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Zelda Wind Waker HD Only Took Six Months To Develop

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Zelda producer Eji Aonuma has told 4Gamer that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD for Wii U only took the developers six months to develop. However, Aonuma said that despite this, development was quite difficult as the team had to take into account the differences in hardware. Additionally Aonuma said that the game utilises a technique known as toon shading, which gives the game a very animated look which was hard to achieve.

4Gamer: I see. My impression is that there is a good balance between feeling of the original and a fresh feeling at the same time.

Aonuma: Yes. I thought it would be a waste to for this to simply be a test of the hardware. After that, I was told by staff, that this would not take too much time to develop. It takes a long time to develop a brand new game, so I thought it would be a shame to not have a Zelda game on the Wii U for a while. So I felt like it would be best to deliver something that can be done quickly and began work on the HD version.

4Gamer: Ah I see.

Aonuma: With the original release of Wind Waker, the first half of the game was well received, the later portion on the other hand, needed to be re-evaluated. That was my first time in control of the direction of the game and designing a game from scratch, there were some portions that I wanted to expand upon. If a remake were to happen, I believed I could work on some of those portions.

4Gamer: Does that mean the development time was not so long?

Aonuma: It took about 6 months. Development was still difficult. You had to consider the difference in hardware at the time. Additionally there is a technique known as toon shading, which gives the game a very animated look. At that time, the technique was established, but had not be used before by our staff, everyone had to do everything by hand.

150 thoughts on “Zelda Wind Waker HD Only Took Six Months To Develop”

                1. ”I play it right now” I hope you’re not from an English speaking country.

                  The game ran butter smooth for me. Digital foundry did an FR test on it and it’s 60FPS, Sometimes dropping into the 50’s. In other words: EXPOSED.

    1. Uh, the game does lag when too much is on screen (such as explosions). Even reviews on Gametrailers verify this. I’ve even noticed lag on Pikmin 3, so either the console is just underpowered or the developers haven’t mastered it yet.

      1. I noticed some bits of lag, myself. Glad I wasn’t the only one. But… it doesn’t make the game unplayable! It’s still a great game, just as it was on Gamecube. And I’m assuming that the lag just means that the developers have not yet mastered programming for it. I bet, by next year, there will be absolutely no noticeable lag.

    2. whenever a bomb explodes, a fading effect happens (like a frame skip) which I think they did as a stylistic choice. That’s what he’s referring to.

      1. wasn’t it hard to program the hears to not spawn and for enemies to do double damage, it’s 5 minutes work, and the miiverse to implement, lolololol

    1. Yes, now what? What do you want? Why did you post this? Why do you think we care? Are you just looking for “epic comments”? Why don’t you go on youtube videos then? When I came here this evening it wasn’t to view an advanced screening of “Autist From Outer Space” starring you. Faggot

          1. You can go fuck yourself anyway. We don’t people like you shitting in the comments. Its people like you that give the Nintendo community a bad name.

  1. Pingback: WWHD Only took 6 months to make

  2. Why am I expected to be surprised that a game that they made a decade ago didn’t take all that long to port to another console and make it pretty?

    What, were 5 and a half of those months spent waiting for the hard drive to boot up?

    1. -.O wtf? in da other place u were calling every1 a nintendrone but nyao ur hoping dis sheyat is on wii u? Wtf, i thinks ur a fake person. :p Fuck you , PSPenis, and wheel ur gayfake ass outta this place. no offense! ^_^

  3. look and it didnt even shift many consoles. WHY? nintendo thinks that a 10 year old game can justice a buy for a brand new system. this is there big hitter to them.

    maybe remake OOT in hd and MM, that would be a system seller, because they actually need it!!

      1. Majora’s Mask is too brutal for Nintendo fans? The people that supports Nintendo today are mostly the same people that originally played MM on the N64.

    1. Yeah. I’m not surprised it only took them 6 months.

      I’m just pissed. They took forever to release WiiU, launches it without knowledge to develop in HD, without games, WE, the EARLY ADOPTERS and loyal Nintendo fans pay $50 for a ten year old, 6 month experiment where Nintendo has lessons in HD using a game that was already beautiful (probably so they couldn’t fuck it up, it would look good no matter what they did to it)

      They weren’t confident enough to truly build an HD remake. I would have flipped and paid anything for a fully remastsred, HD version of Twilight or MM.

      I do like Windwaker. I’m happy to have it re-released.l, however, I was overcharged (and paid it like the good Nintendo obsessed fan I am) for an HD experiment.

