The Making of Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past - Super Nes

in a small town near Kyoto a young Shigeru Miyamoto went exploring the countryside as he would often do on one day he discovered a small opening of a cave the boy returned to it several times before he worked up the courage to in lugging a homemade lantern he went deep inside until it came to a small hole that led to another cave breathing deeply his heart pounding he climbed through Shigeru Miyamoto never forgot the exhilaration he felt at this discovery many years later in his 20s Miyamoto had his first go at designing a video game it turned out he had a true knack for this upcoming entertainment form infusing it with fresh new ideas exploration was a recurring theme in his work rewarding players to sometimes literally venture beyond the boundaries of the game screen during the NES era Nintendo was split up in four divisions R&D 1 created hits like Metroid as well as the Gameboy hardware R&D 2 was responsible for the NES hardware itself while R&D 3's biggest contributions were special chips that pushed the NES forward Miyamoto's division named R&D 4 was solely focused on creating games for the NES it was a small team but their impact was huge producing hits like Super Mario Brothers and the Legend of Zelda games that set standards for the platform an action-adventure genre as a creative captain Miyamoto overlooked all games from his division but the level of involvement varied between projects his precious time was spread among numerous productions and even more importantly his wife and two newborn children for Zelda 2 the day-to-day running was in the capable hands of different talent this time around they stirred the franchise into a new direction taking hints from 2d action games as well as RPGs even before the release of Zelda 2 Miyamoto already had plans for the third game in the series he knew he wanted to return to the top-down perspective but also envisioned a party based system despite the immense popularity of turn-based RPGs... it would still remain true to its action-based roots Miyamoto had great respect for the masterminds of the RPG genre but the limited control of your characters actions never matched with his philosophy on game design however his ideas for Zelda 3 were put aside and priority went to creating the highly anticipated Super Mario Brothers 3 development of this ambitious Mario title took over two years with the game hitting store shelves late 1988 at that point R&D 4 stoped development for the NES and switched their efforts to Nintendo's upcoming 16-bit hardware the division was reorganized and renamed to Nintendo Entertainment analysis and development EAD for short Miyamoto led the software development side while R&D 2 veteran Takao Sawano headed the technology development department of EAD creating games for the new generation required a greater work force so fresh new talent was hired they were tasked with creating a stellar launch lineup which would include a brand new super mario and legend of zelda conceptualizing the new Zelda sequel or to be more precise prequel started as early as 1989 this was no easy task as gamers were not only expecting more advanced audio and visuals but also much larger and varied worlds with new and fresh game challenges one of the fresh new ideas was the concept of parallel worlds events in one world would have consequences for the other the initial plan involved three worlds but proved to be unworkable at the time so it was stripped down to 2 the first year ofthe project was mainly spent on doing all sorts of tests by a small team to see how the new 16-bit Hardware could affect gameplay this allowed them to freely experiment without wasting the precious time of a big development force one of the biggest challenges was to make link control more smoothly and dynamically compared to his first outing adding diagonal movement was a step in the right direction but it was not until the seemingly simple 90-degrees sword slash was added that it really started to feel far less stiff and methodical another new mechanic the team experimented with were freely swappable items the player was allowed to select the two items or weapons of their liking the combinations would lead to special abilities for example the bomb and bow combined would allow the player to shoot exploding arrows the last idea didn't make it into the game as Miyamoto wanted the sword to be a mandatory weapon but to prove that a neat idea rarely goes to waste the whimsical yet awesome Link's Awakening for the game boy fully incorporated the item swap mechanic as 1990 began the boundaries of the game started to take shape links new adventure would span across no less than 11 dungeons each with their own unique quirks and challenges many would use the new multi-tiered mechanic of the game with a massive workload still ahead launching the Super NES with two flagship titles would prove to be unrealistic Super Mario was considered to be the more important franchise by Nintendo and was therefore given priority over Zelda meanwhile the small team still continued mapping out dungeons and the overworld while also finishing up Super