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Interview:GDC Roundtable May 17th 2004 (view source)
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{{ | {{Infobox|interview|2004-05-17 | ||
|date = May 17, 2004 | |date = May 17, 2004 | ||
|interviewee = [[Eiji Aonuma]] | |interviewee = [[Eiji Aonuma]] | ||
|interviewer = GDC Roundtable<br>Participants: | |interviewer = '''GDC Roundtable<br/>Participants:''' | ||
Michael Cole: PGC (Planet GameCube) | |||
Matt Leone: 1-up | |||
Fran Mirabella III: IGN | |||
Raymond Padilla: GameSpy | |||
Ricardo Torres: GameSpot | |||
Eiji Aonuma: Nintendo NCL | |||
Yasuhiro Minagawa: Nintendo NCL (translating questions) | |||
Bill Trinen: NOA (translating for Eiji Aonuma) | |||
Chris Olmstead: NOA | |||
Tom Harlin: NOA | |||
|description = Aonuma shares stories about past games and information about ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures|Four Swords Adventures]]''. This transcript was withheld for two months in a media embargo surrounding ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]'' (codenamed "''Wind Waker 2''" in early development). | |description = Aonuma shares stories about past games and information about ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures|Four Swords Adventures]]''. This transcript was withheld for two months in a media embargo surrounding ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]'' (codenamed "''Wind Waker 2''" in early development). | ||
|source = [http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/2180] | |source = [http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/2180] | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|You mentioned in that [GDC] presentation—which was very good—that at E3 we might see the franchise being worked on the DS? Can you confirm whether or not Zelda is being worked on for the Nintendo DS?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|You mentioned in that [GDC] presentation—which was very good—that at E3 we might see the franchise being worked on the DS? Can you confirm whether or not Zelda is being worked on for the Nintendo DS?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|Eiji Aonuma|Well, of course I kind of thought everybody would want to hear something about Zelda on the DS, so yesterday I said that I can't anything about it now, but maybe you can look forward to developments with the Zelda franchise on the DS at E3. And, of course, while I can't say we're necessarily working on anything specific at this point in time, with new hardware we're always looking at new ideas. So we're trying to decide if we'll be able to show anything or not.<br><br>So, but obviously at E3 our big focus is going to be on the Wind Waker 2, which is under development as we speak. And, so that's going to be our big focus. We'll have a big push for that, and anything related to Zelda developments in relation to the DS will probably come at some point after that.}} | {{Interview/A|Eiji Aonuma|Well, of course I kind of thought everybody would want to hear something about Zelda on the DS, so yesterday I said that I can't anything about it now, but maybe you can look forward to developments with the Zelda franchise on the DS at E3. And, of course, while I can't say we're necessarily working on anything specific at this point in time, with new hardware we're always looking at new ideas. So we're trying to decide if we'll be able to show anything or not.<br/><br/>So, but obviously at E3 our big focus is going to be on the Wind Waker 2, which is under development as we speak. And, so that's going to be our big focus. We'll have a big push for that, and anything related to Zelda developments in relation to the DS will probably come at some point after that.}} | ||
{{Interview/Q|Q|I have a question. During the presentation you mentioned that you had certain regrets about things in, say, [[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Majora's Mask]] that you had a chance to fix and improve in [[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|the Wind Waker]]. I was wondering if you could give a few examples of what you thought, for the Wind Waker, things you would like to improve on in the future, in maybe Wind Waker 2. Or maybe examples from the past from the [[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|Ocarina of Time]], that were interesting?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|I have a question. During the presentation you mentioned that you had certain regrets about things in, say, [[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Majora's Mask]] that you had a chance to fix and improve in [[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|the Wind Waker]]. I was wondering if you could give a few examples of what you thought, for the Wind Waker, things you would like to improve on in the future, in maybe Wind Waker 2. Or maybe examples from the past from the [[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|Ocarina of Time]], that were interesting?}} | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|Now, he obviously mentioned [[Upending the Tea Table|upending the tea table]] [laughter] and pursuing all sorts of different things with the franchise. Looking at something like [[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures|Four Swords]], it looks like they could completely get away with doing an all 2D Zelda on the GameCube with crazy effects. Would that qualify as something you would want to do?