According to the latest Iwata Asks, “chanbara action” was one of biggest, early themes for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That was explained by director Toru Osawa, who was put in charge of the project by Takao Shimizu. This is interesting since, in the end, exploration and puzzle-solving turned out to be just as important.
But perhaps more interesting is that Shigeru Miyamoto, along with Yoshiaki Koizumi, were making Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the SNES… and with polygons. It sounds like it was an experiment of sorts, but those working on the project were having difficulty with sword-fighting.
Osawa: Since I was working at Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda was a title I wanted to work on at least once. Luckily, that opportunity had come along, so I put my hand right up. But before we became involved, (Takao) Shimizu-san made a chanbara (sword fighting) demo video.
Aonuma: Oh, that’s right. If I remember correctly, the demo video we showed at the E3 in 1996.
Osawa: Right. But Shimizu-san became involved with other work, so he said, “The rest is up to you!”
Iwata: Was that other work Star Fox 64?
This information comes from the latest Iwata Asks…
Iwata: We just talked about how Koizumi-san made lots of irrational demands all the way from Super Mario 64 to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but to go back to the beginning, Super Mario Bros. came out in September of 1985 and The Legend of Zelda came out immediately afterward in February 1986. I feel like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda are often made as a pair.
The challenge with the Nintendo 64 system was to turn those two titles into 3D. Koizumi-san, I think you were the person closest to Miyamoto-san during development then. What was on your mind?
This information comes from the latest Iwata Asks…
Iwata: Today, your name is always mentioned in the same breath as The Legend of Zelda, but before then, you did a variety of work.
Aonuma: Yes.
Iwata: About the time you had just joined the company, we worked together.
Aonuma: That’s right! (laughs) Unfortunately, though, the game we made together never made it out into the world. I spent a lot of time developing games with external companies. But I really wanted to develop inside Nintendo. I pestered Miyamoto-san about it and he said, “We don’t have enough people for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, so come on in for a spell.” Of those of us here today, I joined the project last.
This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured games:
Nintendo eShop
• Donkey Kong™ – The Game Boy™ version of the classic arcade game returns. Donkey Kong has once again kidnapped Pauline. Challenged by many perils, Mario™ must reach his archrival in order to save our damsel in distress. (For Nintendo 3DS™)Virtual Console™
• Mega Man 5 – Guide Mega Man through 13 action-packed stages and defeat all eight of Protoman’s robots. Then get ready for a fight that pits brother against brother in the battle of the century. (For Wii™)WiiWare™
• BIT.TRIP FLUX (demo version) – Get ready for classic paddle-based game play as the acclaimed BIT.TRIP series comes full-circle with BIT.TRIP FLUX, CommanderVideo’s final adventure. (For Wii)
Note: Some demo versions do not support all game features, and players cannot save their in-game progress in demo versions.
This information comes from Satoru Iwata…
To start, I’ll have to say that I don’t have any materials with me today that can illustrate precisely what our online environment will be like, but I can speak generally about the direction that we are moving in.
I think, in general, the online environment is changing quite rapidly.
So, what I have come to feel lately is that the idea of saying, “we are going to create this style of online structure and that we would like you, the developers, to fit into the online structure that we are creating” is perhaps already out-of-date.
This information comes from Masahiro Sakurai…
“Within the pattern of a given chapter, having air battle, land battle, boss battle, I would say in terms of time, from air combat to land combat it would probably be a roughly one to three ratio. The game is set so that Palutena can grant Pit the power of flight for only up to five minutes, so in that sense it’s limited to a specific amount of time. My thought on that was that if the air combat was too long, the user might get bored of that same type of gameplay, and it also gave me an opportunity to make that a very focused and tailored experience within those five minutes.
“In the ground battle stages, however, you have the ability to move along at your own pace, to explore a little bit, tactics might be different from player to player. In that sense the ground battles will most often be a lot longer than the time spent in the air. And that one to three time does not include the boss battles.”
At last year’s E3, Sakurai said that Palutena grants Pit just a few minutes to fly in the air. And based on the gameplay demos shown within the last twelve months, it became increasingly clear that players would spend time on the ground. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I may have read more positive impressions for the air combat, but ground battles still seem like they could be enjoyable!
