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[Cerium]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/n...th-of-the-w/1100-6449174/?ftag=GSS-05-10aaa0b

Hidemaro Fujibayashi is the director of Breath of the Wild, but he got his start working on Zelda games back at Capcom during the Game Boy Color days, directing both The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. During our chat, though he did most of the talking, Fujibayashi sat between technical director Takuhiro Dohta and art director Satoru Takizawa--cohorts that have worked closely on Zelda games like Twilight Princess and Wind Waker HD. Though Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto are the names most people associate with Zelda, the three developers that sat across from us arguably deserve a lion's share of the credit that's been laid at the feet of Nintendo's more prominent personalities.

"We tried to avoid [creating scenarios] where there's only one possible outcome," he continued. "We tried to remove those as much as possible, and this ideal was really well understood by all of the designers and artists that design terrains and landscapes."

The game that resulted from this concept no doubt thrives because of it, and even a month after its release, players around the world continue to make and share their discoveries. What about the people responsible for crafting the game's collection of cause-and-effect mechanics? Even among Nintendo's staff, occasional surprises delighted the team despite their unrivaled familiarity with the game. According to Takizawa: "one thing we saw at E3 was one of the NOA demonstrating staff, just in their downtime figured out a way to use magnesis to make themselves fly in a way, and we're like, 'Okay, we hadn't thought of that.' We all had to go back and try it ourselves."

He tried to explain the trick, which we were unfortunately unable to replicate. "If you laid two of the metal platforms on top of each other, and got them just in the right position, you could use one of them to lift the other and kind of make yourself float." He relayed another surprise, this time from watching a new player tinker with the game. "We also saw, and I think this was just an E3 attendee," he recalled, that used objects to fashion their own catapult and then fling themselves across the landscape. That also looked pretty fun. And that made me feel, 'Yeah, this freedom we wanted to give players is really coming through here.'"

Breath of the Wild isn't short on challenges or solutions to overcome them, but it wasn't surprising to hear that some ideas were left by the wayside. Takizawa chimed in with one such example that lasted far into development, and the reasoning behind its ultimate disappearance.

"Until about halfway through the development, we had a spec where you could take your weapon and stab it into a wall. When your stamina gauge was dwindling you could stab the weapon and kind of hang out and rest there." Given the emphasis on climbing in the game, it was surprising to hear this option was removed. The reason? Miyamoto's disapproval.

"So the answer," according to Fujibayashi," is that Mr. Miyamoto heard of the concept he said, 'You can't stand on the tip of a sword. This is strange.' And then we explained, "No no no, you stab it in." Then he's like, 'No, it's not going to work.' Another idea is that it's very hard to actually stab a sword into a big piece of rock. We considered that you can stab them into cracks or crevices in the wall, but then you can't freely use that feature anywhere you want, so I decided not to implement it."

More at the link.

 

[kunonabi]

The idea that botw doesnt have open-world filler quests is laughable but the rest of their ideas did shine through. Still, one of these days i'd like to hear more about game prior to the switch restructuring.

 

[sixteen-bit]

wall stab mechanic sounded hilarious

 

[Josh378]

Awww man, sword stab into cracks on the wall would have definitely made me feel better at wall climbing. I wished he could have kept it.

 

[GWX]

So Link can't stab rock walls with swords to hang and get rest, but he can eat gorgeous-looking gourmet meals to replenish stamina mid-climb and slap his belly in satisfaction afterwards.

Huh.

 

[Soriku]

So Link can't stab rock walls with swords to hang and get rest, but he can eat gorgeous-looking gourmet meals to replenish stamina mid-climb and slap his belly in satisfaction afterwards.

Huh.

Forget that Link can basically scale a flat wall with no footing whatsoever

 

[EhoaVash]

Oh shit link could of been like noctis hanging on the all with his sword.

Damn it miyamoto and your cock blocking

 

[Koozek]

Forget that Link can basically scale a flat wall with no footing whatsoever

Lol, right.

Oh shit link could of been like noctis hanging on the all with his sword.

Damn it miyamoto and your cock blocking

Heh, was thinking of the same.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/W2bFaWT.gif[/IMG]

 

[MutFox]

Hanging on the sword to replenish stamina would have made it really easy to scale things.
Even changing how puzzles would be implemented.

 

[kunonabi]

could always have the stab take a giant chunk of durability. One risky stab causing you to lose all your progress would even things out.

 

[maxcriden]

could always have the stab take a giant chunk of durability. One risky stab causing you to lose all your progress would even things out.

