Eiji Aonuma

A Zelda Retrospective Addendum: The Series Ranked from Worst to Best

/ Red Metal / 30 Comments

From the very beginning, I always had a vague idea of where I would place each installment in Nintendo’s long-running The Legend of Zelda franchise. Even so, I did change my mind a few times in the process of writing these reviews. Furthermore, when I wrote my review of The Legend of Zelda back in June of 2017, there were either three or four games I hadn’t yet cleared. Once I did, there were obviously many more aspects to consider. Regardless, I have completed and reviewed every single canonical entry, so as a postscript for the retrospective, here they are – ranked from worst to best.

NOTE: For the sake of this retrospective, I judged that Four Swords isn’t enough of a standalone game to warrant a separate review, lacking a single-player campaign in its initial release and coming across as a bonus feature for the Game Boy Advance port of A Link to the Past. As such, it is not represented on this list. It’s good for what it is, but difficult to judge using my metrics.

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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Though Skyward Sword was released to a positive reception, certain players voiced their displeasure over the sheer amount of filler present and the hand-holding nature of the game. The latter aspect was especially ironic given the challenging nature of Skyward Sword. Series producer Eiji Aonuma, though mostly satisfied with what he and his team created, ended up agreeing with these reservations. The series’ next installment, A Link Between Worlds, seemed to openly defy the design choices behind Skyward Sword, featuring a terse narrative and a largely non-linear design. In an era when gaming placed a great emphasis on storytelling, A Link Between Worlds would have been a sleeper hit had it not been part of a famous franchise. Emboldened by this installment’s success, he and his team sought to “rethink the conventions of Zelda” for the series’ next console installment. He made their intent known at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo when their newest project was unveiled. He planned to reform dungeons and puzzles, the elements the series had hinged upon from the very beginning, and arrange them in a way to allow players to reach the end without ever engaging in the story. In other words, their next project was to be an open-world title.

The success of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series throughout the 2000s helped popularize these kinds of games. Players could fulfill mission objectives or explore the large world at their own leisure, occasionally completing a side objective to obtain a helpful reward. Despite the franchise’s success, it wouldn’t be until the 2010s that these open-world games took on a life of their own. Whether it was Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, or Just Cause, this style became the standard in the Western AAA scene. Such was the extent of its influence that even long-running series known for their linear structure saw sequels placing protagonists in a metaphorical sandbox. One of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon in action was Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which not only drastically changed the series’ gameplay, but also received widespread acclaim for it.

In the face of these numerous success stories, Nintendo found themselves in something of a conundrum; they had never worked on a modern open-world game before. This was quite ironic given they themselves invented what many consider the first interpretation of an open-world game in the form of the original The Legend of Zelda in 1986. Though considered one of the most influential titles of its day, the series began gradually shifting away from the kind of design its debut installment codified. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link seemed like an anomaly when it forced players to adhere to a strict sequence. A Link to the Past was considered a return to form of sorts when it allowed players a degree of freedom in the game’s second half. The series could have continued on as it did with the developers placing all of their effort in gameplay like the Mario franchise. This changed when Yoshiaki Koizumi was allowed to pen the scenario for the series’ first handheld installment, Link’s Awakening. Suddenly, the man who was limited to outlining the instruction manual of A Link to the Past now found himself changing the direction of the series. To accommodate the fact that the plot of Link’s Awakening had a definitive beginning, middle, and end, developers strategically placed roadblocks to ensure players couldn’t deviate from the narrative’s intended sequence. Traces of the series’ debut were seen one last time in the second and third acts of Ocarina of Time before Majora’s Mask made the Link’s Awakening model the standard.

It wouldn’t be until A Link Between Worlds, which was released twenty-two years after the debut of A Link to the Past, that the exploration elements thought to have been completely abandoned made a triumphant return. However, creating a non-linear experience on the same scale as A Link to the Past was a relatively simple task. Translating that knowledge to the home console industry, which had long since adopted three-dimensional gameplay as its bread and butter, would prove significantly more challenging. Nonetheless, the team, led by Hidemaro Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma felt they were up for the task. Looking for inspiration, they felt it appropriate to extensively study a highly popular game that took the world by storm upon its 2011 release: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

As gaming evolved, an interesting dichotomy emerged between Western and Eastern enthusiasts. This was especially noticeable when observing how the two cultures conceived role-playing games. Non-linear experiences were allowed to flourish in the West, for those kinds of enthusiasts preferred the freedom to do as they pleased without interference from the plot or any other outside influence. Meanwhile, the Japanese RPG was often maligned by Western enthusiasts for precluding the ability to explore on one’s own and forcing players to grind levels. Many of them were unaware their Eastern counterparts preferred their games to have a clear goal at all times and grinding levels tied into a common belief that hard work results in a proportionally satisfying payoff.

