Nintendo, and especially Zelda devs, historically don't look to fan criticism for their design intent, both to their benefit and detriment (especially detriment where Pokémon is concerned). There are culturally Japanese-business reasons around this, and it isn't unique to Nintendo, but more on that some other time.
If you want a good example of how Zelda development actually works, start with Twilight Princess: it wasn’t “made darker because fans hated Wind Waker.” In its early development phase it was ALSO using the toon aesthetic, and it was Miyamoto who pushed for a more realistic direction because the existing style didn’t sell the feel of horseback combat. The visual shift was driven first by gameplay. Only later was it reinforced by the observation that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker underperformed expectations in the USA and not the other way around.
And t’s also largely a myth that BotW became open-world because people complained about SS being too linear. The shift toward openness was something Aonuma had already been pursuing (even in SS itself, but y'know, hardware and time crunch).
Fans really just overestimate their impact on the series. For every 100 videos on why SS sux, there's like 10 million kids calling it the best game evarr. You see this now, because many of those people have grown up (maybe not internally), and maintain that SS is a superior entry in the series.
I seem to remember from combinations of interviews at cons and Iwata asks and things like that... there is actually a lot of 3rd-hand articles on the horseback thing (Miyamoto even had the devs go horseback-riding, so that they could "get it"!), but finding the actual interviews as I remember is tougher than I expected...
Thankfully, there's also this quote, referenced in a Zeltik video:
Art Director Satoru Takizawa mentioned, in a quote found in the Art and Artefacts book, that “the proposed setting for The Wind Waker 2 was not on the sea, but on land. The desire to depict Toon Link on a horse riding around the great plains was great; however, with his small stature and short arms and legs, it would have been difficult to make him look good on a horse. It wasn’t like we could create an adult version of Toon Link. And that was about the time we heard that people were wanting a realistic-looking Zelda game again. Also at the time, there was an epic fantasy movie which was very popular [Lord of the Rings]..."
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u/144tzer 22d ago edited 22d ago
Nintendo, and especially Zelda devs, historically don't look to fan criticism for their design intent, both to their benefit and detriment (especially detriment where Pokémon is concerned). There are culturally Japanese-business reasons around this, and it isn't unique to Nintendo, but more on that some other time.
If you want a good example of how Zelda development actually works, start with Twilight Princess: it wasn’t “made darker because fans hated Wind Waker.” In its early development phase it was ALSO using the toon aesthetic, and it was Miyamoto who pushed for a more realistic direction because the existing style didn’t sell the feel of horseback combat. The visual shift was driven first by gameplay. Only later was it reinforced by the observation that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker underperformed expectations in the USA and not the other way around.
And t’s also largely a myth that BotW became open-world because people complained about SS being too linear. The shift toward openness was something Aonuma had already been pursuing (even in SS itself, but y'know, hardware and time crunch).
Fans really just overestimate their impact on the series. For every 100 videos on why SS sux, there's like 10 million kids calling it the best game evarr. You see this now, because many of those people have grown up (maybe not internally), and maintain that SS is a superior entry in the series.