Mario World it was actually during brainstorm meetings for Mario that ideas would sometimes pop up for Zelda in November of 1990 Nintendo's new machine hit store shelves in Japan and players could enjoy the new game Super Mario World two relatively smaller Nintendo projects that demonstrated the new hardware also managed to be ready for launch f-zero and pilot wings both produced by Miyamoto's division with these three launch games out of the way zelda 3 finally entered production staff from f-zero and mario world were put on the project to turn the ambitious game plan into code and pixel art to help streamline production Takashi Tezuka was brought on board he came fresh from directing Super Mario World and already had a long working relationship with Miyamoto going back to the original Zelda and Mario he designed some of the most iconic pixel art but also worked hand-in-hand with Miyamoto to create maps and levels of these 8-bit games For Zelda 3 Takashi Tezuka took up the role of director and talked through his ideas with the staff while also conducting Miyamoto who continued to share his own ideas there was still plenty of room for individual team members to suggest their ideas and make a difference the games by the two men usually revolve around gameplay experiences that evoke a certain feeling the stories have always been supplemental to the actual gameplay But with the growing hardware capabilities there became a greater need for a deeper storyline and more dialogue in the Zelda series the director of Super Mario Brothers 2 Kensuke Tanabe was the one who wrote the script and fleshed out the event structure and story ideas one of the first scenes he envisioned illustrated the awakening of the hero inside Link when he pulls the legendary master sword out of the stone tablet it would prove to be an important foundation for the core structure of the game when we first meet link he's just an ordinary boy thrown into a dire situation the first act is used to make both the player and Link grow by overcoming the challenges of the three introductory dungeons This greatly builds up the suspense to the moment where link grasps the Master Sword and points it towards the sky this important event pushed the real introduction of the dark world to the second act it was a clever design choice considering players could first get accustomed to the light world and new gameplay before discovering a whole new hidden realm to explore the newly recruited Yoshiaki Koizumi wrote the elaborate backstory of this once golden land for the game's manual a lot of care was put into making Hyrule a place the player would love to wander around in and explore thanks to the strong art direction all visuals share the same unique style and make them stand out among other Super NES games not to mention links hair color While Tezuka created the iconic pixel art himself in the original game this time around 4 specialized artists were put up to the task two of them were dedicated to the creation of the background artwork and the other two would be responsible for all enemy character and object designs the graphical hardware tricks of the new console were only used appropriately mode 7 was utilized for the interactive overworld map the memorable atmospheric effects all use the new transparency feature of the super nes to give the impression of semi-transparency... the video chip applied operations to add subtract or average color values of two entire layers for example adding two colors values together makes the result brighter while subtraction makes it darker the super nes also had a second video chip which could perform special effects like masking and mosaic effects both of which were used in the new zelda although the game was put on a relatively large 8 megabit ROM much effort had to be put into optimizing the data for links huge adventure tiles on the Super NES could use 16 colors from 1 of 8 palettes the developers chose to limit the amount of colors for some artwork to allow for more effective data compression the dark world was also implemented and stored in a very efficient way for starters a simple palette swap already laid the foundation of this hidden realm tiles that needed to be changed were simply swapped and loaded inside the same memory space this allowed them to recycle roughly 90% of the layout data from the light world and store only the real changes on the cartridge programming was handled by the system's research and development team A once subsidiary company led by the lead programmer of the original Super Mario Brothers They handled the bulk of the programming for all Zelda games up until that point Yasunari Soejima became the main programmer assisted by a group of no less than eight team members each carried out specific tasks for example implementing enemy movements and AI the Knights in particular were made smarter this time around they could break their patrol routine after hearing noises and investigate the area a programmer outside the SRD team was responsible for the 3d spinning Triforce after finishing up f-zero he started experimenting with polygons on the SNES which ultimately resulted in the icon opening the music and sound