Hyrule Interviews

PEOPLE: - Hidemaro Fujibayashi, age 44. Director of the Oracles, The Minish Cap, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, & Tears of the Kingdom. QUOTE: Fujibayashi: The look and feel of the game has changed with the times, [but] I don’t think the core gameplay of the series has changed at all compared to that of 30 years ago. I feel that’s because even though the puzzle-solving elements of the series changes with the times in how exactly players’ interact with it, the fun of it—the fun I experienced for the first time myself as a child—is still there in more recent Zelda titles, completely unchanged.

Fujibayashi on the core of the Zelda series, unchanged over time, 2017.

Source: GamesMaster Magazine

#Zelda
#TheLegendofZeldaSeriesQuote
#FujibayashiQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/f5c48fb4baf1...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Creator of Zelda and Mario. Producer of Nintendo EAD’s Software Development Department. QUOTE: Interviewer: When you’re exercising, is that when your game ideas bubble up? Do you have an “Aha!” moment? Miyamoto: Hmm, I’d say it's actually the opposite. I exercise to empty my mind, and forget the thoughts that I’ve been stewing over. Once I start making a game however, that’s all I can think about. I start obsessing over the finest details, things like “I set that at 8 but maybe it’s better set at 7.5”. If I don’t get these ideas down right away, I feel sick and then the ideas get frozen and stuck in my head. In short, it's a balance between concentration and disseminating those ideas. In my case, swimming is effective in facilitating that.

Miyamoto on how exercise helps him calm his game design thoughts, 1998.

Source: The Hyrule Journals

#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/1a541fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 55. Creator of Zelda & Mario. General Manager of Nintendo EAD. QUOTE: Miyamoto: There are lots of reasons for playing video games; because you want to get to the next level, or because you want to see what the next boss you have to fight looks like. I’m told all the time that these kinds of "rewards" really matter to people. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. What I’m always saying … is that it’s the process that must be fun for people if they’re going to really enjoy the game. … And there are times when game creators use well-made "rewards" as the excuse. For example, if someone invents an ending that they’re really proud of, that they just think is fantastic, then they might end up settling for a less-than-splendid journey.

Miyamoto on being told that players care about rewards, 2008.

Source: Iwata Asks

#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/b5e9f8738b76...

PEOPLE: - Eiji Aonuma, age 51. Zelda Franchise Supervisor for Hyrule Warriors. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 61. Creator of Zelda, General Manager of Nintendo EAD. - Yosuke Hayashi, age 35. Development Producer for Hyrule Warriors. QUOTE: Aonuma: At first, when Hayashi-san approached me [about Hyrule Warriors], he wanted to make this title closer to a Zelda game than a Dynasty Warriors game—that extended to having boss battles in the dungeons and certain characters in the game. However, Mr. Miyamoto came along and up-ended the tea table, saying, “No, that should not be the case. What we’re doing here is grafting Zelda onto the Dynasty Warriors experience.” It was a reversal of the original proposal from Hayashi-san, which was adding elements of Dynasty Warriors onto the Zelda franchise. It ended up being the other way around based on Miyamoto’s direction.

Aonuma on Miyamoto's overriding direction for Hyrule Warriors, 2014.

Source: Nintendo Life

#Zelda
#HyruleWarriorsQuote
#AonumaQuote, #MiyamotoQuote, #HayashiQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/2a741fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Kaori Miyachi. Coordinator for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Age of Imprisonment, and the Famicom Detective Club remakes. QUOTE: Q: How did the [Famicom Detective Club] remakes for the Switch come about? Miyachi: … An employee from MAGES pitched the idea to Nintendo with incredible passion. Even during a different meeting between our point person for external developers and MAGES., they brought up the subject by saying, “By the way, we’ve updated the remakes proposal we talked about the other day!” and “We’ve also updated the video materials. Here's what we want to create!” and so on. I heard those suggestions continued for more than a year. Seeing how serious they were, our staff started pitching their proposal and reference materials to internal teams, and that’s how it started.

Miyachi on how the Famicom Detective Club remakes began, 2024.

Source: Ask the Developer

#FamicomDetectiveClubQuote,
#MiyachiQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/781f98d5a70a...

To keep things organized I made another account where I'm going to post some of the non-Zelda scans I make. Because I collect for Zelda I end up with a lot of rarer stuff from the 80's and I'm finding out that people have been looking for it: bsky.app/profile/its-...

Nintendo’s Guiding Spirit How Shigeru Miyamoto captured the essence of play and redefined entertainment.

They did not go into games. As of 15 years ago his son was working in advertising and his daughter was studying zoology.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

He has two kids, a son and a daughter. He doesn't talk about them very much or in very specific detail. I'm not sure if their names are even publicly known. This is probably intentional, presumably to protect them from the public attention of being his kids.

