The Japanese logo for the first Zelda game, The Hyrule Fantasy

Today is the 40th anniversary of Zelda 1!

Of all the Zelda titles, this is the one we know the MOST about; they've discussed it in interviews for years. Let's go down memory lane with some fun quotes

#Zelda
#TheLegendOfZeldaQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #TezukaQuote, #NakagoQuote, #KondoQuote

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 49. Original composer for the Zelda series. - Mahito Yokota, age 37. Orchestration for Twilight Princess. Composer & Orchestration for Skyward Sword. - Eiji Aonuma, age 48. Director or Producer of many Zelda games. QUOTE: Kondo: Aonuma-san was thinking about events for the twenty-fifth anniversary and suggested a concert for The Legend of Zelda. … Yokota: In fact, I've actually been saying I want to hold a Legend of Zelda concert ever since I joined the company. I kept getting turned down, but it finally becomes a reality on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary. Kondo-san, you've also been saying for some time that you want to do an orchestral concert, haven't you? Kondo: Yeah. Yokota: They said it wasn't our ‘main business’! [laughs]

Kondo & Yokota and how they wanted to do a symphony concert for Zelda's 25th, 2011.

Source: Iwata Asks

#Zelda
#KondoQuote, #YokotaQuote, #AonumaQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/ac7d17268a56...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 72. Creator of Zelda. Producer and Director of Super Mario Bros.. - Koji Kondo, age 64. Composer for early Zelda titles and for Super Mario Bros.. QUOTE: Miyamoto: I think that the expression of the underground theme [in Super Mario Bros.] is a masterpiece! [Laughs] I was thinking, “So you're gonna bring in a bass slap here, huh?” I was surprised how it turned into a proper song even though it was made with sound effects. I was cognizant of how it would feel cold if you went underground, so I thought it would be better to use black for the background, and when I heard those sounds, the feeling of cold was amplified, and it was like, “Whoa! It works!” [Laughs] Kondo: … I wanted to give the underground BGM a quiet feeling, so I included slap-bass phrases that were popular at the time.

Miyamoto on the Super Mario Bros. underground theme being "a masterpeice", 2025.

Source: Nintendo Museum

#SuperMarioBrosQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #KondoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 45. Original composer for the Mario & Zelda series. QUOTE: Kondo: You're supposed to apply to many different companies, but I saw the Nintendo ad, and had a love of making synthesizers, and loved games, and thought—that's the place for me. I interviewed with one company, Nintendo, and that's where I've been ever since. Q: What games did you play in college? Kondo: I played arcade games—Space Invaders, Donkey Kong 3, the Donkey Kong series in general… there was a coffee shop I went to quite often that had the tabletop style arcade games, so I played on those a lot.

Kondo on loving arcade games before he was hired by Nintendo, 2007.

Source: Wired

#KondoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/fb9d09af59d4...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 64. Composer for The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 72. Producer and Director for The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.. QUOTE: Kondo: The Famicom has little memory, so I remember thinking about reducing the size as much as possible for the music. It was hard work. For example, I thought that if I created a single group of phrases as a block, I could use that over and over again. By repeating that process, I think I ended up with a melody that stuck in players’ memories. Miyamoto: In the end, the player will hear those repetitions over and over, even though there are individual differences. … Because I myself started out by developing arcade games, the idea of people walking down the street hearing the music and sound effects coming from the arcade and immediately recognizing it was important.

Kondo & Miyamoto on re-using short musical phrases in NES music, 2025.

