Zelda | Echoes of Wisdom Devs on Lessons Learned from Link’s Awakening

With The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom releasing later this week, the upcoming title, which casts Zelda as its protagonist, instead of Link, is the latest game to to be covered as part of Nintendo’s “Ask the Developer” interview series. Across multiple chapters, many questions were asked of Series Producer, Eiji Aonuma, and Directors, Tomomi Sano, and Satoshi Terada.

When talking about their involvement with Echoes of Wisdom, Aonuma, Sano and Terada each had something to say regarding elements that appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and how they were able to expand upon previous ideas with Echoes of Wisdom:

Echoes of Wisdom Devs on Lessons Learned from Link’s Awakening:

Satoshi Terada: After we finished developing the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, we really liked its world, so we talked with Nintendo about creating the “edit dungeon” concept, which we were prototyping back then, in a similar vein. Since the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening had areas with both top-down and side views, naturally everyone at Grezzo assumed from the start that we would create both top-down and side views in this title.

However, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is set on an island with a smaller map size and was a remake, so it was limited in terms of what could be added during development. So for this new game, we created the prototype with the idea of expanding on what we all wanted to do.

Eiji Aonuma: When you encounter a Thwomp in a side-scrolling game, it looks like a thin rectangle, as you can see only the front of it, but when you look at it from a different angle, it looks like a giant rock that makes a loud crash sound when it falls. Its presence as an object is completely altered. I thought that the contrast between flat and three-dimensional perspectives would add variety to the expressions in this game. For that reason, there are more side-view scenes in this game than in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.

Tomomi Sano: Even if you use the exact same function, changing your perspective can help you better understand how to use it. A question like, “How high does this object go up and down?” is easier to check with the side view, and “How big is this object?” has a clearer answer with the top-down view.

As we progressed through development, we felt that the changes in perspective made it twice as satisfying.

For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 13, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom – Chapter 1:

Ask the Developer | The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Participating Developers)

• Eiji Aonuma | Senior Officer, Entertainment Planning & Development Division (and Series Producer)
• Tomomi Sano | Entertainment Planning & Development Division, Production Group No.3 (and Director)
• Satoshi Terada | Director, Grezzo