Aonuma
That’s right. It made us very, very happy (laughs). Even after its release, I felt that we’d really done something special; I felt very fulfilled. At the time, I think (Shigeru) Miyamoto-san had that same feeling, but apparently he also felt as though there was still quite a lot left to do.
Iwata
Yes, Miyamoto-san really is greedy about things like that, isn’t he. (laughs)

Aonuma
And so he said: we’d already made 3D models for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. By changing the situation, couldn’t we make new ways to play, a new story?
Iwata
So you made The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Aonuma
No, we didn’t just start making The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, not right away. There was actually a flip-side, and in the beginning, the idea was to make a “Ura (Flip-Side) Zelda”.

Iwata
That “Ura Zelda” (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Master Quest) was developed for the 64DD5. Ultimately, we recorded it on a limited edition disc that went to people who reserved The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker6.

Iwata
Aonuma-san, you’re involved with both the Wii and Nintendo DS editions of The Legend of Zelda. Are there any differences in how you work on the two?
Aonuma
When I work on the Wii edition, I’m right on-site, and I often do my job from a director’s perspective. On the Nintendo DS version, I do proper producer’s work. …That said, when I worked on the previous game, The Legend of Zelda:Phantom Hourglass, I was simultaneously making Twilight Princess2, so I couldn’t keep a very close eye on things right from the beginning. Then, when The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was finished and I went to the Nintendo DS version’s office, the development was already pretty far along. From my point of view, it was at a stage where I could really make myself useful.

Iwata
So you’re saying that you left the site for a while, and that let you see the Nintendo DS version with a new set of eyes. As a result, you were able to spot the places where you could put in a little more work and really improve things.
Aonuma
That’s exactly it. So then — and I did feel bad to do so — I asked that development be extended three more months, and I worked on it during that extra period. Then, the more I worked, the better it got.

Read the rest of the interview here!

“Technology actually was not a major concern for us when we decided to use the train. In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the boat was the key mode of transportation. Now that Spirit Tracks takes place on land, we needed a new way for players to get around, and felt that the train offered the best sense of exploration and discovery. We don’t think it feels out of place in the game world. Trains are also a popular mode of transportation in Japan. My children and I still feel a great sense of adventure when we ride trains in Japan.”

“Regarding use of other forms in technology in the future, as long it adds to the overall game experience and is something we feel the player would enjoy, we wouldn’t be afraid to implement it. As a matter of fact, we have used the Hook Shot in several previous games, which would be considered a very modern type of technology, even by today’s standards. “

Eurogamer: Let’s go right back to the beginning. What’s your earliest gaming memory, and when did you decide you wanted to become a game designer?

Eiji Aonuma: My first encounter with any videogames in my childhood was Game & Watch, the series of portable games products launched by Nintendo. I was amazed by knowing that within such a small LCD screen such an awful lot of different things were able to be done. That was my first memory of any videogames.

Since then, however, I do not have any recollection of what kind of games I was deeply into. I hardly played with any before I was grown up, even though a lot of my friends and people around me were already playing with Nintendo Entertainment System.

As a university student, I was more excited learning about the arts and wondering whether I should be an artist or not.

In my university and grad school days I was thinking what I should do in my life, whether I would be an artist, or whether I would like to do something else. I wanted to surprise people in a meaningful way, and I decided that as the theme of my life – and I happened to know there was a company called Nintendo whose job was also to surprise people in a meaningful way.

That’s why I became interested in joining the company, and the company hired me. At that time I was not thinking about becoming the game creator myself. I thought I was probably hired because the company was interested in me as a product designer, because that’s what I studied at university.

It was only afterwards I learned something about The Legend of Zelda, and when I started playing it I was deeply into it and surprised by the potential of videogames. I didn’t know that so many things could be done! And later on Mr Miyamoto gave me the opportunity to work on Zelda, which happened to be Ocarina of Time – and before I knew it exactly 12 years have already passed!

