PEOPLE: - Tomomi Sano. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom. QUOTE: Sano: 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.
#Linktober 23: Echo
Sano on her direction that making echoes should have an immediate effect, 2024.
Source: Ask the Developer
#Zelda
#EchoesofWisdomQuote
#SanoQuote
www.notion.so/11341fe961fd...
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
Aonuma: We asked Grezzo, ‘If you were to make the next new game, what kind of game would you like it to be?’ …
Terada: It was a big event for Grezzo. After all the remakes we had been working on, this was the first time we were challenged with a new game project from the conceptual stage. There was even a time when every single one of Grezzo's employees was thinking about ideas. [Laughs]
Thanks to this, we came up with so many ideas that it took us three days just to go over and review them. Since it was a Legend of Zelda project, everyone worked hard on proposals and presented them in front of Aonuma-san with pounding hearts. [Laughs]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreigkdxcly6os3uqc3an2zhfhilrufdiijrqlmir72gqucf6i3o6niu)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
Terada: Echoes plus a sword and shield... They just didn't work well together. There is a wide variety of echoes [in Echoes of Wisdom], so to get the most out of the gameplay, we decided to stick with echoes only.
Aonuma: If that's the case, it must be someone who doesn't fight with a sword and shield, right? Who in the series would be a good fit for these powers and bring their insight to them? Well, that would have to be Princess Zelda.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreiahkpraturh5abhvv362qe3md64cs7yhgjqs5tre7nynypwwdq25y)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Tomomi Sano. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
Terada: Since there are so many echoes at your disposal [in Echoes of Wisdom], we made sure to give each one a specific characteristic so that players would remember what each one does. We wanted players to be able to remember off the top of their heads which echo to use in certain situations.
Sano: Having the freedom to solve puzzles by yourself is a key feature of Legend of Zelda games. But having too much freedom can leave you feeling stumped. We made a conscious effort to clearly define the functions of each echo so that players understand how and where they should be used.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidjerri42opnfknkotgnsjpmavuxnmxkwyqeccvj6xihxuxovbzli)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of the Link’s Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
Aonuma: I've always wanted to establish a 2D top-down Legend of Zelda series that's separate from the 3D entries. ... The game style and how it feels are completely different when the world is viewed in 3D from behind the character to when the world is viewed from a top-down perspective. We wanted to cherish that kind of diversity in the series.
Amid all this, we felt that the remake of Link's Awakening … had become our new approach in terms of graphics and gameplay feel. … Grezzo had established an excellent way of reviving the top-down experience for a modern era, so I thought [that with Echoes of Wisdom] we could develop something completely new that had never been done before.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreie2rrddcwthuzxn6zkswy5ujddyk2auesrrsgqmq4wgdo2tplqpoa)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Aonuma: It was difficult to find a motive to send Princess Zelda on an adventure [in Echoes of Wisdom]. … In the case of Princess Zelda, as she is royalty, we needed to carefully craft the setting of why she really needs to leave her castle when there are people around her who can fight.
Terada: But the more we thought about it, the harder it was to come up with a convincing enough reason for Princess Zelda to leave for an adventure. [Laughs]
Aonuma: Just having monsters roaming around Hyrule wouldn't be enough to motivate Princess Zelda to directly fight them. We tried brainstorming all sorts of ideas for what kind of situation would necessitate that the princess take matters into her own hands."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreibflo7sbil3fancqa73vezsoenhlvepspnsdsw5bfdzdtgj3pyfby)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Aonuma: I think through [Echoes of Wisdom] we were able to satisfy a lot of players.
And so this game made me realize that there's still a lot of possibility for these top-down Zelda games as well.
… And so we will also have those dynamic 3D Zeldas as well. But in addition to that, we're also hoping that we can continue with these 2D top-down Zeldas."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreia7gppufghraibak4yegqvrkfslo5crpaqjbbwuhdatnuwyyehkz4)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"[Interviewer asks why the huge list of Echoes in Echoes of Wisdom wasn’t more streamlined]
Terada: One of the essences of this game is being able to figure out different ways of using each of these echoes.
