Coming from an IGN interview with Eiji Aonuma...
On the infamous Space World Legend of Zelda demo
“I saw that movie and I thought, ‘No, this isn’t Zelda. This isn’t Zelda at all.’ I felt like this wasn’t what I imagined Zelda to be. It wasn’t the Zelda I wanted to make. That video clip didn’t actually contain any big surprises. There wasn’t any kind of revelation going on. It was more like a continuation of the previous version.” To me at the time, I say, it looked like a scene from Ocarina of Time, but better looking. “Yeah,” he smiles. “That’s right. I wasn’t interested in it at all.”
On the Wind Waker reveal trailer
“I believe that we got that kind of feedback from the users because we’d changed a lot of things style-wise, compared to Ocarina of Time. Usually, when there’s a big change to be made, the fans will be a bit nervous or hesitate to get into it. But I think that change was actually a good turning point. One of the reasons why we got such good feedback about the HD remake is because, probably, the users are more used to that art style now, after it was used in some of the original DS titles.”
On Wind Waker's missing dungeons
“I’m aware that lots of users wanted those two missing dungeons to be implemented in Wind Waker HD. But to be honest, we’ve already used those two dungeons for other titles after Wind Waker already. So right now, technically, they don’t really exist anymore… We didn’t exactly use them as-is and implement them into another game. We’d add some [of their] features to other dungeons. So they’re in different dungeons now.”
On working with players' memories on remakes
“The memories that users have in their heads aren’t just about the gameplay of the game, not just about the experience in the game, but it’s more like… Their memories are about their lives mixed in with those memories. So it’s really difficult for us to re-create that whole situation, that whole memory, because it depends on the players.
What we have to be careful about, when it comes to the remake, is that we’d like to create something that can be better than the image inside the players’ minds, but still retains the atmosphere of the original. When it comes to the Wind Waker HD version, we think that we’ve managed to create a game that doesn’t ruin that [nostalgic] image, but sticks with the original atmosphere as well. What’s most important is to stick with the original – we don’t want to make any huge changes, even though we’re creating something new.
The staff were really nervous about Ocarina of Time 3D, but I was completely fine. I said, ‘Come on, let’s just make changes.’ I asked the staff to be more free. because we had to create something that’s not exactly like the original game. We had to bring some additional fun to it. So I told the staff to be more creative, to not be afraid of making something new.
We don’t go out to just make a remake. There should be some kind of meaning to it. For example, the reason why we released the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time, is that we wanted users to enjoy the stereoscopic 3D version. Now that HD is possible with the Wii U, for the same reason, we wanted users to enjoy an HD version [of Wind Waker] and to be able to use the GamePad, so they could see a difference there. So it’s not just making a remake that’s the important thing. We wanted to have a particular reason to do it. If there’s a meaning behind doing a remake, then of course we’ll consider it.”
On his favorite Zelda title
“My favourite would be the world of Wind Waker, because it’s so unique. It’s a world that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
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