New information about Zelda: Twilight Princess

GCN News | Eiji Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto speak.

In a recent interview with Zelda's director Eiji Aonuma and producer (and all round Nintendo guru) Shigeru Miyamoto, some exciting new information about Twilight Princess has emerged.

Aonuma, director of Majora's Mask and The Wind Waker, commented on how they came up with the concept for Twilight Princess: "When we finished the work on Wind Waker, a small group of key people gathered (five) to talk about the future for Legend of Zelda. At first, our meetings were about how we would re-use Wind Waker's engine, but every time we talked about Link's age we started to feel insecure. We had told the story of his childhood so many times and felt we didn't have any great ideas.'

'The turning-point came when we decided that Link shouldn't start as a child. When I told them (our team) about our new direction, everybody suddenly got some great ideas, and I suddenly felt that we should abandon all thoughts about a sequel to Wind Waker and instead build a new graphics engine from scratch. A more adult theme made us go with a more realistic world.

To make the game dark is only one of our goals. This is a more serious story, but when you walk around in Toaru Village, it's almost like another game. The atmosphere is not serious at all. We want Twilight Princess to contain all sides of what people think of Legend of Zelda.'

Shigeru Miyamoto also promises we ain't seen nothin' yet: 'The parts you were able to play at E3 remind you much of the precursors if you look at the control and layout, but the new game contains much more than so. The E3 visitors have only seen a small fraction of what the full adventure has to offer'

Aonuma went on to say that he wasn't entireley happy with certain parts of The Wind Waker's quest however: 'When a project grows continuously, you have to split it to pieces. I was the director for Wind Waker, but I let different people be responsible for different parts of the production. I had control of how things were going for them, but at the end of the production we fought against the clock and there were parts that I was forced to approve even though it didn't feel complete. I apologize that we didn't fix the triforce hunt at the end of the game. It was slow and dull.'

'During the Twilight Princess development, I refuse to repeat the mistakes. It means more responsibility for me, but this time we can't let things go wrong.'

Miyamoto chipped in with a similar sentiment: 'I have absorbed the criticism we got from Wind Waker that the sea was too big and the number of dungeons and caves were too few. The new game will have more dungeons. Many more.'

So there we have it. It sounds like they're committed to making Twilight Princess the best Zelda game yet. And in a lot of people's minds, that would make it the best game ever made. We'll see in November!

Related The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Content

GC Twilight Princess still coming to stores in Europe
13 Oct, 2006 Insane completists rejoice!

GC Twilight Princess only available online in Japan
11 Oct, 2006 The forgotten cubed brother takes another one for the team.

Leipzig GC: Zelda dazzles in new screenshots
26 Aug, 2006 Ten Twilight Princess screens from Germany.

20 Comments

Gtpod

6 years ago

If anyone's wondering why I don't really care about this game...

Quote

To make the game dark is only one of our goals... we should abandon all thoughts about a sequel to Wind Waker and instead build a new graphics engine from scratch. A more adult theme made us go with a more realistic world."

Zing.

David

6 years ago

GTPod wrote

If anyone's wondering why I don't really care about this game...

Quote

Zing.

I understand what you mean, but there are the guys who made Wind Waker. It's not like they're just schmos jumping on the 'dark' bandwagon.

Basically what I'm saying is thet I loved Wind Waker - game of the generation for me (...ok....equal first with Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4). And this is the next project fro the same guys.

In tha same way people were wrong for writing off Wind Waker for it's graphics alone, Zelda fans may be wrong for writing off Twilight Princess for the way it looks.

Cerebral

6 years ago

GTPod wrote

If anyone's wondering why I don't really care about this game...

Quote

Zing.

David's right. That's no better than saying: "The Wind Waker looks like a kids' Saturday morning cartoon, not an epic adventure. It's for this reason I have no intention of playing it.". How about you look past the presentation, and see that they are actively working to fix all the gameplay flaws with Wind Waker to ultimately refine and complete the definitive Zelda gameplay, gameworld, and overall experience:

Quote

'During the Twilight Princess development, I refuse to repeat the mistakes. It means more responsibility for me, but this time we can't let things go wrong.'

'I have absorbed the criticism we got from Wind Waker that the sea was too big and the number of dungeons and caves were too few. The new game will have more dungeons. Many more.'

Gtpod

6 years ago

Cerebral wrote

How about you look past the presentation, and see that they are actively working to fix all the gameplay flaws with Wind Waker to ultimately refine and complete the definitive Zelda gameplay, gameworld, and overall experience.

Yeah, but, they won't, so I don't care.

