I wasn't involved with Ocarina of Time from the initial stages of development, but rather from the point at which the planning framework had already been finalized and work was beginning on building onto that framework. This project started off with multiple directors being responsible for individual portions of the game, which was a different style from the way EAD had developed software until then.
I became responsible for dungeon design and the design of enemy creatures in the dungeons. Of course, I felt it was strange that I, who was so terrible at fighting creatures in the original Zelda and decided that Zelda wasn't the game for me, ended up working on enemy design. But, the type of gameplay used in enemy battles becomes an extremely important mechanic in Ocarina of Time, so there was really no way for me to escape it.
In Ocarina of Time, in addition to doing the dungeon design, I also took up the challenge of incorporating adventure elements into dungeons. By which I mean, giving the dungeon some type of theme, such as rescuing trapped Goron or hunting down the Poe sisters.
After finishing work on Ocarina of Time, Mr. Miyamoto instructed us to use the Ocarina of Time engine to create Ura Zelda -- Ocarina's second version with rearranged dungeon gameplay. But, I felt that just changing around the puzzle solving without changing the overall structure was too limiting.
I turned down Mr. Miyamoto's offer and proposed that if anything I wanted to make a new Zelda game. Now, Ura Zelda was developed for the Nintendo 64 disc system that was released only in Japan, and since I turned down this project other staff members developed it. It was finally bundled in the GameCube version of Ocarina and released as The Master Quest. Even now, Mr. Miyamoto scolds me for being the lazy type of guy who jumps to conclusions before even giving something a try.
Now, despite this, when I proposed doing a new Zelda title, I didn't think I'd be the director. But, under Mr. Miyamoto's instruction, we were to create a new Zelda game with a focus on its game system and we were to complete the game in a short period of time using the Ocarina of Time engine. It was necessary for some people who had been responsible for bringing together all the details of Ocarina's game spec to handle the overall design of the new game. That role was given to me.
Mr. Miyamoto's goal of completing the game in a short period of time was a result of having spent so much time developing the 3D Ocarina engine. He wanted to make effective use of that engine in creating a new game. While we decided that this would be very important for future Zelda development, we were faced with the very difficult question of just what kind of game could follow Ocarina of Time and its worldwide sales of 7 million units.
In response to this challenge, we came up with the idea that the solutions to puzzles would be found in a series of recurring events. We adopted a three-day time system. This three-day system in Majora's Mask introduced players to a variety of events that occurred at the same time over this period of three days that the player played through multiple times. Once all the puzzles were solved, then the hidden goal would appear. With this system, it was possible to make the game data more compact while still providing deep gameplay.
Designing all the matters and events that were governed by this three-day period had its challenges, and thus led us to a number of new discoveries. Before creating Majora's Mask, there was actually one new type of expression that we began considering but weren't able to accomplish on the N64. With the immergence of the GameCube platform, we had the power we needed. We went back in this direction with the toon-shaded graphical style of The Wind Waker, which we completed in 2002. We decided in advance that the story of the Wind Waker would begin with Link being young and unfold from there. But, we felt that there was an unnatural feeling to using a more evolved version of the realistic Ocarina model to tell the story of a child. That led us to adopt the toon-shading graphics technique. We all had great expectations for evoking new gameplay ideas out of this new style.
The result of this was to use the main character's impressive eyes in a new focus system and increase the game's action elements with improved sword fighting. In the end, I feel I can boast that with the new visual style and new game ideas we were able to push the franchise in a pioneering new direction and further expand the Zelda universe.
Now that explanation was a little long, but it covered my encounters with the franchise and some important points in game development. The result of this is that I now work as a producer overseeing all Zelda development. I have inherited this role from Mr. Miyamoto, but the situation is more one of me being a producer who is closer to the development team and Mr. Miyamoto remaining the ultimate producer who has final say over all things Zelda. That process has not changed.
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