Eurogamer: You started on Ocarina of Time, and your first Zelda game as project lead was Majora’s Mask, which was a different take on the series. Was it difficult to leave your mark on something already so well-established and well-known, that already had Mr Miyamoto’s stamp all over it?

Eiji Aonuma: In fact, in my mind I did not think that Legend of Zelda was already an established franchise, especially because Ocarina of Time turned out to be the very first 3D Legend of Zelda. So I thought there were many things we were able to explore and in fact many people, including Mr Miyamoto himself, were looking forward to the new directions future 3D Zeldas could take. And it was actually Mr Miyamoto who wanted to take the same engine as Ocarina of Time, yet try to make something really new. That mission was assigned to me by Mr Miyamoto.

So taking on the assignment itself was not that difficult. The most difficult part was when Mr Miyamoto told me: ‘you’ve got to finish it within one year’! And at first I was quite at a loss what to do: what we could do with the Zelda franchise within just one year? And then there came help from the Ocarina team and we were able to use the same team members who already had experience of working on the same engine, and also Mr Miyamoto advised us to think about anything that was left undone during the development of Ocarina.

So we focused on the time mechanism already included in the Ocarina engine and decided that we should focus on the three-day system. And by adapting it so that everything would reset if the game cannot be completed within three days, I think that we were able to come up with one idea after another which made for a very fast-paced, excited game.

As I really wanted to surprise people in a very meaningful way that was something which suited my own desire. And even though we had to tackle the challenge of completing the game in one year, it was actually an exciting challenge and I felt the team could make it.

Eurogamer: I want to explore your relationship with Mr Miyamoto. After Ocarina, was it hard for him to step back into a more hands-off role and allow someone else to take the reins? What’s the relationship like now? Do you have any major creative disagreements, or arguments of the direction of the series?

Eiji Aonuma: When we were creating Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, the department we were working in, called Entertainment, Analysis and Development (EAD), was rather a small team. So with something as big as Ocarina and Majora, the entire EAD had to work on the same project by co-operating with each other.

Everybody including me was closely communicating with Mr Miyamoto. Since then, gradually, the number of people working in our group has been on the increase and the number of titles EAD has been taking care of at any given time is increasing. Mr Miyamoto is on the board of directors at Nintendo and he has to take care of all the first-party software Nintendo publishes while I can concentrate on the Zelda games.

In that sense, the distance between me and Mr Miyamoto – any producer and Mr Miyamoto – has been expanding, and even I have been taking care of multiple titles simultaneously. But actually Mr Miyamoto doesn’t like the idea: he would like to be as close as possible to the actual game development.

That’s why, in the case of the new Legend of Zelda on Wii, he’s trying to take more direct hands-on and specifically at least once every month we are having a very intimate meeting where we confirm the status quo, we discuss what needs to be done and Mr Miyamoto gives instructions as to what we need to do.

And in such a situation, of course there are some heated arguments, because each of us has his own idea as to what a Zelda game should look like, should play like. As time passes and as we are growing in terms of number of people working for the same department, naturally Mr Miyamoto has to keep some distance away from any other producers and developers, but I think we always try to have as close communications as possible in one way or the other. That’s how I think everyone including me has been communicating with Mr Miyamoto at Nintendo.

Eurogamer: The next Zelda game is Spirit Tracks – I’ve just been playing it out there – the sequel to Phantom Hourglass. The visual style, of course, harks back to Wind Waker on GameCube. Looking back now, that style split opinion – but you brought it back for the handheld version. Did you feel strongly you wanted to bring back that style, and do you think it now works better on handheld or can you foresee a time when you’d want to return to it on home console?

Eiji Aonuma: You say it might be good for handheld: exactly, that’s the point. On handheld devices like DS, for the grand universe of Zelda to be correctly depicted, cel-shading or toon-shading style is the most appropriate. For example, for the touch operation we’re using on DS, top-view angle is necessary. If we’re going to apply photorealistic proportions between human characters and objects, the player character would have to be really small.

