(Nov 21st, 2023, 08:32 PM)Moonface Wrote:

For everyone else who wasn't miraculously ignorant of Nintendo's existence in the 90's and did play this game though, what are your memories of your first time playing it and how do you feel knowing it's now 25 years old?

IGN Wrote:

It's interesting to hear you say that because one of the discussions that I've seen among Zelda fans is, "Gosh, I miss the more traditional linear Zelda of the past." And I'm wondering, how do you feel about that given the direction of the series toward a very free-form, open-ended kind of design?

Aonuma: Well, I do think we as people have a tendency to want the thing that we don't currently have, and there's a bit of a grass is greener mentality. But I also think that with the freedom players have in the more recent games in the series...there still is a set path, it just happens to be the path that they chose. So I think that that is one thing I kind of like to remind myself about the current games that we're making.

But also, it's interesting when I hear people say those things because I am wondering, "Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?" But I do understand that desire that we have for nostalgia, and so I can also understand it from that aspect.

IGN Wrote:

Speaking personally, I really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom's design, and I think a lot of people were grateful for the much more intricate dungeons. I think why a lot of fans valued Ocarina of Time and games like that were the clever dungeons that felt like a very crafted, very deliberate experience. And with Breath of the Wild, especially initially, the dungeons felt quite a bit simpler by comparison...but I think there's sort of a hunger for those very classic dungeons like the Water Temple and things like that.

Aonuma: That was kind of our intention with Tears of the Kingdom, as you mentioned, which was to put a bit more density or thoughtfulness into the design of the dungeons in the game. I mean, when we think of Breath of the Wild, one of our guiding principles was to rethink the conventions of the series, and that applied to our thinking about dungeons as well. So we kind of broke apart our previous assumptions about the way we've made dungeons so far with that game. And I think the result was simpler approach that you saw in dungeons in that game.

But then we did hear the desire from fans for a bit more of a designed dungeon, and that led to our approach to dungeons for Tears of the Kingdom. And so as we proceed, whenever we're making a game, we look back at our past and then consider where we are now with the freedom that we give to the player in these games.

IGN Wrote:

I want to talk a little bit about Zelda for a moment. I remember when the trailer first appeared, my first thought was, 'Oh, now Zelda's adventuring too. Maybe this is co-op, maybe Zelda will be playable.' But of course, she had her own story in Tears of the Kingdom. What you think of the desire among fans for Zelda to have a bigger role, and to even be playable?

Aonuma: Yeah, it is interesting when you think about the name of the series, the Legend of Zelda, but Link is always the main character....Zelda has always been involved, and they have a relationship and their own rules in each of the games, but it is true that I think there's always room for thinking about this type of thing and Zelda's role. And there may be some sort of possibility for something like that in the future.