Twilight Princess "Too Big;" Skyward Sword Smaller, "Denser"

In one of the latest Iwata Asks, Eiji Aonuma discusses his latest work, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, with Nintendo's CEO, Satoru Iwata. During the interview, he dropped some interesting tidbits when comparing it to his last console Zelda title, Twilight Princess, which took most gamers between 40-50 hours to complete. He noted that Twilight Princess was "too big," and didn't feature enough content to properly take advantage of the game's scale.



As a result, Skyward Sword is going "back to basics" and that they're going to "boil it down and make it denser." He went on to explain that they first determined what the core elements of Zelda were that made it fun in order to build a strong foundation, before building a "compact yet solid playing experience" around those fundamental elements.

"That's what the new game's about."

Thoughts?

Ravenprose said:

^ That sounds great to me. TP was too big.

 No way. Size was perfect for me. I don't want a boiled down condensed Zelda. 

Large environments are okay as long as there is stuff to do, a means of traversing the landscape swiftly and warp points. 

Twilight Princess was really long but I did play it until the end so I guess it wasn't too long.

I don't care if Skyward Sword is shorter so long as it's an equally great game.  Quality is required, quantity is a bonus.

Twilight Princess lacked good town content. I want to see a packed metropolis, with lot's of NPC running around a flying city in the sky. 

Bring back Majora's like side quests!

Foolz said:

Given the speed that Link moves it'll be a bit weird if it is smaller than TP, though.

You had a horse in TP and you have a stamina meter in skyward sword. Perhaps your horse is faster than link on foot in SS? There better be a ridable dragon dammit!

Iga_Bobovic said:

Twilight Princess lacked good town content. I want to see a packed metropolis, with lot's of NPC running around a flying city in the sky.

Bring back Majora's like side quests!

You had a horse in TP and you have a stamina meter in skyward sword. Perhaps your horse is faster than link on foot in SS? There better be a ridable dragon dammit!

Majora side quests is a must. That whole system was pure genius I have no clue why it did not become a normal game mechanic of all future Zelda games. I understand the time aspect allowed it to work but you can modify it so that it works on a normal time line. Don't have appointments that expire, something that only occurs at a certain time each day and if you are not there you could always come back another day. The key is to make sure you can always have access to every event.

 Check this interview:

NZG: My first question is about the story in Skyward Sword. What details can you give about the story as it stands now?

Aonuma San (via Mr. O'Leary): Well, you saw the trailer this morning, and the presentation. The final scene is Link jumping off those cliffs and diving through the bank of clouds, and that's a very key element behind the story in the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. This time around, Link is living on a series of floating islands above the coulds, and that land is called Skyloft. Link lives in this floating land, and it's his natural world, so he doesn't think there's anything strange about living above the clouds. One day, an incident occurs, and he discovers that beneath the clouds is another world, and that world is ruled by an evil force. And the thing that leads link on in his adventure and guides him is the titular sword - the Skyward Sword. When the sword is leading Link and helping him do things, it actually transforms into a human figure. [In] the artwork revealed at E3 last year, that was the figure that was in that artwork. So basically the story evolves in his travelling from Skyloft to the land below, and back and forth, as he is lead by the Skyward Sword. As he travels, the story of how the land below came to be ruled by these evil forces is revealed.

link

Oh and check this out from the Zelda Wii speculation thread

Iga_Bobovic said:

Okay about the setting, we really need a sky based Zelda. Imagine if the world has been blown apart. The word now consists of floating Islands. Floating cities with baloons. Baloon Airships, etc. Your mode of transport would be a flying dragon, bird whatever. 

The world would look like a planet that is blown to pieces, but gravity hold the pieces together. You can have various islands, like a forrest, lava, etc. Like Galaxy this setting would allow for huge ammount of variety.

Thoughts?!

Iga_Bobovic said:

Okay it's mine turn. I hope Zelda has cel shaded graphics, but I am not talking about Windwaker like melon heads. No, I am talking about, something like this...

Or something like this

I really hope the graphics will match the awesome artwork we see in the manuals. So much better than Windwaker or Twilight style. 

What do you guys think?

Iga_Bobovic said:

I know Kizuna sucks, but the artstyle is something that Zelda can copy

They could use the Kizuna like graphics to render something that looks like this.

 Holy crap, I got the sky setting right, well almost and I got the art style right. From now of on, you will call me God. Oh wait, you already call me that. Okay you shall call be God of gods, you shall call me Fedor.

Archangel3371 said:

You know I've never played Majora's Mask. I did download it on the VC quite awhile ago. Perhaps I should finally play it before Skyward Sword comes out.

I love dungeons, MM has 4 and it is still my favorite Zelda. The world and the NPC is in its own league. It is a complete original because of the time mechanic. Link transforms into different forms which allows for the best variety in gameplay. It is a masterpiece so yeah play it. But because it is so different some people cant get into it.