Interview:Iwata Asks: Spirit Tracks: Difference between revisions

|description = A 6-part series focusing on the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata sits down with Eiji Aonuma and Daiki Iwamoto of the development team.

==The Previous Game Felt As Though We’d Given Our All==

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|I'm Aonuma, from Entertainment Analysis & Development. I produced this game, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and I also produced the previous game, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.}}

{{Interview/A|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 Princess, 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.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|Well, there are some definite similarities between that sequence of events and the way The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask came from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|All right. Our first 3D The Legend of Zelda game for the N64 turned out to be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I did some direction on that one, although it was only partial: I was in charge of dungeon design.}}

{{Interview/A|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.}}

{{Interview/A|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".}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|That "Ura Zelda" (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Master Quest) was developed for the 64DD. Ultimately, we recorded it on a limited edition disc that went to people who reserved The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|And we were supposed to make its sequel in a year... At first, we had absolutely no idea what sort of thing we were supposed to make, and we just kept expanding our plans... At that point, the "Three-Day System", the idea of a compact world to be played over and over again, came down from Miyamoto-san and one other director, (Yoshiaki) Koizumi-san. We added that to the mix, and then, finally, we saw the full substance of a The Legend of Zelda game we could make in one year.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwamoto|Right. We thought, "What if we go at this using a different approach from the previous game?" And what we came up with was the use of Phantom.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwamoto|Yes. In the last game, there was a type of play where you could switch to playing as a Goron; we decided to build things around controlling the Phantom at a relatively early stage. We'd been trying to think of a method for intuitively and easily controlling a subplayer for a while at that point.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|Then, among the characters who appear this time, we really focus on Princess Zelda.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|Yes, but she doesn't in this one. Back when I heard the story's rough outline, I asked, "What? Why isn't Tetra making an appearance?" And he said, "Well... I don't like Tetra all that much."}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|...About the train.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|Did it feel as though a small tea table had been upended?}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|In this world, the tracks were there to begin with, but for some reason they've been erased. The player has to put them back to the way they were.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|I see. You can try backing up first, then switching to another track, and going on again once the enemy train's passed you.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwamoto|Players can use a pan flute this time.}}

(Editor's note: In the North American version the Wide Worlds are called 'Realms' as in 'Ocean Realm')}}

{{Interview/A|Iwamoto|There isn't a sound item in every game. There wasn't one in the last one.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|It's a little different this time, though. There are "treasures", and you can collect many different types. Once you've accumulated a set number of a certain sort of treasure, you can exchange those for your train part. Not only that, the things you collect vary from player to player.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|Ten years or so ago, the "Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun (Almost Daily Itoi Newspaper)" ran an interview with Miyamoto-san, after he'd made "Ocarina of Time". In that interview, there was a bit that made me think, "Oh, so that's what it was".}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|Well, to me... When I'm playing, and I think "Is it even possible to solve this puzzle?", and it's really giving me trouble, but then something gives me a brainstorm and I solve it, and "that The Legend of Zelda sound" plays... (laughs) When I hear that "You’ve solved the puzzle" sound, even though I had to work so hard on it, it makes me want to work on the next one right away. To me, that's the essence of The Legend of Zelda.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|At EAD, there are lots of planners who came from Design - such as Miyamoto-san, Tezuka-san, and you, Aonuma-san - and relatively few people from Programming, aren't there. Do you think the puzzles are different from the usual ones precisely because someone from Programming thought them up?}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|So you send him at each other and intercept each other to get the Force.}}