Hyrule Interviews

A database of interviews with the #Zelda team. Our goal is to preserve that legacy, share it here, and build a safe community for our followers! www.hyruleinterviews.com

[hyruleinterviews]

Miyamoto on discovering a cave, 1993.

Source: Game Over: Press Start to Continue

https://www.notion.so/1f70063644414849a9d47cbabd26cbcb

[hyruleinterviews]

Takayama on the true menace in Hyrule, 2024.

Source: Game Developers Conference (GDC)

PEOPLE:

Takahiro Takayama. Physics Programming Lead on Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom.

QUOTE: Takayama: When I first saw the prototype [for Tears of the Kingdom], I was excited that this was going to be a great game. But I also knew this was going to be very, very difficult. I said to myself, "Are we really doing this? Development is going to be chaos." The more I thought, the more I worried. But in life, it's sometimes important to have the courage to push forward. As expected, the world fells apart.

[He shows footage of ludicrous physics bugs]

At this rate, the world will destroy itself before Ganon comes back. And so began our battle against the true menace of Hyrule.

[zelda-wiki]

Support Dark Horse Workers United!

Hey everyone, Dark Horse, the people who publish a ton of media including the upcoming Secrets of the Zonai (the Tears of the Kingdom lore/artbook), are unionizing and they have asked for signatures to show support to help convince the CEO to acknowledge their union by tomorrow (June 3, 2026).

Please take some time to sign their petition and share the link. They currently need 600 more signatures to meet their goal.

[hyruleinterviews]

Imamura on Captain Falcon's surprising origins, 2017.

Source: Nintendo Website

https://www.hyruleinterviews.com/SNES-Classic-Edition-Dev-Interview-F-Zero-012a2c6ccb354aa09487837ae2865f91?source=copy_link

PEOPLE:

Takaya Imamura, age 51. Art Director of Majora’s Mask, artist for A Link to the Past and F-Zero.

Takao Shimizu, age 52. Director of BS The Legend of Zelda and F-Zero.

QUOTE: Q You didn't think about [F-Zero] characters at all during development?

Imamura: No. Captain Falcon was originally the mascot character for Super NES.

Q: What?!

Shimizu: That statement is a bit shocking, isn't it? [laughs]

Imamura: Even most people at Nintendo don't know that. When development of F-ZERO was almost complete, I was doing a bunch of illustrations and someone expressed a desire to make a mascot character for Super NES, with a name like Captain Something. … So I started thinking about a character who would match the colors of the Super Famicom controller, with some red and blue and yellow.

Q: How did [he] become Captain Falcon of F-Zero?

Imamura: I don't really remember.

[hyruleinterviews]

Itou, Itoi, & Miyamoto on the condescension of society’s gaming fears, 1989.

Source: Shmuplations

https://shmuplations.com/itoimiyamoto/

PEOPLE:

Seikou Itou. Author of No Life King.

Shigesato Itoi, age 40. Creator of Earthbound. Later: Editor of the Ishinomori A Link to the Past manga.

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 36. Creator of Zelda and Mario. Producer of Nintendo EAD’s Software Development Department.

QUOTE: Itou: I mean, when you're actually playing a game, there's no way you aren't conscious of the fact that you are the one playing it. The idea that you could somehow "leap beyond" the fact that it's a game… well, that's just impossible.

Itoi: If we're talking about immersive tricks, movies are actually far more sophisticated at doing that.

Itou: Exactly. It's so bizarre. Society buys into this image of kids "getting sucked into the tube"… and people actually believe that.

Miyamoto: We call the games we make a simulated experience. And while we know players get immersed in that simulation, they're still aware it's a game. To say they confuse it with reality is incredibly condescending.

[hyruleinterviews]

Miyamoto on whether Mario is a real doctor, 2015.

Source: Game Informer

https://www.hyruleinterviews.com/Mario-s-Creators-Answer-Burning-Questions-About-The-Series-f7e40d3280344b829fc8d3c9c8b36180?source=copy_link

PEOPLE:

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 62. Creator of Zelda & Mario.

QUOTE: Q: Mario has been a boxing referee, a doctor, an Olympian, and a carpenter. Are all these official careers in Mario lore? If he has a medical degree, why does he continue his plumbing business?

Miyamoto: There's really only one rule in terms of the things that Mario does. Generally, it's that he's more on the blue-collar side. He's hard-working, and certainly much more physical in nature. So, I think that a doctor is sort of an unexpected and perhaps unbelievable role for Mario. Perhaps the Dr. Mario you're thinking of was maybe, in some way, not necessarily legitimate.

[hyruleinterviews]

Miyamoto on the magnanimity of game developers, 1998.

Source: Shmuplations

https://shmuplations.com/miyamotodesign/

PEOPLE:

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 45. Creator of Zelda, Mario, & more.

