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.
(1-12) The Parts They Want You to See in This Zelda (Part 1)
We Want You to Listen to the Characters’ Voices
Naoki Mori (Cinema Scene Director): In the Jabu Jabu dungeon there is a princess named Princess Ruto that Link can pick up and throw against walls. The sound she makes when she hits the wall was popular with the staff.
In this Zelda game I think we used lots of voice acting, but even for professional voice actors, just screaming etc. is very difficult. Therefore even if we temporarily brought in amateurs and TV talents, it would have been horrible. I’m happy we asked voice actors.
We Want You to Savor the Pleasant Feeling of Link Falling
Eiji Onizuka (Dungeon Design): The dungeons in this game don’t have many levels. In order to evoke the feeling of falling we put a big emphasis on each level so when you’re plummeting down 5 floors you get that “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” sensation. As for the practical falling distance, I think it’s fine if you fall about 20 meters. More than 20 meters usually results in death, but in this world *laughs* Link can survive. But at first, Link didn’t receive a considerable amount of damage even if he fell 20 meters. When I listened to the monitor’s opinion, “It would be weird for Link to fall so far and be okay”, I adjusted it accordingly.
Another thing… in dungeons there are long drops down to places you need to go. If you fall down there and suddenly receive a lot of damage, that wouldn’t be pleasant. Our solution was to put water at the bottom to act as a cushion, so even if you fell you wouldn’t get hurt.
Of course, if you do fall and roll as you land you can avoid damage. People who can roll are almighty. Even if you land in the water and don’t receive damage, we want you to enjoy the falling sensation.
We Want You to Find Connections to Previous Games
Toru Osawa (Script Director): In this game there are 7 sages that appear and instruct Princess Zelda, but 6 of those appear in the Disk System game “Adventure of Link” as town names.
We were hinting that the names of the sages in the era of the Imprisoning War spoken of in the Super Famicom Zelda game became town names in AoL. The events from that time became what we have today.
A father and daughter named Marin and Tarin that were introduced in Link’s Awakening for GameBoy also appeared in this Zelda game. We’re hoping that people who’ve played the Zelda series from the very beginning will recognize them. If you wonder “is this a reference to then?” we’ll be happy.
We Want You to Do Your Best With the Controller Operation
Miyamoto: It’s often said that the operation of the controller is difficult. But I think that the new controller function is the best yet. There are a lot of things I tried to do, so it was difficult to fit everything in. I thought it would be fun to play with the Z button, but there are children with small hands who can’t move the control stick well when pressing Z, so we put in the Hold option for them. The controller function is the part that I most want you to see.
Yoshiaki Koizumi (3d System Director): I want those who say it’s difficult to just practice and get used to it. It’s just like learning to use a computer, right?
We Want You to Feel the Mystery
Miyamoto: A long time ago on the Famicom players went by a childish formula: when you saw a suspicious area, you’d test it tirelessly for secrets. The new Zelda’s creation was grand but it was difficult to devise the mysteries. Instead of the usual formula, even in places that seem obvious to the player mysterious things will happen to surprise them. It’s not that it will be completely unexpected, but there’s a bit of a difference between predicting something’s there and seeing the consequences of your actions. We want you to feel the difficulty of that balance.
We Want You to Enter the Game
Naoki Mori (Cinema Scene Director): The usual cutscenes don’t flow like movies, they each have messages. We want the user to push a button and empathize with Link. Press a button, see the decided consequence reflected by the game, and the extent of your empathy increases. We want the player to feel like they are more or less part of the cutscene.
“(1-12) The Parts They Want You to See in This Zelda (Part 1)” has ended. The interview continues from here, so please check back for updates!
1998-12-8-TUE