Source: Nintendo Museum

#SuperMarioBrosQuote
#KondoQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 72. Creator of Zelda & Mario, Producer of Super Mario Galaxy. - Koji Kondo, age 64. Original composer for Zelda & Mario, and Super Mario Galaxy. QUOTE: Miyamoto: For Super Mario Galaxy, we had other team members make the music. And the music was good, but there were times where I felt it wasn’t “Mario” enough. And when Kondo-san composed the music for the observatory where Rosalina is, I felt like, “Oh, now THAT’S Mario.” No one else seemed to get it though. It makes you wonder. Kondo: At the time, you didn’t come out and say, like, “That’s bad,” or anything, Miyamoto-san, but I don’t remember getting praise. Today, though, you’re really laying it on. Miyamoto: I’m the type of person who gets better when he gets praise, but I think I haven’t given much praise. [Laughs]

Miyamoto on Super Mario Galaxy music, 2025.

Source: Nintendo Museum

#SuperMarioGalaxyQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #KondoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/29a41fe961fd...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 55. The Legend of Zelda (1986) Composer. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 63. The Legend of Zelda (1986) Producer & Co-Director. QUOTE: Kondo: The Legend of Zelda has an opening crawl, so I wondered about what should play during that too. Tezuka-san's written request simply says, ‘title music.’ [laughs] For quite a while, it just played Ravel's Bolero. It really matched the opening crawl! Miyamoto: You rearranged it for the NES, right? Kondo: Right. But immediately before finishing The Legend of Zelda, we learned it was still under copyright. Miyamoto: Oh, I remember that! (laughs) The Copyright Incident! … Kondo: So I pulled an all-nighter to compose the opening song.

#Linktober 21: Music
Kondo & Miyamoto on Ravel’s Bolero and 'The Copyright Incident', 2016.

Source: Nintendo.com

#Zelda
#TheLegendofZeldaQuote
#KondoQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/469330b1cf92...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 49. Ocarina of Time Composer. - Mahito Yokota, age 37. Ocarina of Time 3D Orchestration Director. QUOTE: Kondo: As I was playing the Nintendo 3DS version [of Ocarina of Time], there were several [tracks] that struck me as well-done. Although, it's a little embarrassing to say so myself! [laughs] One plays when you go to Zelda's castle and hide in the garden so the guards can't find you. I forgot the title, though. Yokota: That's ’The Courtyard Game at Hyrule Castle.’ Kondo: It sounds like a game of hide-and-seek. It represents that feeling of final relief you get when you're able to hide from the guards by carefully making stealthy steps. I thought, ‘I did a pretty good job!’ [laughs]

Linktober #1: Knight
Kondo on his favorite song from Ocarina of Time, 2011.

Source: Iwata Asks

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote
#KondoQuote, #YokotaQuote

www.notion.so/39d16d85bfa1...

PEOPLE: - Satoru Iwata, age 50. President of Nintendo. - Koji Kondo, age 49. Original composer for the Zelda series. QUOTE: Iwata: A friend of mine who's a little bit younger than I am graduated from a music university. During student teaching to become a music teacher, he played video game music for the students. They were intensely interested, and the distance between them suddenly closed in. Kondo: When I was overseas once, I met a Japanese person who was traveling from country to country. He said that wherever he went, if he played the music from Mario, everyone would recognize it and was able to make friends because of it. I was really happy about that.

Iwata & Kondo on game music bringing people closer, 2010.

Source: Iwata Asks

#IwataQuote, #KondoQuote

www.notion.so/f3b47633d283...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 46. Producer of Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: Miyamoto: I like international music such as Inca or Latin. I really wanted to put in an ocarina [in Ocarina of Time], it seemed really Zelda-esque. Playing an instrument is a much more enjoyable way to accomplish things than just casting a spell.

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 39. Composer for The Legend of Zelda (1986). - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 48. Producer and Co-Director of The Legend of Zelda (1986). QUOTE: Q: Did Miyamoto have any requests for The Legend of Zelda (1986)? Kondo: I remember he had me make a lot of different sounds for when you use the flute [when you warp]. He was very particular about that one sound. “It shouldn’t just be ‘pretty’. I want it to evoke something more mysterious”, he told me.