QUOTE: Miyamoto: The original “virtual reality” is the make-believe worlds and games that children create. And those games are played with very lenient rules; as games created by humans, they’re steeped in that spirit of human kindness.

But with computers, you have games that are overseen by a judge capable of strict accuracy. However, while that precision does allow us to do new interesting things … it’s possible for the judge to be too clinical, too severe. It’s now the magnanimity of the game developers themselves which will determine whether the games we all play are generous and lenient or clinical and severe.

[hyruleinterviews]

Hino & Tezuka on the clay figures for Pikmin 2 character art, 2004.

Source: IGN

https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/08/25/pikmin-2-interview

PEOPLE:

Shigefumi Hino, age 41. Link’s Awakening character designer. Director of Pikmin 2.

Takashi Tezuka, age 43. Co-creator of the Zelda series. Producer of Pikmin 2.

Wataru Yamaguchi. Ocarina of Time and Pikmin 2 illustrator.

QUOTE: Q: Much of the character art for [Pikmin 2] is clay sculptures. Did you actually work in clay to create the characters?

Hino: Actually, all of those clay-looking models you see in the artwork were in fact sculpted in clay. We took those clay sculptures, took photos and scanned them to make digital versions of them and then combined the different individual clay sculptures into essentially collages, which became the final pieces of art.

Tezuka: One of the members of our illustration team, a fellow by the name of Yamaguchi, he actually was very passionate about doing this and worked very hard on creating the clay models and putting together the illustrations.

[hyruleinterviews]

Miyamoto & Tezuka on who should play Link in a theoretical Zelda movie, 2015.

Source: MTV

Source

PEOPLE:

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 62. Co-creator of the Zelda series.

Takashi Tezuka, age 54. Co-creator of the Zelda series. Original character designer for Link.

QUOTE: Q: If you were making a live-action Zelda movie, who would you want to play Link?

Miyamoto: With Japanese TV drama and film they always use the same actors, so I actually think we should have someone completely new. [Turns to Tezuka] You know more about pop culture than me.

Tezuka: I can’t think of any! [laughs] … This is just personally, it would be very fun and awesome if Link was played by a female actress, a boyish female actress.

Miyamoto: This is something I never imagined because Link is very different from how a Japanese person looks. At the Japanese Expo I attended, there were so many people in cosplay who looked very good. They would be good!

[hyruleinterviews]

Mouri on making mysteries and secrets for the time we live in, 2023.

Source: The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/sep/01/super-mario-bros-wonder-nintendo-recaptures-marios-old-magic

PEOPLE:

Shiro Mouri. Engineer or Engineering Lead for Four Swords Adventures, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and A Link Between Worlds. Director of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

QUOTE: Mouri: I’ve been creating side-scrolling Mario games for many years now, but the goal this time was to create a 2D Mario that was fitting for this day and age—with mysteries and secrets for the time that we live in.

The first Super Mario game felt full of surprises: Mario getting taller if you eat a mushroom, or discovering that you could go inside the pipes and be transported underground. As time went on, these ideas became normalized. We got used to them. So the development team took this on as a challenge … Until now I think we’ve been cleverly reusing our surprises, but we didn’t want to depend on that this time.

[hyruleinterviews]

Itoi, Miyamoto, and Itou on the "caricature" of realism, 1989.

Source: Shmuplations

https://shmuplations.com/itoimiyamoto/

PEOPLE:

Shigesato Itoi, age 40. Creator of Earthbound Zero (Mother). Later: editor of the Ishinomori A Link to the Past manga.

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 36. Creator of Zelda & Mario. Producer of Nintendo EAD’s Software Development Department.

Seikou Itou. Author of the novel No Life King.

QUOTE: Itoi: Graphics becoming realistic [is], when you think about it, a ridiculous thing. If we go down that path it will eventually lead to caricature. A self-imposed bondage.

Miyamoto: … Rather than going for realism, you want changes like stereo sound. People aren't pining after perfection anymore. I totally agree.

Itou: It's about how weird you can get. Realistic sounds are just boring, you know?

Itoi: On CD-ROM, the games use actual human voices, but it's really lame.

Itou: It ruins the immersion. You lose the ability to project yourself into the character because you're forced to hear this other distinct voice.

Itoi: Imagine if the Flying Men's lines in MOTHER were read by a human voice… wouldn't that be awful?

[hyruleinterviews]

Kaneko her design for Impa in Skyward Sword, 2013.

Source: Hyrule Historia

https://www.hyruleinterviews.com/Hyrule-Historia-Skyward-Sword-Notes-29a41fe961fd80528349d6a43def6852

PEOPLE:

Yuki Kaneko. NPC Designer on Skyward Sword.

QUOTE: Kaneko: For young Impa [in Skyward Sword] we referenced Impa and Sheik from Ocarina of Time. We also gave her an androgynous look, like a male role in an opera.

The aging Impa’s costume also follows the passage of time, her entire body is dressed to reflect that. Her pendulum braid measures time, ticking away the seconds, and the entire triangular robe she wears becomes a sundial, with her age being measured by the braids in her hair.