And so in that sense we wanted players to fall upon and see the echoes that they may not have noticed or have been using while they're sorting through all the echoes that they have."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreidogh3hudvp2bk4dczqek3ssc4lluuv2k6hmntbc5no5de5tpl3re)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Terada: Since the gameplay involves copying things that you find in the game field, they have to be something that can both help and hinder you. They also need to work both in a top-down and side-view perspective.
Aonuma: When you're fighting an enemy, it's advantageous for them to be weak. But if you want to make them your ally, you'd prefer it if they put up more of a fight. … But if you recruit one that's too strong, they'd [make] other echoes seem inferior... It's challenging to find the right balance.
Terada: If an echo is too useful, then it's unlikely that you'd use anything else... We wanted to encourage players to try out lots of different things using a variety of echoes. "](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihrlmp3co27omf6sijqb37oodb37e4bmbfyrtac3bzukdpermlvha)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Aonuma: We were initially thinking that Link would be the protagonist [of Echoes of Wisdom]. But when we focused on the gameplay using echoes and had Link copying and pasting things into the game field, the sword and shield got in the way. If you have a sword and a shield, you can just fight using those. There's no need to rely on the monsters' power, right?
Terada: So, we thought, ‘What if players could use only echoes at first in order to understand the gameplay, and then as the game progresses, they get the sword and shield?’ But even then, we thought that once they got the sword and shield, they would stop using echoes."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreif5zf6p26khdoppnknaqyq6fowlsp6kioxpmbsehe4hyena4ilvr4)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Terada: At the beginning of [Echoes of Wisdom’s] development, we were thinking a lot about restrictions on gameplay, assuming that certain things would definitely break the game mechanics or stop the game from working properly.
We had ideas like being limited to using only 20 echoes in a dungeon. Lots of ideas like these made it so you couldn't do things you had previously done. But it would have been frustrating for players if they couldn't use a solution that worked in a previous situation.
So one day, we decided to scrap that approach and not impose any restrictions."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreieqhfwebyaohwp5nbgpt7elvm6faqh5vdiokcdcjqfm6ifwz4rwka)
![PEOPLE:
- Satoshi Terada. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Terada: We were exploring a few different ways to play [Echoes of Wisdom] in parallel. In one approach, Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons. …
Aonuma: I started thinking that while it's fun to create your own dungeon and let other people play it, it's also not so bad to place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies. That was the beginning of gameplay using ‘echoes.’ The gameplay was shifted from creating dungeons up until then to using copied-and-pasted items as tools to further your own adventure."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreig6n7m2ckfxzpbebgj5bhbzfpezhy2bz7pcjgtik3rxghgttr4b2y)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
- Tomomi Sano. Co-Director of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Aonuma: It's when you enter Suthorn Prairie from Suthorn Beach [in Echoes of Wisdom], and the main theme starts playing. That part really got me.
Sano: The moment you leave the cave and that theme starts playing, that's the first time you hear it in the game. I feel like that scene was really created to resonate with the player's feelings. You don't know where it is that you’ve arrived, but you get the feeling that the real adventure is about to start.
Aonuma: The sound team takes the near-finished game, and while imagining how players would feel in each scene, they compose music to fit those scenes and have it play each part at exactly the right moment. "](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreihds32syqu5kx46oy2g7mylptnns5wdflwqrapm245e74wyymdub4)
![PEOPLE:
- Eiji Aonuma, age 61. Producer of Echoes of Wisdom.
QUOTE:
"Aonuma: Over the years we've been working on the Legend of Zelda series, many people have often asked us, ‘Will Princess Zelda ever be the protagonist?’ and said, ‘I'd like to play as Princess Zelda.’
When asked this question, I've always thought, ‘Of course, as long as it makes sense for the game and does justice to her as a character to be the protagonist,’ and answered that way. I had been trying in vain to figure out what would really do justice to her. But when I saw the team struggling to identify the ideal protagonist for [Echoes of Wisdom], I thought, this is exactly the game for her!"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2e7f2uvcguv4d5qxqnyjmk32/bafkreigirweibnb53xqa74hpzcuwccv7c5fn4trmp3jmi6nsiv6ok7cnle)