How to Sneak a Story Into a Zelda Game
When a Nintendo dev goes rogue...

4 Dec 2007
If you've ever played a Zelda or Mario game and been touched by the storyline, you've probably got Super Mario Galaxy director and 16-year Nintendo veteran, Yoshiaki Koizumi, to thank. He's been sneaking additional story elements into Nintendo games behind Shigeru Miyamoto's back for years, apparently.
Speaking in an interview, Koizumi - the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD) studio veteran - said:
"...EAD doesn't tend to focus on the big story in most of their games. But I was the one coming up with scenarios, just on my own, ever since the time of Link's Awakening. But even at that time, I felt like I came up with this entire scenario and a backstory for Link, but nobody really seemed to care. They were always saying, let's not try to push the story forward too much.
"So I would sort of try to find sneaky ways to get it in without them noticing too much. For example, I always liked the idea of you coming upon another character and hearing little bits of conversation that slowly begin to reveal different parts of the story. And that was the way that I tried to work on Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. A lot of the EAD games that do seem to have a lot of story, a lot of that came from my influence. But those are aspects of the games that Miyamoto wasn't nearly as fond of and occasionally didn't like."
"So I would sort of try to find sneaky ways to get it in without them noticing too much. For example, I always liked the idea of you coming upon another character and hearing little bits of conversation that slowly begin to reveal different parts of the story. And that was the way that I tried to work on Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. A lot of the EAD games that do seem to have a lot of story, a lot of that came from my influence. But those are aspects of the games that Miyamoto wasn't nearly as fond of and occasionally didn't like."
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So, there you go. SPOnG would be interested to see what other content Koizumi could sneak into a game on the sly...
You can find SPOnG's review of Mario Galaxy here.
Source: Wired
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Comments
2 comments posted.
First comment
Posted by hollywooda
He must of been the guy who came up with the story about saving the princess in Zelda! or did he come up with the other storyline in Mario about saving the princess!?...... yer, genius....
Latest comment
Posted by the anonymous
He is on about the story line not the goal, example, how link was from the outside of the forrest and dident belong there (we all know what happened to his uncle he was living with).
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