated. However, careful readers will be able to come by a few new details if they pay close attention. Please also note that IGN -- merely part of a roundtable -- had no part in many of the positively pointless questions asked to Mr. Aonuma.
IGN: Will Zelda come to the Nintendo DS?
Eiji Aonuma: I kind of thought that everybody would want to hear something about Zelda on the DS. Of course, I can't say anything about it now, but maybe you can look forward to developments of the Zelda franchise on the DS at E3. And though I can't say if we're necessarily working on anything specific at this point in time, with new hardware we're always looking for new ideas. So we're just trying to decide if we'll be able to show anything or not.
Of course, at E3 our big focus will be on the "Wind Waker 2", which is under development as we speak. We'll have a big push for that [at the show] and anything related to Zelda developments on the DS will probably come at some point after that.
IGN: What elements from Wind Waker would you like to improve upon in the new Zelda game?
Eiji Aonuma: In Wind Waker 1, we introduced what we're calling this focus system where the main character's eyes look around at different things in the environment, interact with enemies and really make it feel like the character is alive in this 3D world. And we were able to take that and apply it to the enemies [in Legend of Zelda] even so that he's able to notice the enemies. There's interaction between the main character and the enemies. And we really fleshed out the world and made it feel alive and real. One thing I'd really like to do is increase that and see where we can take the system going forward.
IGN: Looking at Four Swords, it seems as though you could get away with doing an all-2D Zelda title on GameCube. Would that be something you'd want to do?
Eiji Aonuma: There were two main reasons that we went with the 2D graphics for the GameCube Four Swords. One was that it was a sequel to the Game Boy Advance Four Swords game and so for continuity we chose to retain the same graphic style. The second reason was that as a connectivity game with four players, we found that it would be a lot easier to understand what's going on with all four players on one screen and being able to look at it from a top-down point of view. That obviously had a big impact in choosing that direction as well.
In general, when we determine a graphic style it's really not so much a determination of what style of graphics we want to use so much as it is determined by the type of game we're creating. So going forward if we get to a point where we decide that going back and making a 2D game is going to simplify the gameplay and make it more fun and allow us to do different things then we may consider doing that.
IGN: Would you say the demographic for Four Swords and Wind Waker 1 would be the same or different?
Eiji Aonuma: With the 2D graphic style it's really been something we've been working on a while. If you look back at the look of Link in the Wind Waker 1 and the look of Link in the Capcom Oracle games, it's really kind of an extension of what Link looked like in the Oracle games and then taking that and putting it into 3D. And because the Wind Waker game is a toon-shaded game, the look is going to have an appeal to a younger audience, but we found that people who played the game who were older also got a lot of enjoyment out of it. What we're finding is that a lot of people who are mature gamers or older gamers are picking up Four Swords, playing the multiplayer and having a lot of fun with it.
IGN: In your GDC presentation, you made an analogy about cooking. Any chance you might incorporate a cooking mini-game into the Legend of Zelda?
Eiji Aonuma: [Laughter] To tell you the truth, I've been thinking for a long time about how I could work cooking into a game somehow. But the fact of the matter is that cooking, when you stop to think about it, is pretty boring. It's really slow work and there's not a lot you can really do to make it seem very exciting. I guess if you watch television in the US there are a lot of cooking shows and they somehow manage to make it seem exciting. So maybe if, going forward, I can find a way to make cooking seem more exciting and allow people to have fun with it, I would probably try to put it into a game. Maybe if at some point down the road there is cooking in a game, you guys can all look back and say, "Hey. I bet Aonuma did this."
Une pitite pose avant de rprendre votre lecture ; quoi vous saviez po ? C'est O-BLI-GA-TOIRE !!!!! Un peu comme quend on prend la route, une pose tte les 2 heure ..... ben là c'est toutes les 70 phrases (m'en fout vous allez po compter les phrases quand même ?)
IGN: Do you cook often? (une question que j'aurait pu poser
Eiji Aonuma: Yes. Every day. (et les sushis, nan ? ^^)
IGN: Are you a good cook?
Eiji Aonuma: Whenever a Zelda project is complete, I host a party and cook rice curry for everybody. So now whenever I ask a team member to do a difficult task, then the team member says, "Okay. You now owe me one dish of curry."
IGN: Does your cooking pass the Miyamoto test?
Eiji Aonuma: I have never asked Mr. Miyamoto to eat my curry.
IGN: Majora's Mask felt and played very differently from Ocarina of Time. How will "Wind Waker 2" be different from the original?
Eiji Aonuma: We're making something that's going to be very interesting and that will surprise you all very much.
IGN: What have you learned about storytelling?
Eiji Aonuma: There are a lot of games that other developers are making that have really in-depth stories and I personally don't know how they develop theirs. But the way we do it is maybe somewhat different from how they do in the sense that with Zelda we don't off with a storyline and build a game around it; we start off with a framework for a game and then we develop the storyline based on the type of game we've created. Obviously in Zelda the storyline evolves as we introduce new games to the series. Part of the reason we do it this way is because if you start off with a story and try to turn it into a game, you essentially end up with some of the impurities where things don't feel natural.
When it comes down to the reality of the Zelda series, it can be very important for us to go back and piece together all the pieces of the puzzle. And we've actually done that and put together a complete overall story at this point. But for us the storyline in the Zelda series is really there to make the gameplay more interesting.
IGN: Can you give us an example of how you put the framework in first and the story followed?
Eiji Aonuma: With Wind Waker, we started off with this idea that we wanted to introduce a new style of movement. We ended up with the player on a boat moving around an ocean between islands. The idea was that Hyrule was down below and had basically been flooded over. Once we had come up with the idea that the player would be sailing across the ocean, then it became a question of how Hyrule got flooded. That becomes an example of how we started off with the idea and from there we thought about how to build a storyline around that.