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|Now, he obviously mentioned [[Upending the Tea Table|upending the tea table]] [laughter] and pursuing all sorts of different things with the franchise. Looking at something like [[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures|Four Swords]], it looks like they could completely get away with doing an all 2D Zelda on the GameCube with crazy effects. Would that qualify as something you would want to do?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|Well, actually the main reason—there were two main reasons [why] we went with the 2D graphics for the GameCube Four Swords. One was that it was a sequel to the Game Boy Advance [[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords|Four Swords]] game, and so for the continuity there we wanted to retain the same graphic style. The second reason was that, as a connectivity game with four players, we found that it would be a lot easier for people to understand what's going on, when all four players are on one screen, when they're looking at it from the top-down perspective rather than a full 3D environment. So that obviously had a big impact on choosing that direction as well.<br><br>And, generally, what we do is, when we determine the graphic style it's really not so much a determination in advance of which style of graphics we want to use as it is by the type of game we're creating. So, going forward, if we get to a point where we decide that going back and doing a 2D game is going to simplify the gameplay and make it more fun and allow us to do different things, then we would consider doing that.}} | {{Interview/A|EA|Well, actually the main reason—there were two main reasons [why] we went with the 2D graphics for the GameCube Four Swords. One was that it was a sequel to the Game Boy Advance [[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords|Four Swords]] game, and so for the continuity there we wanted to retain the same graphic style. The second reason was that, as a connectivity game with four players, we found that it would be a lot easier for people to understand what's going on, when all four players are on one screen, when they're looking at it from the top-down perspective rather than a full 3D environment. So that obviously had a big impact on choosing that direction as well.<br/><br/>And, generally, what we do is, when we determine the graphic style it's really not so much a determination in advance of which style of graphics we want to use as it is by the type of game we're creating. So, going forward, if we get to a point where we decide that going back and doing a 2D game is going to simplify the gameplay and make it more fun and allow us to do different things, then we would consider doing that.}} | ||
{{Interview/Q|Q|Would you say that the demographic for Four Swords is similar to the Wind Waker?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|Would you say that the demographic for Four Swords is similar to the Wind Waker?}} | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|And are you a good cook?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|And are you a good cook?}} | ||
(Mr. Minagawa and Mr. Trinen ask Mr. Aonuma to elaborate in Japanese)<br><br> | (Mr. Minagawa and Mr. Trinen ask Mr. Aonuma to elaborate in Japanese)<br/><br/> | ||
{{Interview/A|YM|He says that whenever a Zelda project is completed, he has a party—he is hosting a party—and at the party he is cooking some curry—rice curry—for everybody. So now, whenever he is asking some sort of difficult job or task to one of his team members, then the team member says, "OK, you now owe me one dish of the curry!"}} | {{Interview/A|YM|He says that whenever a Zelda project is completed, he has a party—he is hosting a party—and at the party he is cooking some curry—rice curry—for everybody. So now, whenever he is asking some sort of difficult job or task to one of his team members, then the team member says, "OK, you now owe me one dish of the curry!"}} | ||
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{{Interview/Q|NOA|[To the translators.] Can you ask Mr. Aonuma to maybe expand on, he mentioned putting the framework of the game in first and maybe use an example from Four Swords or the Wind Waker shows how they started with the framework and turned it into a story?}} | {{Interview/Q|NOA|[To the translators.] Can you ask Mr. Aonuma to maybe expand on, he mentioned putting the framework of the game in first and maybe use an example from Four Swords or the Wind Waker shows how they started with the framework and turned it into a story?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|With the WW, we started off—as I mentioned yesterday—with the idea that we wanted to introduce a new style of movement. And so what we ended up with was the player moving around in a [[King of Red Lions|boat]] on the [[Great Sea|ocean]] traveling between islands. And the idea was that [[Hyrule]]—the game's out now so I can say this [laughter]—that Hyrule's down below and basically been flooded over and the ocean is above it. And so that was the basic idea for this new element to the gameplay, and once we had come up with this, that the player is going to be sailing across the ocean, then it became a question of, "Okay, so we know Hyrule has been flooded and it's at the bottom of the ocean, but then the question is how did it get there?" And so that becomes an example of how we start off with a gameplay idea, and then from there think about how that affects the storyline or how to build the storyline around that.