Reposted by Hyrule Interviews
My head-cannon since the 80's is that that Zelda is inspired as much by Central & South American vibes as its European vibe. You can probably thank Mysterious Cities of Gold ('82) for why I feel that way. This is the most condensed clip of me "joking" it's simply LoZ's precursor:
youtube.com
Les mystérieuses cités d'or - Solaris, le navire géant de l'empire de Mu
YouTube video by Les mystérieuses cités d'or - Officielle
![PEOPLE:
- Satoru Takizawa, age 39. Enemy designer for Ocarina of Time.
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. 4th President of Nintendo.
- Kazuaki Morita, age 45. Boss character engineer for Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Takizawa: Volvagia [in Ocarina] is a dragon, so it wriggles and undulates. I only gave Morita-san the dragon model parts, but he set it in motion immediately. It was mysterious how he could do that. I couldn't help but ask how he did it. He said it was the same as the programming for Star Fox 64. There's this scene when another fighter aircraft is tailing Arwing and…
Iwata: … Oh, that? That's right! It's the same! … The way the fighter moves as it flies and Volvagia's movements are exactly the same.
Morita: I could do it easily by switching in the dragon for the fighter.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreigfuqp7u6tp2gp6nffvmbs5c76ihfm7zux23lve3tiiene5shkhva)
![PEOPLE:
- Yoshiki Haruhana, age 46. Artist who designed Zelda in Ocarina of Time and Toon Link in Wind Waker.
- Satoru Takizawa, age 44. Breath of the Wild Art Director, designed Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Haruhana: It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that playing this title [A Link to the Past] was what got me into the world of gaming and set the course of my life.
Takizawa: It’s the same for me, in that A Link to the Past was what inspired me to try my hand at Nintendo’s employment examination. It was truly sensational.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreigyxv3ylba6laxakxkmcou6tsk4tl2c5nikhloclkwwv5da5pybmu)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 54. Breath of the Wild Producer.
QUOTE:
Aonuma: [Breath of the Wild’s item durability system] is a cycle that allows the player to keep playing in such a big world without getting bored. The reason for the repetition of the “taking weapons from the enemy and the weapons gets demolished” is to use it for the cycle.
Also, the player has the goal of fighting off the enemies on the plain, instead of just avoiding them.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreibpxrgpjzqnevv426ag246yik23z6l3tydlkukkmgo52wowoeqfhy)
![PEOPLE:
- Mahito Yokota, age 37. Composer for Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time 3D, and Skyward Sword.
- Koji Kondo, age 49. Original Zelda composer, composer of numerous Zelda titles.
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. President of Nintendo.
QUOTE:
Iwata: Compared to Kondo-san, you may not have worked on development of The Legend of Zelda that long, but you've been playing it forever, right?
Yokota: You can say that again! Talking about it could take forever! [laughs] I love The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time beyond all reason!
I have, of course, played all the Zelda games since the first one, and played them all the way through, but Ocarina of Time was an eye-opening experience to how great video game music can be. I played song after song on the piano.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreifo74ubwtujqnntqiibwssudltiv2zb5zrbplvlzufzyvtbvnpmna)
![PEOPLE:
- Takafumi Noma. Director of Unicorn Overlord. Programmer on The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.
QUOTE:
Noma: I think that even the low-level strategy elements of the genre, the unit tweaking and the battling, are quite a lot of fun, but to me, the true joy of “strategy RPG” as a genre comes from sprinkling in those broader RPG elements. As you recruit an army full of colorful characters and empathize with their individual stories and personalities, that experience in turn enriches the tweaking-and-battling side of [Unicorn Overlord]. The two genres complement each other particularly well.
That's also part of the reason we allowed players to select just about any character as a partner to take with them to the final battle. We wanted each player to feel like they were getting a special story written just for them.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihuq5f2vnz3wx7keay4h2x6jqky4z6m5tzhsexdsmqlduwnueyl7i)
![PEOPLE:
- Jim Wornell. Associate Producer and Graphic Designer for Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Wornell: It was November of ‘98 when I transitioned from being an AP over to design. … I was doing the layout work, the manual packaging work for Ocarina. …
Q: The game was released in North America on Nov. 23rd. Were you working on the manual just weeks before?