But with more anime/Manga-style art, deformation is allowed and taken as a natural. By that I mean that building and some other objects around you can be very small compared with real life, but yet it’s not strange in the anime style. That kind of deformation is readily available with cel-shading technology and thanks to that kind of graphical style we are now able to put Zelda in an adventure where people can identify the most important items without difficulty in understanding proper distance or proportion between character and object.

Eurogamer: Looking at Phantom Hourglass, it was very well received: were you entirely happy with it? Was there anything specifically you wanted to chance in Spirit Tracks, and how do you feel the sequel relates as an experience?

Eiji Aonuma: When we were developing Phantom Hourglass, one of the things was how to make touch-control most efficient. And our developers were able to come up with a great many elements that surpassed my original expectations; I was surprised by how convenient it is for players to play with touch-control. Whenever we were working on 3D games, dealing with camera control was one of the most difficult, important missions to tackle. However, with the advent of DS touch control we didn’t have that at all.

In addition, players were able to have a brand new feeling of being able to physically touch the universe of The Legend of Zelda for the first time. So I thought it was a very good system, that we should be able to take advantage in the next title. We thought, of course, we’d be able to enhance the touch-control further and that’s how we started on Spirit Tracks.

We thought about the things that were left undone in Phantom Hourglass. One of the things was co-operative play with the phantom – the phantom existed and appeared in the Wi-Fi battle mode, and we thought it would be a shame if that was used only for a separate mode. So we incorporated that idea into the main adventure of Spirit Tracks.

Not to be very specific, but we were identifying good points of Phantom Hourglass and trying to enhance them to come up with a final game design, and I think people will enjoy them.

Eurogamer: With the next Wii Zelda game, Mr Miyamoto has already spoken about it, but for you personally what difference does MotionPlus make? And more broadly, because it’s still some way off, are you concerned about the Wii being technically capable of delivering something that stands up to games on other platforms?

Eiji Aonuma: Talking first on Wii MotionPlus, I’ve been working on the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda simultaneously with working on Spirit Tracks and now we have already come to the stage that Link is wielding his sword just as you are shaking your Wii remote. It’s so natural I sometimes have to wonder why it was not available in previous games.

I think it’s going to be quite surprising, but it’s so natural maybe not so surprising for new Zelda fans. But it must be quite a surprise for existing and long-term Zelda fans. Maybe they will say, ‘why couldn’t Nintendo apply the same system to Twilight Princess? You already had the Wii remote.’ Among the fans I think it’s going to be quite a big difference.

As to other elements of Wii MotionPlus, I’m afraid I have to refrain from talking anything probably until E3 next year. The only thing I may be able to confirm is, we are trying to change the structure, how the game proceeds, in terms of how you have been playing The Legend of Zelda franchise so far. That’s a little thing I can say, but I hope people will be surprised by knowing what I mean right now.

Eurogamer: Well, I’m very excited to hear more! In general, we know how western games developers work, we visit them, we understand what daily life is like. With Nintendo, and this is perhaps part of the charm, the process, certainly viewed from the West, is shrouded in mystery. Could you give us some insight into what life is like at Nintendo, and what a typical day for you would involve?

Eiji Aonuma: I might disappoint you, but I’m afraid there’s nothing unusual, nothing very exciting about how our days go at Nintendo. I go to the office at a given time every day; as soon as I arrive I check what my teams have been doing and probably, if the new version of the game is presented, I’ll check it and play it myself and give the feedback back to the developers. And in the afternoon I attend a number of different meetings, relating not just to game development, but sometime to decide Nintendo’s future, or EAD’s next steps.

And after if there are any impending issues I need to tackle with certain games, I need to work very late at night or even to the next morning!

But the most enjoyable time is the lunch break. I would make it a point of playing some games with local multiplayer. Probably I’d be enjoying myself in multiplayer battle mode on certain games with other directors. Regardless of age, who’s producer or director, we’re deeply into battles against each other, yelling and crying, and that’s how we get excited and get motivated to work more!

