EDGE interview with Aonuma about A Link Between Worlds

This November A Link Between Worlds is releasing, 22 years after A Link to the Past. The lead designer for the new 3DS title, Eiji Aonuma, didn’t start working on Zelda games until Ocarina of Time, but he cites A Link to the Past as his greatest influence for all of the Zelda games he’s worked on.

EDGE recently interviewed him about the upcoming game; if you’re interested, hit the jump to read!

Aonuma didn’t say a lot of things in this article that were new information. We already know that Dark World will be a large part of A Link Between Worlds and that the new walking-on-walls mechanic will have something to do with the Dark World. We also know that it will run at 60fps like Mario Kart 7, which makes the 3D effect more stable.

But some of the topics that Aonuma discussed in the interview may at least ease some gamers’ thoughts about how Nintendo is going about creating this game and how it will relate to A Link to the Past. Let’s take a look.

What lessons have you learned from your previous Zelda games that have influenced this one?

Each time we make a new Zelda game, we’re aware that if we change it too much, the fans will feel it is too much of a departure from the series. But if we don’t change the game systems, then there’s nothing new to enjoy. So it’s all about expanding the ways to play while still making a Zelda game.

This new title will feature lots of things that are new to the series; right at the start of the game, there’s a big surprise that will shock players. We started out with the new play mechanics, such as Link being able to become a painting and walk along the walls, and then figured out from there how to build a story around them. Rather than forcing elements of the original story into this one, we’ve instead focused on bringing back the characters, so you can see what happened to them after the events of the first game.

So we know that they’re trying to make a new experience without disappointing fans of A Link to the Past. It seems that what Aonuma is trying to convey most is that A Link Between Worlds won’t feel exactly like A Link to the Past, but it’ll feel familiar. Also, the new 3DS title appears to have its own story that doesn’t attach to the SNES game too much.

What kind of tools and puzzles are in the game that could only work on 3DS? Are you using the handheld for more than its stereoscopic 3D screen? After all, you have gyros, cameras, two screens, and touch input.

Well, there are players who don’t like 3D and always keep it switched off, so there’s nothing in the game that absolutely requires 3D, like puzzles that can’t be solved without it.

The problem with the gyros is that moving the 3DS destabilises the 3D effect, so we’re avoiding that. But the game runs at 60fps, while all the 3D games up till now have run at 30fps. The faster the framerate, the more stable the 3D effect, so 60fps is a big deal. And, of course, we’ll take advantage of there being two screens, so that you have the map on the bottom screen and can change items by touching and so on.

With this it looks as though there won’t be a lot of 3DS specific puzzles, or any at all. Aonuma says this is to keep the 3D as stable as possible while playing, but it also may be to better keep the traditional top-down style of play. The gyroscopic aiming system from Ocarina of Time 3D wouldn’t make sense at all, for example, and Nintendo probably avoiding putting gimmicks into A Link Between Worlds.

If you’d like to read Eiji Aonuma’s full interview with EDGE, head on over to the page here.

From what we’ve seen of gameplay and accounts of people who have played the demo, A Link Between Worlds will at least be fun, even if it does play very similarly to A Link to the Past. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: EDGE