Email: Aonuma and Skyward Sword’s Art Direction

Meaning Aonuma could be the cause of this:

But then again, there are plenty of other enemies other than Buboklins. Look at these:

I’m comfortable with those. It seems that they are trying to balance Eastern and Western tastes.
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Personally, the art style doesn’t bother me much. It seems much more in line with the Ocarina of Time graphics than the recent games have been. It has mostly Twilight Princess proportions and with about the same amount of definition as Twilight Princess, but with more color and a bit of cel-shading (but not enough to where it looks stupidly toony like Wind Waker).
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I also want to point out how much more colorful it is than Twilight Princess. This is a good thing if you ask me. Twilight Princess was very washed out and dreary, too dreary. Ocarina of Time was a much more colorful game than Twilight Princess.

Wind Waker was colorful, but the proportions were ridiculous, there was hardly any definition in the characters; they all looked flat, and everything just looked, well, goofy. Like this:

Now let’s look at the “Heros” or “Link”s of Wind Waker in comparison with Skyward Sword:

Much better now.
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It appears that much of direction of how Zelda is made is based on the analysis Nintendo of America did when Wind Waker did not sell well in the United States. It is the analysis that ‘the art style turned away fans’.

How do we know that is the correct analysis? If Nintendo is basing so much based on that analysis, it would be well to be sure that it is correct.

I believe NOA did a half-ass analysis and blamed the ‘art style’ because of the screaming fans on the message forums at the time or a consistent reply from market testing. I think the art style was only a symptom of a larger problem.

The larger problem was that Wind Waker was not a good game. The first thing you do in the game is have your sword taken away to do a ‘stealth mission’. Is that what Zelda is? There were some broken mechanics such as the second dungeon when you use a leaf to blow wind at a windmill. It never worked too consistently, and I know some people who just quit the game right there. There was the Triforce treasure hunt. Instead of being consistently exciting and fun, the game constantly had things that hit the game to a wall.

Was it the art style or could it also be the content of the game itself? We are seeing from Aonuma’s earlier games that he made games with kids on an island, going against pirates, and using themes that would appear in Wind Waker.

And if the issue was just art style, why didn’t Wind Waker sell gangbusters in Japan? We’ve had Zeldas since then. Why is Spirit Tracks in the bargain bin in Japan? Clearly, the issue is beyond the art style.

I think what is really going on is that Zelda is being directed by people who do not know what the Zelda experience is. Evidence for this is in the Iwata Asks for Twilight Princess where everyone is asked what Zelda is and they keep getting different responses. No one knows what Zelda is! Yet, they will make Zelda anyway! Zelda ends up being designed around cliches. For example, the experience of ‘light four torches to open door’ ends up causing all dungeons to be designed as puzzles, as if every dungeon room is lighting four torches to open door. Aonuma’s comments saying he did not like the early Zeldas is illuminating because it reveals Zelda has lately been directed by someone who hates the Zelda experience and wishes to replace it with something else. “I hate attacking Octorocks. Let us instead make the game around NPCs and solving puzzles for them!”

Octorocks are to Hyrule as goombas are to the Mushroom Kingdom. It never gets old whacking at them with a sword just as it never gets old to jump on a goomba.

Just looking at the enemies page for the original Zelda brings back memories. But they are not memories of nostalgia. They are memories of when Hyrule was a dangerous world. What was so much fun about Zelda was gearing up with better armor, sword, hearts, and items and be able to easily travel the dangerous parts of Hyrule. In an interview in the eighties on TV, Miyamoto pointed to the feeling of growth. “I felt weak doing this. But now, I feel strong!” That is what he wanted people playing Link to say.

I never feel strong playing modern Zelda. But how can you feel strong if you never feel weak? And you can’t feel weak if Hyrule is never dangerous or if you never die.

The real reason why analysts never thought the NES would succeed had little to do with Atari’s implosion. Atari’s implosion scared the retailers. No, the real reason the analysts thought the NES could not possibly succeed in the United States (or anywhere else) was because it was Japanese. It didn’t matter if the Famicom was popular in Japan. That was there. American kids were different!

The success of the NES proved that Japanese and American audiences were no different. There were slight differences such as American kids preferring games with shooting as opposed to games with more adventuring. But there was no difference at all. Even prior to the Wii, we were told that Nintendo could never sell in Europe or compete in North America due to all the western games. A western audience will choose western games over a Japanese one. Yet, the Wii’s success was strongest in America than anywhere else.

This entire notion of ‘clash of cultures’ concerning the art style I believe is bunk. Its disappointing because it feels like Nintendo is going backwards in its analysis. There is absolutely no clash of cultures. It wasn’t the ‘art style’ but the overall direction of the game and its content. I think the issue is more of the content, not the art style in itself. Another Nintendo game had a similar outcry from Westerners: Yoshi’s Island. It wasn’t so much the art style that bothered people but the substance of the game. The game revolved around babies and crying. And collecting flowers. It’s not the same as battling a Koopa Kid in an Air Ship.

Decades ago, when we didn’t like a game we would just program our own. This is where modding originally began because impatient gamers would rewrite a game to suit their needs. Prior to the Wii, I was involved in projects because it felt like no one was making the right games anymore. I’d much prefer someone else do it since they would have more money, have the other skills on board (like an in-house musician). I’m looking back at getting back in (since I’m not playing games anymore, I could use that time to actually make games and perhaps create some cashflow. It would be productive and fun).

I’ve been keeping an eye on making an actual Zelda-like game. This would be more like LoZ 1. No crappy puzzles. Dangerous enemies. Exciting combat. Arcade/RPG. Actually making such a game wouldn’t be too difficult since the overhead mode is easy to replicate. Biggest challenges would probably be programming the AI in the enemies and the weapons.

I’m not content to just sit on a blog and pour out words. If Nintendo is not interested in this market, I’ll go and take it for myself.