the-legend-of-zelda
December 15th, 2009 at 10:30pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
In the most recent edition of Iwata Asks, Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata gathers up Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago for a thorough discussion of their time with the company, the many projects they’ve worked on and their 25-year-long partnership with Shigeru Miyamoto. Let’s break it down: Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago both started at Nintendo around 1984, helping to shape everything from Balloon Fight to Super Mario Bros. These guys were part of the team that developed Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda – at the same time.
During the 10-page chat, a plethora of interesting tidbits are revealed about some of the game industry’s most influential Nintendo titles. Did you know that Zelda was initially designed as a dungeon game without an overworld? Or, how about the revelation that World 1-1 was created last, after the rest of the levels in Super Mario Bros., and designed implicitly to teach the game to non-gamers? The chat even gets into the lurid sleeping arrangements of Miyamota-san and Nakago-san while on business trips for ExciteBike (spoiler: it’s not that lurid).
Iwata Asks: 25 years with Miyamoto’s dev posse originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Iwata Asks: 25 years with Miyamoto’s dev posse
Tags: balloon-fight, excite-bike, iwata-asks, nintendo-of-japan, satoru-iwata, shigeru-miyamoto, super-mario-bros, takashi-tezuka, the-legend-of-zelda, toshihiko-nakago, Wii / Nintendo
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Iwata Asks: 25 years with Miyamoto’s dev posse
December 7th, 2009 at 01:00pm
Under DS
Nintendo is creating a deep rut for the Zelda games by turning every new development since Ocarina of Time into a compilation of overused tropes. The fact that people liked the first N64 outing, for example, is no reason to include a magical instrument in every subsequent game. The same goes for the chatty sidekick, and (especially) the tradition of forcing Link to walk around and meet everyone in town before someone finally hands him a sword. Even the train in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which seemed out of place when the game debuted, is a variant on the oft-repeated vehicle gimmick, including conveyances like Epona, the King of Red Lions, and the S.S. Linebeck.
As a result, I groaned a little when I started playing Spirit Tracks, seeing all these common Zelda elements played out for the umpteenth time. But as I played the game, I forgot all about my gripes, won completely over by its charm and by its excellently designed challenges. The great game shines through all the cruft Nintendo has thrown on top of it.
Continue reading Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Tags: the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, zelda
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
December 5th, 2009 at 06:30pm
Under DS
Eiji Aonuma has spent a lot of time developing Legend of Zelda games. In fact, he’s been in a managerial role on the franchise ever since the series’ arguably most popular installment, The Ocarina of Time. So when Mario creator (and his boss) Shigeru Miyamoto asked Aonuma and his team to develop an “Ura Zelda” (a flipped version of Ocarina of Time — what would eventually become the Master Quest), Aonuma protested. Miyamoto’s compromise, though, instead turned out to be a much greater challenge — produce a sequel to OoT within one year.
“We were supposed to make its sequel in a year … at first, we had absolutely no idea what sort of thing we were supposed to make, and we just kept expanding our plans,” Aonuma told Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata during a recent Iwata Asks column.”in the beginning, it was all trial and error … ultimately, we adopted the ‘three-day system,’ and made it so that, if you couldn’t clear the game inside of three days, the world was destroyed.” Aonuma claims this concept was what allowed Majora’s Mask to be created and released just 18 months after OoT came out. He also adds that lessons he learned from the development of Majora’s Mask — from having to remember a sequence of events in order to proceed, to “deep, compact play” — helped to shape the development of the most recent Zelda release, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
We’d like to say that Aonuma will have a break from the series after serving as producer on Spirit Tracks, but he’s the man in charge of the upcoming LoZ game for the Wii. We’re sorry, Mr. Aonuma! Keep on truckin’!
[Via Gamasutra]
Nintendo’s Aonuma: Majora’s Mask the result of Miyamoto challenge originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Nintendo’s Aonuma: Majora’s Mask the result of Miyamoto challenge
Tags: Eiji-Aonuma, legend-of-zelda, majoras-mask, ocarina-of-time, shigeru-miyamoto, spirit-tracks, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, zelda
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Nintendo’s Aonuma: Majora’s Mask the result of Miyamoto challenge
December 1st, 2009 at 04:15pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
Actually, the titular tracks from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, don’t feature very prominently in a recent batch of ads for the game from the UK. Instead, the ads task a young woman with solving some of the game’s puzzles (presumably under the stipulation that she be adorable while doing so). All three of the commercials highlight the game’s use of the unique features of the DS, namely the microphone and touch screen. We’re not sure how entertaining it will be to blow into the mic to play the pan flute for the thousandth time, but the first glance seems novel enough.
Check out the ads after the break.
[Via GoNintendo]
Continue reading Spirit Tracks ads choo up some UK airtime
Spirit Tracks ads choo up some UK airtime originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Spirit Tracks ads choo up some UK airtime
Tags: nintendo, spirit-tracks, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, Wii / Nintendo
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Spirit Tracks ads choo up some UK airtime
November 23rd, 2009 at 05:00pm
Under DS
With the game pulling into the station on December 7, we visited Nintendo of America to get one last pre-launch look at The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. The latest trailer for the game revealed the Spirit Tower, a central hub of mini-dungeons that must be cleared in order to restore the train tracks that lead to the world’s main temple dungeons. What we saw was the latter — more specifically, the second of the game’s dungeons, the Snow Temple.
