Background of Study
Introduction:
Shigeru Miyamoto was born on 16 November 1952 in the Japanese town of Sonobe, about 30 miles north-west of Kyoto, in a rural river valley surrounded by woods and mountains. As a child, he would explore the surrounding areas of his town and the landscape of bamboo, cedar, and pine forests. Whilst exploring, he happened upon a deep cave with several chambers. He visited regularly, but didn’t have the courage to enter. Eventually, with a lantern in hand, he went in to explore. This experience would go on to be one of the defining influences in his video games, and part of his legend; he attempted to recreate this feeling of childhood wonderment in his best-selling games decades later. When, at 11, his father brought home a television, Miyamoto was also introduced to a new passion — Japanese animation and manga, both of which inspired him to pursue a career in art.
Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts with a degree in industrial design. His love for manga led him to initially aspire to become a professional manga artist. However, through a mutual friend, Miyamoto’s father arranged a job interview for Miyamoto with Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. At the time, Nintendo was still a relatively small company that sold novelties like playing cards, toys, and games. After showing some of his ideas for children’s toys, such as a three-way seesaw and a clock designed for an amusement park, Miyamoto was hired, becoming Nintendo’s first artist in 1977.
The first project Miyamoto was involved with was making the designs for Color TV-Game Racing 112 and a Blockbuster Color TV-Game, including a steering wheel in the racing game and hardware that made the game more accessible to novice gamers. He then went on to create the character designs for the arcade game Space Fever, a game similar to Space Invaders, which had become extremely popular in Japan.
This was the beginning of a new era for Nintendo; it had been interested in creating video games for a while, but had largely produced games similar to well-known games like Space Fever. Miyamoto had a key role in this transition. He first helped Nintendo develop Radar Scope, released in 1980. The game was moderately successful in Japan, but by 1981, Nintendo’s efforts to break it into the video game market in America had failed, leaving the company on the verge of financial collapse. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to convert unsold Radar Scope machines into a new arcade game, and tasked Miyamoto with creating it.
Inspired in part by Beauty and the Beast and the film King Kong, Miyamoto decided that the plot of the game should focus on a love triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter, and a girl. It was the first time a storyline had been developed for a video game before it had been programmed, and Miyamoto wanted to build a story that immersed gamers in the worlds that he created. On the technical side, Miyamoto also wanted the game to have multiple levels, and to make the characters different sizes, and react in different ways to one another. It was a complex task for the programming team, who argued that adding levels was too repetitive, but they built the software, and the game was sent to the American branch of Nintendo, who named the characters. The playable character was initially called Jumpman but was eventually named after a landlord who rented property to Nintendo: Mario. The staff also pushed for an English name to resonate with an English-speaking audience, and settled on Donkey Kong.
The game was a massive success, leading to two sequels, and developing a huge fan base. Mario also got his own game, and a brother, Luigi. The two characters were reimagined as plumbers in New York City, and Mario Bros., a two-player game, was released in 1983, followed by Super Mario Bros in 1985. To date, it is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, with more than 653 million copies of games sold, including 348 million copies of the Super Mario games alone.
During the development of Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto began work on perhaps his most personal game, The Legend of Zelda series. Working with story writer Takashi Tezuka, the pair created a game that was quite unlike anything that had appeared on a console before and would have a far-reaching impact on the games that would come after it. At the time, developers were set on creating fast-paced arcade games, but the concept of The Legend of Zelda was very different. It was slow, and the plot unfolded like a fantasy story, unlike a dash to win, as in the Super Mario games. It was the game’s ideas, rather than its technical achievements, that made The Legend of Zelda such an enduring classic. Drawing on that sense of wonder that he’d experienced as a child in the countryside around Sonobe, he wanted to introduce a game that reproduced the childhood anxieties and excitements that he’d felt whilst exploring, particularly the intrigue surrounding the cave that he’d entered as a child. The story was simple — a young boy sets out on a quest to rescue Zelda, a princess trapped by an evil prince — but the sense of adventure created by the top-down perspective created a new scale to gaming. Games were typically linear, but The Legend of Zelda allowed the player to move in all directions, and to explore seemingly endless worlds, with an array of choice never seen before in a video game.
Significance of the Study
Interview with Miyamato:
—Please tell us the history of how The Legend of Zelda came about.
