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Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Majora's Mask comparisons

The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has weighed in on comparisons fans have drawn between Tears of the Kingdom and Majora’s Mask. This comes as part of an interview with Polygon.

Both titles are built based on their predecessors, but Aonuma was quick to point out that with Tears of the Kingdom, it was “the opposite sort of challenge”. He brought up how with the new Switch title, Nintendo “took the same world and some of the same materials, or constituent parts, but needed to make it [all] bigger, and needed to create a more expansive world”. That goes for both a horizontal and vertical sense.

Aonuma explained:

A remake of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was once deemed “close to impossible” by series producer Eiji Aonuma, but we know that Switch eventually received a new HD version. Aonuma has now commented on what changed since he made those original comments.

When Aonuma was originally speaking about a re-release of Skyward Sword in 2019, he pointed to the game’s controls as being an issue. Moving from motion controls to buttons wouldn’t be an easy task. Those problems were solved though and we did get a new Switch version a couple of years later.

Ganondorf future

The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has commented a bit about Ganondorf and what could be done with the character in the series in the future.

Ganondorf is back again in Tears of the Kingdom after taking a bit of a backseat to other villain stories in the more recent entries in the series. He was technically there in Breath of the Wild, but only as Calamity Ganon – which didn’t really have a true physical form or personality. Yet even with his appearance in the new game, the most amount of development Ganondorf gets still probably goes to The Wind Waker.

The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma believes that Breath of the Wild is a “new kind of format for the series to proceed from”, which has continued with Tears of the Kingdom.

Ocarina of Time kicked off the 3D approach to the series which essentially stayed the same through Skyward Sword in terms of approach and how players experience the adventure. Then with Breath of the Wild, Nintendo went in a different direction by offering a much higher degree of freedom. Aonuma now says that type of experience “has created a new kind of format for the series to proceed from.”

Zelda Tears Kingdom Ascend origins debug

The team behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have shared the origins of the new Ascend ability, and it may surprise you how it came to be.

Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi told Polygon that Ascend stems from a debug feature. While exploring caves, he’d use a debug code to get to the top. He then realized that this could be a fun mechanic for the game.

Nintendo has shared some interesting insight into the early development behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, specifically how some of Link’s new abilities were initially designed using Breath of the Wild.

Hidemaro Fujibayashi, the game’s director, came up with the idea of attaching objects. To show this to the team, he “tried creating vehicles using only the mechanisms and parts available in the previous game and presented them.”

Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma said in a recent interview:

Dungeons have been a staple of the Zelda series, and they’re back once again in Tears of the Kingdom. However, it sounds like they’ve received an upgrade since the last game, Breath of the Wild.

Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, technical director Takuhiro Dohta, and art director Satoru Takizawa had a few words to say about the dungeons in a Nintendo interview. One of the more notable aspects is that they were made “unique to their respective environments”, according to Dohta. That’s in contrast to the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild that had similar designs. Takizawa said they were challenging to create.

Here’s the full discussion:

The developers behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have talked about implementing ideas for the game that weren’t possible for Breath of the Wild. Series director Eiji Aonuma, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, technical director Takuhiro Dohta, and art director Satoru Takizawa commented on this in a new Nintendo interview.

Dohta mentioned how with Breath of the Wild, “there were restrictions in development” since it was originally being made for Wii U. That meant even though the team was interested in flying, that wouldn’t be possible. Also, Aonuma actually wanted to dig underground, but that idea was scrapped as well – but brought back for Tears of the Kingdom.

Here’s the full discussion:

Zelda Tears Kingdom Hyrule

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a bit of an outlier for the series in that it’s not only a sequel (to Breath of the Wild), but also reuses the same Hyrule – albeit with many changes and additions. Nintendo has now spoken more about this in a recent interview.

Series director Eiji Aonuma, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, and technical director Takuhiro Dohta confirmed in a recent interview that it was always the plan to reuse Hyrule. Fujibayashi mentioned that “there were no objections” in keeping the same setting.

The comments from Aonuma, Fujibayashi, and Dohta can be found below. 

Klonoa design

Yoshihiko Arai, the original creator of the design for Klonoa, has provided a bit of insight into the character. This comes as part of a recent interview with Lost In Cult.

“Namco wanted to create some catchy designs that would appeal to a variety of customers,” Arai said. One inspiration here was Sherlock Hound, an early animated series from Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli fame.


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