The stab could have made rain bearable

 

[duckroll]

As Fujibayashi was quick to point out, giving the player freedom to experiment was the solution to keeping players engaged while exploring a massive world--one practically devoid of typical open-world filler quests.

Okay Fujibayashi, I'll get right back to you after I find 5 Sunset Fireflies. And 10 Restless Crickets. And 55 Rushrooms. Lmao.

 

[DecoReturns]

So is Fujibayashi next in line to take Aonuma's spot once he leaves in the future?

Okay Fujibayashi, I'll get right back to you after I find 5 Sunset Fireflies. And 10 Restless Crickets. And 55 Rushrooms. Lmao.

Maybe I read this wrong, but I thought that was the Gamespot's writer saying that.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Maybe I read this wrong, but I thought that was the Gamespot's writer saying that.

That's how I read it as well

 

[Elfforkusu]

Okay Fujibayashi, I'll get right back to you after I find 5 Sunset Fireflies. And 10 Restless Crickets. And 55 Rushrooms. Lmao.

Skip those quests, it'll only be a 110 hour game but that should be ok?

 

[PtM]

Skip those quests, it'll only be a 110 hour game but that should be ok?

This changes everything.

 

[-MB-]

Hanging on the sword to replenish stamina would have made it really easy to scale things.
Even changing how puzzles would be implemented.

Well I assume they could have fixed it by basically making it kill the sword very fast ( 1-2 stabs and its gone).

 

[Pyrrhus]

I don't get Miyamoto's objection there. Link climbs like a freaking Terminator robot up sheer rock walls. And can stop time and eat and get into and out of plate armor while up on that rock wall. And deflect energy blasts from actual terminator robots with shields made out of literal garbage with no wear to the item. The guy's a legend but he's also a crazy old man sometimes.

Who says you have to stand on the edge of a sword anyway? He could jam it in so that the flat is horizontal and you could stand on the flat like a little platform. Admittedly seeming him jam one of those flat Goron weapons into a wall would have been dumb but you could just restrict that and make it another point of differentiation for the weapon.

 

[TheMoon]

Okay Fujibayashi, I'll get right back to you after I find 5 Sunset Fireflies. And 10 Restless Crickets. And 55 Rushrooms. Lmao.

The fact that you have to try hard to list even these three proves the point. There are no filler quests in this game. Besides, the classic filler quests are somehow tied to progression usually which these ones are not. Unless you really wanna count armor upgrades.

 

[JershJopstin]

The fact that you have to try hard to list even these three proves the point. There are no filler quests in this game. Besides, the classic filler quests are somehow tied to progression usually which these ones are not. Unless you really wanna count armor upgrades.

What? That didn't take effort at all. Like how it's also not hard to remember the weapon fetch quest in Hateno. Or the quest to go get an ice rod. Or the one for flint. There's also the one for gourmet meat. I could keep going...

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Okay Fujibayashi, I'll get right back to you after I find 5 Sunset Fireflies. And 10 Restless Crickets. And 55 Rushrooms. Lmao.

What? That didn't take effort at all. Like how it's also not hard to remember the weapon fetch quest in Hateno. Or the quest to go get an ice rod. Or the one for flint. There's also the one for gourmet meat. I could keep going...

Practically speaking, that's devoid enough.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Well I assume they could have fixed it by basically making it kill the sword very fast ( 1-2 stabs and its gone).

Or even having you lose it, stuck in the rock. Also, have it not work with wooden weapons, and already damaged swords break.
Finally, it doesn't make you regain the full stamina.

 

[SomTervo]

like the MMO quests thing is on point

Even if many of the quests are "get this thing", the thing is just a maguffin to take you through the overworld, so you discover other things, get in battles, explore, and find specific "levels"/locations

It's not like "walk through a barely interactive bland over world and click on some mobs" MMO thing

 

[Falchion]

I'm not going to lie, I wish using a weapon to regain your stamina while climbing had made the final cut for the game.

 

[AwesomeSauce]

Every time I read about Miyamoto giving his input to a designer, this old skit from The Final Bosman pops in my head.

https://youtu.be/j3J721DlKao?t=16m46s

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

There are no filler quests in this game.

Yes, I distinctly remember having to collect hundreds of Korok seeds to defeat Ganon.

 

[DecoReturns]

Yes, I distinctly remember having to collect hundreds of Korok seeds to defeat Ganon.

You don't need weapon slot upgrades to beat Ganon. If you run out of weapons, they spawn during the battle.

