ZELDA: INTERVIEWS Home - Story - Preview - Interviews - Pictures In latest issue of Fami Maga 64, Nae Yuuki, a young actress/singer, asks Shigeru Miyamoto about four of Nintendo's upcoming titles. Yuuki is a huge video game fan and once endorsed Fire Emblem on a TV commercial. Yuuki: (looking at the screenshots) What is this white thing flying above Link's head? Miyamoto: That's a fairy. It is a very important part of the game. It's not a cameraman. Popiries (the phylon that belong Link) have fairies as guardian angels during their childhood. This fairy will help Link in many ways. The fairy will tell you whether the character that is meeting with Link is good or bad guy by turning into different colors. That's all I can tell you right now. Yuuki: Does Link ride on something? Miyamoto: Link will ride on a horse. The screenshots only show Link walking along with the horse, though. But almost everyone thinks that Link will ride 'em. So, yes, he will be able to take the saddle. Yuuki: Wouldn't it be fun if we pressed a certain button combination and Link had an acrobatic ride just like Wave Race 64? Miyamoto: I like that. I can buy that idea. Yuuki: I heard that this time there are two kinds of swords in the game? Miyamoto: And bows and arrows, too. It's fun to brandish a long one, but you can't do that in indoors. So you need to use the appropriate weapon in each situation. Yuuki: Like in a cave? Miyamoto: Yes. And each sword has its own special attacks. This time, with your analog Control Stick, you can activate actions or special attacks. Yuuki: Speaking of action, I heard Link finally can jump this time. That's quite natural. Actually, it seems to me that he could fly because he wears a Peter Pan-like outfit. Miyamoto: Yes, it's natural to jump in a game when the game is set in a 3D world. Yuuki: Will he make jumping sounds like Mario...? Miyamoto: That's never going to happen. (laugh) Unlike Mario, Link's jumps are more realistic, only as high as an Olympic athlete can jump. And we have a secret about jumping. But I can't tell you about that right now. But...umm...Mario does jump almost every time, but Link will jump only when he needs to do so. Perhaps jumping is needed for fighting and for Link to be seen as cool and so on ... We are thinking about these kinds of things. This game is set to be playable whether you are good or bad at action games. So it's not like ordinary jumping in other games. You can count on this because Nintendo has over ten years of experience developing jumping [platformer] games. Yuuki: Doesn't Link's face look a little uncharitably? Miyamoto: Oh, you think so? He has a few facial expressions. And his face is also changing as development goes on. Yuuki: He's kind of like an outlaw that could trust nobody or something.... Miyamoto: Oh, he would be more like that sort. But his face is changing again right now. Yuuki: I only saw one picture in which I could see his face. Miyamoto: (looking at the picture) His face was changed two times from this one. Yuuki: The girls in all of these pictures all look so sad.... Miyamoto: That's because we haven't spent much time on the [non-playable characters] yet. They are always left for later on in the game's development. We are now struggling to make the city seem like downtown. Yuuki: The houses look pretty plain; they're just like Japanese houses, aren't they? Miyamoto: They are all under construction. (laugh) The houses in the city will be modeled after a European style. Yuuki: What can you boast about in Zelda 64? Miyamoto: I've always tried to create places in a video game that don't exist in the real world. You might even feel like you've actually been there. And these thoughts, feelings find a shape, one-by-one. You can get into the game if you turn off the music. And if you turn on the music, you might start crying because of fear -- dungeons contains lots of traps and are really scary. You might want to curse the person who created the dungeon. Maybe you will have a nightmare? Yuuki: While playing Mario 64, I was really impressed by the Metallic Mario. It even reflects the environment. Do we have such a surprise in Zelda 64? Miyamoto: There is a item called Heavy Boots...but I can't reveal anymore about them now. Maybe you won't have many unusual things, but there will be special effects for the whole screen caused by magic. Yuuki: Will that be used for the first time in Zelda 64? Miyamoto: Yes, this is the first time. We are making a video game and we are in the entertainment business. So just like feature films, we use cutting-edge technologies that haven't been used before. If you walk in 3D, you can see a horse a distance, then you can change the camera angle and ride the horse and run.... Maybe you will have fun just seeing the horse coming toward you. [reprinted from n64hq]

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