Nintendo on Zelda: Link to the Past – scrapped idea, working with SNES, Master Sword importance, more
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
It’s not often that Nintendo talks about past Zelda games. Right now, all eyes are focused on Breath of the Wild. But in this month’s issue of RetroGamer, the magazine caught up with Zelda: A Link to the Past director Takashi Tezuka and script writer Kensuke Tanabe to look back on the classic game.
Most of the comments we have are from Tezuka, who talked about the game’s structure, scrapped idea, and more. Tanabe also chimed in with Tezuka at one point to talk about the advantages of working with the SNES at the time.
Head past the break for a rundown of Tezuka and Tanabe’s comments.
StreetPass Mii Plaza distributions in North America and the UK involve Takashi Tezuka, Shigeru Miyamoto
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments
Super Mario Run is less than a week away from debuting on iOS. To celebrate, Nintendo has a couple of activities going on with the StreetPass Mii Plaza.
In North America, Takashi Tezuka is appearing as a visitor if you have SpotPass enabled. Over in the UK, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Mii can be found at Nintendo Zone found within GAME stores between December 9 and December 26. Tezuka will then follow between December 27 and January 15. There’s a good chance that Miyamoto’s Mii will stop by in North America as well.
Nintendo on Zelda 1 – Miyamoto’s inspiration, Kondo’s all-nighter, Molblin’s famous message, original “Hyrule Fantasy” name
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
Nintendo published a new interview in its series of discussions pertaining to the NES Classic Edition. This time, the topic was the very first Zelda. Co-directors Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka plus series composer Koji Kondo all participated.
Like the previous interviews, there’s a whole lot of interesting talk here. Miyamoto talked about his inspiration with the series, Kondo spoke about how he created music just before release by pulling an all-nighter, and we learn about the Molblin’s famous message (“It’s a secret to everybody”) as well as how Nintendo originally intended to name the series “Hyrule Fantasy”.
For the full interview, head past the break.
Miyamoto, Tezuka, Kondo on Super Mario Bros. 3 – scrapped overhead perspective, power-ups, music, more
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
Over the past couple of weeks, Nintendo has been publishing new interviews about some of its classic games in celebration of the NES Classic Edition. A couple of these have started to receive official English translations, but one is still untouched: Super Mario Bros. 3. Since it was incredibly fascinating and arguably the most interesting interview out of the bunch thus far, we went ahead and produced our own translation.
Directors Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka participated in the interview, along with composer Koji Kondo. During the conversation, they opened up about how the game was originally planned with an overhead perspective, spoke about the different power-ups including Tanooki Suit’s origins, and touched on the music. Miyamoto also cleared up where the idea for Small Mario came from in the first Super Mario Bros.
Continue on below to read our translation in full.
Lots of Zelda talk, Breath of the Wild, original planning documents at 30th anniversary concert in Japan
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii U | 14 Comments
This past weekend, Nintendo hosted a special 30th anniversary Zelda concert in Kyoto, Japan. It was a big event as key staff involved with the series were present – Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Takashi Tezuka, and Koji Kondo. Famitsu shared an in-depth report of what occurred and what was said.
Voice actress Ruriko Aoki hosted the concert. She was actually planning on buying a ticket for the event in Nagoya, and even asked her agency to free up her schedule. However, she was eventually told that she got the job for this concert. Series producer Eiji Aonuma also appeared and introduced Aoki. The two showed up together during a Niconico Majora’s Mask 3D live stream last year, and since she’s a big fan of Zelda, he asked her to be the MC.
1996 interview with Miyamoto, Super Mario 64 developers available in English for the first time
Posted on 7 years ago by Zack in General Nintendo | 8 Comments
Two seperate interviews from 1996 with Shigeru Miyamoto and other Nintendo employees who worked on Super Mario 64 together were recently translated and published on the website Shmuplations for any interested party to read.
The interviews come from a time where Super Mario 64 had just been released and was making waves in the gaming world. The questions cover a variety of topics about Super Mario 64, focusing mostly on the creative process of designing a game in 3D compared to 2D and the early history of the game.
On the origins of Super Mario 64 and how the project got started, Miyamoto had this to say:
Well, in the beginning… we were working on something really simple—deceptively simple, even, from the perspective of the team that would go on to finish the huge, final game. (laughs) There was a room made of simple lego-like blocks, and Mario and Luigi could run around in there, climb slopes, jump around, etc. We were trying to get the controls right with an analogue 3D stick, and once that felt smooth, we knew we were halfway there. And so, along the way, we realized wanted to create a slightly larger area for them to move around in…
Guess the amiibo – full video
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments
Nintendo has one final “Guess the amiibo” video with three of its developers: Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and Tsubasa Sakaguchi. There’s a recap of some of the figures they tried to mimic, as well as some extras. View the video below.
Video: Guess the amiibo with Takashi Tezuka
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 3 Comments
Nintendo of Europe has posted the third “Guess the amiibo” video with the Big N’s developers. In today’s video, it’s Takashi Tezuka’s turn to imitate one of the figures. Check it out below.
More: Amiibo, Takashi Tezuka
Zelda: Link’s Awakening team started work on the game before receiving permission
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 12 Comments
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening started out as an idea for a modified version of A Link to the Past for the Game Boy. In the end though, that never came together. Link’s Awakening was ultimately born from, as Game Informer puts it, “an unsanctioned after-hours passion project for members of the Link to the Past team.”
Director Takashi Tezuka told the site:
“The main programmer wanted to challenge himself to create a Zelda experience on a portable system to see what he could do, and I was into the idea. We just had a passion to try and do something interesting. We didn’t really have permission to do it necessarily. We were just playing around.”
“Once we got it to a certain level of creation and completion that we wanted to show, then we took it to the company and got permission to continue developing it. But initially it was just a little pet project of ours. Because we started it that way – just making a game we wanted to make – it may defy Zelda conventions. It might have interesting characters and situations we may not have had otherwise.”
During an Iwata Asks discussion for Phantom Hourglass, Tezuka made a comment about how the experience of creating Link’s Awakening was similar to “making a parody of The Legend of Zelda.” He clarified these comments with Game Informer, in which he said:
“When we say parody, I’m not sure where that word comes from because maybe there are translation issues. With Zelda games we usually plan them out, every detail is considered. With Link’s Awakening, we were working on that after our other work was done. Kind of like a club of people who loved Zelda and got together to make it. It has a different feeling for that reason.”
Video: Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto play Super Mario Maker
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 2 Comments
Nintendo of Europe has just posted a new video in which Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto play Super Mario Maker. Tezuka makes a course, and then Miyamoto does his best to complete it. Check out the full video below.