 

[kunonabi]

like the MMO quests thing is on point

Even if many of the quests are "get this thing", the thing is just a maguffin to take you through the overworld, so you discover other things, get in battles, explore, and find specific "levels"/locations

that still isnt any different from fetch quests in other games. Outside of the shrines, memories, divine beasts, and getting the master sword almost everything else is a fetch quest/collectathon or just farming for materials.

 

[SomTervo]

that still isnt any different from fetch quests in other games. Outside of the shrines, memories, divine beasts, and getting the master sword almost everything else is a fetch quest/collectathon or just farming for materials.

They're definitely literally fetch quests, im just saying i think the team succeeded at avoiding MMO trappings

 

[UnemployedVillain]

It would have made climbing way too easy. I might be the only one, but I find it fun trying to gauge how far I can climb and intentionally finding places where the wall isn't as steep, and places where I can somewhat drop do (in that awkward zone where you can sort of stand and Link slides down, but your stamina still recovers a bit)

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...The guy's a legend but he's also a crazy old man sometimes...

Every time I read about Miyamoto giving his input to a designer...

There may be a danger of blowing individual decisions out of proportion, possibly generalizing too broadly/intensely in the negative about Miyamoto (common here already), but there are interesting considerations of this type which Miyamoto himself acknowledged in discussion with Itoi (regarding Yokoi's remark to Miyamoto: "You're pretty negative..."), in case anyone is interested:

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-As...gative-/2-You-re-Pretty-Negative--217256.html
Miyamoto: I’ve tended to think of [Gunpei] Yokoi-san as my master. Once when I was in a meeting with him, he said to me, “You’re pretty negative,” and that really shocked me… But when he said that, I realised Yokoi-san was quite positive… But I wasn’t intending to be negative. I thought about what he might mean and realised that when I think about something, I have a tendency first to draw up a list of what can’t be done. For example, when it comes to what can and can’t be done with the NES, it was really important for me to know a lot about what can’t be done … So when I think about something, I draw up a list of everything that won’t work. If there’s an idea according to which doing one thing means something else won’t work, I focus on what won’t work. Certainly, that is negative. So which is better, negative or positive? Well, both are important, they need to coexist. Someone who only sees the positive is just a blind optimist… Right. So I think perhaps the right thing to do is become positive when it’s time to say “Let’s go!” and really get cracking…

Shigesato Itoi: I agree. When Yokoi-san said you were negative, he was speaking as someone who bore responsibility for production or close to such a position… So, to exaggerate, the negative person doesn’t mind focusing only on quality even if the product doesn’t get finished. But when it must be finished somehow, if you just complain and don’t do anything, you can’t sleep well that night… Because you must finish sometime. In the end, you have to be able to say, “This is good enough.” So you can’t stay negative… But both attitudes are necessary... Getting positive when it’s time to really get cracking is what the person who is responsible for the project should do...

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/twilight_princess/0/3
Aonuma: ...So, for instance early on in the development process, when young developers encounter Miyamoto-san's input from the outside, a lot of them probably think things like: "Do we really have to pay attention to such tiny details?" or "Surely we don't have to worry that much about something like that?" However, when everything starts fitting together into its final form, they understand what he was doing and they'll say: "Ah, I get it! It turns out this way, so we really did need to do that from the start!" When they were working on making the game, they couldn't see this... 

Iwata: One thing I have always admired about Miyamoto-san is how incredible he is at coming up with ideas that make use of the existing materials when he makes his criticisms. Most people who upend tables are more likely to throw away those materials, but Miyamoto-san is very aware of how wasteful that is. Even if his suggestion means that something can't be used in the same place anymore, he makes other suggestions about where else it can be used... It's another thing about him that doesn't really match the image that is portrayed by the phrase "upending the tea table."

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

You don't need weapon slot upgrades to beat Ganon. If you run out of weapons, they spawn during the battle.

I know. I was talking about there supposedly being "no filler quests" in the game.

 

[rhandino]

I assume he didn't liked the idea of the sword in the rocks because that would have made the stamina upgrades irrelevant and if the sword lose durability with each rock stab then you would run into the problem of people complaining about how they lost all their precious swords trying to scale a mountain.

That's not even getting into the part in which also would have affected things like Zora's Domain

Spoiler

not being easily accessed because the rain caused by Divine Beast Vah Rutah.

But I guess it's more easy to say "Miyamoto is crazy and his ideas are terrible" I guess even when thanks to him we got Pikmin, ALBW, Splatoon and Metroid Prime.