Wornell: [Thinks] It must have been, because I remember working on the Illustrator layouts for the Ocarina of Time manual. Now the package may have been done, but I do remember working on the layout for the manual. …
We had the production facility in North Bend [WA], if I remember. And I want to say a lot of the— unless I'm thinking of GameCube, but, I mean, God. I definitely remember working on manual design for Zelda in November of ‘98.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihdbu57pzkyebcaau3s53dusedzmzvjmeiui4yocpdw5iopn5yd5e)
![PEOPLE:
- Jim Wornell. Associate Producer for Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Wornell: We had a debug department at [Nintendo of America]. … We would get a version of [Ocarina of Time] overnight. And then eight o'clock in the morning, we come in and it's ready for us. And our debug team would play it until three, four, five o'clock.
I would need to have bug reports submitted to me by a certain time so I could go through them and figure out, “Okay, this is a bug. This is not a bug. This is a bug.” And then … get it to Japan, so they could check it out, fix any bugs that needed to be fixed and send us another version. …
At the beginning, it wasn't that often. But towards the end, as we got closer and closer to lot check approval, it was every day. Sometimes twice a day.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreicubyg77z56o5zzsxqn54zfrcjvl2wsossxoky2ibzygajvubmenm)
![PEOPLE:
- Jim Wornell. Associate Producer and Graphic Designer for Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Q: How was all the art [for manual and packaging] sourced? Were they sending you big high definition PSDs, how'd that work back then?
Wornell: Yeah we might get… [thinks] Back then we might get discs full of art. I'm trying to remember if we were FTPing back and forth between us and Japan back then. I don't think we were. So yeah, it might've been just a package full of physical discs that you need to put into a computer and do it that way.
Q: So there was a box full of Nintendo classified files being physically shipped.
Wornell: Yeah.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidcciugkjrtbh4uzewqemv6lbvsi2nxfijxgkmkqbqxhb6hfkxqoi)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 54. Ocarina of Time Dungeon Director. Producer of Breath of the Wild.
QUOTE:
Aonuma: Watching everyone [during Breath of the Wild development], I remembered what it was like making Ocarina of Time all those years ago. When Zelda first went 3D there were no rules on how to make 3D games in the way there are now, and it was my first time making a Zelda game, so, in a real sense, I had no idea how to properly create a 3D Zelda game. We had a blank slate. We would think of something, try it, and if it didn't work, do it over.
Breath of the Wild was similar. It was a type of game that didn't have defined guidelines for development and which none of us had experienced before. It felt like Ocarina all over again. … I’m very happy we were able to reach such heights once again.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreifqi7mtdvh2xxyaub4ugv5nhealrp6w44rfqqjwcfjvmhlxosnr7q)
![PEOPLE:
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 46. Producer of Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Miyamoto: From the start [of Ocarina of Time development] I tried to act like a producer: “Do whatever you want, as long as it's interesting.” However, midway through the second year, it started to feel like if I wasn't physically there on the floor, they might never wrap things up.
At that point, the different sub-teams … had been working independently and in parallel, so my work was less about adding my own ideas as it was bringing together and consolidating what everyone else had done. Because a game this large is the combined work of a huge number of people, it's not my place to come in and try to exert my own control over everything.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreifjf5b5v35vwxaqlkn2v27lvgcx62wpclvbklbxm6zn3suq2wvjiy)
![PEOPLE:
- Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 43. Ocarina of Time 3D Gameplay Director.
- Eiji Aonuma, age 48. Ocarina of Time Dungeon Director.
QUOTE:
Koizumi: I changed the character design for Link a lot for Ocarina of Time. At first he had a button-nose.
My wife said, "All of Nintendo's characters have funny noses. Don't you have any handsome ones?" I was shocked. Then when we were making Ocarina of Time, I was in charge of Link's character design, so I made him a little better-looking.
Aonuma: Huh? So Link is your wife's type?
Koizumi: Yes. [firmly]
Everyone: [laughs]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidj54w7yeh4mvtqppzvxpwrakdrhd6uojzm64pzwaxhl55oqlvuga)
![PEOPLE:
- Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 43. Ocarina of Time 3D Gameplay Director.
- Eiji Aonuma, age 48. Ocarina of Time Dungeon Director.
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. 4th President of Nintendo.
