Interview:Iwata Asks: Twilight Princess (Part 3): Difference between revisions

{{Interview/A|Iwata|I see... Miyamoto-san, when you're asked what defines Zelda, how do you normally respond? Can you give a definite answer?}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|Basically, I think it's the way these games respect our customers' intelligence. When our customers play our games, they will do all the logical things they would do as if they were doing something in real life, and if there's something that does not seem to be working the way they should be, they'll get upset. So, the fundamental principle of Zelda is that these logical elements must be neatly integrated into the game. When they're not, it no longer becomes Zelda. That's when I say "Wrong! This isn't Zelda!" So when I'm upset, it's on behalf of the players who would think "This is unbelievable! What's the matter with this game?" (laughs) I have always made games on the basis that my voice is the voice of the player. And if we released it without making adjustments, the situation would ultimately be a lot more serious if we angered our customers. To me this point is absolutely fundamental, and it's the same whether it's Zelda or Mario. While both games have that attitude as their foundation, I would say that Mario is fun in a very accessible, immediate way while Zelda really gives you that expansive feeling that you are developing along with the game. Those are really the only differences between the two; fundamentally they are actually the same.}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|It's fine if someone really likes Zelda's story: in fact it's great. But if a person like that starts to work on developing a Zelda game, they won't necessarily be an ideal match for the project. Something else that is vital to Zelda is that everything fits together seamlessly. This isn't easy to explain, but what I mean is that with all of the ideas in the game tightly woven together, the various elements of the game will perfectly complement the terrain and scenery. The balance of "sparsity" and "density" in the game works really well. This is something that's important in Zelda. A real challenge with Twilight Princess was that as development moved from the earlier stages into the latter half, that balance was lost. The 3D Modeling Team was steadily expanding the size of the game, but the actual content of the game was not keeping pace. The longer the 3D modeling and the content remain out of step, the more sparse the game becomes. Or, game content starts interfering with other content and spoiling it. Trying to get that under control is a real challenge. Putting it another way, perhaps it's controlling the balance of "sparsity" and "density" that actually makes a Zelda game. Maybe this isn't limited to Zelda... Maybe it's the "Nintendo method" of making games...}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|Even if we gathered all the developers together to discuss it, we couldn't get everyone to fully understand what that method actually is. Nor can I adequately communicate it from a position giving instructions from outside the main development process. From the outside, I can see various things on a surface level and could make comments about them, but the person who created those things might feel: "That wasn't what I was trying to do!" We'd always be on different wavelengths. But when I take a more hands-on approach and we all start working together to get the game into its final form, things start to click. When I'm looking at the development process from the outside, even if I were to give them a list of elements in the game which were lacking that Zelda essence, I don't think it would get across what was required. But once I have actually got the team working on implementing these changes to the game, if the developers were to look at that list of parts lacking the essence of Zelda, I think they would understand what had been necessary.}}

{{Interview/A|Aonuma|I think that's true. So, for instance early on in the development process, when young developers encounter Miyamoto-san's input from the outside, a lot of them probably think things like: "Do we really have to pay attention to such tiny details?" or "Surely we don't have to worry that much about something like that?" However, when everything starts fitting together into its final form, they understand what he was doing and they'll say: "Ah, I get it! It turns out this way, so we really did need to do that from the start!" When they were working on making the game, they couldn't see this. Miyamoto-san spoke about respecting our customers' intelligence, but of course, those who were developing the game have never meant to belittle our customers in any way. They just can't help losing sight of how players are going to react to certain things in the game.}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|That's good to hear! (laughs)}}