[hyruleinterviews]

Sugiyama on Zelda 2’s origins and how it is “like a spinoff”, 2016.

Source: Nintendo Everything

http://nintendoeverything.com/zelda-ii-the-adventure-of-link-director-on-how-development-started-title-difficulty-and-more

PEOPLE:

Tadashi Sugiyama, age 57. Zelda II: Adventure of Link director.

QUOTE: Sugiyama: [Adventure of Link] is rooted in actions like jump strikes, downward strikes, and high and low shield defense moves. Types of moves that weren’t possible in the first Zelda game. Rather than being a continuation of the series, it started as a new sword and shield type of action game.

We were experimenting while producing the game so we didn’t really have the first game’s systems in mind while developing it. As for it being unique within the series, we were searching for new ways to play so you could say it’s like a spin-off. At the end of development we decided on a story and that Link would be 16 years old then attached [Zelda] and released it as the second game in the series.

[hyruleinterviews]

Tezuka & Nakago on the happy accident that led to the 2nd Quest in Zelda 1, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/ds/zelda/1/5/

PEOPLE:

Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Co-Director of The Legend of Zelda (1986).

Toshihiko Nakago, age 52. Programmer for The Legend of Zelda (1986).

Satoru Iwata, age 49. 4th President of Nintendo.

QUOTE: Tezuka: Basically, we were going to make lots of dungeons using one square per room, and lay them out like a jigsaw puzzle.

Nakago: Right. Tezuka-san said, “I did it!” and brought this to me. I created the data exactly in line with it, but then Tezuka-san made a mistake and only used half of the data. I said, “Tezuka-san, there’s only half here. Where did the other half go?” and he was like, “What?! Oops, I messed up…” But Miyamoto-san said it was fine just like that. So, using the half of the memory that was left over, we decided to create the Second Quest.

Iwata: Huh? Just wait a second. If Tezuka-san hadn’t messed up, there’d have been no Second Quest?

Nakago: Yes, that’s right.

[hyruleinterviews]

Mouri on the origin of the stage-transforming idea for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, 2023.

Source: Ask the Developer

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-11-super-mario-bros-wonder-part-1/

PEOPLE:

Shiro Mouri. Sub-Director of A Link Between Worlds, Director of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Takashi Tezuka, age 62. Director of The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, & Link’s Awakening. Producer of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

QUOTE: Mouri: When I was playing Super Mario Bros. on the NES, I was amazed that you could warp to different places. You could go underground by entering a pipe or go up to the sky by climbing up vines that appear when you hit a block. So I wanted to utilize this idea to create a game with new wonders.

Q: What was Tezuka-san's reaction to that idea?

Mouri: Tezuka-san said, “Warping somewhere else would be no different from previous games. Can't we make it so that the course itself transforms without players having to warp?” I was like, “No, no, how is that even possible?” [Laughs]

[hyruleinterviews]

Miyamoto, Iwata, & Itoi on lunch hangouts, 2011.

Source: Iwata Asks

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/wii/zelda-skyward-sword/7/0

PEOPLE:

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 58. Producer and co-director of the first Zelda and Super Mario games.

Satoru Iwata, age 51. President of Nintendo.

Shigesato Itoi, age 62. Creator of Earthbound.

Takashi Tezuka, age 50. Co-director of the first Zelda and Super Mario games.

Toshihiko Nakago, age 54. Programmer for the first Zelda and Super Mario games.

QUOTE: Miyamoto: You stock up a lot of topics for "Iwata Asks" at lunchtime, right?

Iwata: Yeah. Miyamoto-san has lunch with the same people almost every day—Takashi Tezuka-san and Toshihiko Nakago-san. It's been that way for quite a while.

Itoi: Longer than our wives.

Iwata: Yes, that's how long we've been eating together! [laughs]

Miyamoto: It's true! [laughs]

Iwata: About once a week, I join them and listen in. If I think something sounds interesting, I remember it and use it in "Iwata Asks.”

[hyruleinterviews]

Tezuka on weapon combos in A Link to the Past, 2017.

Source: Retro Gamer Magazine

https://www.hyruleinterviews.com/Retro-Gamer-165-Hyrule-s-Heroes-80c7fe972be24cc09754fac73329c642

PEOPLE:

Takashi Tezuka, age 56. Director of The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening.

Shigeru Miyamoto, age 64. Producer of The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening.

QUOTE: Tezuka: At the start of development [of A Link to the Past], we wanted players to be able to freely choose which weapons to hold, not just the sword and shield. We also thought about having these weapons combine, say for example, having the Bow & Arrows set to the A button and a Bomb to the B button so that when you use them together, Link would shoot an arrow with a bomb attached.

In the end we didn’t use this in A Link to the Past, as Shigeru Miyamoto requested that Link always have the sword equipped.