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Home > Archive > Nintendo gamecube > May 2005 > new Eiji Aonuma interview on Zelda: Twilight Princess
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new Eiji Aonuma interview on Zelda: Twilight Princess
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| http://www.armchairempire.com/Inter...rincess.htmEiji Aonuma (Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess) InterviewConducted by OmniIf there was ever a time I was unprepared for an interview, this would beit. Figuring that
a lowly writer from the Armchair Empire would never havea personal, one-on-one audience with Eiji Aonuma, Producer on The Legend ofZelda: Twilight Princess, I had all of two questions prepared before headingin.I'm not sure how it happened, but in my mind
I pictured myself and at leasttwo other journalists in attendance. With translation time betweenquestions, I was sure that two questions would be more than enough. Butthen I found myself - just me - sitting in the meeting room with a Nintendorep and Bil
l (Mr. Aonuma's translator). (Heck, even IGN joined other mediaduring their meeting time!) I realized I needed more than just twoquestions so I turned to Bill and asked what kind of questions had alreadybeen asked that day - ostensibly to ensure I didn'
t cover old ground butreally to get some ideas for questions."Well, people have been asking about Link turning into the wolf," he said."Link can turn into a wolf?" Every pore on my body started sweating. Nextto missing my flight to E3, this was a nightma
re come true - being at aninterview and knowing practically nothing about the game beforehand! (Butat least in reality I have sense enough to wear pants.)"Didn't you see the trailer?""Ah, no." I actually had to make a conscious effort to remain seated a
ndnot run from the room.In my own defense, the meeting was in the early afternoon on the first dayand there was so much happening I hadn't worked my way over to the Nintendobooth and I hadn't arrived in LA until after the Nintendo press conferencethe day
before. Fortunately for me, Bill had the trailer on a DS card and Igot to see the wolf. The trailer was just finishing when the door behind meopened and Mr. Aonuma entered. When I looked up, I suddenly relaxed andquestions started to form in my mind.
There's something about Mr. Aonuma -the man exudes a certain "regular guy" aura that, even though there was adefinite language barrier, I'm sure we would have hit it off after a fewbeers.What follows is a more or less complete transcript of the interview.
I'vehad to make a few guesses here and there on specific words because the tapequality isn't great and E3 is known as the Place Where Noise Learns toExplode so some of it I just couldn't figure out. (Luckily we have a team ofNobel Laureates on-call 24/7
who were more than ready to decipher what wassaid through the noise, clearing up the confusion.)If you could explain - to somebody that has never played a Zelda game - whatis a Zelda game about?If I was trying to get them to buy a Zelda game?Yes. If the
y asked, "What will I find in a Zelda game? Why should I play aZelda game?"To me Zelda is a game that isn't really a game. It's really a place thatyou go - a place where you go to touch things in the world and interact withthem and you explore and you e
xperience this vast world all around you. Andthat's really what it's about. It's about experiencing something you cannever experience on your own. And while the game doeshave fighting and enemies that you battle against, it's also about learningnew ski
lls and learning new ways to attack and fight these enemies, therebyfinding ways to defeat them more easily. So, it's a place where you go -this vast field, this vast world that you go to experience and see what'sthere and find the hidden secrets.Link's
transformation to the wolf; will that be something that happens on acycle, like night time, full moon or any time he wants to turn into a wolf,he can turn into a wolf?I think a lot of people probably were guessing that perhaps the moon comesout and Link t
ransforms into a wolf, but that's not actually the case. Thistime, in the game the kingdom of Hyrule has been transformed into thistwilight realm - a dark magic power has overtaken the land. Link, who hasgrown up outside Hyrule, when he enters this twil
ight realm, its in therethat he gets transformed into the wolf.Is Link able to jump between these two realms?It's not two worlds really, what it is is one world and a section of theworld has been covered in this twilight. So, when Link goes into thetwili
ght then he gets transformed. And in order to get back out of thetwilight he has to find a way to drive the twilight back - push it backfurther toward the source.Do the mechanics of the combat change when Link is a wolf? Compared toregular combat?The ot
her games have always had strong swordplay. With Wind Waker we addeda lot of very special moves that were unique to that game where depending onhow you were fighting the enemies you could do certain special moves toswing around and attack in different wa