In other words, when Mr. Fujibayashi and Mr. Aonuma began this project, they had their work cut out for them. In order to bring these concepts to reality, they had to go back and examine the series’ debut installment with a fine-toothed comb.

Before they began developing this game in earnest, the developers designed a playable 2D prototype bearing the distinct 8-bit visuals of The Legend of Zelda to experiment with physics-based puzzles. To ensure everyone was on the same page and to recapture the original’s essence, the staff had to periodically cease working on the game. Whenever this happened, they were tasked with playing through The Legend of Zelda in its entirety. Over the course of this development cycle, the developers had played through the game at least ten times.

Their game was to be released on the Wii U, making extensive use of the touchscreen features on the console’s tablet. Developers then reconsidered when they found looking away from the main screen was distracting. Eventually titled Breath of the Wild, it was originally slated for a 2015 release. However, later in the year, Mr. Aonuma announced that it would be delayed to 2016. In April of that year, another delay was announced, but this time, it would be for a different reason. Around this time, Nintendo was working on their newest console: the Nintendo Switch. After having dominated the handheld market for the past four console generations, the Switch was to be a unique hybrid. Making use of a docking station, the gameplay projected itself onto a television screen. By removing it, one could easily transport it as though it were a tablet. Despite having a selection of quality games, the Nintendo Wii U was a commercial failure. To make their newest console all the more appealing, Breath of the Wild was to be one of the Switch’s launch titles. Because many people claimed to have purchased a Wii U purely for the sake of getting to play Breath of the Wild, a version would be made available for both consoles.

After much speculation, Breath of the Wild was at last released worldwide on March 3, 2017. Though the gaming press had no shortage of praise for the series, the universal acclaim previous titles had no trouble amassing seemed to be utterly dwarfed by how critics felt about Breath of the Wild. A mere few days after its release, countless critics were quick to call it a masterpiece and one of the greatest games ever made. This acclaim translated to a stellar commercial performance. By March of 2018, Breath of the Wild had moved nearly ten million copies across both platforms, making it the best-selling game in the franchise at the time.

When taking a look at what critics had to say about it, one would rarely find a less-than-perfect assessment. Despite this, fans of the series were slightly divided. As the game was being showered with praise, they took to aggregate review sites such as Metacritic to write negative pieces in protest. At one point, it boasted a 7.0 fan rating – a noticeable contrast to what critics had to say. Some fans accused the series of selling out to Western sensibilities while others, observing the greater amount of praise Breath of the Wild got compared to the latest open-world experiences such as Assassin’s Creed Unity and Far Cry Primal, concluded that critics let the Nintendo brand cloud their judgement. It should also be noted that the mid-to-late 2010s marked a severe deterioration in the relationship between fans and critics. Fans would say critics were out of touch; critics insinuated fans had no taste. The takeaway is that while the mainstream media unanimously deemed Breath of the Wild one of the greatest games of the decade, fans weren’t completely convinced. Could the overwhelmingly positive coverage of Breath of the Wild have been the result of the critics’ close relationship with developers at the time? Did the fans overstep their boundaries?

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The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes

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With The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Nintendo accomplished a difficult task by making a worthy follow-up to A Link to the Past over twenty years after the fact. During this time, director Hiromasa Shikata expressed the desire to make a multiplayer Zelda title. However, he wished to stray from the competitive nature of Four Swords and its standalone sequel. Furthermore, he acknowledged the limitations players faced when attempting to play those games. Anyone who wished to play Four Swords with friends would need them to possess a copy of the game along with a Game Boy Advance and a specialized cable. Multiplayer sessions in Four Swords Adventures were even more demanding, requiring those interested to locate as many as five discontinued consoles. This is because any such venture would need as many Game Boy Advance consoles as there were total players plus a GameCube or Wii for the actual disc.

Because the Nintendo 3DS linked to other consoles wirelessly, it could easy avoid these problems; players didn’t even need to be in the same room to interact with each other. Therefore, Mr. Shikata along with series producer Eiji Aonuma and a majority of the team behind A Link Between Worlds reformed and started work on this new multiplayer title. Using the aesthetics of A Link Between Worlds as a primary inspiration, Mr. Shikata and his team dubbed this new game Tri Force Heroes – a pun referencing the mystical artifact that had played an integral role in the series from the very beginning. In something of a departure from how the series’ entries were usually handled, Tri Force Heroes ended up being released in 2015 to little buildup or fanfare. This relative lack of excitement seemed to reflect in what critics had to say about it. Compared to its predecessors, all of which had little trouble amassing acclaim, Tri Force Heroes received a lukewarm reception. Would it be accurate to describe Tri Force Heroes as the series’ first significant misstep?

