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In Nintendo’s Ask the Developer Vol. 13 series of interviews, it was revealed that Tomomi Sano will be the first female director of a The Legend of Zelda game.
As the game’s director on behalf of Nintendo, Sano will be overseeing the work done by Grezzo, the developer, to ensure that it meets Nintendo’s and fans’ expectations.
When asked about her previous roles at Nintendo, here’s what she had to say:
“Prior to this project, my main role was to support the director. As for the remakes that Grezzo worked on, I was involved in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I was also involved in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, as well as some of the titles in the Mario & Luigi series released prior to Mario & Luigi: Brothership, which will be released in November this year.”
In the second part of the interview, Sano also went into detail about the game’s “echoes” mechanic and how it evolved throughout development.
“Princess Zelda doesn’t have a way of attacking directly initially, so there was a tendency for the gameplay using the echoes to just end up being a situation where you watched the things you copied do the work. It felt like they were doing everything for you and you were being made to wait… So we asked Grezzo to adjust it so that players would feel an immediate sense of accomplishment like, ‘I did it!’ For example, if you made an echo of a monster, that echo would immediately attack an enemy, just like you swinging a sword. Or if you wanted to light a fire, you could use an echo with that ability, and it would light the fire straight away. We made adjustments like these all the way through the game’s development so that these kinds of intuitive responses would feel exciting for players.”
With Sano bringing both her expertise and perspective to the franchise, It looks like the newest Zelda game, releasing on September 26 for Nintendo Switch, will be breaking barriers and treading new ground in more ways than one.
Be on the lookout for our review of it to see if Princess Zelda’s first mainline adventure proves itself to be fit for the history books and worthy of legend.