Aonuma on his favorite part of making Zelda, bringing in new gamers, surprising fans, surpassing Ocarina

A portion of an NZGamer interview with Eiji Aonuma…

NZG: What do you love most about the Zelda universe, and the world that has been created?

Aonuma San: I think it kind of goes back to one of the key elements of the Legend of Zelds franchise, and that is the process by which the player finds hidden objects or hidden elements within the game world. So for us, and myself personally, one of the things that’s most fun is [asking] “How do I hide those elements, how do we go about leading the character to play where they [will] discover those elements?” We have a target emotion we are looking for, a target feeling we want to impart to the user, so in order to impart that particular emotion. It’s kind of that connection, and how it all fits together, that’s my favourite part of making games in the Zelda universe.

NZG: The Zelda set, the fans of the series, are obviously die-hards in many respects. They live and breathe the universe. How has Skyward Sword been developed, if at all, to try and attract new gamers?

Aonuma San: Obviously, we are always keeping new users in mind, but we are also very appreciative of the fans who continue to play the Legend of Zelda series. We are always thinking of how we can evolve the franchise, both to please our long time fans, and also create games that new users will enjoy as well, so we look at the feedback we receive and try to take that influence into what we do. That doesn’t mean we sit there and think “What can we do in this game to attract new users?” but what we are thinking is “How can we make this game accessible? How can we make this game enjoyable for anyone who wants to play it?” I think by looking at it that way, we sort of naturally evolve the series, and find that the games naturally appeal to those who might not have played them in the past.

NZG: Can we just go back to a question I asked earlier about Skyward Sword’s greatest achievement - I got the one-to-one motion of the sword; great. Item selection; great, no subscreen. It just seems to me that for a game that’s been so anticipated and that people are so excited about… would you go further than that? Is there something a whole lot bigger? What have you tried to achieve, and have you got there?

Aonuma San: One of the things we look at when we’re creating a Legend of Zelda game, and with any of our games, is “What’s unique? What are we going to put into the game that a user finds unique? How are we going to surprise them?” That’s our goal. We want to bring them a new experience and get that sort of “A-ha! Wow!” moment. And that starts really with gameplay, and that stars with how we implement the item selection screen, or how we do the controls. It starts with gameplay. It’s not just saying, “I think the users will find this new or exciting, so I’m gonna dump it in here”. It has to fit within the world, and it has to match up with the gameplay. So, for us, it always starts with that foundation. And here that foundation is the gameplay. So that has to be really solid first before we can go and add all of these other elements that we want to use to impart that emotional impact to the users. And that’s a lot of fun for us, getting that foundation all polished up. And for us right now, that’s where we’re at with this project, so now it’s just a matter of going back and really adding all of those surprises and unique elements that layer on top of the solid foundation that we’ve built.

NZG: Since Ocarina was such a runaway success do you now feel that you’re chasing something? If that’s the case, do you think you’ll ever be able to get there?

Aonuma San: Of course we’re always trying to do is surpass it, but what we’re really trying to surpass are memories. And that’s just so hard to do. If you have something that when you first played it… or if you received a gift, or had something that made you happy, and then later on in your life you received another gift that made you happy, that doesn’t really make you go, “I’m happy now, I guess I really wasn’t that happy then…” So, while we’re always trying to surpass it, it’s something that’s really hard to do.