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The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was originally slated for a 2010 release. When the staff desired to move on and work on a new console installment, the release date was rescheduled to the end of 2009. Once Spirit Tracks saw its release, a majority of its development team were immediately assigned to work on the game that would become Skyward Sword. Three members of the Spirit Tracks team, including Hiromasa Shikata and Shiro Mouri, opted to begin work on a completely different project that would bear the Zelda banner. They originally intended to build a game around the theme of “communication”. Six months into the project, they presented their idea to Shigeru Miyamoto. Unfortunately, Mr. Miyamoto felt it “[sounded] like an idea [that was] twenty years old”. Realizing they couldn’t proceed with this concept, they decided to rethink the concept of the game from the ground up.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Shikata proposed an interesting question: what if Link could enter walls? A day later, Mr. Mouri created a prototype to demonstrate the mechanic.

It was through seeing it in action that they truly grasped the idea’s potential for both puzzles and exploration. As they considered the new game to be an extension of the DS installments, the prototype used the same viewpoint and art style as Spirit Tracks. It was around October of 2010 that the trio presented the prototype to Mr. Miyamoto. To their delight, he approved of the new concept and was more than happy to see the project through. However, another major setback two weeks later prevented this from happening. Nintendo was preparing to launch the Wii U in 2012. As a result, core members of the development team were quickly reassigned to work on launch titles for this new console. The trio disbanded, and any further development of this game ceased.

Meanwhile, after Skyward Sword was released in November of 2011, series producer Eiji Aonuma began thinking about the future of the franchise. Nintendo’s newest handheld console, the 3DS, was launched earlier that year. Among its own launch titles was a remake of Ocarina of Time. Fans were highly enthusiastic about the remake, and as a result, the demand for a new, original Zelda installment for the console grew. Having heard of the prototype created by three former members of the Spirit Tracks team, Mr. Aonuma elected to revisit the idea of Link entering walls. With Mr. Shikata and Mr. Mouri still in the middle of developing Wii U games, Mr. Aonuma decided to personally revive the project without its core members – thirteen months after it had been shelved.

Kentaro Tominaga continued where Mr. Shikata left off, refining the system for entering walls and designing small dungeons – all of which were presented to Mr. Miyamoto in May of 2012. Mr. Tominaga then planned to create fifty more small dungeons to further utilize the wall-entering mechanic, but Mr. Miyamoto criticized the approach. Mr. Miyamoto then proposed basing the game off of A Link to the Past – known domestically as Triforce of the Gods. From this, Mr. Aonuma proposed combining the mechanic with the top-down perspective and landforms of A Link to the Past. The shift in perspective would be complemented by the stereoscopic capabilities of the 3DS. Converting the two-dimensional landforms into a three-dimensional space, they began testing the feature extensively. Many more presentations to Mr. Miyamoto ensued, and the project was allowed to proceed in earnest in July of 2012. Even better, two of those core members made a return with Mr. Skikata helming the project and Mr. Mouri serving as the lead programmer.

It was in April of 2013 during a Nintendo Direct presentation that the company made known the existence of this new Zelda installment. The release date was scheduled for late 2013. Having taken several cues from A Link to the Past, there was only one logical thing to do with this installment: make it a sequel to the 1991 classic. As if to erase any doubt, the game was to be titled The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods 2 in Japan. Even its English title, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds made its connection to A Link to the Past quite clear, following a similar naming convention. The game was released in Europe, North America, and Australia in November of 2013 before seeing its domestic launch the following December. As opposed to Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds received nearly universal acclaim with many critics believing it to be one 2013’s strongest titles. Given that the game was advertised as a sequel to A Link to the Past, skeptical members of the circle felt its positive reception could be chalked up to Nintendo cashing in on nostalgia. Time and again was progress on this game stopped only for it to subsequently rise from the ashes every time. Was A Link Between Worlds able to escape its tumultuous development cycle and emerge as one of the 3DS’s best games? Could it even begin to do justice to a game that had over twenty years to establish its legacy?

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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

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Twilight Princess was a critical and commercial success upon its 2006 release. Particularly praised was the Wii version, which showcased the capabilities of the console’s motion controls. When you swung the remote, Link would attack with his sword in response. As he drew his bow, you had him shoot arrows by pointing the remote at the screen like a light gun. However, because Twilight Princess was not intended to be a launch title for the Wii, certain critics accused the developers of tacking on the motion controls at the last minute in an attempt to generate interest for the new console. Eiji Aonuma later admitted he and his team didn’t fully realize their goals when they created Twilight Princess. Therefore, they sought to create a sequel, using their previous work as a base.

