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[Jackano]

Good idea to interview at first the staff without Miyamoto. The guys sure have more attention to them without him here for the moment (I believe it will be another part with Miyamoto after this one).

Koizumi seems to be a very, very good developer/designer somewhat in the shadow of Miyamoto.

 

[speedpop]

Koizumi seems to be a very, very good developer/designer somewhat in the shadow of Miyamoto.

I'd really like to see him be given the chance to develop an original IP. A lot of the games that he had an important role in could be seen as his own element, but I don't want to see him turn out like another Tezuka.

 

[Mael]

Such a shame that Koizumi isn't on Zelda anymore, could be the reason the serie took a nosedive after he left...
And seeing the IA about SMG2 I think it was him that tried to put a story in Mario too,
I'd say get the guy the hell out of Mario and into Zelda!

Awaiting the IA part about the new devs, will be great to hear about Ishii again.

 

[Jackano]

Such a shame that Koizumi isn't on Zelda anymore, could be the reason the serie took a nosedive after he left...
And seeing the IA about SMG2 I think it was him that tried to put a story in Mario too,
I'd say get the guy the hell out of Mario and into Zelda!

Awaiting the IA part about the new devs, will be great to hear about Ishii again.

But Aonuma clearly don't want to leave its chair!!

 

[Mael]

But Aonuma clearly don't want to leave its chair!!

Kick him out and put him on something else, he's had his chances times and again.
Seriously even Final Fantasy gets a more diverse panel of teams than Zelda.

And anyway doesn't change shit anyway he didn't direct a Zelda since a long time, so they can team up

 

[AniHawk]

get the pikmin team to handle mario from now on

give koizumi/ead tokyo wii u zelda

let aonuma make some new thing

 

[Oblivion]

let aonuma make some new thing

A sequel to Spirit Tracks?

 

[Metroid Killer]

I love reading about how they solve the various hardware limitations like the problem with displaying several characters:

Iwata: The Nintendo 64 system had limitations making it difficult to display many characters at the same time.

Koizumi: I came up with the idea of having each person living there followed around by a fairy. That way, even if we just showed the fairies…

Iwata: I see. If you see the fairy, you know its owner is there, too.

Koizumi: Right. We solved the problem by having it so that the owner appears when you get close to the fairy.



Playing it back then I just ate it up, never thought it was strange in anyway, even though it makes no sense.

 

[Mael]

get the pikmin team to handle mario from now on

give koizumi/ead tokyo wii u zelda

let aonuma make some new thing

agreed except for 1 part.
Give Mario back to Hiroyuki Kimura...so yeah pikmin guys.

 

[beril]

Nintendo's been experimenting on polygonal Zelda since Adventure of Link!? Holy crap.

That part was a bit vague, but no, they were making a Zelda II remake for SNES with the super FX chip I believe. This needs to happen. Koizumi should get on it as soon as Mario 3DS is done.

Anyway, great interview. These are pretty much the best things on the internet in general and this was one of the best ones yet. So much great insight on their development process and so many interesting tidbits. I can't believe they added young link halfway through development.

Also: my first post; yay

 

[GCX]

Read this one smiling all the time. So Miyamoto's involvement seems minimal and Koizumi moved on to other proyects?

Miyamoto's involvement wasn't minimal. From this interview you get the idea that all the developers made all kinds of cool random stuff and in the end it just happened to become the best game ever. Miyamoto was the guy who kept it all together.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

get the pikmin team to handle mario from now on

give koizumi/ead tokyo wii u zelda

let aonuma make some new thing

Yeah, I second that. But Aonuma doesn't agree with you unfortunately.

I think a lot will depend by Skyward Sword's reception. Even Miyamoto said that if this game is not great, it will be the last Zelda for Aonuma. Not sure if he was joking though...

 

[Tenck]

This just makes me want to play OoT so badly. Sadly I have never beaten the whole game (or even gotten close), but I do remember some good times. Hopefully I'll pick up a 3DS and this game during Black Friday

 

[Celine]

Nintendo's been experimenting on polygonal Zelda since Adventure of Link!? Holy crap.

The polygonal stuff is new to me, the remake on Super Famicom however iisn ot ( although very few knew about it ).
Can someone translate me this text ?

ゲーム内容は不明だが、FCD「リンクの冒険」を元にしたゲームであることは予想できる。小学館「任天堂公式ガイドブック　スターフォックス64」に掲載されたディレクター清水氏のインタビューに拠ると、「ニンテンドウ64発売が迫り時期が悪いと判断したから」なそうな。んー、せめてニンテンドウパワーで出してほしかった。

 

[Celine]

1) Ocarina of Time was moved from 64DD to N64 ROM because of memory access issues. Link had 500 or so animation sets. The N64 ROM allowed for instant data access, whereas the 64 DD magnetic discs had loading issues. There was a point where Koizumi, the man in charge of creating Link for OoT, couldn't even move Link when the game was running on the 64 DD.