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 46. Creator of Zelda, Mario, & more. Producer of Nintendo EAD’s Software Development Department. QUOTE: [Answers to a “yes” or “no” survey in Nintendo Dream] Q: “I want to be involved in game development until I die.” Miyamoto: Yes. Q: “I want my children to enter the game industry in the future.” Miyamoto: Either yes or no is fine. Q: “I would like to be the president of Nintendo at least once.” Miyamoto: I don't want to do it even if you ask me. You're not going to ask me, are you? [laughs]

Shigeru Miyamoto turns 73 today!

Miyamoto on how long he wants to be involved in game development, 1999.

Source: The Hyrule Journals ( @javedlsterritt.bsky.social )

#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/24441fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 49. Producer on Metroid Prime. QUOTE: Miyamoto: People kind of have this tendency to call [Metroid Prime] a first-person shooter because of the perspective, but really we think of Metroid as an exploration game—particularly Samus exploring really tight tunnels and passageways and whatnot. When you get into really tight places like that, the third-person camera can be difficult and that's why we went with the first-person camera.

Miyamoto on why Metroid Prime is 1st-person, 2002.

Source: IGN

#MetroidPrimeQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/5899f3beec61...

PEOPLE: - Naoki Mori. Ocarina of Time Cinema Scene Director. - Takashi Nagasako. Voice of Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: Mori: In [Ocarina of Time] there are bits of voice acting here and there, but the voice actor in charge of playing Ganondorf in the first cutscene you see really made him seem like a devil, somehow awful and evil. Afterwards I took the actor aside and asked him not to play a demon, but cool and dangerous at the same time. A voice like cheap wine.

Mori on the first take of Ganondorf's voice in Ocarina of Time, 1998.

Source: GlitterBerri's Game Translations

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote
#MoriQuote, #NagasakoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/0e093b226205...

Yeah, One Piece manga started in July 1997, DQ7 was announced in 1996 (for the N64, then shifted to PS1 in early 1997)

PEOPLE: - Eiji Aonuma, age 51. Zelda Franchise supervisor for Hyrule Warriors. QUOTE: Q: You happened to be playing a Musou game when Koei Tecmo approached you [about making Hyrule Warriors]. Did that affect how you approached the game you were playing at the time? Aonuma: At the time I was playing a Musou collaboration game called One Piece: Pirate Warrior. In this game, you are fighting a battle where there are many bases on the battlefield, and you have to figure out what order you take the bases in—and also the timing in which certain things occur. This is not something that had been in previous Zelda games, and so it was a very exciting idea for me to connect with.

Aonuma on playing a Musou crossover before Hyrule Warriors, 2014.

Source: Nintendo Life

#Zelda
#HyruleWarriorsQuote
#AonumaQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/2a741fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Hidemaro Fujibayashi, age 50. Director of Tears of the Kingdom. QUOTE: Fujibayashi: We created the sky [in Tears of the Kingdom] first. But then we thought, ”There’s not enough in terms of distance.” So then we thought, ”Maybe we can look to the ground to provide more distance.” When you’re talking about the sky, there’s just the idea of skydiving down to the surface. But if we were to, say, have a chasm, you can dive even further, and have even more fun doing that. On top of that, there’s also the idea of expanding the amount of exploration and the amount of discovery that you can have within the game. The Depths, as this place to explore and expand—not only in the sense of adventure, but also in terms of distance—really suited the game.

Fujibayashi on a reason why Tears of the Kingdom has the Depths, 2023.

Source: Polygon

#Zelda
#TearsoftheKingdomQuote
#FujibayashiQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/54f2e16d70b8...

Q: How has the process of recording changed since she started?

Q: Is she ever able to improvise or go off-script?

Q: When she has to do multiple takes, what kind of feedback do they give her?

Q: Does she ever do tandem recording with other actors present?

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 72. Producer and Director of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. - Toshihiko Nakago, age 68. Lead Programmer of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. - Takashi Tezuka, age 64. Assistant Director of Super Mario Bros., Director of The Legend of Zelda. QUOTE: Miyamoto: Though Nakago-san is a programmer, I invited him to planning meetings [for Super Mario Bros.] with us. Aside from the music, it was the three of us for the most part. We did anything and everything we could. Nakago: When working on the programming, I even brought in Miyamoto-san and the others to devise how to structure the game data. We've always been involved in all sorts of things. Miyamoto: … It was my job to present game ideas that can be conveyed to programmers, and even before Super Marlo Bros., Nakago-san would get mad at me. It felt like he was my editor or something, saying, “If you continue doing this, it’s never gonna get done!” [Laughs]

Nakago & Miyamoto on collaborating as director and programmer in the 80s, 2025.

