Iwata Asks – Zelda Skyward Sword Development

Today, at Iwata asks, Miyamoto and Aonuma talked about Skyward sword. They went over the idea, some Twilight Princess comments, and more.

One notable comment was that Twilight princess was “too big”. This Zelda game is the “marriage between Zelda and Wii Motion Plus”. Aonuma mentioned that he didn’t feel the effectiveness of the Wii Motion Plus Sword swinging and initially dropped the idea. After Wii Sports Resort came out, Aonuma was re-introduced to the idea, and went with it. After a short talk with Miyamoto they came up with a plan and decided to increase the depth of the experience.

They mentioned that the A button charge would end up having too much button presses in the game, so they came up with the idea of rising the sword into the air to charge it up. Miyamoto mentioned that the Wii remote aiming in Twilight Princess was too slow, and complicated, so they did a new “mouse like” mechanic which made such controls “actually fun”.

They dropped the perspective switch when shooting arrows, in order to increase effectiveness and make it smoother. Miyamoto commented on his decision to focus on the gameplay in this particular Zelda installment, saying that there is a sense of realism when traveling through Hyrule, which is produced by the characters in it. He criticized the block pushing in Zelda to be “too silly”, apparently confirming that this mechanic will not be present in this game.