This dungeon made heavy use of Link’s ability to create whirlwinds — the actual mechanic behind them is blowing into the DS microphone, but, thankfully, it doesn’t require you to lean in incredibly close to the system or blow especially hard for it to work. Once the ability is selected by tapping it on-screen, it stays active, and dragging the stylus around Link makes him rotate, a yellow line indicating which direction the whirlwind will go. This mainly came into play when we needed to cross pools of water atop floating blocks. Like fanning a leaf in Wind Waker, firing off a whirlwind in Spirit Tracks sends Link sailing in the opposite direction.
Continue reading Hands-on: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Hands-on: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Hands-on: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Tags: nintendo, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, zelda
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Hands-on: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
November 19th, 2009 at 03:29pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
Our absolute favorite thing about the Zelda series is how much it saves us on strategy guides. See, you can pretty much follow the walkthrough for Link to the Past to beat every installment in the franchise released thereafter. (Get the sword! Get the shield! Beat the Forest Temple! Get the power bracelet! Beat the Fire Temple!) However, in a recent interview with Official Nintendo Magazine, series producer Eiji Aonuma revealed that we can expect some big changes from the franchise’s next iteration — changes which he hopes will be revealed during next year’s E3 showcase.
Aonuma explained that, in order to try and keep the series fresh, he and Shigeru Miyamoto “have been trying something new in terms of the structure of the Wii version of the new Zelda game this time.” You know what that means. They’re going to put the Fire Temple before the Forest Temple. We’re kidding, of course — that’s just crazy talk.
Zelda producer teases surprises for next title at E3 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Zelda producer teases surprises for next title at E3 2010
Tags: e3-2010, Eiji-Aonuma, miyamoto, the-legend-of-zelda, Wii / Nintendo, zelda
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Zelda producer teases surprises for next title at E3 2010
November 18th, 2009 at 05:45pm
Under DS
Nintendo must’ve had some luck with its Great Lakes and Wii Sports Resort tours recently, as the company has announced the Nintendo Mall Experience tour. Starting next week through December 20, The Big N will be stopping at shopping centers across the country to get some of its Wii and DS titles in the faces of holiday shoppers.
On the Wii side, Nintendo will show off its top three games for the holiday season: Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus. For the handheld crowd, Nintendo will be pushing the new Style Savvy, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Head past the break for the full list of stops on Nintendo’s Mall Experience tour.
Continue reading Nintendo Mall Experience tour heads cross-country next week
Nintendo Mall Experience tour heads cross-country next week originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Nintendo Mall Experience tour heads cross-country next week
Tags: new-super-mario-bros, new-super-mario-bros-wii, nintendo-mall-experience, professor-layton, professor-layton-and-the-diabolical-box, spirit-tracks, style-savvy, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, wii-sports, wii-sports-resort
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Nintendo Mall Experience tour heads cross-country next week
November 6th, 2009 at 06:00am
Under Wii / Nintendo
Alyse isn’t just your usual Legend of Zelda fan — aside from the drawer full of Link-themed clothing and decorative Majora’s Mask cup set sitting in her cupboard, she’s now also the proud owner of the gigantic Lego mosaic you see above. The product of her brow’s sweat and her hand’s work, the mosaic was created for Brickcon, an annual event that celebrates adult Lego hobbyists.
Head on over to her Flickr account for shots of the impressive feat throughout its development (the above shot is of her husband, Remi, and the Lego computer case he built), something Alyse documented because she “was inspired by many of the stained glass artwork from Wind Waker.” If we had enough patience to do something like this, we probably wouldn’t have jobs on the internet.
[Via The Tanooki]
Woman creates massive Lego Zelda mosaic, takes longer to finish than most Zelda games originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Woman creates massive Lego Zelda mosaic, takes longer to finish than most Zelda games
Tags: phantom-hourglass, spirit-tracks, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-phantom-hourglass, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, the-legend-of-zelda-wind-waker, Wii / Nintendo, wind-waker
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Woman creates massive Lego Zelda mosaic, takes longer to finish than most Zelda games
November 4th, 2009 at 11:45am
Under Wii / Nintendo
Japanese purchasers of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks will receive a transparent quill stylus as a gift when they put down their yen for the game. AndriaSang reports that the stylus will be given out on launch day as an “early buyer bonus,” but there’s no need to pre-order.
If the plastic quill seems familiar, it’s because Nintendo used it as a bribe back in 2007 for registering Phantom Hourglass and filling out a survey. Spirit Tracks choo-choos into retail on December 7. We’re currently unaware of the quill being offered as a pre-order in North America but if the retail masses out there know differently, please let us know in the comments.
Japan receives special Zelda Spirit Tracks stylus with purchase originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Japan receives special Zelda Spirit Tracks stylus with purchase
Tags: japan, spirit-tracks, stylus, the-legend-of-zelda, the-legend-of-zelda-spirit-tracks, Wii / Nintendo, zelda
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Japan receives special Zelda Spirit Tracks stylus with purchase
July 21st, 2009 at 05:15pm
Under DS
If you’ve ever wondered what Link’s life would be if he were real (and a pathetic middle-aged man), you may enjoy Link, the later years (watch it after the break). If you’re a fan of uproarious laughter and entertainment, you won’t be a fan of Link, the later years. It has its moments, but Link’s pathetic (and monotone) state drags on as a nearly six-and-a-half minute bummer. Seriously, we’re so depressed about it we’re going to go polish off a whole tub of Chunky Monkey.
[Via GoNintendo]
Continue reading Link, the later (and depressing) years
Link, the later (and depressing) years originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Continue Reading Link, the later (and depressing) years
Tags: depressing, fanmade, funny, legend-of-zelda, link, link-the-later-years, the-legend-of-zelda, video
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Link, the later (and depressing) years
