The Wind Waker’s visual style kept secret from Miyamoto
Posted on September 11 2013 by John
Despite the game’s eventual popularity and success, it is a well-known fact that The Wind Waker‘s graphics were controversial when they were first revealed. Favourable reactions were few and far in-between, and series producer Eiji Aonuma apparently even foresaw that Miyamoto would not approve of the style because of its stark deviance from the norm, keeping the graphics a secret from Miyamoto until they were ready to be shown. Hit the jump to see the quote.
In a recent interview with MTV, Aonuma had this to say regarding the development of the game’s style:
“When we were first working on the toon shaded Link, and that graphic representation of the Hyrule world, because it was such a drastic change, we actually kept it a secret from Mr. Miyamoto in the beginning. We had actually recently shown an example of what the next Zelda might look like, based on the ‘Ocarina of Time’ graphic style, and because this direction was so different, we knew that Mr. Miyamoto wouldn’t approve it as it. So, I worked with my team to at least get it to a point where a battle sequence between Link and a Moblin would actually work in this world, and then that was the first time that we brought it to Mr. Miyamoto. That was only time we felt comfortable bringing it to Mr. Miyamoto.
It’s not as though we were consciously keeping it a secret, but when Mr. Miyamoto would say, ‘Hey, you got anything to show me?’ I would kind of just push him off, and buy time as much as I could. But, at the same time, I think Mr. Miyamoto also understood that we were working on creating something, and just weren’t ready to show it to him yet. Honestly, I don’t know how well we kept it a secret anyway.”
It’s interesting to see evidence that even within Nintendo, there were fears of the game’s graphics not being received very well after the initial Ocarina-styled GameCube demo was shown. Aonuma’s decision was most likely for the best, as it does seem like effort was made to truly persuade Miyamoto that the cel-shading style would be the best direction to take in the next Zelda.
You can read the full interview with Aonuma here.
But what do you think? Would you have done the same as Aonuma and kept the graphics of the game clandestine? Do you think it was necessary on his part to get approval for the style? Tell us in the comments below.
Source: MTV