If Nintendo’s developers are considered mysterious in comparison with other developers, it must be because every one of us really wants to surprise people, and we are finding some particular joy in making people surprised in a meaningful way, and the more we talk the less surprise we would be able to provide. That must be the reason why!

Eurogamer: Would you like to work on something completely new, or do you see yourself continuing with Zelda for many more years?

Eiji Aonuma: Well, the fact the company has constantly been giving me the opportunity to work on the next Zelda, and the fact that many people are looking forward for me to provide them with the next Zelda is something really gratifying.

The fact I have to work on Zelda – there is no fixed notion about what Zelda has to be. Most basically, any changes are appropriate because Zelda means unprecedented experiences. In other words, as long as I can work on new Legend of Zelda games there’s hardly anything I can’t do to challenge myself.

Having said that, whenever I get asked, aren’t you tired about making Zelda again and again, I might say, ‘sometimes!’ But it doesn’t mean I’m willing to make something similar to Zelda at all. I really want to surprise people in a meaningful way, so if I’m going to work on anything new then I would like to make something so that people are going to say, ‘wow I could not imagine someone like Aonuma would make something like this’.

Eiji Aonuma, director of the Legend of Zelda franchise, has an apology to make. “The Water Temple in the Ocarina of Time was notorious for being very tough to conquer,” he says. “I am most sorry that it was not easy for you to put on and take off the heavy boots; that all the time you had to visit the inventory.

“I am,” he continues, genuine regret evident in his tone, “very sorry about that. I should have made it much easier to switch to the heavy boots.”

His favourite among his dungeon designs so far, the Ocarina of Time’s ingenious Water Temple is marred in his eyes by this slight ergonomic flaw. “Aside from the problem with the boots,” he continues, “I like the Water Temple so much.”

Aonuma’s first job for Nintendo was the design of the intricate temples and dungeons for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and he has been director of the Zelda franchise on every title since Ocarina’s 1998 release, including the latest instalment, Spirit Tracks (released on DS on 7 December in the US and 11 December in the UK). He is also working on a new Wii addition to the series.

Aonuma approaches games as he approached his puppets: as a craft. They are mechanical puzzles, designed to inspire wonder as they are understood and solved. “Surprise” is a word he keeps returning to. He loved the way that his dolls “surprised people”, and what first drew him to Nintendo was his observation that they were “trying to surprise people with video games”. His highest praise for Miyamoto is that, after 12 years, he “still comes up with ideas that really surprise me”. Surprise, for Aonuma, means the wonder of discovery.

It is because he does not want to spoil the “pleasant surprise” that he is reluctant to reveal details about the forthcoming Wii version. However, he does offer a teaser about transportation for the series’ protagonist, Link.

“I have an eight-year-old son myself at home, and quite recently he started playing The Phantom Hourglass for DS, because when the software first hit the market he was too young. When he started playing with the boat, I told him: ‘In the next Zelda, you are going to be able to ride on the train.’ He answered: ‘OK, Dad, first boat, and then train? Surely next time, Link is going to fly in the sky … ‘”

Aonuma pauses, grinning. “I just don’t know. If many people make many speculations … some of them might be correct. Right now, I have to refrain from commenting on anything.”

Wii move

One aspect of the Wii version that Aonuma is more than happy to talk about is its control system: it will be the first Zelda title to use MotionPlus.

“With this attachment, your minute hand movements are more precisely reflected … You can feel it so naturally and so intuitively. It’s not just an improvement over the movement of Link himself: the realisation of your more minute movements on the screen will expand the entire gameplay. I believe that we will be able to offer some great innovations in the new Legend of Zelda. Of course I have to refrain from giving any details, but we are contemplating altering the way the game progresses in comparison with all the past Legend of Zelda franchises.” He looks apologetic again as he catches himself short of giving something away. “But I have to stop talking here.”

Source

“One of our lead planners for the game is a programmer, so he has a different, more scientific or mathematical approach, so to say, to creating puzzles,” he wrote to Kotaku. Aonuma is the producer on Spirit Tracks.