<br><br><section begin="producer" />In an example with Four Swords Adventures, I was the producer on that game, so I didn't actually put the story for that game together—that would be put together by the director of the game.<section end="producer" /> <section begin="teatable" />And in the end on that game, as we got closer to finishing it, of course, Mr. Miyamoto then came in and upended the tea table, and we changed the story around quite a bit at the end with Four Swords Adventures. And what Mr. Miyamoto pointed out in the case of that game was that the storyline shouldn't be something complicated that confuses the player. It should really be kind of a guideline that helps ease the player through the gameplay process and helps them understand what it is that they're doing.<section end="teatable" /> So that was one example of how the gameplay was there first, and the storyline changed all the way up until the very end.}} | {{Interview/A|EA|With the WW, we started off—as I mentioned yesterday—with the idea that we wanted to introduce a new style of movement. And so what we ended up with was the player moving around in a [[King of Red Lions|boat]] on the [[Great Sea|ocean]] traveling between islands. And the idea was that [[Hyrule]]—the game's out now so I can say this [laughter]—that Hyrule's down below and basically been flooded over and the ocean is above it. And so that was the basic idea for this new element to the gameplay, and once we had come up with this, that the player is going to be sailing across the ocean, then it became a question of, "Okay, so we know Hyrule has been flooded and it's at the bottom of the ocean, but then the question is how did it get there?" And so that becomes an example of how we start off with a gameplay idea, and then from there think about how that affects the storyline or how to build the storyline around that.<br/><br/><section begin="producer" />In an example with Four Swords Adventures, I was the producer on that game, so I didn't actually put the story for that game together—that would be put together by the director of the game.<section end="producer" /> <section begin="teatable" />And in the end on that game, as we got closer to finishing it, of course, Mr. Miyamoto then came in and upended the tea table, and we changed the story around quite a bit at the end with Four Swords Adventures. And what Mr. Miyamoto pointed out in the case of that game was that the storyline shouldn't be something complicated that confuses the player. It should really be kind of a guideline that helps ease the player through the gameplay process and helps them understand what it is that they're doing.<section end="teatable" /> So that was one example of how the gameplay was there first, and the storyline changed all the way up until the very end.}} | ||
{{Interview/Q|Q|Speaking of Four Swords, I was fortunate enough to hunt down a copy of that. I noticed...near the beginning, there are a lot of old-school elements in it. For instance, you push the [chair in the] throne room to the right....Did the team go back and revisit the old games and note the things they liked? Was there a methodology to how they brought the flavor of the Super Nintendo [[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|Link to the Past]]—and other games—to this new 2D game, and kind of hybridize the connectivity multiplayer with the old school reminiscence of yore?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|Speaking of Four Swords, I was fortunate enough to hunt down a copy of that. I noticed...near the beginning, there are a lot of old-school elements in it. For instance, you push the [chair in the] throne room to the right....Did the team go back and revisit the old games and note the things they liked? Was there a methodology to how they brought the flavor of the Super Nintendo [[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|Link to the Past]]—and other games—to this new 2D game, and kind of hybridize the connectivity multiplayer with the old school reminiscence of yore?}} | ||
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{{Interview/A|EA|<section begin="team" />I wouldn't necessarily say that they intentionally tried to mimic specific events from the past game, but the fact of the matter is the Four Swords team does include members of the original LttP team, so obviously that may have had some affect of it. Also, the director of Four Swords is a huge fan of LttP and the old 2-D style games.<section end="team" /> But in bringing together the elements for the Four Swords, he looked at, essentially, taking elements from the 3-D Wind Waker, brining those into two dimensions, and finding ways to take elements that people who have played the newer games would then see in this game and be familiar with, in addition to taking some of the older elements from the past 2-D games and also applying them, so that we basically would come together with Four Swords being a game that is going to be something that will feel familiar, and be appealing to people of both time periods, both the old-school fans and the new-school fans. One example of that is, there was an element where he took the spotlight from the Wind Waker—you may remember on [[Windfall Island]] they have the spotlight where Link has to sneak around—if you play through Four Swords you'll find an area where he's done some kind of interesting things with the spotlight and applied that to 2-D. [Editor's Note: Wind Waker's spotlight is actually located in [[Forsaken Fortress]].]