QUOTE:
Koizumi: The [Kokiri] village [in Ocarina of Time] has lots of trees and lots of people live there, but it was difficult to display them all at once. I came up with the idea of having each person living there followed around by a fairy. That way, even if we just showed the fairies…
Iwata: I see. If you see the fairy, you know its owner is there, too.
Aonuma: It also led to the scenario surrounding Link not having a fairy at first.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidmwsm2g4xunoarmuwzruzgngatowhz26lycjn5v22k4r6gc47ygu)
![PEOPLE:
- Toru Osawa, age 48. Script Director for Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Osawa: When development of Ocarina of Time began, they called me in to the Entertainment Analysis & Development Division [EAD, the Zelda & Mario studio] and put me to work. This project had a lot of directors, but I was the oldest, so I was a sort of general director.
Q: About how many directors were there?
Osawa: Five altogether. I listened to each director's opinion and coordinated them, saying, “All right, all right, I get it. This is what we'll do.” I also worked on the story and script.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreierun2sld7fyxcukxcarvadzowy5uykkiupwx6dvqtiulynv5nnjm)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 40. Ocarina of Time Dungeon Director
Majora’s Mask & The Wind Waker Game Director.
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 50. Creator of Zelda, Mario, & more.
QUOTE:
Aonuma: Well, Miyamoto-san studied product design, but I majored in global design.
Q: With an eye towards making video games?
Aonuma: Actually, I wanted to design for advertising. Initially, I didn't think about designing games, because back then games weren't as popular as they are now. In the process of my studies I discovered that I was more interested in 3D design, creating something with volume. So, I started creating karakuri ningyo — traditional Japanese wooden dolls of carved wood that have a machine inside that allows the doll to move on its own.
When I interviewed at Nintendo, I brought these and showed them to Miyamoto-san. I think that's why I was hired [laughs].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihirahtrn743aun2ozcuyrbg23eyqmtlvnr5r2riscjrmri2vaube)
![PEOPLE:
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 50. Producer of The Legend of Zelda (1986) and Ocarina of Time.
QUOTE:
Miyamoto: [When making Ocarina of Time] we thought of how we should translate the fun of the first Zelda game into a 3D environment, so that it made you feel free in this world you’re exploring.
Sometimes you remember a place nostalgically after some years. [laughs] When you grow up and go back to a place you thought was huge as a kid, like a street, you realize there is barely any space for a car to fit in. So, after remembering the time when you were growing up, you realize there was a time when you saw things like that. Thinking it was a good idea to have that inside the game, we had some very narrow places and we included the game mechanic of going back to those spots [as adult Link].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreiavjhxxexwvt3aw6ft57wxxeheo6su6yd4s3ykzg3dnz4ijiplrii)
![PEOPLE:
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 58. Producer of Ocarina of Time, creator of Mario & Zelda.
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. President of Nintendo.
QUOTE:
Miyamoto: I thought of autojump [for Ocarina of Time] on one of my days off. I couldn't wait to get to work on Monday!
Iwata: You couldn't wait to tell everyone. [laughs]
Miyamoto: Right! [laughs] I gathered everyone on Monday morning and said, ‘We're gonna do something called autojump!’ Everyone's response was, “Say what?!” The team that had made Mario games was going to give up the jump button.
… An added benefit was that we could program the pose Link would assume after jumping. We could look at the landform ahead and determine how Link would jump.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreifr4ndnrjdn4dwez3xq464mwhucvv6xywxb7mtphxqbjsz5i63moe)
![PEOPLE:
- Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 43. - Ocarina of Time 3D Gameplay Director
- Assistant Director of Super Mario 64
- Director of Majora’s Mask, Super Mario Sunshine, & Super Mario Galaxy.
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. 4th President of Nintendo.
QUOTE:
Koizumi: I do think they [Mario and Zelda] are often made in pairs. They both [Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time] fell into the category of “3D open-world action games.” I didn't really see the difference between them.
Iwata: If you were to state the difference, it would be how [Ocarina of Time] is the one you don't press a button to jump in.
Koizumi: Even when it comes to that, you had to press a button to jump when we first started making Ocarina of Time.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidvohoizrktj2zzgonwrafxqpbvdqsmhrgveqseauvb6mylgeipfu)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoru Iwata, age 51. President of Nintendo.
- Yoshiki Haruhana, age 41. Ocarina of Time Character Designer.