ys. So one thing we're focusing ondoing this game, is really expanding upon that so that we can help the gamefeel more realistic. So that's going to be a very strong focus, whereaswith the wolf gameplay what we're doing is, in addition to improving upon
that kind of standard Zelda combat we've seen over the years, building uponthat with the wolf, we can really change that around. Obviously, the wolfcan't use a sword or shield. Instead he partners up with this mysteriouscharacter that you saw in the tra
iler riding on the wolf's back. Togetherthose two characters are able to fight the enemies in the twilight realm.Are there going to be a lot of side quests alongside the main quest?As I was explaining before, Zelda is really about the full experience.Ins
tead of just being a simple game where you go from one dungeon to thenext and work your way to the end of the game, it's really about the entireworld - the events that are going on outside the main quest and things thatwe've hidden throughout the land for
the players to find. We will beproviding a lot of those sidequests and things like that.I read somewhere that you'd love to create a game that includes cooking andbaking. Could we expect to see something like that in Zelda?[laughter] That is kind of a
personal thing that I still think about. IfLink were to cook, I think that would probably surprise a lot of people.But who knows, maybe it will happen. In the game, Link has empty bottlesand he can put items and liquids in. And when he's got liquids in
thebottle you see him drink the liquid - so you can see Link drinking, but younever see him sitting at a table and eating. That would be kind of fun toadd to the game.Wha t has been the hardest part about bringing Link from the toon-shadestyle to the mo
re mature, dark look it is now?One thing we were focused on in Wind Waker was creating a seamless cartoonexperience. In doing so, it required this deformation of the animationwhere you had to really create character models that were very cartoon-likeand
then animate them in ways that were very natural and cartoon. And wefound in shifting from toon-shaded graphics to the realistic graphics, a lotof the functionality that we built into the Wind Waker engine in order toachieve that very fluid and smooth an
imation actually got in the way oftrying to create realistic graphics. Essentially we had to build upon theWind Waker engine and almost replace it with a new type of engine that wasbetter suited towards creating realistic graphics and doing more realisti
canimation.In Wind Waker there was such an emphasis on music and harmony. Will musicand maybe use of an ocarina be used for anything in this Zelda game?One thing that you can see in the playable version here at the show, is thatin the game there are reed
whistles - grass that forms reeds that Link canpick up an blow into. The sounds that they play are kind of set from thebeginning but each of the different types of reed whistle will do adifferent thing. You can pick it up and blow it and it will play a
song andcause something to happen. That's one element where music would beimportant - music has always been an important element of all the Zeldagames. Another idea we have, in terms of being able to control soundsyourself is doing something with the w
olf that might have some effect. We're not showing it here at the show but [you should look forward to that in]the future.Are the familiar musical themes going to appear in Twilight Princess? Andwho is composing the music for the game?The Zelda music in
general has been handled by a gentleman Koji Kondo. Andwhile he has moved on and is more a sound producer now, it is his team thatwill is producing the music.But the themes will be recognizable? I remember when Ocarina of Time cameout, I was actually d
oing demos for it in movie theatres. And when peopleheard that familiar tune there was quite a reaction to that - people havequite an emotional attachment to the music. Will those references be strongin terms of getting an emotional response from people
?Zelda has a very strong musical past. With a lot of the past games,including Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, we have taken themes from theoriginal game and reworked those in ways that make it sound new and fresh,yet they still sound familiar. And think
that's a very good way for us tocontinue to create music for the Zelda games.(May 25, 2005)
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| Paul Dunn 2005-05-26, 8:31 pm |
| R580 wrote:
quote:
> interesting, no?
Dunno, didn't read it. No paragraphs.
D.
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| Tim Miller 2005-05-26, 8:31 pm |
| R580 wrote:
quote:
> interesting, no?
What, that your cut and pasting incompetance manages to completely break
most of what you needlessly crosspost, and people just completely ignore it?
Yes, very interesting.
Followups set.
Tim (tm)
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