}} | {{Interview/A|EA|<section begin="team" />I wouldn't necessarily say that they intentionally tried to mimic specific events from the past game, but the fact of the matter is the Four Swords team does include members of the original LttP team, so obviously that may have had some affect of it. Also, the director of Four Swords is a huge fan of LttP and the old 2-D style games.<section end="team" /> But in bringing together the elements for the Four Swords, he looked at, essentially, taking elements from the 3-D Wind Waker, brining those into two dimensions, and finding ways to take elements that people who have played the newer games would then see in this game and be familiar with, in addition to taking some of the older elements from the past 2-D games and also applying them, so that we basically would come together with Four Swords being a game that is going to be something that will feel familiar, and be appealing to people of both time periods, both the old-school fans and the new-school fans. One example of that is, there was an element where he took the spotlight from the Wind Waker—you may remember on [[Windfall Island]] they have the spotlight where Link has to sneak around—if you play through Four Swords you'll find an area where he's done some kind of interesting things with the spotlight and applied that to 2-D. [Editor's Note: Wind Waker's spotlight is actually located in [[Forsaken Fortress]].]}} | ||
{{Interview/Q|Q|In Four Swords I just wanted to ask about the voice work in [[Navi's Trackers]], and I was wondering if you've thought about using voice in future titles, and how they think it worked out [in Navi's Trackers].}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|In Four Swords I just wanted to ask about the voice work in [[Navi Trackers|Navi's Trackers]], and I was wondering if you've thought about using voice in future titles, and how they think it worked out [in Navi's Trackers].}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|I mean, it's interesting to use voice in games. But using voice obviously leads to challenges in the localization process, because obviously you have to change the voice from one language to another. But in this case, with Tetra's Trackers, what we had was voice work that was used in the game not only to just convey story, but really voice work that was integ—inte...}} | {{Interview/A|EA|I mean, it's interesting to use voice in games. But using voice obviously leads to challenges in the localization process, because obviously you have to change the voice from one language to another. But in this case, with Tetra's Trackers, what we had was voice work that was used in the game not only to just convey story, but really voice work that was integ—inte...}} | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|I actually wanted to ask about the orchestration of the music. Zelda has traditionally used a lot of MIDI samples—which definitely works for the titles, it clearly does—but I've also heard the full orchestrations from symphonies of Mr. Kondo's orchestrations, which are beautiful. Have you thought about, going forward in new titles, using more orchestration with the franchise?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|I actually wanted to ask about the orchestration of the music. Zelda has traditionally used a lot of MIDI samples—which definitely works for the titles, it clearly does—but I've also heard the full orchestrations from symphonies of Mr. Kondo's orchestrations, which are beautiful. Have you thought about, going forward in new titles, using more orchestration with the franchise?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|Well, obviously [[Koji Kondo]] and his sound team, they're always thinking about what types of music to use in games, how to use the music in the games, how best to apply the music. They're always trying to come up with new ideas all the time. I think probably what's important is not necessarily to have these grand orchestrations, but sometimes very simple music can be very important as well. We always have a good exchanging of ideas in trying to find the best music that's going to match the game. In terms of actual full-on orchestration of the music, we haven't really had an opportunity, or we haven't had, basically, the facilities at Nintendo to do something like that, where we have a full orchestra there and we have a setup where we're able to record them all. If Mr. Kondo thinks that will be best for an upcoming title, then we'll probably look at ways to do that, and we can probably look forward to something like that in the future at some point. There aren't any concrete plans for it right now, but it's definitely something we're thinking about.<br><br>You may recall in the opening to the Wind Waker, in the opening story scroll, that it starts off with a Mandolin that's played, and that's actually sampling taken from Mr. Miyamoto actually playing the Mandolin. And it was basically the result of some discussion that we really needed to have that kind of a sound to start things off, and be part of that music, so obviously we're looking at what types of instruments and things like that, and what types of sounds we're going to need. Hopefully at some point in the future, I'd kind of like it if I could get my bongo playing into a game somehow}} | {{Interview/A|EA|Well, obviously [[Koji Kondo]] and his sound team, they're always thinking about what types of music to use in games, how to use the music in the games, how best to apply the music. They're always trying to come up with new ideas all the time. I think probably what's important is not necessarily to have these grand orchestrations, but sometimes very simple music can be very important as well. We always have a good exchanging of ideas in trying to find the best music that's going to match the game. In terms of actual full-on orchestration of the music, we haven't really had an opportunity, or we haven't had, basically, the facilities at Nintendo to do something like that, where we have a full orchestra there and we have a setup where we're able to record them all. If Mr. Kondo thinks that will be best for an upcoming title, then we'll probably look at ways to do that, and we can probably look forward to something like that in the future at some point. There aren't any concrete plans for it right now, but it's definitely something we're thinking about.