Say what you will for the famously contrarian Nintendo: the company sticks to its guns, no matter what. For instance, Nintendo game director Eiji Aonuma wonders if you remember that time Nintendo showed off new Zelda footage to get everyone excited, only to reveal a game that looked nothing like what was shown. It was a misguided move that proved Zelda fans can be just as prone to capricious nerd-rage as anyone else, and Aonuma wants you to know how much the company's learned from the incident: absolutely nothing. In fact, Nintendo just might do it all over again.
“You probably remember that when we introduced the GameCube, we showed a somewhat realistic Zelda demo,” teased Aonuma in aninterview with Wired. “What we actually created was the cel-shaded Wind Waker... So when we show a graphic demo, people think, 'Oh, this is what the next Zelda will look like,' but that's not necessarily the case." Skipping over the bit where Wind Waker's artful brightness marks it for many as the dark horse of the series, the producer clarifies his reason for raising the issue: the Zelda demo shown at E3, Aonuma reveals, may well look nothing like whatever form Link's adventures take when brought to the new Nintendo console.
While the demo ably showed the Wii U's ability to render hostile Hyrulean fauna in impressive HD, not to mention the touch-screen controller's handiness as an always-on menu screen, Aonuma says he'd “like to do things that are more surprising than that” with the console's Zelda installments. If you're still all-in at this point, you know it's all done out of love, right?
Jul 5, 2011
