Interview:Hyrule Historia

Hyrule Historia

Date	December 21, 2011
Interviewee	Shigeru Miyamoto Eiji Aonuma
Interviewer	Hyrule Historia
Description	These statements are included in the Hyrule Historia. Miyamoto's foreward gives an overview of the series. Aonuma's afterward describes the book, the timeline it contains, and his experience with the series.
Source	[1][2] (translated by Patas)

On Approaching the 25th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda

Nintendo Co., Ltd. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development
General Producer of The Legend of Zelda Series
Shigeru Miyamoto

I started working on the project of the first Legend of Zelda game along with a very small staff in a corner of the development room of Nintendo, located in Kyoto. It was approximately 2 years after the release of the Famicom, around halfway through the 1980’s. Back then, I was also working on a compilation of the Famicom’s Super Mario Bros. [TN: A port of the original game for the Disk System that included several minus world levels.], but since the release of the Disk System was getting near, we had to work on a launch title too. The first thing I thought about was a game that made use of the Disk System’s function of rewriting data so that two players could each create their own dungeons and make the other player solve them. We actually created such a game, and when I played it, I felt it was very fun playing in the dungeons themselves. So we put together a game with a series of dungeons underneath mountains distributed around Death Mountain for a single player to solve them. But we also wanted it to feature a world above, so we added forests and lakes, and so Hyrule Field took form gradually.

Now, we didn’t decide the game’s title from the very beginning either. Originally, I wanted it to be “The Legend of X,” but I couldn’t find the appropriate word for the “X.” Then, the planner to whom we assigned the PR project suggested we did a story book of the game. He had the idea of doing an illustration book that would add to the princess Link rescues an eternal beauty appealing to all men. He then mentioned that there was an American writer whose wife was very famous. He said she was named “Zelda,” and suggested that name for our eternal beauty. I had no interest in such a book project, but I loved the name Zelda, so I asked him if we could only keep the name and he said it was OK. And so, the title of “The Legend of Zelda” was born.

We named the main character “Link” to convey the meaning of someone who connects. The idea was of a character that would cross time and link the energy spread around the world. There’s also a character that would pass that information on to Zelda: an old lady named “Impa.” Her name comes from the verb “to impart.” This old lady, Link and Zelda were “the three guardians of the Triforce.” The Triforce relationship nowadays is between Link, Zelda and Ganon, but that was established in Ocarina of Time; the first Ganon was a villain looking for the Triforce.

Twenty five years have passed since then and we’ve been able to create many Zelda games. At first, Link had a simple design of a bunch of pixels, but now he’s got a heroic fearless look and fluid movements. Ganon has become a more powerful, greatly evil being, and Zelda has turned into a beautiful lady.

Along with the evolution of hardware, production values get more luxurious. But I was afraid that by relying on those luxurious production values, the most important parts of playing would be neglected. What matters in a videogame are the game system, the action, the sensations, the creativity, and the production values. Production values have been evolving with time, and in order for other game elements not to lose any ground against them, I’ve been involved in the development of the series, watching it over like some sort of guard.

Because of that, I feel that Skyward Sword, the most recent game and which was finished for the turning point of the series’ 25th anniversary, is a very well-balanced game. Over this 25 years span, we’ve though up new items, we’ve changed the way of using some of them, or we’ve made Link’s controls more comfortable for solving puzzles, and sometimes we’ve improved all that when adapting them to a specific controller. We’ve repeatedly designed the controllers themselves assuming the movements in Zelda games. But I feel that with Skyward Sword, which is played with the Wii motion plus and the nunchuck, we’ve arrived to an answer.

Actually, 2011 was also the 30th anniversary of Donkey Kong. I started my career as a game developer with that title. I’ve been involved in the creation of many games during those 30 years, but the only ones in which the player can name his character are those from The legend of Zelda series.

I’ve already mentioned that we named Link with the intention of conveying a “connecting” meaning, but Link is the player himself. Ultimately, the series has continued because the player saves the world while struggling to solve puzzles or defeating strong enemies. As a result, I’m very thankful that players around the world and our team could “link.”