At Shoshinkai '96 Nintendo showed a 64DD version of Super Mario 64 to demonstrate were almost comparable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXA2pzrLlo

EDIT:

these interviews are pretty interesting. lots of things one would never guess happen behind the scenes.

i wish there was a new F-Zero game so we could get to know what kind of ideas came to them when they made the SNEs and N64 versions.

And may be the can discuss about F-Zero for Snes CD.

 

[web01]

Reading this interview makes me feel like that it was a freak accident that
Ocarina of Time turned out as great as it did.

Would go some way to explaining why they have not been able to create a better zelda game since, with Majoras Mask being the next best effort and games were they tried to outwrite copy the formula such as Twilight Princess being very poor efforts.

 

[mclem]

It must had been hard to apologize do Yamauchi in those times...

When Yamauichi (laughs), someone dies.

 

[mclem]

Miyamoto's love of country music and also western movies has been brought up in several Iwata Asks interviews. Seems to be a pretty big part of him!

Miyamoto creating The Rolling Western confirmed?

 

[midonnay]

LOL. They sure are crazy guys.

that deserves a mention in the mind blown thread :O



ps: goddamn nintendo developers look like such nerds....

contrast that with cliffyb with the chainsaw gun

 

[beril]

Reading this interview makes me feel like that it was a freak accident that Ocarina of Time turned out as great as it did.

There's a very thin line between creativity and freak accident. After reading all of the Iwata Asks, I think one of the things that makes Nintendo's development teams great is their ability and willingness to experiment and adapt their game design along the way; and of course upending teatables. A lot of the times it seems like the development of some of their best titles were complete chaos, yet they still managed to tie it together into a tight package, and all the ideas that came up halfway through made the game great.

I think a lot of companies would have just stuck with the initial design and made that first person game with sidescrolling swordfights

 

[[Nintex]]

When Yamauichi (laughs), someone dies.

I believe one of the reasons why Nintendo did so well was because Yamauchi left guys like Miyamoto and Tezuka alone to do their thing. Yamauchi's stance was pretty much: "Nintendo makes the best games" so a lengthy development cycle was just more proof that others made "trash" according to him at least.

 

[Ebenezer]

Miyamoto's involvement wasn't minimal. From this interview you get the idea that all the developers made all kinds of cool random stuff and in the end it just happened to become the best game ever. Miyamoto was the guy who kept it all together.

That's not the impression I got at all. The way it read to me is that Miyamoto was mostly hands off and his main involvement came from just being a top Nintendog. They sound like they dreaded going to him because when they do they get seemingly outlandish requests like "I want the view to be under the horse" and stuff. And then everyone laughs about it 13 years later when he's not at the table.

 

[Oblivion]

The most interesting thing that I've gathered from these interviews is that there didn't seem to be any specific vision or direction that the game was supposed to be going in. It's like they pretty much took whatever random idea they got, and just decided to keep piling it over and over. To start off development with that mindset and then piece everything together to make an amazingly cohesive experience seems fucking amazing.

 

[Oblivion]

That's not the impression I got at all. The way it read to me is that Miyamoto was mostly hands off and his main involvement came from just being a top Nintendog. They sound like they dreaded going to him because when they do they get seemingly outlandish requests like "I want the view to be under the horse" and stuff. And then everyone laughs about it 13 years later when he's not at the table.

Well, development in the beginning seemed far different than development later on.

GameSpy: My understanding is that during the last days of the creation of Ocarina of Time, Mr. Miyamoto was taken off the project.

Aonuma: It was the opposite. At the beginning of the project, his attitude was "Okay, guys, I will let you go ahead and make this game." At some point, he said, "No, no. I've got to get in here." He jumped in and took control of the direction. It was not him beginning then leaving, it was him watching and then taking over the reins.

I think maybe we were moving a bit slow for him. Obviously, Mr. Miyamoto had a large passion for Ocarina of Time. He could not hold back anymore. He jumped in and started giving direction.

GameSpy: Any idea what percentage of the game was complete when he took over?

Aonuma: Tough question. Maybe 50 percent, I guess.

 

[Refugio]

these interviews are pretty interesting. lots of things one would never guess happen behind the scenes.

i wish there was a new F-Zero game so we could get to know what kind of ideas came to them when they made the SNEs and N64 versions.

Yeah that would be cool. Hopefully they interview Osawa again when the new Kid Icarus comes out too.

