The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time news, direct from the production area! The Zelda team chosen by Shigeru Miyamoto created Zelda 64 with surprising stubbornness! One part of that stubbornness was to do a stubborn interview. We’ll pass on a small part of that interview from the top of 1101’s nearby tree.
(1-6) Looks Like Ganondorf is Both Good and Evil in This Zelda
Satoru Takizawa (Character Design): My first impressions of Ganon were of a twisted thief with a complex, and my intention was to create the character in that image. However, the character design team and the script director Toru Osawa told me it wasn’t so, that this time Ganon would be a pretty good guy, a “great fist” like Raou (an anime/videogame character). They wanted to show a more charismatic big-shot, so I changed my thoughts accordingly.
Ganondorf grew his hair out from the first time you saw him to seven years later. We ended up making 3 forms for the final Ganon. At least temporarily, Ganondorf sort of has a Christopher Lambert-type image… But he turns out to be considerably different, of course.
In the previous Zeldas, Ganon has always been a pig. Though we wanted to do something differently this time, we still thought it would be best to have him as a pig in the end, but weren’t sure how to go about it. I was really worried, myself. I wanted to know what Miyamoto would think. In the end I realized Miyamoto wouldn’t be obsessed about anything like that, and just went through with it myself.
The story in Ocarina of time isn’t actually original, it deals with the Sages’ Imprisoning War from the Super Famicom’s ALttP. Because of the relation, I thought it would be right to leave a part of the pigginess in.
So, what I mean is “pigs will be pigs,” hey? When Ganondorf transforms, his human face is pulled away and only the pig remains, it can’t be hidden anymore. During the time we were designing him, some of the staff had cold medicine called Kaigen, so they ended up calling Ganon “The God of Colds” or “The Cold Spreader” (Kaiten mascots).
Naoki Mori (Cinema Scene Director): In this Zelda there are bits of voice acting here and there, but the voice actor in charge of playing Ganondorf in the first cutscene you see really made him seem like a devil, somehow awful and evil. Afterwards I took the actor aside and asked him not to play a demon, but cool and dangerous at the same time. A voice like cheap wine.
Toshio Iwawaki (Program Director): The movement of Ganon’s cloak in the first part of the final battle was awesome. *laughs* I think they did really well.
Naoki Mori: I was mostly in charge of Ganon’s production, though of course Miyamoto also played a large part.
Miyamoto warned us that “more than trying to figure out how to make the game cinematic, work on the feel and atmosphere.” When Zelda first meets Ganon, for example, she immediately divines that he is a evil person. She appeals with all her might to the people around her, wanting to be understood, but the adults squarely refuse to side with her, her parents ignore her, and she ends up just peering through the window. Miyamoto thought up that sequence. His thoughts always inspire a lot of ideas.
Beyond that, at first it wasn’t a window Zelda was looking through, but rather a peephole. But then someone asked “why would there be a peephole in a castle courtyard?”
Sadly, when we asked the the mappers to change the peephole to a window, I think we made one cry… *laughs*
Altering just one thing makes 5 or 10 people suffer for it, but they did it when we stressed the importance. With their work loads, even a tiny thing becomes a big deal!
“(1-6) Looks Like Ganondorf is Both Good and Evil in This Zelda” has ended. The interview continues from here, so please check back for updates!
1998-11-26-THU