How an American TV show influenced Ocarina of Time
Have you ever heard of Twin Peaks? It was a show that aired in America in 1990 and ended after a second season in 1991. Now… why the heck am I talking about this? Well, according to Shigeru Miyamoto, it influenced the way he handled characters in Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Miyamoto: But while making it, I noticed that I didn’t want to tell a story so much as I wanted to have a lot of people appear around the main character and portray their relationships. Some years back, a television show called Twin Peaks was popular. When I saw that, the most interesting thing wasn’t the ins and outs of the story, but what kinds of characters appeared.
Iwata: Oh, (Takashi) Tezuka-san said the same thing in our session of “Iwata Asks” over The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
Miyamoto: Oh, he did?
Iwata: Tezuka-san told the staff of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening that he wanted them to have a bunch of suspicious characters appear like in Twin Peaks.
Miyamoto: That’s right. I think those suspicious and odd characters alone are interesting. I’m more interested in their presence than who is whose cousin and whose parents were sworn enemies way back when.
Iwata: You’re not too interested in the characters’ backgrounds. (laughs)
Miyamoto: Right. What’s important is what role that person plays and how they contribute to portraying the main character.
Iwata: Yes. You don’t want to tell a story so much as you have an interest in how the characters in their roles function to present the main character. It’s like you to think about a game from the point of view of how things function.
Miyamoto: Osawa-san, the script director, made lots of suggestions to me saying, “How about a character that functions like this?” Koizumi-san and (Yoshiki) Haruhana-san quickly designed those characters’ visible forms, and I helped make them, too. So even when it comes to the Ocarina of Time, I hardly ever talked about the story.
Iwata: (Eiji) Aonuma-san said the same thing. He said that while a lot of people say they like the epic story, on the level of the script, the story isn’t actually that epic. It feels epic because everything you experience within the game is added to the story.
Miyamoto: That’s right. The experience players have encountering people in the gameworld builds up and comes to feels like a story.
Iwata: Grappling with the puzzles is another kind of experience.
Miyamoto: Yes, I think so.