IGN: Four Swords has a lot of old-school elements to it. Did the team go back and revisit the classic games for inspiration?
Eiji Aonuma: I wouldn't necessarily say that the team intentionally tried to mimic past games from the series. But the fact of the matter is that the Four Swords team does include members from the Link to the Past team so that may have had some effect on it. Also, the director of Four Swords is a huge fan of Link to the Past and the old 2D-style games.
IGN: There's voice work in Navi's Trackers. Have you thought about using more voice talent in future Zelda games?
Eiji Aonuma: It's interesting I think to use voice in games, but using voice obviously leads to challenges in the localization process because you have to change the voice from one language to another. In this case, with Tetra's Trackers what we had was voice work used not only in the game to convey the story, but to integral to the gameplay. It was intricately connected to the actual gameplay. So when you do something like that you have to think through how the voice connects to the gameplay, but also how the actual language is connected. In changing to a different language and changing language structure that can effect how those are linked.
So I think it's definitely interesting and has possibilities. It just leads to challenges and very careful through processes.
IGN: Ocarina of Time really evolved the music theme in Zelda. How has music played a role in your life?
Eiji Aonuma: Personally I like music a lot. Yesterday I was wearing a T-shirt that said 'The Wind Wakers' on it. This is the name of an orchestra that's made up of Nintendo employees that I am a member of. I play percussion, bongos, congas and things like that. We do four concerts a year. They're not big concerts or anything -- they're just for Nintendo employees. Mr. Miyamoto obviously also likes music quite a bit and music is something that anybody can relate to so in that sense we like to include music in the games when we can.
In developing Ocarina of Time, one of the questions for us was how we wanted to have players play the Ocarina in the game and how we wanted it to bear on gameplay. I came up with ideas and sat down with the team and Mr. Miyamoto, and we fleshed it out.
Obviously I can't say to what extent the other team members like music, but because anybody can relate to it I'm going to encourage them to include those elements in the game and hopefully going forward they'll be able to find new ways to incorporate music into the experience.
2ème pose, faite refroidir les cervellets .... attention .... 3 ..... 2 .... hep toi là bas, oui TOI !!! T'as commencé avant la fin du compte à rebours !!!!
Allez, pour la peine, Chi-chi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO !
IGN: Zelda has traditionally used a lot of MIDI. But we've heard full orchestrations and they sound beautiful. Have you thought about using more orchestrated music in Zelda?
Eiji Aonuma: Koji Kondo and his sound team are always thinking about what types of music to use in games, how best to apply it and coming up with new ideas all the time. I think what's important is not necessarily to have just these grand orchestrations, but sometimes very simple music can be important as well. We all have a good exchanging of ideas about how to find the best music that's going to match the game.
In terms of full orchestration of the music, we haven't really had the facilities at Nintendo to do something like that. If Mr. Kondo thinks that will be best for an upcoming title then we'll look at ways to do that. And I think people can look forward to that in the future at some point. There aren't any concrete plans right now, but it's definitely something we're thinking about.
You may recall that the opening sequence to The Wind Waker starts off with a mandolin that's played and that's actually sampled from Mr. Miyamoto playing. It was basically the result of some discussion that we really needed to have that kind of sound to start things off and be part of that music. So obviously we're looking at what types of instruments and sounds we're going to need. I'd kind of like it if I could get my bongo-playing in the game [laughs].
IGN: Do you have any fears that Four Swords might overshadow the "Wind Waker 2" unveiling?
Eiji Aonuma: [Laughs] Each game is very different. I think we have to present Four Swords in a way that really highlights the multiplayer because that's really going to set it apart from the "Wind Waker 2." But for me, I would really like to see the franchise develop in a way that continues to surprise people and provide them with new and different styles of gameplay under the Zelda franchise. Where people say, "Oh, Zelda could be this type of game too." So it's not so much a worry. I'm kind of excited and am looking forward to those types of developments.
Right now my biggest mission is to make sure that the DS announcements at E3 don't overshadow the Zelda announcement. I'm exerting a lot of effort and spending a lot of energy to try and make sure we do have a big announcement with Zelda.
IGN: Would you consider making a darker Zelda?
Eiji Aonuma: [Laughs] We've already done what you would call a darker Zelda once with Majora's Mask. I don't know what the marketing copy was in the US, but in Japan if you translate the phrase that Majora's Mask was marketed with it means 'This Time There's a Fear In Zelda.' That was a phrase that our past president had thought up. It was basically this idea that Majora's Mask was darker. Maybe darker is not the right term. But there was this weird vibe to the game and a strange mystery to it that was really different from what you experienced in other Zelda games. So we've already done that once. To say we'll never do it again I don't think would be an accurate statement.
IGN: When did development on "Wind Waker 2" begin? And is it an official sequel to Wind Waker 1?
Eiji Aonuma: The Zelda games are developed with the same team. We have one team of members that carry over from the last game. So we had to finish Wind Waker 1 before work began on "Wind Waker 2." As to your second question, unfortunately I cannot answer that today.
IGN: Where do you see the Zelda franchise in two years?
Eiji Aonuma: I think maybe the fact that I don't have an immediate answer to that question might cause people to criticize me as not being a very effective producer to the series. But no, I'm very excited about the opportunities that the DS is going to offer us and the opportunities that we're going to have to do something different with it on the DS. We're going to work very hard in that direction and hopefully have something to show you guys that will be neat. I would also like to make a Zelda that somehow surpasses Ocarina of Time.
