Second only to Miyamoto in making Nintendo fanboys swoon, Eiji Aonuma explained to developers at GDC why he chose the course he did with the past few Zelda titles. It was fairly interesting to learn how he juggled multiple projects and responded to feedback from both superiors and players.
Aonuma also revealed the thinking behind the Wi-Fi multiplayer on The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS. I'm glad he did, as I was kind of puzzled playing it in Nintendo's GDC booth.
More after the jump.
Gamers already figured this out, but Aonuma explained that he had to make Twilight Princess on the Wii a mirror image of the already half-done GameCube version because of Link's southpaw tendencies. He also talked about and displayed some protoypes they had considered for a first-person battle view.
Aonuma admitted Twilight Princess sales in Japan were not as high as he'd like, continuing a pattern of growing Japanese disinterest in the series since after Wind Waker. But he hopes the upcoming DS Zelda will find a new audience in Japan, which explains why the Wi-Fi multiplayer is basically a hide-and-seek minigame with Zelda paint.
I played the multiplayer with a Nintendo rep who kept letting me win, but I was surprised how simple the game is. One player is a Link character who has to collect force gems, and the other player controls three phantom guards. The player controlling Link uses the touchscreen to control him directly, but the player controlling the guards draws paths for the phantoms to take.
It's a pretty simple concept that's a great way to reintroduce Zelda to the "Touch Generation." I need to play it more before I can pass judgment on it, though.