Even though Ganon is defeated time after time, he’s a very evil being that comes back vengefully. So, whenever signs of evil start to cover the world, a young boy and a girl will be born. As long as you continue to love this world, the adventures of you and Link will continue. We’ll keep developing new games of this series as new hardware brings new experiences. Please play those games.

On Completing the Edition

Nintendo Co., Ltd. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development,
Software Development Group
Producer of "The Legend of Zelda" series
Eiji Aonuma

Thankfully, we've been able to reach the 25th year of The Legend of Zelda franchise. As tokens of our gratitude to all the fans who've supported the Zelda series until now, we've held symphonic concerts in three cities around the world, we've made available the "Four Swords 25th Anniversary Edition" game as DSiware for free, and we've had many promotional events. But I thought of preparing something in the form of a book and that's how we decided to publish Hyrule Historia ~Everything About The Legend of Zelda~.

This book is organized in four big sections. The first one, "The First Story," is an introduction to the new game Skyward Sword; the second chapter, "The Full History of Hyrule," follows the order of events of the Zelda series chronologically; the third section, "Creative Traces," presents artwork from past games, including some rough sketches; and the fourth part is a special manga by Akira Himekawa, the leading author in charge of creating the manga of the Zelda series.

In particular, part 3, "Creative Traces," contains several documents that have never been shown to the public before. In order to include them in this book, the staff that's worked in the Zelda series had to dig those old documents up like if they were hiding in the deepest part of a dungeon. I really appreciate that.

Chapter 2, "The Full History of Hyrule," arranges the series in chronological order so it's easier to understand, but from the very beginning, Zelda games have been developed with the top priority of focusing on the game mechanics rather than the story. For example, in Ocarina of Time, the first installment of the series I was involved in, the main theme was how to create a game with pleasant controls in a 3D world. Or in the DS game, Phantom Hourglass, the focus was having comfortable stylus controls. Finally, in the most recent game, Skyward Sword, we focused on an easy way to swing the sword using the Wii motion plus.

Thinking of that way of developing the games, it may be correct to say that the story is an appendix to that. I even think that setting Skyward Sword as the "first story," was merely a coincidence. While reading over "The Full History of Hyrule," it's possible that some parts may look contradictory. For instance, the Mogma race or the beetle item that appear on the very first story do not appear on any other game that takes place in the future. I'd like to ask everyone just to enjoy the book and to be broad-minded, and to think that those parts are the way they are because of the way Zelda games are developed.

Now, allow me to include some tall talk here: I feel that developing such large scale games as those from The Legend of Zelda is very similar to what it was like to venture into the mighty ocean in ancient times. Each game of the franchise has its own theme, as I mentioned above. I think that's a system that no one has challenged so far and at the same time it's like looking for a "continent" no one has ever visited.

When leaving the port, you don't have a single nautical chart. You only have with you very few crew members, and all the guidance is based on which direction looks good, so at first it's like boarding and sailing a ship with an aim you don't even know yet. Sometimes you just drift about, or you may suffer a shipwreck because of a storm. Or you may see what you think is a new continent, but when you rush towards it, you find out it actually is a tiny desolate island. And it's then that you get lost.

However, as long as you don't stand still in the same spot, you can continue to advance little by little, and that continent you aimed at will get barely within sight on the far away horizon. At that point you can add more people to your crew, and get all together to push forward ahead towards the continent.

That's a very fun process, so fun you even forget the times when you encountered a storm and you were hoping to get away from it. And if you manage to get safely to that "continent," people around the world will surely get happy… That's the biggest pleasure of creating Zelda games.

The long sailing time of creating Skyward Sword, a game to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, has just come to an end. The voices of those who've played it from around the world reach us. We hear their admiration comments, and their criticism too. All those voices become energy for the next voyage. Well, to tell the truth, we've already set sail in a new voyage.

Please keep supporting The Legend of Zelda games.