Miyamoto: We began developing it as a launch title for the 1984 Famicom Disk System. Shortly before that, we began developing Super Mario Bros., so there was a period from May to July the following year where we were planning both games at the same time and it was extremely busy.
—What things did you struggle with during the development of The Legend of Zelda?
Miyamoto: We were brimming with new ideas on how to fully utilize the Disk System’s new capabilities: a name entry system, using better music, recording the player’s progress, and so forth. In that sense it was a very fun game to create. The flip side of doing something new, however, is that Zelda was a game where we were very concerned whether players would understand what they were supposed to do (much like the fear Nakamura had when Dragon Quest was first released).
And once we decided there’d be riddles and puzzles in Zelda, that carried a lot of anxiety with it as well. Some of the puzzles are quite difficult to solve, after all.
Since we were working on Super Mario at the same time, once Mario was finished, we grabbed the Mario programmers and used them for Zelda in a final programming sprint. That was really tough.
—Considering the Zelda series as a whole, what themes are you trying to convey?
Miyamoto: An everyday boy gets drawn into a series of incredible events and grows to become a hero. Within that framework, I wanted to create a game where the player could experience the feeling of exploration as he travels about the world, becoming familiar with the history of the land and the natural world he inhabits. That is reflected in the title: “the legend of ____”
Then as now, the original advertisements for The Legend of Zelda emphasized the feeling of exploration.
Adventure games and RPGs are games where you advance the story through dialogue alone, but we wanted players to actually experience the physical sensation of using a controller and moving the character through the world. We wanted dungeons to be explorable with a simple mapping system. These and similar ideas were what we wanted to experiment with in Zelda. These themes are carried forward in the SFC Zelda as well.
—Of all the characters in Zelda, who is your favorite?
Miyamoto: I have many favorites, but I really like the Darknut soldier, both for his name and the way he was programmed. In the original Legend of Zelda, he faces Link with his shield, and he can change his speed. For its time it was very elaborate behavior.
For the new Zelda for Super Famicom,
he looks around for Link as he patrols. Until Link comes within range of his vision he’ll just keep walking about, but if Link makes a sound with his sword he’ll suddenly turn in Link’s direction to investigate… he’s an enemy with very complex behavior.
Shigeru’s favorite enemy, the Darknut.
Because of that, by the way, we had to work hard to make sure there weren’t too many Darknuts on screen at once because it would cause too much slowdown.
—Please give a final message to your fans.
Miyamoto: We plan to continue making games of exploration and adventure featuring Link and Zelda. I hope you enjoy adventuring through this virtual world as your alter ego, Link.
Legend of Zelda – 1994 Developer Interview – shmuplations.com
Many Characters, Many Roles
Iwata
Hearing that Link may not have been able to leave the castle is quite surprising. Was one reason you thought about making Ganon’s Castle the only setting because early on in development you didn’t think you would be able to create a huge area like Hyrule Field?
Miyamoto
Yes. I thought so from the perspective of the hardware’s processing abilities while making Super Mario 64. At first, I didn’t mind making the game complete within a single building as long as I got to make Link in 3D. In other words, it might have turned out like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.66. Zelda II™: The Adventure of Link™: An action-adventure game released for the Family Computer Disk System in January 1987.
Iwata
Koizumi-san did say that you were experimenting with a polygon version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the Super Famicom system.
Miyamoto
That’s right. Partially because of that, I started making it with the idea that Ganon’s Castle might be enough. For example, there’s a room in which you fight Phantom Ganon after he rides a horse out of a picture.
Iwata
Yeah. The boss battle in the Forest Temple.
Miyamoto
That’s a glimpse of an idea that I had started making during the time that I was saying to the others, “At the very least, it’ll be like this.”
Iwata
Oh, okay. Now that you mention it, I can see that. Because the fight against Phantom Ganon unfolds inside a room. By the way, one early task was chanbara-style (theatrical Japanese style) sword-fighting. (Toru) Osawa-san told me that.
Miyamoto
That’s right. I wondered if we could have one-on-one battles and started thinking up fragments like the battle against Phantom Ganon early on in development, and I tested controls for having Link swing his sword in different directions.
Iwata
You were making the game as if putting together a puzzle.
Miyamoto
Yeah. And as we were making it, we were able to have Link walk across a broad landform like grassland.