Development for this proposed sequel started in 2006 shortly after the release of Twilight Princess. Mr. Aonuma served as its producer while Hidemaro Fujibayashi, whose first experience working on the series involved directing Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages on the Game Boy Color, found himself helming the project. To put this in perspective, the Zelda franchise was no stranger to critical acclaim. Every single one of its 3D installments by this point had been considered among the greatest games ever made. The follow-up to this already impressive legacy was to be Mr. Fujibayashi’s first project for a home console game. He started work on this game upon completing Phantom Hourglass, concurrently contributing to the latter’s own sequel, Spirit Tracks. Wishing to focus entirely on this new project as soon as possible, the release date of Spirit Tracks was shifted to the end of 2009 from its initial projected launch in early 2010. Once Spirit Tracks was released, he and the rest of the team were transferred back to this project, dedicating their full attention to its completion.

The public received their first glimpses of this project in April of 2008. These rumors were later confirmed during the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2008 and the game itself was formally unveiled the following year. Its title was not yet known, leading it to be dubbed “Zelda Wii” by fans, and Shigeru Miyamoto couldn’t demonstrate the gameplay as he hoped. He instead showed promotional art featuring Link and an unidentified character with an otherworldly design. He also announced that the game would utilize an accessory dubbed the Wii MotionPlus. Once attached to the Wii Remote, this device would be able to register and subsequently translate movements more precisely. With the numerous enhancements, Mr. Miyamoto stated that Twilight Princess was “without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form.”

A vocal minority considered Twilight Princess the game The Wind Waker should have been from the beginning with its grittier tone and darker themes. It was therefore quite a shock to those same fans when Nintendo showed gameplay footage the following year in 2010. Upon being unveiled in 2009, it was implied the game would feature a dark art style similar to that of Twilight Princess. The footage of this new game implied otherwise; it was a window into a bright, colorful, cel-shaded world. It could be described as a fusion of the cartoonish look that defined The Wind Waker and the more realistic character models Twilight Princess boasted. As it would turn out, there was a practical reason for brightening things up. How enemies held their weapons was to play an integral role in gameplay – having dark graphics would make it nearly impossible to properly gauge one’s situation.

The gaming community at large waited with baited breath for this new title. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, better known as the artists behind the webcomic, Penny Arcade, created a five-part online comic. Robin Williams, a famous actor and comedian who was known for his love for the series, starred in various television commercials promoting the game. The advertisements even featured his daughter Zelda, whom he did indeed name after the title character.

The game, ultimately named The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, was released worldwide for the Nintendo Wii in November of 2011 in celebration of the franchise’s twenty-fifth anniversary. True to form, the game proceeded to amass critical acclaim from nearly every major gaming publication. The 2000s saw Nintendo’s venerable franchise at its most prolific with eight releases in the span of the decade – nine if one were to include the multiplayer-only Four Swords. On top of that, the gaming scene looked quite a bit different than it did even just five years ago. AAA developers were adapting wildly different sensibilities from the ones Nintendo continued to use, churning out experiences that came across as lesser Hollywood productions. Because of this, a big-name company refusing to go along with that trend only to continue winning over critics is no mean feat. Was Skyward Sword truly able to demonstrate the franchise’s continued relevance going into the 2010s?

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

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The Nintendo DS was released worldwide in 2004. Much like the Game Boy product line it succeeded, it became a best-selling console, selling millions upon millions of units worldwide. One of its launch titles was a remake of the pioneering Super Mario 64 and the first side-scrolling entry in the Mario franchise since Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros., debuted the following year. With Nintendo’s big-name franchises making an appearance on the new console, fans began speculating on a new Zelda installment. All doubt was eliminated during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2005 when Nintendo unveiled Phantom Hourglass. Following a series of delays as a result of diverting resources to finish Twilight Princess and Shigeru Miyamoto’s desire to become involved with the development cycle, it was released in 2007. Though some were skeptical over the game’s reliance on the touch screen, Phantom Hourglass was a success, amassing a lot of critical acclaim across the board. In the face of this success, there was only one logical thing to do: make a sequel.

Phantom Hourglass was created by many of the same people behind Four Swords Adventures. Half of the Phantom Hourglass staff in turn remained for the development of its sequel. Helming the project once again was Daiki Iwamoto while Eiji Aonuma served as its producer. As they already had an engine right out of the box, Mr. Aonuma speculated that this new game wouldn’t take long to complete. After all, while the idea for Ocarina of Time had been pitched since 1995 before seeing its release in 1998, Majora’s Mask only took a single year to complete. Though it wasn’t delayed at any point and the development progressed smoothly enough, this new game wound up taking two years to complete.

