Interview:Iwata Asks: The Wind Waker HD
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Iwata Asks: The Wind Waker HD
Date | September 18, 2013 | |
Interviewee | ||
Interviewer | ||
Description | The Wind Waker HD developers discuss the development of the remake and of the original. | |
Source | ||
How Toon Link Was Born
Iwata: Today, I'd like to ask about The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Before we discuss the Wii U version, I would also like to ask about the original, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Nintendo GameCube. First, please introduce yourselves, including what you worked on before as well as this time. Aonuma-san, we'll start with you.
Aonuma: I worked as director on the original game. This time as the producer, I went to work hoping to take this opportunity to fix what hadn't gone well before. I remember saying the same thing for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D! (laughs)
Iwata: Right! (laughs) Iwamoto-san? You also discussed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword with me.
Iwamoto: I wasn't part of the team for the original game. Soon after, I worked on The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. This time, I was the director.
Iwata: You weren't involved with the original version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but you have been deeply involved with "Toon Link."
Iwamoto: Yes. Toon Link and I go way back. This was my first time as a developer for The Wind Waker, so I played through the original again and worked on the places that I thought could be improved upon.
Iwata: Okay. Takizawa-san.
Takizawa: For the original version, I had the title of design manager, but to be specific, as a member of the core design staff, I was involved from the start where we talked about things like "Let's give it this kind of look." I was also mainly in charge of enemy characters and effects. This time, um…what was I? HD Refining Art Director?
Iwata: That's quite long! (laughs)
Takizawa: In any case, I thought about how to refine all the graphics to HD, while doing a lot of the actual work.
Iwata: In other words, you were the visual director. All right, Dohta-san?
Dohta: The original came out before I joined the company, so I simply enjoyed playing the game.
Iwata: Oh, you were a player!
Dohta: Yes. I played it like other players play. This time, I was paired with Takizawa-san and had the title of HD Refining Program Director. I provided refining direction with regard to the technological aspects of transferring the original Nintendo GameCube visuals to the Wii U version.
Iwata: And last, Arimoto-san.
Arimoto: I participated on the original as a designer trying to see how we could fully create a world based on the character art by Takizawa-san and (Yoshiki) Haruhana-san. When it came to the refining work this time, I took on the responsibility of taking data from the original and somehow making it work! (laughs)
Iwata: It was your job to make it work.
Arimoto: Yeah, it was. Takizawa-san and I checked the data from the original and started pulling it together.
Iwata: Well now, let's move on. The original Version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was released in 2002, but at NINTENDO SPACE WORLD the year before, in 2001, we had revealed what the upcoming Zelda game would look like.
Aonuma: Yes, that's right.
Iwata: That announcement was shocking to Zelda fans. Many were surprised and puzzled. How did those visuals come about and how did you create that world? In other words, could I ask you to first talk about how Toon Link came to be?
Aonuma: Well…that look wasn't what I had at first proposed.
Takizawa: At the time, Haruhana-san and I were a part of the core staff from the start, and we had been trying to figure out which graphical direction to take for the next Zelda game. And we wondered whether continuing the path taken by Ocarina of Time, and evolving upon it by giving it more detail was really the right path.
Iwata: You were looking for a direction to take on how to evolve the series.
Takizawa: Yes. Although it may be an exaggeration to say we questioned whether it was "the right path."
Aonuma: Of course, simply carrying on down that road was an option, and we proceeded with a prototype, but it was incredibly normal and didn't exceed expectations.
Iwata: The looks improved, as expected. At Nintendo Space World the year before, in 2000 when we announced the Nintendo GameCube, we showed a demo video of an evolved form of Link from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, so a lot of people were expecting something along those lines.
Aonuma: Yes. But it was difficult for us to imagine ourselves easily coming up with new ideas and expanding on that world if we had chosen that path. Of course, while a game is more than its visuals, it was going to be made mostly by the same people, and the ideas we had within the same team has its limits.
