#aonumaquote

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 42. Producer (later, Director) of Twilight Princess.

QUOTE: Aonuma: At the beginning [of Twilight Princess], Link is this cowboy living in Toaru Village—not in Hyrule. Hyrule does exist, but it’s a long way away. They raise cows in Toaru to sell [to Hyrule]. The two places have a friendly relationship with one another. There are several other villages, and every year the kingdom of Hyrule gathers them all together for a kind of festival where all the villages can communicate with each other. Each year, the chief of the village is supposed to attend the festival, but this year, the chief orders this young man to go instead.

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 35. Ocarina of Time Dungeon Director.

QUOTE: Aonuma: I, personally, really like the Forest Temple. It was the very first dungeon we designed in Ocarina of Time. …

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 53. Director of the The Wind Waker. Co-Director of Majora’s Mask. Zelda series producer.

QUOTE: Q: What is your favorite song from Zelda series?

Aonuma: There’s this song from The Wind Waker, the music in the battle in the desert against the sand worm, Molgera. I love that song. It has a kind of Japanese feel to it, with the Taiko drums.

Q: Clock Town or Hyrule Castle Town – which is your favorite?

Quote 1:

PEOPLE:

Kensuke Tanabe, age 35. Link’s Awakening Writer.

Takashi Tezuka, age 38. Link’s Awakening Game Director.

Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 30. Link’s Awakening Writer.

QUOTE: "Tanabe: When I started [on Link’s Awakening] I was given a list of requirements by the director, Mr. Tezuka, such as no Triforce, no Princess Zelda, no Hyrule, and a closed field. …

Mr. Tezuka requested a world full of strange characters like in Twin Peaks, which was a popular show back then. I then wrote a script that fit my vision of an egg hatching on a mountaintop ending the world with Koizumi’s ‘Your dream? Or someone else’s dream?’ Koizumi worked on the main thread of the story and I did the odd characters. "

Quote #2:

PEOPLE:

Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Director of Link’s Awakening.

Eiji Aonuma, age 46. Director or Producer of various Zelda games.

Satoru Iwata, age 49. 4th President of NIntendo.

QUOTE: "Tezuka: Oh, right, about Twin Peaks…

Aonuma: Whoa, here we go. [laughs] Iwata-san, do you know about Twin Peaks?

Iwata: No. Bring me up to speed. [laughs]

Tezuka: We were talking about this before you arrived. I was talking about fashioning The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening with a feel that's somewhat like Twin Peaks. At the time, Twin Peaks was rather popular. The drama was all about a small number of characters in a small town.

Iwata: Okay…

Tezuka: So when it came to Link's Awakening, I wanted to make something that, while it would be small enough in scope to easily understand, it would have deep and distinctive characteristics."

Quote #3:

PEOPLE:

Mark Frost, age 70. Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Twin Peaks.

QUOTE: "Q: [Interviewer asks about his meeting with Nintendo developers, who were reportedly inspired by Twin Peaks for Link’s Awakening]

Frost: They were talking to me about a Twin Peaks game, and they mentioned Zelda at the time. They said, ‘One of the things we love about your show [Twin Peaks] is how there’s all sorts of sideways associations that can drive the story forward.’ They asked me about that as they were thinking about expanding the Zelda universe.

… I’d played lots of Dungeons & Dragons when I was young, so I was familiar with the kind of story they were thinking about. I think I said, ‘Don’t be afraid to use dreamlike, Jungian symbolism. Things can connect thematically without having to connect concretely.’ It was things like that that I was urging them [to consider]."

Quote #4:

PEOPLE:

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 58. Producer of Ocarina of Time.

QUOTE: "Miyamoto: I didn't want to tell a story [in Ocarina of Time] so much as I wanted to have a lot of people appear around the main character and portray their relationships. Some years back, a television show called Twin Peaks was popular. When I saw that, the most interesting thing wasn't the ins and outs of the story, but what kinds of characters appeared.

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 50. Director of Majora’s Mask, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. Producer for the Zelda series.

QUOTE: Aonuma: I saw [the Spaceworld 2000 Zelda tech demo] and I thought, “No, this isn’t Zelda. This isn’t Zelda at all.”

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 50. Director of The Wind Waker, producer of The Wind Waker HD.

QUOTE: Aonuma: I’m aware that lots of users wanted those two missing dungeons [from The Wind Waker] to be implemented in The Wind Waker HD. But to be honest, we’ve already used those two dungeons for other titles after The Wind Waker already. [laughs] So right now, technically, they don’t really exist anymore…

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 50. Dungeon director of Ocarina of Time, Director of The Wind Waker. Producer of their remakes.

QUOTE: Aonuma: 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 The Wind Waker] and to be able to use the GamePad, so they could see a difference there.

PEOPLE:

Eiji Aonuma, age 50. Franchise Producer of the Zelda series.

QUOTE: Aonuma: From the perspective of others, we may be obsessed with details, but in reality we aren’t really like that. …

That’s why the psychology of our fans can be funny at times. They look for deeper meanings in things. “How does it fit into the timeline?” and so on. But we want some flexibility outside of that setting. But since this is a series, we tied ourselves to certain things.