Source: Nintendo Museum

#SuperMarioBrosQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #NakagoQuote, #TezukaQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 72. Creator of Zelda & Mario, Producer of Super Mario Galaxy. - Koji Kondo, age 64. Original composer for Zelda & Mario, and Super Mario Galaxy. QUOTE: Miyamoto: For Super Mario Galaxy, we had other team members make the music. And the music was good, but there were times where I felt it wasn’t “Mario” enough. And when Kondo-san composed the music for the observatory where Rosalina is, I felt like, “Oh, now THAT’S Mario.” No one else seemed to get it though. It makes you wonder. Kondo: At the time, you didn’t come out and say, like, “That’s bad,” or anything, Miyamoto-san, but I don’t remember getting praise. Today, though, you’re really laying it on. Miyamoto: I’m the type of person who gets better when he gets praise, but I think I haven’t given much praise. [Laughs]

Miyamoto on Super Mario Galaxy music, 2025.

Source: Nintendo Museum

#SuperMarioGalaxyQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #KondoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Ryota Matsushita. Director of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. QUOTE: Which character was the most challenging to design or write [for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity]? Matsushita: I think it’s Princess Zelda. While she also serves as the most important representation of the Zelda series as a whole, her character always has to have a sense of delicacy in all of her scenes. It was a difficult challenge for us to figure out a way to get that character to do Warriors-style action sequences.

Matsushita on the challenge of writing Princess Zelda in Age of Calamity, 2020.

Source: Polygon

#Zelda
#HyruleWarriorsAgeofCalamityQuote
#MatsushitaQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/20041fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Yosuke Hayashi, age 46. Producer for Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity, and Age of Imprisonment. QUOTE: Hayashi: Games are kind of like tools for sharing memories in that there are common experiences players have. For example, in the Legend of Zelda games, there are mechanics like "here's what you do if you find a cracked wall" or "do this when Ganondorf summons a ball of energy." These experiences are shared by everyone as a common language, and that's what makes them so appealing.

Hayashi on shared memories creating a common language, 2025.

Source: Creator's Voice

#HayashiQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/1f941fe961fd...

15: Skyward Sword Official Art Please credit sources. I'm currently working on this album. I'm adding a lot of images and once they are sorted out I will be adding sources and credits.

Images from @historyofhyrule.com's Skyward Sword gallery:
www.flickr.com/photos/histo...

PEOPLE: - Ryūji Kobayashi. Player Design Lead in Skyward Sword. - Akiko Hirono. NPC Designer in Skyward Sword. QUOTE: Hirono/Kobayashi*: [In Skyward Sword, Zelda] isn’t a princess, So the first thing we did was remove any sort of regal ornamentation from her head. Afterward, her look was much too simple... We wanted her to look like a typical village girl, but we also wanted to establish her as a heroine at the same time, so this is what we decided upon. Her outfit is a pretty sky blue, and compared to previous iterations, we went with a dress that was more red than purple. We had a director who requested Goddess Zelda be dressed “simply, and in white.” *It’s unclear who is speaking

Hirono & Kobayashi on Zelda's design in Skyward Sword, 2013.

Source: Hyrule Historia

#Zelda
#SkywardSwordQuote
#KobayashiQuote, #HironoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Producer of Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: Miyamoto: Zelda is a game series that is fun to play because of the puzzle solving elements—at least for me. I think that in this way, if you watch other people play the game or follow a strategy guide while playing you reduce the amount of “Zelda-like fun”. I think you would maximize the fun of the game by playing with a subjective feeling, almost as if you yourself were Link. Therefore, I think players will find the most satisfaction when playing [Ocarina of Time] with this mindset and saying things like “The game is fun because I'm playing it!”. I’d honestly be over the moon if players experienced our game in this way.

Miyamoto on playing unspoiled being more "Zelda-like", 1998.

Source: The Hyrule Journals

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/1a541fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 46. Producer of Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: Miyamoto: [We had] been working in the flat world of the Famicom, so we tend to think about the flat layout of the area first, but real villages are different. When I watch TV programs or actually visit villages, I often see that many of them are located on slopes. There are fields, houses, and mountains in the background. So, in [Ocarina of Time], we decided to create a village with ups and downs. The image I had in mind was terraced fields, a waterwheel, and a winding path leading down to a well at the bottom, but what actually ended up being built resembled the form of a staircase [laughs]. But I thought, “This is good too,” and the designer made it on their own, which led to an interesting misunderstanding.

Miyamoto on the "interesting misunderstanding" of Kakariko Village, 1999.

Source: The Hyrule Journals ( @javedlsterritt.bsky.social )

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/24441fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Producer of Ocarina of Time and Ocarina of Time: Master Quest. QUOTE: Miyamoto: We are planning to combine the [N64 Disk Drive] and the cartridge versions of [Ocarina of Time] so that when you enter a dungeon in the base game the Disk Drive data is read and loaded giving access to a new dungeon. Of course, the Disk Drive has not been released as of yet, so I can’t say anything else about it. I think that Zelda obviously has its roots in strong puzzle solving gameplay elements, with different mazes and items used differently in various locations which allows for lots of fun ways to play the game. If we are able to link with the Disk Drive this allows us in a sense to expand the puzzle solving possibilities within the game world.