It'll always be flawed in the sense that, I can tell you now, it won't make me laugh.

Cerebral

6 years ago

That's the smallest possible game flaw I could ever think of.

ZtellaN

6 years ago

I wish they would make an even darker Zelda game, made for an older audience, possibly different enough from the current games to give it an M rating.

Chris-Leigh

6 years ago

I think we're all looking forward to the Zelda which has Link nicking car radios, drug-dealing and 'getting down' with his 'hos'. I know I am.

Matt

6 years ago

Quote

I had control of how things were going for them, but at the end of the production we fought against the clock and there were parts that I was forced to approve even though it didn't feel complete. I apologize that we didn't fix the triforce hunt at the end of the game. It was slow and dull.

This made me really happy that they're acknowledging their mistakes and trying their best to fix them, and increased my anticipation for the game by a factor of 10.

Qbert

6 years ago

This is one of the first times I've heard Nintendo listen to their fans allmost 100%. And wasn't the game ment to be 60+ hours. You better have room for another game of this gen David!

Matt

6 years ago

Quote

And wasn't the game ment to be 60+ hours

Developer estimates are always inflated. It'll almost certainly be a 30 hour game - it'd be nice if it were 60, though.

LordPaludis

6 years ago

Matt wrote

Quote

And wasn't the game ment to be 60+ hours

Developer estimates are always inflated. It'll almost certainly be a 30 hour game - it'd be nice if it were 60, though.

mm I think in some respects, it's better being around 30 rather than 60 hours, because there's no way that they would put the same attention to detail with a 60 hour adventure than with a 30 hour one (or just make you do stupid pointless things just to prolong the gameplay)

Qbert

6 years ago

On the topic, Amazon has said it will be released in the US on November 14. I think that this his is most likely that they just needed to enter a date on their computer sysmtem, as Nintendo haven't released anything official yet.

www.amazon.com

thechu

6 years ago

Speaking of release dates, the Australian Nintendo website says it will be out in December 2005 but it doesn't give a specific day. Ah well, better than seeing "TBA" all the time. Still, I'm gonna take that with a grain of salt.

Hyperworm

6 years ago

IGN says it should be out in Europe in November...

So glad to hear they acknowledge the mistakes they made in Wind Waker! I'm so hyped!

themak

6 years ago

GTPod wrote

If anyone's wondering why I don't really care about this game...

Quote

Zing.

Now I can't think of any games that have been ruined by making them darker.

</sarcasm>

Sandrah

6 years ago

All of Chris's morals aside...

*Runs into game shop disguised , snatches copy of Zelda:Legend of the Twilight Princess*

*Secludes himself to his room and plays religiously until finished*

*Claims he knows nothing about the game and never did* o_o;

fraxyl

6 years ago

This is very promising news indeed! I still like Wind Waker, but if they achieve what they're setting out to do, this will be a fantastic Zelda to play.

Capoeira

6 years ago

--alex-- wrote

Now I can't think of any games that have been ruined by making them darker.

Ruined is such a strong word. The Jak series turned out okay. Err, can't think of any others...

Seriously, how likely do you think it is that Mr Miyamoto and Aonuma are going to create anything other than a fantastic game? Many consider OoT as one of the greatest games of all time, and from what I've seen of Twilight Princess, it is that same formula that's being created with today’s production standards. That's improving on an already near perfect thing. Why worry.

The first time I saw Wind Waker, I was shocked. I thought it looked absolutely ridiculous. It wasn’t that I thought it looked ‘kiddy’ but that the style was so out of whack with what we were used to. At that stage I had only seen screens and then I saw it in action. It blew me away, that was the first time I had seen cell shading used to create such truly awesome visuals. And it was so polished, and charming, and epic, all things you would expect to find in a Zelda game. So in my opinion, they've never made a misstep in the Zelda series and I genuinely believe they never will.

themak

6 years ago

Capoeira wrote

--alex-- wrote

Now I can't think of any games that have been ruined by making them darker.
</sarcasm>

Ruined is such a strong word. The Jak series turned out okay. Err, can't think of any others...

Yeah, I did not mean it that strongly but I can think of a few times when excessive darkness ruins gameplay, [/i]especially on rubbish tellys and LCDs.

Capoeira

6 years ago

--alex-- wrote

Yeah, I did not mean it that strongly but I can think of a few times when excessive darkness ruins gameplay, [/i]especially on rubbish tellys and LCDs

Um, you meant as in 'brightness' dark? I think they are referring to the tone of the game, ie. darker objectives, quest etc.

(I've got a feeling there's a 'no **** sherlock' headed my way...)

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