Mr. Iwamoto and his team used the same art style as Phantom Hourglass. Mr. Aonuma later commented that realistic graphics would make the characters scale poorly with their surroundings. He relented it was theoretically possible, though not ideal. Despite being confirmed as a sequel to Phantom Hourglass, Link was not going to travel by boat this time around. Mr. Aonuma wanted to retain the sense of seeing land becoming clearer as Link approaches it, but decided to approach the idea from a different angle. That is to say, Link would conduct a train instead. Mr. Aonuma cited a children’s book named The Tracks Go On and On as an inspiration for this game’s basic premise. In it, children construct railroad tracks, creating tunnels and bridges whenever they find mountains or rivers. He thought this book would fit with the series, though he didn’t tell his fellow developers about it at the time.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest difficulties the development team had was coming up a subtitle for this installment. Among the first proposed was Pan Flute of the [Something]. This was quickly shot down when they decided the title would be too long and inappropriate considering the Pan Flute obtained in the game isn’t a main item. They then decided to change Pan Flute to Train Whistle, reflecting Link’s ability to conduct a train in this new installment. The next step was to determine what the [Something] should be. In an ironic twist, the English subtitle had been decided before the domestic one: Spirit Tracks. Examining the English title, the development team decided that, because spirit means soul, they should name the game Train Whistle of the Soul. This too was rejected when the team felt it sounded too creepy – Mr. Aonuma in particular felt it made it sound “haunted”, which ran counter to the premise. Said premise was the idea of “running a train across wide-open spaces”. After asking for suggestions from the staff, they at last settled on The Legend of Zelda: Train Whistle of the Earth.

Around that time, the Nintendo DSi was unveiled. It was to be a newer model for the Nintendo DS capable of downloading digital titles in addition to utilizing physical cards. To Nintendo’s surprise, fans reacted much more strongly to the reveal of Spirit Tracks. Writing for IGN, Craig Harris found the storyline “compelling” with an “interesting premise”. He was consequently quite excited to play it for himself. He wasn’t the only one, for when Spirit Tracks saw its worldwide release in December of 2009, Nintendo had another hit on their hands. By the end of the financial year ending in March of 2010, Spirit Tracks sold over 2.5 million copies. Despite being a success, the figures were roughly half as much as those for Phantom Hourglass. The reception, though mostly positive, seemed a little less universal this time around with critics having a number of issues with the game. Taking the numbers at face value, it’s easy to get the impression that Spirit Tracks is a step down from Phantom Hourglass. Does Spirit Tracks hold up? Was the less enthusiastic reception a result of the touch-screen novelty having run its course?

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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

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Within a year of the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in 2003, Nintendo announced that a new installment for the GameCube was undergoing development. In the following year during the Game Developers Conference, Eiji Aonuma, the man who had directed the previous three console The Legend of Zelda installments, inadvertently revealed the projects working title: The Wind Waker 2. However, before any promotional materials could be released, one factor got in the way of these plans. Though The Wind Waker had little trouble becoming a critical favorite like its predecessors, winning the highly desired “Game of the Year” award in various publications, it didn’t fare quite as well among fans. Nintendo of America informed Mr. Aonuma of how its cartoonish visuals lent the impression that The Wind Waker was designed for a younger audience. This perception was fueled by preconceived notion regarding animation in the United States at the time. Whether a cartoon was indeed intended for kids or intentionally made as raunchy and irreverent as possible, people generally considered the medium sophomoric and therefore didn’t take it seriously. Because of this, The Wind Waker experienced sluggish sales compared to Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask.

Mr. Aonuma, concerned that its sequel would run into similar problems, expressed his doubts to producer Shigeru Miyamoto. He said that he wanted to create a realistic look for the next Zelda installment in an effort to appeal to their North American fanbase where the series historically had the most success. Mr. Miyamoto was a little hesitant about this proposition, believing the team’s focus be on innovative gameplay than aesthetics. Nonetheless, he advised Mr. Aonuma that should he and his team settle on a more realistic art style, the best place to start would be to attempt what couldn’t be done in Ocarina of Time. Four months later, Mr. Aonuma and his team managed to produce a short clip featuring gameplay, which was later revealed to the public with a trailer during the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2004. Slated to be released in 2005, it was here that the game being produced had a name: Twilight Princess. It was also revealed that it would not be a follow-up to The Wind Waker as originally planned, placating the vocal, skeptical fans who expressed annoyance over its art style.

The scenario of Twilight Princess was conceived by Mr. Aonuma himself, though it underwent several changes courtesy of scenario writers Mitsuhiro Takano and Aya Kyogoku. Leaving the task of working with the new ideas to his subordinates, he oversaw development of The Minish Cap, the then-upcoming Game Boy Advance Zelda installment. To his dismay, he found that the Twilight Princess team was struggling when he returned. Many of the ideas regarding Link made his character unbelievable. Furthermore, a third Zelda installment was being developed for the Nintendo DS: Phantom Hourglass. This game would have players exclusively use the DS’s touch screen to control the protagonist’s actions, and Mr. Aonuma wished for Twilight Princess to boast a similar caliber of innovation.