Speaking of which the Metroid Database translated a 2004 interview with Osawa and other R&D1 staff about their old famicom games. Osawa is always awesome in interviews.

 

[dwu8991]

Z - Targeting in gaming is like Christopher Columbus discovering a whole new world

 

[Anasui Kishibe]

these interviews are pretty interesting. lots of things one would never guess happen behind the scenes.

i wish there was a new F-Zero game so we could get to know what kind of ideas came to them when they made the SNEs and N64 versions.

"Miyamoto: I had just took my driver's license and was pretty drunk on sake..(laughs)"

 

[flak57]

Z - Targeting in gaming is like Christopher Columbus discovering a whole new world

Yep, discovering something that was already discovered and giving it a name.

I've said this before, but Virtual On had the same mechanic in 1995, and Armored Core did it before OoT as well. There were probably others before those.

 

[Tim the Wiz]

I believe one of the reasons why Nintendo did so well was because Yamauchi left guys like Miyamoto and Tezuka alone to do their thing. Yamauchi's stance was pretty much: "Nintendo makes the best games" so a lengthy development cycle was just more proof that others made "trash" according to him at least.

:bow

The most interesting thing that I've gathered from these interviews is that there didn't seem to be any specific vision or direction that the game was supposed to be going in. It's like they pretty much took whatever random idea they got, and just decided to keep piling it over and over. To start off development with that mindset and then piece everything together to make an amazingly cohesive experience seems fucking amazing.

GameSpy: My understanding is that during the last days of the creation of Ocarina of Time, Mr. Miyamoto was taken off the project.

Aonuma: It was the opposite. At the beginning of the project, his attitude was "Okay, guys, I will let you go ahead and make this game." At some point, he said, "No, no. I've got to get in here." He jumped in and took control of the direction. It was not him beginning then leaving, it was him watching and then taking over the reins.

I think maybe we were moving a bit slow for him. Obviously, Mr. Miyamoto had a large passion for Ocarina of Time. He could not hold back anymore. He jumped in and started giving direction.

Seems like you explained the how of it yourself. But, yeah, the way EAD start the front-end of their development - someone called it bottom-up development, which would be at permeable odds with the top-down practices of most big studios these days - is certainly fascinating to consider.

 

[.la1n]

How many people would have complained about Navi if she were a cute girl?

If vanillaware's artist created the design, I would not complain one bit about Navi ever again.

 

[Londa]

If vanillaware's artist created the design, I would not complain one bit about Navi ever again.

Two boobs flying around Link. XD

 

[Gravijah]

Look!

 

[GCX]

That's not the impression I got at all. The way it read to me is that Miyamoto was mostly hands off and his main involvement came from just being a top Nintendog. They sound like they dreaded going to him because when they do they get seemingly outlandish requests like "I want the view to be under the horse" and stuff. And then everyone laughs about it 13 years later when he's not at the table.

It's important to note that OOT was something that was never done before so it's only natural that there were a lot of outlandish requests during the development, and some of them probably found their way to the game.

We only get views of these five people to OOT's development in this interview which means it's quite a narrow view. To someone like Koizumi who was in charge of the character design and animation, it's possible that his interaction with Miyamoto was limited to some crazy requests Miyamoto threw at him like "yo let's make this game 1st person so we can't see your beautiful character animation lol!".

That's not the whole picture though. We know Miyamoto was pretty much the director during the second half of the development.

 

[C.T.]

The Iwata ask about Steel Diver is mostly about Starfox and how a guy from UK helped Miyamoto to understand camera work and 3D.

Imamura: What I remember most is how impressed I was by how amazing the demo sequences programmed by Giles were! The CG back then was still undeveloped, but with his camera work it was…

Iwata: It looked cool.

Imamura: Yeah. We would just hand him some rough storyboards and say, "We want you to do something like this."

Iwata: With the tools we have today, designers adjust the cameras. But back then, camera work was part of the programmer's job.

Imamura: That's right.

Iwata: In those days, a programmer's sense for things made a difference as to the outcome.

Imamura: Yeah. When another designer and I saw the camera work for when you shoot through that passage into the final enemy's fortress, we were both like, "Wow! That's awesome!"

Miyamoto: I only became able to give instructions about how to move the camera because Giles showed me how he was doing it. I wrote out specs explaining how the Arwing (fighter jet) should face a certain way at a particular camera angle.

Thats really interesting.

 

[Throwaway123456789]

never would've guessed.

Here he is playing some bluegrass. The man knows his guitar!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaNd5IxfchI

 

[Regulus Tera]

Now this is an Iwata Asks I'm interested in.

 

[Izayoi]

How many people would have complained about Navi if she were a cute girl?

