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.

(1-16) Looks Like This Zelda Was Tough to Fix (Part 2)

Eiji Onozuka (Dungeon Design): Trouble, you say? We had trouble every day. *laughs* The part that worried us most was making the walls out of polygons. Link was capable of a variety of actions. He ran with great force, flew using the hookshot, and caused explosions, but the violence of his movements was causing him to clip through walls. We were making the game to match the basic abilities we had decided on for Link at the beginning, but his ability settings were changed midway through. This lead to the mappers (who had been making the maps according to the original settings) suddenly finding themselves having to change their maps. They were often complaining “We didn’t hear about this!”

As an example, we totally redid the Water Temple. The amount of time Link could stay underwater was changed part way through, so we were working all the way up till this summer to fix situations where an item had become awkwardly positioned or what have you. But people were saying things about Link needing to move at a certain speed in order to seem lively, and we agreed that it needed to be fixed.

People with persuasive power usually won out when discussing what to fix and where. *laughs* It really made people cry. Oh well, I was one of the ones who didn’t cry much.

The mappers cried the most. There were three of them, but they had the most trouble. They still hate the (※) even now.

This is from a little while back, but they heard that the hookshot ability had been changed, they quickly checked the maps and told us “It’s no good! This part is clipping through the walls!” Ahahaha. Consequently, we managed to clear up a lot of big bugs with a little fine-tuning. I want to warn you never to do things like that part way through. *laughs*

(※ This data holds information about the end stages of the game’s development.)

Toshio Iwawaki (Program Director): The Super Mario Club (※) had a big influence. After we hired testers, everything was suddenly changed at 30% completion. The programmers were the strictest right to the very end, to be sure. Especially during the debug period. Really, really strict. Because of the excessive detail in the reports, I found myself learning the names of I don’t know how many club staff members.

(※ Nintendo’s game testing club. Ocarina of Time had the support of more than 100 people.)

Naoki Mori (Cinema Scene Director): We got a lot of comments from the users and testers telling us how we should do things. I think we had a lot of people obsessed with the game. We even had people telling us in detail how to angle the camera, going so far as to say “This way’s better!” *laughs*

When I was advised on a part that I hadn’t had any particular intention for, I’d think “Is that so…” and redo it. It’s inexcusable, but if it was a situation where I had a clear idea of what I wanted to express I kept it the same in the end.

Takashi Tezuka (Supervisor): At first we had planned to make the game on a smaller scale, but when we finished it we realized how much larger it was than we had expected. It’s difficult to develop a game that big. We were thinking “Wow, it’s actually huge!”

The actual size is about as big as Hirakata. Well, maybe not that big, to be honest, but even if the field is small there are a lot of things you have to do. As for time, I think that for a regular person playing without a guidebook, it would take about 60 hours to finish the game.

I didn’t dare to dip my paws into things. If I had it would have gotten out of hand and the deadline would have ended up being postponed. *laughs*

Toru Osawa (Script Director): Compared to the old days, we were able to make use of labour. A long time ago, it would be me who drew the pictures, me who thought up the story, and me who decided on the rules. Now, if you did that, you wouldn’t be finish in 10 years. *laughs* We had to use the amount of people we did, it’s just the way things are these days.

As adventure games, the Zelda games have, up till now, been floating along lightly compared to other genres. However, Ocarina’s characters, including the extras, have increased to more than 200. That means it’s intensified. Even so, since the game is so big and the number of characters has increased, even trying to make that many people work properly means they turn into shallow characters and their true feelings don’t show much. Just making that many NPCs function correctly was an extremely difficult thing.

Speaking of size comparisons… oh, you say Tezuka mentioned Hirakata? Ahahaha. That’s right, it’s at least as big as Kyoto. Hyrule Field is around the Imperial Palace, Death Mountain is like Mount Hiei or Mount Kurama. It feels like you can point and say “Hey, I can see that over there! It’s Ryouzen!” But if you think that way, then Kyoto has only 200 people. Not a lot! *laughs*

There will be 9 temples in Kyoto, and we’ll make it so that upon entering each, terrible monsters will appear. If you’re thinking of wandering around the 9 temples, it’ll take you days. To enter one of the temples, pray, listen to the history or something, and explore every nook and cranny will take one day in itself. Then you’ll have to rescue each of the Buddhist priests. Awesome, right? *laughs* We’ll make that next. “Kyoto City Tour – Save the Priests!”

I wonder who’ll be saving them. Maybe the mayor? *laughs*

“(1-16) Looks Like This Zelda Was Tough to Fix (Part 2)” has ended. The interview continues from here, so please check back for updates!

1998-12-19-SAT