effects were in the capable hands of koji kondo who had been responsible for the original overworld theme years earlier the sample based audio chip inside the Super NES proved to be a challenge for the composer at first but he already got the basics down while composing for super mario world creating samples for the console was an art in and of itself the composer would record a very short base sample from a source like a synthesizer for each instrument and converted to SNES compatible data the sound CPU of the SNES feeds this base sample to the DSP which alters it to create tonal variants which then play a melody koji kondo had to go back and forth often to check and fine-tune his samples one of the biggest bottlenecks those days was the limited audio ram and cartridge space recordings were heavily down sampled and sometimes even sped up to make them as compact as possible But the sound chips also had some really powerful features up their sleeves true stereo panning for example allowed the player to pinpoint the location of rats in the sewers while reverb helped to give caves their enclosed atmosphere this echo effect used up much more memory in the RAM so composers had to be careful not to overuse it koji kondo implemented a bunch of neat tricks Like continuing to play the rain sound effect in the castle hall to add an immersive tone this high level of attention to detail rippled throughout the entire production every aspect was well thought out down to the way the player interacts with levers and switches link grabs the lever with a tap of a button but to pull it the player also has to press the opposite direction on the d-pad this simple change to the control scheme effectively conveyed the feeling of pulling an object giving the player a satisfying feeling was one of the core principles of the project making players feel smart after solving a difficult puzzle.. or powerful after obtaining a new weapon striking the perfect difficulty balance was no easy task testers spent hundreds of hours playing various iterations of the game with a varying number of hints their feedback was used to land on the final structure that gave experienced players a satisfying challenge but also provided enough guidance and little hints for newcomers although solving puzzles inside dungeons is perhaps the biggest aspect of the game they implemented enough freedom for the players to roam around Hyrule seeking treasure a game mechanic Miyamoto was especially proud of were the bottles players were free to fill them up to suit their own strategies production lasted 10 months with the release postponed on several occasions there were still a ton of touches planned to make the environment even more realistic but ultimately had to be abandoned for example if the player used a lantern near a grassy area it would cause a huge bushfire after working on the project for three long years... the time had come for Nintendo to let their baby go the final release code was signed off and ready to be enjoyed by Japanese fans in November of 1991 they lined up to get their copy of Legend of Zelda Triforce of the Gods Nintendo was in the luxurious position to stretch development of their games over a long period while third-party games filled up the gaps between releases nevertheless link's new adventure would be welcome ammunition to battle the growing competition in the Western market the localization team spent the coming months translating and tweaking the game for the international release religious symbols and references were still a no-go for Nintendo products in the West meaning the name Triforce of the Gods had to be altered they ultimately decided on the pun a Link to the Past another more subtle change was the mentioning of the winner of a Nintendo Power contest he got his own bonus room which is so well hidden you basically have to glitch the game to find it in 1992 players worldwide indulged themselves in the new 16-bit Hyrule a Link to the Past is rightfully considered to be one of the best Super Nintendo games ever released and the new core structure of the game proved to be an important foundation for Ocarina of Time many of the core team members would return for this highly praised outing for the n64 it's really a testament to Nintendo that so many employees would remain loyal to the company and each other the first generation of Nintendo game developers still remain a solid pillar in the ever-changing videogame industry the games from Miyamoto and his team are always put into high regards primarily as a result of their well thought-out game mechanics and high level of perfectionism but perhaps the biggest lesson to learn from Miyamoto is to draw from your own unique memories and inspirations taking experiences from real life that people can relate to and let them drive your own creative endeavors

Channel: strafefox

Views: 406,400

Keywords: The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, Zelda 3, zelda snes, zelda super nes, 16-bit, 16-bit zelda, zelda music, super nes, snes, Making of Zelda, Nintendo, Nintendo R&D4, Nintendo EAD, Miyamoto, Tezuka, Koji Kondo

Id: zSDhDY1Xtd8

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 05 2018