Miyamoto on plans for the Zelda 64 Disk Drive expansion, 1998.

Source: The Hyrule Journals

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeMasterQuestQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/1a541fe961fd...

The Video Game History Expansion Pack – Pitch your story Today I’m putting my money where my mouth is and launching a new project — a book focused on game history outside of the usual North American perspectives.

So, today I'm announcing a new book project... and doing a call for papers: crpgbook.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/t...

It's an anthology of video game history outside the usual US perspective - an accessible & exciting panorama of different realities - and I'll pay 300 USD per article.

Please share :)

PEOPLE: - Manabu Takehara. Breath of the Wild Lead Architecture Artist. - Makoto Yonezu. Breath of the Wild Lead Landscape Artist. QUOTE: Takehara: Something the terrain lead told me when the Breath of the Wild team met together: … “The grass fluttering with the wind”, “The feeling of adventure as you push your way through the grass”, these experiences create presence. He thought that they would help establish the worldview that even after the calamity, “Beautiful nature remains regardless of human life”. He then asked the programmers to “Grow a lot of grass in the game!”, and the end result was a volume of moving grass far past his imagination, resulting in him crying from joy.

#Linktober 30: Wild/Untamed

Takehara on beautiful nature after the calamity, 2019.

Source: Hyrule Interviews

#Zelda
#BreathoftheWildQuote
#TakeharaQuote, #YonezuQuote

www.notion.so/7323c6d27865...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Producer of Ocarina of Time. - Hayao Miyazaki, age 57. Director of Princess Mononoke. QUOTE: Miyamoto: During development [of Ocarina of Time] some staff argued about making it a unicorn or a moose, but we ended up going with a horse. The game was certainly influenced by Mr. Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Both were roughly in development around the same time and when [I saw the film] I was surprised at the similarities. Scenes of Link firing the bow and arrow while riding Epona or the Giant Goron walking behind the mountain stirred thoughts like “Oh that’s Ashitaka!” or “That looks like the Nightwalker.” We really struggled with the similarities. However, in the end we decided that building up Hyrule as a country was enough to differentiate it.

#Linktober 29: Link & Epona
Miyamoto on unintended parallels between Ocarina and Mononoke, 1998.

Source: The Hyrule Journals

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote, #PrincessMononokeQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/1a541fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Takaya Imamura, age 55. Majora’s Mask Art Director. Designer of Majora’s Mask, the Moon, and Tingle. QUOTE: Imamura: We had to develop Majora’s Mask in just one year, so it was a very short development window. When I saw a prototype of the game, I thought it looked too similar to Ocarina of Time, so it became my task to change the look of the game over a short period.

#Linktober 28: Mask

Imamura on his task as Majora's Mask art director, 2021.

Source: IGN

#Zelda
#MajorasMaskQuote
#ImamuraQuote

www.notion.so/52576cb68c30...

PEOPLE: - Hirohito Shinoda. Lead NPC Artist for Breath of the Wild. QUOTE: Shinoda: I wanted to make the Zora [of Breath of the Wild] look really cool while still being faithful to the Zora of past titles. Rather than restricting myself to fish, I drew inspiration from dolphins and other mammals as well. Also, the concept for them in this game was to have them know Link, so they ended up being long lived. In order to give more variation to the race, I made Zora of all sorts of colors, not just one. King Dorephan was the final leader of a race that I designed. I made sure to give him a unique appearance that wouldn't overlap with the other leaders. The reason that I used a whale motif for him is purely because the king of the sea should be a whale!

#Linktober 27: Species/Race
Shinoda on how he approached designing the Zora in Breath of the Wild, 2017.

Source: Creating a Champion

#Zelda
#BreathoftheWildQuote
#ShinodaQuote

www.notion.so/13c41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Satoru Takizawa, age 46. Breath of the Wild Art Director. QUOTE: Q: When [Breath of the Wild’s] Princess Zelda was first revealed to the public, there was a lot of talk about her thick eyebrows. Takizawa: That was really surprising. I didn't expect it to become such a hot topic. The eyebrows are thicker than usual because it makes it easier to give her facial expressions. Princess Zelda has a lot of emotional expression this time around, so I think the design suits her well.

#Linktober 26: Zelda

Takizawa on the design of Zelda's eyebrows in Breath of the Wild, 2018.

Source: Hyrule Interviews

#Zelda
#BreathoftheWildQuote
#TakizawaQuote

www.notion.so/a3003f9854bc...