His answer seemed to arrive in the form of Nintendo’s newest console – codenamed “Revolution” at the time. Mr. Miyamoto thought the infrared pointer embedded in the Revolution’s controller was well suited for firing arrows from a bow, and suggested Mr. Aonuma to consider the idea. When the console was in its earliest planning phases, Mr. Aonuma had anticipated creating a Zelda title for it, but assumed he would need to finish Twilight Princess first. He began to change his mind when he used the console’s pointer to aim at the screen, believing that it would give the game a new feel – just like Phantom Hourglass. Suddenly, he felt that releasing Twilight Princess on this new console, later named the Wii, was the only way to proceed.

However, things weren’t quite that straightforward. By the time he considered having his project jump platforms, Nintendo had already heavily promoted Twilight Princess. Consequently, consumers were anticipating a GameCube release. Here, Mr. Aonuma reached something of an impasse. Making the game unavailable to those expecting its release on the GameCube would have assuredly resulted in a loss of goodwill. Meanwhile, had they attempted to develop two separate versions of the game, it would have no chance of meeting its previously announced 2005 release. It seemed as though no matter what he did, he would disappoint his audience. It was Satoru Iwata who felt having both versions would satisfy users in the end – even it meant waiting a bit longer for the game’s release. This way, those who expected it to be released on the GameCube wouldn’t miss the opportunity to play it. At the same time, the Wii now had a highly anticipated launch title, incentivizing their audience to become early adopters.

As the Wii was backwards compatible with the GameCube, transferring assets between the two platforms proved to be relatively simple. Developing a control scheme to fit this experimental platform was a more difficult task. Mr. Aonuma thought it was strange to swing the remote with the right hand to mimic the sword slashes of the traditionally left-handed Link. To make matters worse, when playable demos began circulating, many new problems arose. Nintendo’s staff reported that demo users complained about the difficulty of the control scheme. Mr. Aonuma realized from this that he and his team implemented the controls with the mindset of forcing users to adapt to them rather than making the system intuitive. More talks with Mr. Miyamoto ensued, and the team proceeded to address these issues.

At long last, Twilight Princess saw its release in November of 2006 for both the GameCube and the Wii. It didn’t seem to matter which version critics played, for it proceeded to win “Game of the Year” awards from several publications. At the time, fans felt it was the return to form the series needed after The Wind Waker. Was Twilight Princess able to ascend a series no stranger to critical acclaim to the next level?

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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

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The year 2001 marked the launch of the Nintendo 64’s successor, the Nintendo GameCube. Fans began waiting with bated breath for their big-name franchises to make an appearance on this new platform. In particular, they couldn’t wait to see a new installment in their venerable The Legend of Zelda series. Expectations were at an all-time high; after all, with Ocarina of Time, the series broke into 3D, allowing it to grasp something it needed to evolve that was always just out of reach in its early days. Ocarina of Time could claim to have been the most acclaimed game in history when it was released. Majora’s Mask did the impossible by surpassing it a mere two years later. With its surrealistically morose setting, Eiji Aonuma and his team achieved a level of greatness a majority of creators go their entire careers without reaching.

Before Majora’s Mask was completed in 2000, Nintendo formed plans for a new installment for their upcoming console. Much of the team returned for this game as well; Eiji Aonuma helmed this project while Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka served as producers. Early concept art followed the aesthetics established by Ocarina of Time. To demonstrate the new system’s capabilities, the team created a brief clip of series protagonist Link facing off against Ganondorf, which was then shown at the 2000 Space World exposition. It resonated with fans, who hoped it was a preview of the new game.

Behind the scenes, however, the team had difficulties incorporating this art style into their project. Mr. Aonuma in particular hated the clip, feeling it was too derivative of the past installments. Production stalled until designer Yoshiki Haruhana created a cartoonish drawing of Link’s younger self from Ocarina of Time. The instant design manager Satoru Takizawa saw it, he saw limitless potential.

“With a character like that, we can give him actions that will look and feel good no matter how he moves!”

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Haruhana drew a Moblin, one of the series’ famous reoccurring monsters, in a similar style. From there, the rest of the team also began to also see the possibilities afforded by the art style. To render it properly, they used a technique known as cel shading, lending the presentation the feel of an interactive cartoon. It proved to be exactly what the team needed, and development began to proceed swiftly.