 

[night814]

My guess is they cut the sword stab but made it easier in some places to let go of the wall, get your footing and recover stamina that way. It's an interesting mechanic but the game is already so full of crazy physics I can see why Miyamoto might not have wanted to add more.

I definitely felt there were plenty of filler quests but certainly none that were required for progression. This is a huge difference from a lot of other open world games where fetch quests can be mandatory.

 

[Refreshment.01]

There may be a danger of blowing individual decisions out of proportion, possibly generalizing too broadly/intensely in the negative about Miyamoto (common here already), but there are interesting considerations of this type which Miyamoto himself acknowledged in discussion with Itoi (regarding Yokoi's remark to Miyamoto: "You're pretty negative..."), in case anyone is interested:

The Miyamoto trashing recently in vogue, is simply another dubious statement that gets repeated ad nauseum until the point some people adopt it as "truth". It's sad to see some youtube or press personalities with zero contribution to the game industry discredit the man.

Of course Miyamoto has made questionable calls in the past (as any blood and flesh human would), however the man even untill this day still has a very sharp designer's intutition.

It was a good call. It would have trivialized climbing and what strategy it has specially at the begining stages of the game. As well as other game systems. Imagine carrying 2 or more rock stabing swords, the stamina is tripled with zero upgrades.

The game already has plenty of safety nets to improve climbing. Stuff like haste and stamina elexirs would get less use with rock stabing. Tehn there are upgrades like climbing gear or Revali's Gale that make climbing even under raining conditions manageable.

 

[KrawlMan]

What? That didn't take effort at all. Like how it's also not hard to remember the weapon fetch quest in Hateno. Or the quest to go get an ice rod. Or the one for flint. There's also the one for gourmet meat. I could keep going...

The difference is that none(?) of these gate your game progress, nor are they expected to be immediately completed. There aren't that many quests and the player benefits from grabbing them and just playing the rest of the game, returning upon incidental completion.

Of all the quests mentioned so far, the only one I did deliberately, as opposed to having completed it on accident in my travels, was the crickets. Just cut some grass for around 2-3 minutes. Rushrooms I spent about 10 minutes looking around for them, and quickly realized 55 wasn't going to happen unless I just gathered them in my adventures.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I'm not going to lie, I wish using a weapon to regain your stamina while climbing had made the final cut for the game.

People keep saying this, but this would have broken the logic of the game. You lose stamina for holding onto Paraglider (understandable because Link is holding onto his weight), so why would you regain stamina for holding onto a weapon while climbing?

 

[jackal27]

Wall stabbing would have brought about so many FFXV knock-off comments. Kinda glad they didn't do it.

 

[Lizardus]

How come people don't climb tall mountains using octo balloons? Now THAT trivializes climbing.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

The fact that you have to try hard to list even these three proves the point. There are no filler quests in this game. Besides, the classic filler quests are somehow tied to progression usually which these ones are not. Unless you really wanna count armor upgrades.

You just said there are no filler quests, then said there are but they aren't tied to progression. There are definitely filler quests in BoTW, they don't bog down the experience because there aren't an insane amount of them, they are largely unnecessary, and the game has plenty of content without them, but they are definitely in the game.

 

[KHlover]

Yes, I distinctly remember having to collect hundreds of Korok seeds to defeat Ganon.

I beat him when I had around 50 and other people beat him with none at all. Did you do a tree branch challenge run or something?

 

[MutFox]

Well I assume they could have fixed it by basically making it kill the sword very fast ( 1-2 stabs and its gone).

Or even having you lose it, stuck in the rock. Also, have it not work with wooden weapons, and already damaged swords break.
Finally, it doesn't make you regain the full stamina.

Discovering certain recipes already does what you're saying.
I think they wanted to keep the food game important.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

I assume he didn't liked the idea of the sword in the rocks because...

That's not even getting into the part in which also would have affected things like...

But I guess it's more easy to say "Miyamoto is crazy and his ideas are terrible" I guess even when thanks to him we got Pikmin, ALBW, Splatoon and Metroid Prime.

The Miyamoto trashing recently in vogue, is simply another dubious statement that gets repeated ad nauseum until the point some people adopt it as "truth". It's sad to see some youtube or press personalities with zero contribution to the game industry discredit the man.

Of course Miyamoto has made questionable calls in the past (as any blood and flesh human would), however the man even untill this day still has a very sharp designer's intutition.

It was a good call. It would have... As well as...