QUOTE:
Haruhana: I played the original version [of Ocarina] again for the first time in a long while and sensed an immense amount of hospitality. In the dungeons, for example, I felt as if someone were saying, “Welcome!” each time I entered a room. … there's a roughness in the way it attacks with its full strength. After 13 years, it still has that impact.
Iwata: … What kind of hospitality is hospitality that attacks? [laughs]
Haruhana: Well, when I say hospitality … I mean that when you go somewhere, all kinds of play await for your enjoyment. … And it isn't a highly organized kind of hospitality like today's games exhibit. [Ocarina] has a certain bumpiness, irregularity or roughness.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidnr5r2usedg5ncp6hld7zeu2v5wybazfh273hxpc5t4ajf4m7u5i)
![PEOPLE:
- Hidemaro Fujibayashi, age 45. Breath of the Wild Game Director.
QUOTE:
Fujibayashi: We divided the [Breath of the m Wild] map into sections resembling checkered flags, and cut this section into ‘dense' and this section into ‘sparse' to balance the terrain, and then asked the people in charge to make it.
However, as time passes, the ‘sparse' erodes and the 'dense' spreads. We would request, ‘horses will run there, so please make it flat!](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreic7c67zbgzl2ytqgzkg5blkf5h62qakd7uowgd6zswqrxe453dlfy)
![PEOPLE:
- Hirohito Shinoda. Lead NPC artist for Breath of the Wild.
QUOTE:
Shinoda: [Early in Breath of the Wild] we tried to dramatically change the Gorons' appearance … I made their heads bigger, made them more human-like, and explored a lot of different ideas, but none of them really fit.
So I returned to their roots and [leaned] into their design from Ocarina of Time. In recent titles the Gorons have had tattoos, but I thought that due to the anime-like styling of this title, we should aim to make use of empty space rather than trying to fill it, so I went with a very clean design. Rather than just making them round, I paid close attention to the 3D model to ensure they felt like a sumo wrestler, someone with body fat and muscles, and that they looked powerful.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihgivem272x742k6vruhgd5hyfkx7qbtjxpzjz3fxmd2aggk4hiam)
![PEOPLE:
- Yoshiki Okamoto, age 36.
Producer of Oracle of Seasons & Ages [2001]. Director of Capcom R&D. Creator of Gyruss.
- Akira "Akiman" Yasuda, age 32. Street Fighter II character designer.
QUOTE:
Q: What game are you most proud of?Okamoto: This "Strip Mahjong" game that we did in the arcade a long time ago. The same person who does a majority of our character designs, Akiman or Akimoto, made this game and designed the characters.
He even supplied the voice for the man playing the game! Of course, we did not want people thinking that Capcom was THAT kind of company, so we published the game under a different name](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreid4bpcmkfpoy7ewcosrweyj72gtdkuitqrnx45r7yviy6ofagrbpe)
![PEOPLE:
- Hanako Hisada. Skyward Sword field designer & landform coordinator.
QUOTE:
Hisada: Early on in development [of Skyward Sword], we had made not just the backgrounds, but the enemies and objects in a
watercolor style, but everything, including enemies, blended into the background. You totally couldn't pick out your goal. Then we used half-toon rendering, which is similar to cel-shaded animation, to represent characters and others, to make them stand out.
When we tried using that technology, it didn't look flat like with cel-shaded animation, but a little airy and soft. As mentioned earlier about animations, the backgrounds were realistic and simple, soft characters were moving around in front of them, and it didn't feel off at all, so we thought, 'This might work!'](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreiebdsu3bclzgm7fx5li5q5ti6s3sndalfk7eqxiwwuxhbzd7rihhi)
![PEOPLE:
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Creator of Zelda & Mario.
QUOTE:
Miyamoto: When I was in elementary school I wanted to be a puppeteer. At the time the program “Hyokkori Hyotanjima” had just started airing on TV and I wanted to create my own puppets like that. Later on, in junior high school I also had aspirations of becoming a manga artist. …
I love the practical jokes of someone digging a hole and hiding inside it while someone passes by, or attaching a string to a 1000 Yen bill and pulling it away. After all, it’s the same thing as making a game right? I’m always curious to see how players interact and respond to my tricks. Apparently I’ve been doing the same thing ever since I was just a kid [laughs].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreice5ekh6nbdfxzb3eihyecofdv55cxu4sx2t2yba6wlloxtr4srlq)