      You want to see a REAL remake? Etrian Odyssey, Millinium Girl. (for those that like Atlus RPGs) It’s basically a whole new game. Interface is fucking spectacular, the 3D and visuals are amazing.

          1. LOL I don’t think he does he’s trapped in his fanboy world where WWHD is the best looking game ever even tho it looks just like the gamecube version

          2. He games. A lot. Although Nintenward and I don’t always see eye-to-eye, he’s got my respect as one of the old school gamers.

            I’m pretty sure we’ve been gaming since before most of you learned how to be anonymous trolling oxygen-wasters.

              1. Your reply was so quick, it makes me think that you do nothing all day but hover around comment sections. Exposed!

  4. WELL. 6 months is a little long for what is (mostly) a graphical update that runs on the same engine. The only MAJOR fix was the “Storage” glitch used for swift swimming and wall climbing. Almost every other glitch that existed before is still there. The Physics work exactly the same. The polygons are the same. The engine itself was NOT rebuilt. You can tell it’s dated because the game has significant frame drops in certain parts of the game (e.g. the boss fight in Dragon Roost Cavern.)

    The videos below are some of many examples of glitches that still exist and showcase that the engine, other than lighting, has not changed at all.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbu_2HhASrg
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTkQwDa7Uq4
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1brffR80DJk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypv-_hOtQts
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ_-1By3w74

    I love windwaker. it’s my favorite Zelda of all time and I own both versions… But seriously. This was a pretty lazy remake. =c

    1. HEY!! da face in da vid…. is dat u?! u were ft. in an IGNVideo! ;O whoas! ur COZMO right? hey cozmo! dem IGNorant bitchscums ignore u 2 much! >_< dey mean! ignorant starst with IGN! :|

    2. WWHD is easily one of the best HD remakes ever.

      No one forced you to re-buy it if you already played it before. This is about the 6th time I’ve played it and it’s easily the definitive version on Wiiu. And imo, worth buying AGAIN.

  5. if it only took 6 months, they should have done it before the wii U launch release. it would have sold much MUCH better as a launch game ( same with pikmin 3)

  6. Only 6 months, ok well hopefully it shouldn’t take too long for MM remake! So once we have new Zelda released, we might get MM by the summer? I mean, we already have the OOT remake as a base line if you see what I mean.

    1. Well I hope we’ll have to wait some times myself. I want that remake badly and I want it at least as good as OoT 3D’s one.

      1. Oh yeah, I don’t mind waiting ages as long as we defo get it eventually and if it takes ages to do then that’s great if it means it makes it better!

  7. they should have taken much more time and made the game not look like polished clay and instead made it look like a true remake, but it’s too late.

      1. Wait and see dude, this console could offer great games if she makes major sales, with Mario Kart, SSB. and Bayonetta for instance.
        It’s not really a matter of power but more like a matter of developers’ who don’t wanna make games for a console that doesn’t sell.
        I gotta agree though, Nintendo’s greed seems limitless…

          1. Forgive my frenchness. You understood what I meant though, but didn’t reply in a pertinent way, I assume I won.

      1. Honestly its not all that lazy. Most remakes don’t fix every thing since its built off the original engine and starts there. They fixed lots of the main issues with the game sailing, and the tri force quest. Added new features hard difficulty, swift sail, tingle bottle. Made most of animations faster in versions(like the treasure crane).
        Better lighting, smoother and slightly better textures. Its not all that lazy considering most people don’t work on most of the engine from the ground up. kingdom hearts 1.5 is good collection butit didn’t add much besides what what was missing from japanese version and added 358/2 movie. Its not lazy u just claim it is there is no true proof it was lazy. They clearly worked hard to remake it. If u could do better then do it

        1. Those are still minor changes that don’t make the game refreshing or new. The game has the same textures and reused character models, no new dungeons (don’t tell me the bs excuse Nintendo gives for that) same attack animations, same combos, etc Its the same exact game as before. I’ve played it and you get the same exact experience. Also and watch the game trailer review they give a real non fanboy review

          1. Ok so u expect the whole damn game to be new…I guess every other Hd remake gets a pass but when WW does its lazy. Of course they use the same damn animations its the same damn game fixed up. Yeah game trailers is a “real reviewer” when they sell out more then any other news site out there. Rember the the whole Mountain Dew and Dritos advertisement review from them yeah that was real professional of game trailers. No new dungeons no surprise there they were used in skyward sword and twilight princess so there would be no point in bring them in. I’ve talked to gamexplain, ign, and gameinfomer they all say the game is better then was before the over all experience has been tone up. And for a guy who played it u don’t know much. I’ve played through most of game most of characters are just smoother of course they aren’t different. Its a HD port/Remake there isn’t going to be a whole lot of new, almost all hd remakes do the same thing. Smooth out a few areas and add achievements and done. Its just of matter if ur a fan of WW, zelda or new comer that ur going to like this version better. Most people i’ve talked to sad they never beaten WW because the pace was too slow and they fixed that. I’m not a damn fanboy when i say this i’m a gamer

    1. Well considering they had to get the idea approve first it might have tooken a little time but yeah it should have

  8. 6 months making a game, probably cost barely any money and it will sell like crazy. Nintendo made a smart investment!!