Iwata
Did you make that broad landform because you wanted Link to ride a horse?
Miyamoto
Yeah. Koizumi-san made the horse. But making a broad landform that you could ride a horse across weighed down the processing, so we took it out for a while. And after awhile I returned to work with the production team and launched a huge campaign to regain the grassland! (laughs)
Iwata
Right. (laughs)
Miyamoto
We started by testing whether we could have two horses out at once. We thought if we could do that, then we could make other forms of play for that grassland. It went well, so we made a demo video with two horses. We showed that at Nintendo Space World7, and I was like, “Now that we’ve shown this, there’s no backing out!” (laughs)
Iwata
You forced your own hand! (laughs)
Miyamoto
Yeah. (laughs)7. Nintendo Space World: A video game trade show (in Japan) once held by Nintendo. The demo video with two horses for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was shown at Nintendo Space World 1997.
Iwata
Also, you were the one who really wanted to show Young Link, right?
Miyamoto
Yes. The work was really piling up, but I said I wanted to show Young Link. I think that caused the other developers a bit of a trouble. (laughs)
Iwata
Yes, it seems that it did! (laughs)
Miyamoto
But when I saw Adult Link that Koizumi-san had made, it was cool, but I said, “I don’t want to make this without Young Link!” Then we tested whether we could use both Adult and Young Link.
Iwata
Koizumi-san tinkered with the system and you were able to use Adult Link’s motions for Young Link as well.
Miyamoto
Right. Thanks to that, we could also have Young Link.
Iwata
Why were you so persistent on Young Link?
Miyamoto
Link is a boy. In the first game, The Legend of Zelda8, he was about 12 years old. In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, he was about 16, but I never wanted to make him just another cool hero. Until The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link was a playful and childish character.8. The Legend of Zelda™: An action-adventure game released simultaneously with the Family Computer Disk System in February 1986.
Iwata
But it seems that when you were making The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Koizumi-san’s wife asked him why Nintendo didn’t have any handsome characters, so he made Link good-looking. I heard that from Koizumi-san himself. (laughs)
Miyamoto
That’s right. (laughs) But I had worked on all the games since the first one, and I thought that if we made him too cool, he wouldn’t be Link anymore.
On the other hand, I did want Link to be somewhat cool, so we decided to have both Adult and Young Link. He doesn’t just grow from the point of view of stats—as in an RPG—but actually grows up in appearance. When we did that, then all sorts of ideas bubbled up.
Iwata
More ideas sprang up than when you had just been basing the game around Adult Link.
Miyamoto
Yes. When we decided to handle Link growing up from a 9-year-old child to a more mature 16-year-old, I wanted lots of characters to fulfill various roles. For example, Kaepora Gaebora is a grandfather figure who gives Link all kinds of advice and looks out for him. And since Link is a boy, I wanted girls besides Princess Zelda to show up.
Iwata
And that’s why Saria and Malon are there.
Miyamoto
Right. Also, Link’s archenemy is Ganon, so I thought they should meet once when he’s a child.
Iwata
So there’s that scene at the beginning where Link has a nightmare.
Miyamoto
Yes. That connects to the courtyard scene. The innocent eyes of a child are able to see through to the truth, so Young Link knows instinctively that Ganon is a bad guy. When Adult Link meets him again, and Ganon says he’s that boy from years before, it really hits you.
Iwata
It sure does. (laughs)
Miyamoto
You think to yourself, “That’s right. I’m that child from before.” Putting in that scene was really fun for me.
Iwata
You make games based around functions, so you don’t often talk about story or dramatic interpretation, but I feel like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time may have been an exception.
Miyamoto
But while making it, I noticed that I didn’t want to tell a story so much as I wanted to have a lot of people appear around the main character and portray their relationships. Some years back, a television show called Twin Peaks9 was popular. When I saw that, the most interesting thing wasn’t the ins and outs of the story, but what kinds of characters appeared.
Iwata
Oh, (Takashi) Tezuka-san said the same thing in our session of “Iwata Asks” over The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.10
Miyamoto
Oh, he did?
Iwata
Tezuka-san told the staff of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening11 that he wanted them to have a bunch of suspicious characters appear like in Twin Peaks.9. Twin Peaks: A television series broadcast in America from 1990 to 1991. It was broadcast in Japan in 1991.