Takizawa: Everyone on the core staff making the game at that time had a sense that proceeding in that direction didn't feel quite right. Then one day, out of the blue, Haruhana-san hit us with that new Link.
Iwata: Just out of the blue?
Aonuma: Yeah, it sure was.
Takizawa: The instant I saw that drawing, my designer's spirit came to life and I thought, "With a character like that, we can give him actions that will look and feel good no matter how he moves!"
Aonuma: Soon after you saw that, you drew a picture of a moblin.
Takizawa: Yes. I immediately drew inspiration from Haruhana-san's sketch and dashed off a Moblin, thinking, "Then the enemy should look like this!"
Aonuma: Then we began thinking about how we could have them fight, and it suddenly got interesting, with ideas coming out at an incredible speed, and I thought, "This'll work!"
Iwata: Haruhana-san's sketch was a detonator for the core staff that set off a bunch of ideas.
Takizawa: Animations came along pretty quickly, too. I remember how, when we first had the initial images, Aonuma-san was all cool, like "Oh, this is what you're thinking… Hmm…" But when he saw the demo, he was like "Whoa! They're so cute they really have grown on me!"
Everyone: (laughs)
Aonuma: Looking back at the history of Zelda games, that happens a lot. For Ocarina of Time as well, once we had Link and a certain kind of enemy, gameplay started developing rapidly.
Iwata: Making the action structure and the interaction elements become the starting point for everything else. Once those things are done things rapidly starts branching out.
Aonuma: In the case of The Wind Waker, the visuals for Link and the Moblins started everything. Things quickly shaped up around how we would have them fight.
Takizawa: Another benefit of those visuals was how we could represent the mechanisms and objects for puzzles in a more easy-to-understand way. When the visuals are photorealistic, it had the adverse effect of making information difficult to represent game-wise.
Iwata: In terms of the graphics required within a game, sometimes more problems arise the more photorealistic it is.
Takizawa: Exactly. You can't tell what moves and what you should touch. But if you change the visual style of parts that move, it'll stand out like a sore thumb.
Aonuma: We solved those problems with regard to gameplay, and more than anything, we felt we achieved a new sense of combat against new enemies thanks to the stylized actions performed by cel-shaded characters. We decided rather early on that we definitely wanted to go with that direction.
The Zelda Cycle
Iwata: After Toon Link was revealed with much fanfare, I got the impression that a debate over its pros and cons continued among the fans until release. As the developers, what were your impressions about the response after the game was released?
Aonuma: At the time, we couldn't really directly see the response online the way we can now. There was already a division between those who liked that artistic style and who didn't, and I had the impression after release that we hadn't quite gotten across that barrier in order to deliver the Zelda game that we wanted. That was just my own vague idea after talking to a number of people.
Iwata: So you think that the players' opinions were first divided just by whether they liked the art style or not?
Aonuma: Right. This was a few years ago, but one day, my wife said a friend had told her the visuals for The Wind Waker on the GameCube were really pretty, so if we had it at home, she'd want to play it.
Iwata: Hmm, isn't that a little too good to be true? (laughs) Did your wife know you were working on The Wind Waker?
Aonuma: She knew it, but she didn't seem to have much interest when it came out.
Iwata: Does she usually play video games?
Aonuma: About the time of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, she started playing the games I made, but before that, she didn't play video games very much, partially because our child was so little.
Iwata: What was your impression, Takizawa-san?
Takizawa: Well, I have a story similar to Aonuma-san's. My wife never plays video games. But when she saw the TV commercial back then, she said it looked interesting. And that was the first time I'd ever heard her express disappointment over not being very good at video games.
Iwata: Ah, something came across through those visuals.
Takizawa: I think that's what it was. We were able to create visuals where we could get someone who doesn't usually play video games want to play one. That really made me happy.
Aonuma: Back then, probably, video games still had an image of being difficult. For example, controllers were getting more and more buttons.