    1. I bet they will profit for it after already 150k sales. But that’s good, they need it, like they needed ocarina of time 3D sales

  9. Well since now you know how to do it, it would take 3 months to make skyward sword hd for wii u ;) .. I would buy that for sure ;)

  10. I’m playing it now and I will say that game looks beautiful. I know it’s cartoon style and other things like that, but mostly all the graphics is in shaders, lightning. in fact everything is so bright.. I always felt like the best thing in Wii was shaders, in skyward sward, metroid prime 3 etc shaders looked beautiful, it seems like Wii U is gonna be the same, really high quality shaders, but the textures are still pretty much ported from gamecube game. The same thing happened with Monster Hunter 3 from 3ds port, they made it full hd, with beautiful shaders, but textures are blah.
    However for a game like WW, where you try to make it look like it’s a cartoon, it works surprisingly well. Im enjoying it a lot as a first Zelda HD game! But i won’t stop dreaming about how Twilight Princess would have looked like in HD!!

  11. I wish people on this site would just chill out, have fun and enjoy the game. It’s amazing! So what if there is a tiny bit of hardly unnoticeable lag. Stop starting fights, calling each other names and just go get your game on. I love this site, but at least the folks on Nintendolife.com are nice to one another. Anyway, I am absolutely loving the game and don’t notice any lag so far, but maybe that’s because I am focusing on how beautiful it looks and how fun it is and not nitpicking the hell out of it. Happy gaming everyone! -Bix

  12. Pingback: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker HD only took a half year to Develop | PLAYERESSENCE

  13. I am glad they remade wind waker; it was a great game that new gamers of this generation as well as old fans can enjoy on the wii u :D

  14. It obviously took them only 6 months, and then they sell this crap as if it was a triple A game lolol. It basically the same game from 10 years ago with the letters “HD” at the end. Same old low polygon characters/environments from the original. The same old outdated water/particle effects from 10 years ago. Same old sound effects they been using on their games for the past 30 years. They so lazy they didn’t even bother to add those dungeons that were never included in the original. They just desperate to get something out there.

    The idiots sat on their hands thinking they had it all with the fluke success they had with the Wii. They should have invested years ago in creating new studios and start developing games for their “new” system. Almost a year after launch and they still can’t bring a steady stream of games to their unperpowered lacking system.

    And the comments above from people complaining about lag on this game, shows what a piece of garbage this underpowered baby console is. It can’t even handle a low polygon game with simple environments from 10 years ago. No wonder Nintendo barely got their launch 2D old Mario game to run at 720p. If Nintendo can’t even get their console to perform why should anyone else bother.

  15. Well, all they had to do mainly was take the existing game and make the graphics HD. With just a few tweaks here and there. So, it wasn’t like making a game from the ground up.

  16. I get framerate drops too. Seems to happen after you get a was into the game. Fast sail doesn’t help either.

  17. Since I actually own a copy of the game, and of course a Gamecube, I’ll say this, I played Wind Waker HD WAAY before any of you all did. It was using a rom, and a dolphin emulator on my PC. Honest, I’m not bragging, but don’t expect great framerates without a decent rig, mine weren’t perfect, likeI expect the wii U version to be, but, it’s very playable. “and quite gorgeous!”

  18. Pingback: Eiji Aonuma confiesa que una maravilla como el remake The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD se hizo en 6 meses | www.nextn.net

  19. Nice to know i was right when i said everything nintendo announced early this year were titles they knew they could throw together in time to release before christmas, i guess…Answers for dk’s delay, of all copy and paste things, too.

    Still cant help but wonder what exactly nintendo’s been doing since the demise of the wii three years ago.

    I hate to say it, but they deserve their coming failure for releasing a console with no games for casuals that arent even paying attention to them.

    Try harder nintendo.

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  30. I tend not to write a ton of remarks, however i did a few searching and wound up here Zelda Wind Waker HD Only Took Six Months To Develop | My Nintendo
    News. And I actually do have a couple of questions
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    :-P And, if you are writing on additional places,
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