<br/><br/>You may recall in the opening to the Wind Waker, in the opening story scroll, that it starts off with a Mandolin that's played, and that's actually sampling taken from Mr. Miyamoto actually playing the Mandolin. And it was basically the result of some discussion that we really needed to have that kind of a sound to start things off, and be part of that music, so obviously we're looking at what types of instruments and things like that, and what types of sounds we're going to need. Hopefully at some point in the future, I'd kind of like it if I could get my bongo playing into a game somehow}} | ||
[laughter] | [laughter] | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|Do you have any fears, with Wind Waker 2 being revealed at E3 with Four Swords coming up basically right after that in June, that Four Swords will be overshadowed?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|Do you have any fears, with Wind Waker 2 being revealed at E3 with Four Swords coming up basically right after that in June, that Four Swords will be overshadowed?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|Well, each game is very different. Obviously I think we have to present Four Swords in a way that really highlights the multiplayer, because that's really going to set it apart from The Wind Waker 2. But for me, I would really like to see the franchise develop in a way that we continue to surprise people and provide them with new and different styles of gameplay under the Zelda franchise, where people are saying, "Oh, Zelda can be this type of game too", or "Zelda could be that type of game as well!" So it's not so much a worry as I'm kind of excited and looking forwards to those types of developments.<br><br>Right now my biggest mission is to make sure the DS announcements don't overshadow the Zelda announcement at E3. [laughter] So I'm exerting a lot of effort and spending a lot of energy in trying to make sure that we do have a big announcement with Zelda.}} | {{Interview/A|EA|Well, each game is very different. Obviously I think we have to present Four Swords in a way that really highlights the multiplayer, because that's really going to set it apart from The Wind Waker 2. But for me, I would really like to see the franchise develop in a way that we continue to surprise people and provide them with new and different styles of gameplay under the Zelda franchise, where people are saying, "Oh, Zelda can be this type of game too", or "Zelda could be that type of game as well!" So it's not so much a worry as I'm kind of excited and looking forwards to those types of developments.<br/><br/>Right now my biggest mission is to make sure the DS announcements don't overshadow the Zelda announcement at E3. [laughter] So I'm exerting a lot of effort and spending a lot of energy in trying to make sure that we do have a big announcement with Zelda.}} | ||
{{Interview/Q|Q|As sort of a follow-up to your response, you say you're looking at new ways to bring the Zelda franchise to people. Would you, maybe, consider a darker Zelda, maybe delegated to a company like Silicon Knights?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|As sort of a follow-up to your response, you say you're looking at new ways to bring the Zelda franchise to people. Would you, maybe, consider a darker Zelda, maybe delegated to a company like Silicon Knights?}} | ||
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{{Interview/Q|Q|You still plan on being the Zelda director and producer?}} | {{Interview/Q|Q|You still plan on being the Zelda director and producer?}} | ||
{{Interview/A|EA|Well, yeah, I'll continue to be producer. Up until now, as director, all I've ever done in working on the Zelda games is focus on the particular Zelda game that I was working on at the moment. Now, as producer, I'll be looking at ideas as to which platforms we're going to be releasing games on, which platforms we should be pushing Zelda towards, the types of developments that we can do on those platforms, and continuing to find new ways to expand the franchise. So that's what I'll continue to do.<br><br>But, I would like to make a Zelda that somehow surpasses the Ocarina of Time.}} | {{Interview/A|EA|Well, yeah, I'll continue to be producer. Up until now, as director, all I've ever done in working on the Zelda games is focus on the particular Zelda game that I was working on at the moment. Now, as producer, I'll be looking at ideas as to which platforms we're going to be releasing games on, which platforms we should be pushing Zelda towards, the types of developments that we can do on those platforms, and continuing to find new ways to expand the franchise. So that's what I'll continue to do.<br/><br/>But, I would like to make a Zelda that somehow surpasses the Ocarina of Time.}} | ||
[laughter] | [laughter] | ||