In the 2001 Space World exposition, Nintendo presented a new clip. Though the franchise had gained many fans thanks to the success of their previous two 3D games, the reception of this clip was deeply mixed. Some enjoyed the new look while others derisively dubbed it “Celda”. More than a few posts on gaming forums mocked the character design, believing it made Link look like a girl. Mr. Miyamoto was surprised at this response, and decided the best course of action would be to not reveal any further information about the game until the team finished a playable demonstration.

Next year at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference, the game was shown alongside another upcoming GameCube Zelda title. In a case of poor timing, Mr. Miyamoto’s presentation was plagued by numerous glitches as he tried to showcase one of Link’s new abilities. Despite this, the tentative game received more of a positive reception than it did at Space World. Nonetheless, the divided response to the art style hounded the game for the rest of its development cycle. In October of 2002, the game’s full name was finally revealed to the public: The Legend of Zelda: Baton of Wind. Later in December, the game saw its domestic release. In 2003, the game would be released in North America, Europe, and Australia under the name The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Any negative sentiments lodged toward The Wind Waker during its development did not reflect in its critical reception, as much like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, it proceeded to win countless “Game of the Year” awards. Even with the evidence right in front of them, many fans refused to play it simply based on its art style, and this adverse reaction affected sales. Years later, many of those same people who thoughtlessly dismissed it began to look upon it more favorably. By the end of the decade, many declared it one of the best games of the decade with some declaring it a superior effort to Ocarina of Time. Just what did those fans choose to mock in the early 2000s?

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The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in 1998 to a reception unlike anything that came before. To a skeptical crowd, Nintendo proved they were still relevant in a gaming scene that was then dominated by Sony, their new rival, by releasing what is considered to this day the medium’s greatest achievement. Even though Nintendo was naturally interested in creating a follow-up to this landmark title, they themselves knew it would be a tough act to follow. As one of the directors of Ocarina of Time, Eiji Aonuma, noticed, they were “faced with the very difficult question of just what kind of game could follow Ocarina of Time and its worldwide sales of seven million units”.

Nonetheless, requests for a sequel ensued, and Nintendo knew it would be for the best to create one soon while members of the gaming sphere were still talking about Ocarina of Time. Shigeru Miyamoto proposed a concept akin to the second quest of The Legend of Zelda wherein the dungeons of Ocarina of Time were rearranged while retaining the same plotline. It was to take the form of an expansion disk entitled Ura Zelda, roughly meaning “Reverse Side Zelda”. The unit was planned to utilize the Nintendo 64DD, a peripheral device intended to be attached to the bottom of the Nintendo 64.

However, Mr. Aonuma believed that the dungeons in Ocarina of Time complemented the story and the gameplay in such a way that replacing them wouldn’t work at all. Without Mr. Miyamoto’s knowledge, Mr. Aonuma began working on dungeons and environments independent from the tentative Ura Zelda. After some time passed, Mr. Aonuma summoned the courage to approach his boss with a proposal of his own. He asked permission to stop work on Ura Zelda to create an original game that would treat audiences to an entirely new experience. Mr. Miyamoto was surprised, but offered Mr. Aonuma a deal; he could direct a brand new Zelda installment, but it had to be completed in one year. Even those not in the industry would realize a problem with this deadline. By this point in gaming history, development cycles lengthened as technology became more sophisticated. For the sake of comparison, Link’s Awakening, the then-newest 2D installment, took eighteen months to create. Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, spent four years in development. The idea of creating another 3D installment in less time than a Game Boy title seemed impossible.

Even with the odds massively stacked against him, Mr. Aonuma accepted the task. Fortunately, Mr. Miyamoto wasn’t going to leave his colleague to his own devices. He allowed Mr. Aonuma to reuse art assets and character models from Ocarina of Time, which by itself significantly cut down on the amount of work they would have to do. Moreover, Yoshiaki Koizumi, who had made a name for himself writing the scenario for Link’s Awakening and serving as one of the five co-directors of Ocarina of Time, was asked by Mr. Miyamoto to aid Mr. Aonuma in this project. Mr. Koizumi approached with a game concept he came up with while daydreaming: the ability to rewind time so the player may revisit the same levels, eventually unlocking new content through their successive experiences. As time travel was a concept featured heavily in Ocarina of Time, this would appear to be a perfect fit for the series.