“Development team members, including [senior Nintendo developer] Mr. [Takashi] Tezuka and myself, actually got stuck in several places. So the dungeons and puzzles pose a different type of challenge than what we have utilized in previous games, and will certainly require longtime Zelda fans to approach each challenge differently. “

Getting more specific, he noted: “I believe that the latter half of the Tower of Spirits dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks — [which] players will revisit throughout the game — has puzzles which require a different type of approach from those of previous games.”

I had asked him what his team had learned about the touch-screen controls implemented in the previous DS Zelda game, The Phantom Hourglass. That prompted this reply: “The one consistent piece of feedback we received about the controls in Phantom Hourglass was that it was too challenging to execute the roll move. You had to draw little circles at the edge of the screen to make Link roll. This is actually something we felt similarly about during development, but ended up not having enough time left in the schedule to implement another solution. In Spirit Tracks, this move is done by tapping anywhere on the screen, so hopefully players get more use out of it. “

Another tweak for the new game is in the Zelda character herself. In a change for the series, the Spirit Tracks Zelda takes on the game’s adventure alongside Link, in the form of a spirit. She’s not a damsel in distress just waiting to be saved. She’s an active adventurer. Aonuma said she was designed out of a desire among both Zelda fans and developers to have a stronger princess.

“We recently received information from a survey conducted in the US that indicated that, among our female characters, users had a preference for those that were more on the independent side, such as Shiek and Tetra,” he wrote. He was referring to the Zelda-in-disguise incarnations of Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. “Making Zelda a more integral part of the game was also a goal for our Director, Mr. [Daiki] Iwamoto, so we set out with this element in mind when we started making the game.”

“The Link character in Spirit Tracks is different from those featured in previous games,” Aonuma said. “He’s a brand new Link. The game does share ties with Phantom Hourglass and Wind Waker though. This is mostly communicated to the player through the Niko character, who appears in all three games. Of course he is much older in Spirit Tracks, and his aging conveys to the player that much time has passed across the timeline of all three games.”

“The Difference between the two platforms (Wii and DS) is big. The experience with Spirit Tracks, trying to enhance an already ‘near-perfect control’, is what pushed us on learning how to rack our brains. With Wii it is the same, we want to make the most of its controls. We want the player to control the game in the best possible way. On Wii, the camera is more realistic. Graphics are more realistic, too, and controls have to be, therefore, much more realistic” – Eiji Aonuma

Mr. Aonuma had a lot more to say about Zelda Wii in relation to Spirit Tracks. You can read a few more excerpts from the man himself below.

“There were a lot of things we couldn’t do [back with OoT] due to technical limitations. But I think we’ve been solving those issues with every Zelda since then. With each entry, I’ve tried to add things I couldn’t do before. Actually, it’s like I’ve been remaking it during these years. So if you ask me if there’s going to be a Zelda remake… I thought I was making it all this time! So it maybe I haven’t done well enough, I haven’t been up to the expected level.”

“It’s complicated. Past things belong to our memories, and they grow bigger in there. If you play Ocarina of Time nowadays, you notice that it’s not that good. Sometimes it doesn’t move as fast as it should, graphics aren’t as beautiful as they should be; there are some confusing parts… Any present Zelda is technically superior. Everything goes faster, more fluid… but to best Ocarina of Time, a great change –comparable to what happened back then- must be introduced. And that’ll be rather complicated”.

Finally, Mr. Aonuma discussed his legendary battles/arguments/discussions with Miyamoto

“I didn’t know our discussions were so well known! I believe we have different visions because Mr. Miyamoto is just a genius; he’s got an innate talent, and everything I do, I had to learn step by step. And it took a lot for me, I have no natural talent. I’ve spent many years with Mr. Miyamoto and, since the beginning, the moment I have to bring my work and show it to him for his opinion is a very special moment, and I enjoy with it. (…) He notices things I’d never see. After this time, our visions are starting to match up more and more. However, I have a lot more left to try to reach his level”.

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