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 50. Creator of the Zelda series. Producer of Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: Miyamoto: Ocarina has the most, not magical, but the most Zelda-like music theme; it immerses you completely into the game. I had been looking forward to music with a flute or an ocarina, but it wasn’t possible to fully use them until now. That game gave us the possibility of including those instruments.

Miyamoto and his years-long quest to get proper flute or ocarina music in Zelda (1998, 2001, 2003)

Via GlitterBerri's Game Translations, Shmuplations, and Nintendo Prime

#Zelda
#TheLegendOfZeldaQuote #OcarinaOfTimeQuote
#MiyamotoQuote #KondoQuote

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 62. Sound Director of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Sound & music for most of the early Zelda games. QUOTE: "Kondo: I’ve always wanted to try something along the lines of having the entire course come alive like a musical. To begin with, we tested it out [in Super Mario Bros. Wonder] by having Piranha Plants come out of their pipes in sync with the music, and the level designers created a course where the pipes and the platforms move. This went down well with the development team, so we adjusted it so that various enemies and stage elements would move to the rhythm. "

Kondo on the kind of level he always wanted to make, 2023.

Source: Ask the Developer

#SuperMarioBrosWonderQuote
#KondoQuote

www.notion.so/321b536b1fee...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 37. Composer for Ocarina of Time. QUOTE: "Kondo: I arranged songs from all the Zelda games up to now in the score to [Ocarina of Time’s] Hyrule Field. It looks like not many people have recognized them! In fact, there were even people on staff who didn’t notice! [laughs]"

Kondo on arrangements hidden in Hyrule Field theme, 1998.

Source: GlitterBerri's Game Translations

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote
#KondoQuote

www.notion.so/0e093b226205...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 62. Original composer for Zelda & Mario. Sound Director for Super Mario Bros. Wonder. QUOTE: "Kondo: We wanted to give [Super Mario Bros. Wonder] a fresh feel by integrating the sounds of musical instruments into the sound effects, so in this game, we used an electric ukulele made of Yezo spruce for Mario's jump sound. Using strings to accompany the traditional action of running before jumping to increase jump distance has enabled us to add sounds of varying dynamics to better express the feeling of ascending. This is the first time the jump sound changes based on how the player jumps, just like how string instruments make different sounds depending on how strongly or softly a musician plucks the strings."

Kondo on the dynamic sound effects for each character’s jumps in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, 2023.

Source: Ask the Developer

#SuperMarioBrosWonderQuote
#KondoQuote

www.notion.so/321b536b1fee...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 45. Legendary composer for Mario & Zelda. QUOTE: "Q: What were your other musical influences? Kondo: In middle school, I was into hard rock: Deep Purple, Yes. In high school, jazz and fusion: Cassiopeia, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock."

Kondo's musical influences in middle & high school, 2007.

Via Wired.

#KondoQuote

www.notion.so/fb9d09af59d4...

PEOPLE: - Koji Kondo, age 62. Original Zelda composer. Sound for Super Mario Bros. (1985), Sound Director for Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023). - Takashi Tezuka, age 62. Co-creator of Zelda. Assistant Director of Super Mario Bros. (1985), Producer of Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023). QUOTE: "Kondo: There was mention of Tezuka-san ‘asking the impossible’ [during Super Mario Bros. Wonder development]. I felt like there might have been a disparity between the world of Mario that Tezuka-san and I envisioned and the world of Mario that the rest of the team had in mind. … For the development staff who grew up playing Mario games, they see the world depicted in those games as the world of Mario. And they try to carry that over to future games. But the world of Mario that Tezuka-san and I think of is actually much broader, and we're allowed to incorporate anything we think would be fun. So maybe that's why they thought we were ‘asking the impossible.’"

Kondo on how he and Tezuka see a broader definition of "Mario" than the younger developers.

Via Ask the Developer, 2023.

#Mario
#SuperMarioBrosWonderQuote
#KondoQuote, #TezukaQuote

hyruleinterviews.notion.site/Ask-the-Deve...