Interview:Hyrule Historia

From Zelda Dungeon Wiki
Revision as of 17:05, January 6, 2012 by Locke (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{Interview|2012-1-5 |date = January 5, 2012 |interviewee = Eiji Aonuma |interviewer = Hyrule Historia |description = This is Aonuma's statement included in the book ''Hyr...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Want an adless experience? Log in or Create an account.
Hyrule Historia

Date

January 5, 2012

Interviewee

Interviewer

Hyrule Historia

Description

This is Aonuma's statement included in the book Hyrule Historia. He describes the book and the timeline contained in it, and likens the development of Zelda games to sailing the seas searching for new continents.

Source

[1] (translated by Patas)

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.