I'm not familiar with Bosman (outside of his apparent misconception about Splatoon, noted previously by EmCeeGramr, as well as the misconception – ”...SM Galaxy 1 is a disappointment..." – that I myself noticed, in the skit that was posted above), but now that Miyamoto is increasingly removing himself from his heretofore intimate involvement in the software development pipeline (in this Gamespot article, Fujibayashi notes that when they brought Breath of the Wild to Miyamoto on a weekly basis, it was by choice, not by mandate: ”So starting from the early stages of development we had been constantly showing Mr. Miyamoto our progress. At times we would even show him once a week what we'd been working on..."), it may ultimately be of some considerable benefit to Nintendo at this point to minimize Miyamoto's importance, when you consider for example what occurred in 2011:

https://www.wired.com/2011/12/miyamoto-interview/
Dec 7, 2011: ”Inside our office, I've been recently declaring, 'I'm going to retire, I'm going to retire.' I'm not saying that I'm going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position. What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself. Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small... I'm saying this because I have a solid reaction from the existing teams," he said. "I was able to nurture the developers inside Nintendo who were able to create something like this or something like that," he said, gesturing to banners in the interview room in Nintendo's office that showed the logos of Skyward Sword and Mario 3D Land. The reason Miyamoto keeps telling the younger developers that he's going to retire is to send the message that he won't always be around for them to work with. "The reason why I'm stressing that is that unless I say that I'm retiring, I cannot nurture the young developers," he said. ”After all, if I'm there in my position as it is, then there's always kind of a relationship. And the young guys are always kind of in a situation where they have to listen to my ideas. But I need some people who are growing up much more than today."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/dec/08/miyamoto-not-retiring-says-nintendo
Dec 8, 2011: "According to Reuters, in the wake of the Wired story Nintendo shares fell 2% to ¥11,040 (£90) – a practical demonstration of how important Miyamoto is to the company. Consequently, at 10am on Thursday, Nintendo issued the following statement..."

Since 2011, it's notable that Miyamoto has been taking steps to publicly justify/explain the reduction of his direct involvement, and indeed it looks like he was able to hand off formally to Shinya Takahashi (as of Sept 2015) without issue:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122542-Miyamoto-Prepares-Nintendo-For-His-Retirement
March 2013: "For a long time I've been thinking that we need to try to break [the] structure down so that the individual producers that I'm working with are really taking responsibility for the projects that they're working on," Miyamoto said, telling us that he wants his junior producers to stop constantly looking to him for direction. "And as I like to say, I try to duck out of the way, so that instead of them looking at me, they're looking at the consumer and trying to develop their games with the consumer in mind rather than me in mind. So it's really more of looking at this as sort of an opportunity to really try to help develop them and bring them up."

https://web.archive.org/web/2013092.../miyamoto-eiji-aonuma-doesnt-need-me-anymore/
Sept 2013: "As you saw at E3, Mr. Aonuma chased me off stage... he doesn't need me anymore! The final responsibility for the title still comes down to me and I'm still involved in the games, but I'm definitely able to leave the series up to him in a way... I don't have to look at every minute detail of every game anymore. I know there's going to be the level of quality that we expect under his supervision... Similarly we have Koizumi-san, who's the producer of the Mario series and it's the same type of situation. And certainly Konno-san with Mario Kart, too. And Mr. Eguchi, the producer of the Animal Crossing series. These are the main producers that we've trained who are talented enough and we can allow them to oversee the project and manage all the details and still maintain the Nintendo level of quality."

http://time.com/4653977/shinya-takahashi-nintendo/
Feb 2017: ...In September 2015, as Tatsumi Kimishima was assuming the company's presidency, Nintendo merged its EAD and SPD teams into a single, comprehensive development group dubbed "Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development," or EPD, only now with Takahashi as captain of the ship. "I'm overseeing all of that," [Shinya] Takahashi says, "but I view my role as being more someone who's overseeing our producers. I really look at them more as my stable of talent, and I'm their manager." He pauses, smiles, and then adds, "That includes Mr. Miyamoto. Lately I've enjoyed saying, 'I'm Mr. Miyamoto's manager.'" [And Reggie Fils-Aimé says] "If all of Nintendo's content creators were to be seen as a symphony, then Mr. [Shinya] Takahashi is our conductor," says Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé, when asked to contrast Takahashi's role with Iwata's. "What I mean by that is, it's his decision to bring the different players in our orchestra onto a particular game or a particular initiative. He's the ultimate decision maker in what gets played by the symphony or what gets created by Nintendo as a company."