A portion of a CVG interview with Eiji Aonuma...

CVG: What about in terms of deciding an art style for a HD game? Has the extra work required a change in your thinking?

EA: For the Zelda series we need to clearly define this before we proceed. When creating Wind Waker HD, as a remake of an existing title in HD, we needed to talk a lot about the artwork style that we wanted to achieve. But we also talked a lot about artwork when we started the development of Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, so it's a similar sort of process.

This doesn't mean that the next Zelda will be in a toon shading style, it just means we need to clearly define the art style when we begin a project in HD.

CVG: You were recently quoted as stating that the development of Wind Waker HD took just six months. Were you surprised by how quickly the project came together?

EA: Yes, I mentioned that the development took six months, but the total period was actually a little bit longer. It was six months from when we started to really get into the details of the project, but in actual fact there were a lot of gameplay tests and planning we did before that six-month period. So the total time was actually longer than six months. People at the company were telling me off for saying that! [laughs]

When I first talked about the six-month development period I wanted to explain that our aim was to get this game out to users quite quickly. In order to achieve this short development time we created a lot of systematic processes and things that we can use for reference in the future, and these allowed us to get a quality game out quickly.

When I first asked the staff how long it would take to complete the game and they estimated six months, I was really surprised. Although we actually took a little bit longer than that, as I'd thought we might, we still managed to achieve the estimated release date we had in our heads, so everything was fine in the end.

CVG: In your recent New York Comic Con panel you expressed a desire to strip down the amount of hints and assistance in future Zelda games. Can you explain what's changed in your thinking?

EA: I've been creating games for quite a long time now and each time I make a new game I always think about what the users want and how we can try to create a game that will be appealing to them. Recently it's been made easier by users' comments on the internet and Miiverse.

Previously I thought that users wanted to be led, shown the way forward and not get lost or stuck. I thought that if they got lost of stuck then they wouldn't enjoy the game, but reading feedback on the internet and Miiverse I've realised now that users really enjoy getting stuck sometimes and that they want to have a sense of getting lost and discovering the correct path themselves. This is really what Zelda is about.

So because of this, we decided to add the choice to complete dungeons in any order that you want in A Link Between Worlds.

CVG: The Wii U is the first Nintendo home console to aggressively push online functionality. With the debut online-enabled Mario game releasing this year, is a connected Zelda game something that interests you?

EA: In The Wind Waker HD we have the Tingle Bottle Miiverse feature and what we really wanted to achieve with this was communication between users, but not a constricting communication. We wanted to create a feeling of going out on an adventure with other users, but at the same time be able to have your own adventure.

This was a test at first when we put this online feature into Wind Waker HD, but it worked out really well and we want to also use online features in such a way in our future Zelda titles. We want users to feel like they're experiencing the Zelda world with other users while also adventuring by themselves.