Despite all of the measures taken to cut development time, Mr. Aonuma was feeling the pressure of the rapidly approaching deadline. At one point, he even had a nightmare wherein he was attacked by characters in the game. Mr. Miyamoto took notice of this and graciously allowed Mr. Aonuma to take extra time to get the project done. To the former’s surprise, Mr. Aonuma expressed his determination to fulfill his promise, and he and his team soldiered onwards. As if to punctuate this, his nightmare even inspired the creation of a cutscene in the final product. The team took all of the emotions they carried throughout this arduous journey, and used them to help craft their work. Finally, as promised, the game was completed after one year, seeing its official release in 2000. Though it began life as Zelda: Gaiden, the game evolved into a full-fledged entry in its own right by the name The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Though it sold millions of copies and garnered a lot of critical acclaim, Majora’s Mask was overshadowed somewhat by its predecessor. However, by the end of the decade, it had gained a dedicated following, allowing it to stand side-by-side with Ocarina of Time as one of the greatest games ever made. Does Majora’s Mask successfully answer the question of what kind of game could possibly follow a work as universally beloved as Ocarina of Time?

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

/ Red Metal / 19 Comments

In the eighties, a man named Eiji Aonuma took classes at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He majored in design, primarily working on moving mechanical figures. After graduating in 1988, he interviewed at Nintendo, a company that rose to international fame throughout the decade with their classic arcade games and their successful home console – the Famicom (NES). During the process, Mr. Aonuma met Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the company’s most prominent figures, and he took the opportunity to show him samples of his college work.

His samples impressed the company, and he was given a job. However, there was one minor issue; he had never played a video game before, as he did not grow up with the medium. He then asked his girlfriend about video games, and she in turn introduced him to two of Yuji Horii’s works: the genre-defining JRPG, Dragon Quest, and the title responsible for codifying the visual novel, The Portopia Serial Murder Case. Prior to their respective inceptions, such games by and large did not exist in Japan. It was through experiencing these pioneering games that Mr. Aonuma’s career with Nintendo began in earnest. His first projects involved designing sprites for Famicom games such as the 1991 title Mario Open Golf (retitled NES Open Tournament Golf overseas). Five years later, he found himself in the director’s seat, overseeing the creation of Marvelous: Another Treasure Island for the Super Famicom. Impressed with his work, Mr. Miyamoto recruited Mr. Aonuma for an important development team. They were to bring The Legend of Zelda, one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises – both commercially and critically – to the Nintendo 64.

The origins for a possible Legend of Zelda installment on Nintendo’s first 3D console date back to 1995 when a technical and thematic demonstration video was unveiled at the company’s Shoshinkai trade show of that year. The game was originally slated to be released on the Nintendo 64DD (Dynamic Drive) – a peripheral touted as “the first writable bulk data storage device for a modern video game console”, making full use of its superior storage capabilities. Unfortunately, the device was delayed multiple times, and when it became dubious that it would ever see an international release, the team moved the project to a standard cartridge format.

Shigeru Miyamoto, who had been the principal director of Super Mario 64, was now in charge of several directors as producer and supervisor for this project. The five directors were: Toru Osawa, Yoichi Yamada, Eiji Aonuma, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Toshio Iwawaki. Mr. Koizumi was notable for having conceived the scenario for Link’s Awakening, the then-newest Zelda installment. Mr. Osawa created the scenario for the new project based on a story idea between Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Miyamoto. It was stated in interviews by Mr. Miyamoto that the real-time rendering engine allowed the three-to-seven-person team in charge of developing cinematics to rapidly adjust the storyline and develop additional gameplay mechanics even up to the final months of development.

Within the first two years of the Nintendo 64’s debut, people criticized the console for a decided lack of hit first-party releases. Though there was a fair bit of variety within the scant games they did create for the console, they needed to aim even higher to avoid being decimated by the Sony PlayStation, their new, powerful rival. Next Generation magazine stated that “Nintendo absolutely [couldn’t] afford another holiday season without a real marquee title”. With Super Mario 64 having been one of the first successful games to feature three-dimensional gameplay, sparking a revolution that would shake the foundation of the entire medium, the prospect of The Legend of Zelda receiving a similar treatment was enough to make the new installment the most anticipated title of the decade.

After much speculation from the press and enthusiasts alike, the game, entitled The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, was at last released in the final two months of 1998. In a series that already had a stellar track record and worldwide fan adoration, the reception Ocarina of Time received seemed to utterly dwarf any of those previous accomplishments. It didn’t just get universal praise or win “Game of the Year” distinctions from every publication; it sold 2.5 million units in 1998 alone, and earned 150 million dollars in United States revenues – higher than any Hollywood film released within the final six weeks of that year. In the game’s lifetime, 7.6 million copies were sold worldwide. The year 1998 provided no shortage of competition, for it happened to be the same year that saw the release of Metal Gear Solid, Grim Fandango, and Half-Life. It stands to reason that something about Ocarina of Time managed outshine all of those efforts. Indeed, the reception this title received can never be said to have faded away; even today, it’s considered by many to be the absolute best game ever made. With all of the various artists who have appeared over the years to challenge the status quo in their own ways, how does Ocarina of Time remain a critical favorite all these years later?

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