Nobody. Seems like they took that to heart for TP and SS.

 

[Hikash Winzalf]

Miyamoto-san said that just riding around on a horse wouldn't be very fun game-wise. He wanted to put in some sort of action, so he added carrots.

I lol'd.

 

[mrklaw]

The Iwata ask about Steel Diver is mostly about Starfox and how a guy from UK helped Miyamoto to understand camera work and 3D.



Thats really interesting.

Wasn't Jez San (argonaut) involved in some way?

 

[Oblivion]

Oddly enough, part 3 is up:

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/2/0

Aonuma: Yeah. I was once a designer myself. (laughs) But one day, I showed Takizawa-san a sketch I had drawn and said, "I want you to make an enemy like this." He cut me down, saying, "Aonuma-san, could you please stop drawing your own sketches?"

Iwata: Why was that?

Aonuma:I thought, "Huh? Why?" and asked if my drawing was really that bad. He said it solidified the appearance, whereas he would rather be free to draw what he wants.

Iwata:Takizawa-san wanted to start with a blank slate when he drew the bosses.

Takizawa: Sorry…but yeah.

Aonuma:But I really wanted him to follow that design! I was totally bummed. (laughs)
Iwata:

(laughs)

Takizawa: Oh, I really am sorry. I was young and insolent.

lol

 

[worldrunover]

that deserves a mention in the mind blown thread :O

LOL I never made the navi / navigation connection until this thread...

 

[Mafro]

Iwata: The Great Fairy is extremely flamboyant!

Aonuma: The first time I saw her, rather than smile, I drew back! (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

Love stuff like this.

Takizawa: Volvagia is a dragon, so it wriggles and undulates. I only gave Morita-san the dragon model parts, but he set it in motion immediately. It was mysterious how he could do that.

Iwata: You were impressed—like, "I don't get it, but wow!"

Takizawa: Yeah. I couldn't help but ask how he did it. He said it was the same as the programming for Star Fox 64. There's this scene when another fighter aircraft is tailing Arwing and…

Iwata: (jumping in) Oh, that? That's right! It's the same!

Takizawa: I should have known you'd pick up on it right away! (laughs)

Haruhana: Because he's a programmer, too! (laughs)

Takizawa: But when I heard that, I didn't quite get it. I just thought, "Wow, that's cool…" Iwata: The way the fighter moves as it flies and Volvagia's movements are exactly the same.

Morita: I could do it easily by switching in the dragon for the fighter.

Takizawa: I was like "Whoa!" and "I see!" and had a great time every day marveling over it all.

Holy shit!

 

[Easy_D]

Those work outfits remind me of the Dharma crew in Lost. I love Iwata asks

Aonuma: The Great Fairy is one character you never forget.
Iwata: The Great Fairy is extremely flamboyant!
Aonuma: The first time I saw her, rather than smile, I drew back! (laughs)

Even Nintendo agrees that the Great Fairies are scary abominations :O

Edit: The part above, that might explain why there's an animated Arwing model in the game, holy shit!

 

[CB3]

Love stuff like this.



Holy shit!

Its where the whole Arwing thing came from

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Wasn't Jez San (argonaut) involved in some way?

That was Dylan Cuthbert. Who worked as an Argonaut rep for Nintendo. Then worked as a Nintendo employee. Then worked as a SONY employee. Now works indie for both Nintendo and SONY.

 

[Why would you do that?]

New Iwata Asks? Cool! This deserves a thread (or a re-titling of this thread at least).

I really like this part:

Iwata: Morita-san, may I ask you about the fishing game?
...
Morita: Right. When I was making [the boss Morpha], I casually…
Iwata: "Casually"? (laughs) I doubt you had that kind of time!
Morita: But for some reason I did. (laughs)
Everyone: (laughs)
...
Morita: ...It was just for my own enjoyment. You know, for when I needed to take a breather.
Iwata: How long did it take before the other project members discovered this?
Morita: Hmm, not long.
Aonuma: At first, I didn't have any idea he was doing that.
Morita: Oh, that's right. Aonuma-san came over and I was like, "Uh-oh!" and immediately closed the screen.
Everyone: (laughs)
Aonuma: Well, you were supposed to be making a boss!

 

[shadyspace]

They should put out an Iwata Asks compilation book. These things are great. Throw in the right ones and you've basically got a complete history of Nintendo's hey-day up through the present.

 

[watershed]

Oddly enough, part 3 is up:

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/2/0



lol

Its part two. Looks like there will be one last part released later.

 

[Bit-Bit]

After all these years, we finally have an explanation for the arwing being in the game! Mind fucking blowned.

 

[shadyspace]

I want a MM3D if only for the the Iwata Asks that would come out of it.