10. The Legend of Zelda™: Spirit Tracks: An action-adventure game released for the Nintendo DS system in December 2009.
11. The Legend of Zelda™: Link’s Awakening™: The first game in The Legend of Zelda series for the Game Boy™ system released in June 1993. In December 1998, the remake The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX was released for the Game Boy Color system. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX became available for download from the Nintendo eShop application on June 8, 2011.
Miyamoto
That’s right. I think those suspicious and odd characters alone are interesting. I’m more interested in their presence than who is whose cousin and whose parents were sworn enemies way back when.
Iwata
You’re not too interested in the characters’ backgrounds. (laughs)
Miyamoto
Right. What’s important is what role that person plays and how they contribute to portraying the main character.
Iwata
Yes. You don’t want to tell a story so much as you have an interest in how the characters in their roles function to present the main character. It’s like you to think about a game from the point of view of how things function.
Miyamoto
Osawa-san, the script director, made lots of suggestions to me saying, “How about a character that functions like this?” Koizumi-san and (Yoshiki) Haruhana-san quickly designed those characters’ visible forms, and I helped make them, too. So even when it comes to the Ocarina of Time, I hardly ever talked about the story.
Iwata
(Eiji) Aonuma-san said the same thing. He said that while a lot of people say they like the epic story, on the level of the script, the story isn’t actually that epic. It feels epic because everything you experience within the game is added to the story.
Miyamoto
That’s right. The experience players have encountering people in the gameworld builds up and comes to feels like a story.
Iwata
Grappling with the puzzles is another kind of experience.
Miyamoto
Yes, I think so.
Iwata Asks – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto – Page 2 (nintendo.com)
Standards and Approach to Making Games
Miyamoto saw in the beginning when he joined Nintendo that the game industry had programmers and hardware designers – technologists. What gaming needed were designers, and Miyamoto was influenced early on in Nintendo by Yamahuchi’s philosophy – to make something nobody has ever seen before. Never make something just for the purpose of selling it, because if you only intend to make money the game will never be successful. However, if you make something interesting then it may just take off. To this day Miyamoto encourages present Nintendo staff to follow Yamahuchi’s way of thinking. Yamahuchi said to take your time, don’t be hasty, and make good quality games.
As he designs games, Miyamoto considers it through the eyes of the player. He presents a situation that the player must navigate. In Mario games the player used to always progress right to reach a goal, while in Donkey Kong the player must climb up to reach a girl. The focus is on gameplay, not on getting high scores. In Mario, Miyamoto didn’t offer an official tutorial with verbal instruction. Rather, the player discovered what Mario could do in the first few seconds of the game organically. If the player jumps over an enemy, they learn to jump. As the player progresses they see floating blocks, some with question marks on them. The player jumps again to hit the question marks, releasing a mushroom. Mario runs into the mushroom, making him grow bigger, and it helps the player feel happy.
In his way of thinking, Miyamoto prioritizes helping the player to feel a part of the world they are in. The more precisely you can move your character the more you feel like you are in the story. People stop playing games when the controls become to difficult, or the games become inaccessible.
Non-Linear Gaming
In 1986, Miyamoto changed the gaming industry again when Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda. Taking inspiration from exploring caves as a child, Miyamoto invented the first Non-Linear video game. Link explores a world for the first time where the player can travel in just about any direction, rather than only one. Mario n64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time both revolutionized gaming yet again, rendering the popular games in 3D. Miyamoto has reflected on his adventures through traveling. Themes from his exploration in real life arise in Zelda. Whether in caves as a child or going cross country as an adult, Miyamoto brings nature and discovery into his games.
“When I traveled around the country without a map, trying to find my way, stumbling on amazing things as I went, I realized how it felt to go on an adventure like this” – Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto: The Person Who Gave Gaming a Storyline | Gamers (vocal.media)
References:
Iwata Asks – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto – Page 2 (nintendo.com)
Shigeru Miyamoto: The Person Who Gave Gaming a Storyline | Gamers (vocal.media)
. Legend of Zelda – 1994 Developer Interview – shmuplations.com
our session of “Iwata Asks” over The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.10
Nintendo Shares Original Design Documents from The Legend of Zelda | Nintendo Life