Iwata: Perhaps, that image was at its peak about that time. It was a time where making games more realistic and lavish excited a lot of people. Wind Waker was released at a time when the gaming industry wasn't able to offer an idea that could open up games to a broader base of people.
Aonuma and Takizawa: That's right.
Iwata: If I think back, people were cleanly split into two groups. With one happy and saying "The characters are so expressive that it's like I'm controlling an anime," and another resisting it, saying "It's like a game for small kids with the characters this cute."
Aonuma: Yes. There was a clear split.
Iwata: But later, as time passed, voices that Toon Link is childish started dispersing and those who said they like him were gaining more ground. Or is that an exaggeration? (laughs)
Aonuma: No, that really happened.
Iwata: Actually, if you look closely at the world of The Wind Waker, it has its own sense of reality that's takes advantage of its anime-themed world. It's so inventive with a lot of bright ideas packed in that you think "Wow! So much detail!" But I suppose I notice those things as president of Nintendo because I try to see its charms! (laughs)
Aonuma: Well, there's a clear split with those who are reluctant even to try it.
Iwata: But I think that has changed recently.
Aonuma: There's a "Zelda cycle."
Iwata: Yes. Bill Trinen-san at Nintendo of America—who always plays a big role in preparing the overseas versions of The Legend of Zelda games—always talks about the Zelda cycle.
Aonuma: Basically, as time progresses, negative opinions about The Legend of Zelda turn into positive ones. At first, I wasn't sure about that, but seeing the response to The Wind Waker HD, I think it may be right.
Iwata: And it isn't restricted to The Wind Waker. Every time a new Zelda title comes out, there's no shortage of negative opinions, but a year or two later, people are revising their opinions, and its reputation goes up.
Aonuma: The response of fans in North America was like that for The Wind Waker. When we first announced the original version in 2001, the majority of voices we heard were against it. However, the responses for the Nintendo Direct we aired in January were incredibly favorable. Also at the Nintendo Experience event at Best Buy which was held at the same time as this year's E3, a lot of people lined up in front of the single demo station for The Wind Waker HD in each store, saying they really wanted to play it.
Iwata: This might jinx things, but we weren't able to expand the reach of the Nintendo GameCube hardware to the fullest, so even if people thought it looked good, a lot of them didn't buy the hardware and decided to wait it out.
Aonuma: The other thing I could say is that we upended a lot of things with The Wind Waker, and we continued to do so beyond that as well. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess had serious and photorealistic looks, and then The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword had a painting like look with its half cel-shaded animation. It keeps changing with each new release.
Iwata: To that point, I think a part of the reason that the sentiment for The Wind Waker is increasing is that people have now seen both Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, and have realized that The Wind Waker did have its own appeal.
Aonuma: I suppose so.
Iwata: After that, Toon Link settled into handheld games, so the number of people who have taken a liking to him is gradually increasing.
Iwamoto: When I worked on The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, some people were definitely like "What? Toon Link?!" But with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, it seems like opinions like that had completely disappeared.
Aonuma: As we make The Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo DS, I think we were finally able to reach across to those people that while the appearance may change, it's still in fact a Zelda game.
Iwata: And eleven years is more than enough time for people to have a fresh feeling towards it. I doubt many people would feel like playing the remake of a full-length game that came out two years ago, no matter how fun it was, unless it had something really mind-blowing. But when eleven years pass, you might not be able to start over from scratch, but you're able to enjoy it with a fresh feeling.
Aonuma: That's right, so when playing the game again, even those of us who made it have forgotten a lot about it. We feel like we're regular players and say things like "Huh? Was it like this?" as we play along.
Iwata: You get stuck on the puzzles, even though you made the game yourself! (laughs)
Takizawa: Yeah! So we keep a strategy guide at hand. Imagine a developer using a strategy guide to play his own game! Takizawa (laughs)