New Zelda: US Takes Priority

In an article cropping up on Wired over the weekend, Zelda creative lead Eiji Aonuma makes some rather surprising comments as to the thinking behind the upcoming Twilight Princess, currently underway for Nintendo’s GameCube.

"Making videogames is a business and so you have to strategically consider what markets you're going to appeal to. With Twilight Princess, we had meetings early on with the North American localisation team to discuss things like character design, particularly with Link. We're focusing heavily on the American market, and hope it will appeal strongly there,” a shock to us to say the least.

You see, it might come as something of a surprise to Nintendo decision-makers to learn that much of the firm’s appeal in the American home market over the last two decades or so is powered by the very Japanese-ness of its product range.

Aonuma-san went on to discuss more general elements of the Zelda design process. “When you shift to realistic graphics, you can't fool the player any more. It no longer makes sense to have the player swing a sword with their left hand, killing an enemy that's on his right. We're definitely seeing how hard it is to work with realistic graphics. If I'm showing something realistically, then I have to show the results in a realistic manner as well. One result of this is that hand-to-hand combat has had to be slowed, as more detail has to be incorporated into animations to make the actions seem suitably realistic. When Link gets off the horse and back down on to the ground, the action is going to be a bit slower," Aonuma-san explains. "And the reason for that, again, is that with realistic graphics you have to express the world realistically as well. You have to be able to feel the weight of Link's sword as he swings it."

Full coverage of all things Twilight Princess right here, as it breaks, and in the meantime, check out our shakey-cam videos from the first ever unrestricted media access to the game right here.