In the lead up to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD's release next Friday, Nintendo is running a fascinating series of developer interviews about the process of bringing the original game to life way back in 2006. It's pretty cool to see Eiji Aonuma and his team reminisce about the trials and triumphs of making my personal favorite Zelda game.
In particular they talk about the mixed response to The Wind Waker and how they tried to better meet fan expectations with Twilight Princess. Obviously the art style was the biggest point of contention, but so was scale. Despite its vast ocean Wind Waker felt rather pared back and small in scope, with just a handful of dungeons and an odd story that didn't seem to be of much consequence to the overall Zelda lore.
In contrast Twilight Princess feels massive, with a dramatically scaled-up world, nine dungeons and a ton of puzzles and sidequests to explore. Some fans complained that the game felt big and empty, but I always loved the dramatic scale of Hyrule compared to the monotony of Wind Waker's sailing.
Check out the retrospective below, it's a rare treat for Zelda fans.
