Also, Miyamoto sees the series and game like it was Twin Peaks.
Here are some translated notes from the latest Iwata Asks on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D:
- Back when they first started making it they didn't know how big a game they would be able to make with the memory constraints. Miyamoto reveals that while they were validating it, he had a worst case scenario in his mind that it would be structured like Mario 64 - only Link would be adventuring in Ganon's castle and it would have separate areas the way Mario 64 uses the paintings. In that case Link wouldn't be able to leave the castle.
- The Forest Temple battle with the Ganon Doppelganger riding a horse out of the painting was a carry over idea from that period of development.
- Iwata mentions that Zelda must have been an exception for Miyamoto - he usually makes his game by first focusing on the game function/elements and then expanding on that, but for Zelda it seems like story was more important. Miyamoto says that is incorrect, he relates it to Twin Peaks - in that show it was less about the story for him and more about what kind of characters would show up. He created Zelda with that mind set of deciding first what kind of characters he wanted to show up in the game.
- Iwata asks Miyamoto about the story and he mentions that he would love it if people would stop focusing on the story, because having to pay attention to all of those details ends up wasting a lot of time. He'd much rather focus on the game itself. He likens this to Yoshi - people as if he is a boy or a girl? Well he's probably a boy, he says. Then he shouldn't be able to produce eggs. But if he's a girl his voice should be more girlie, etc, etc.
- He then relates the concept to Popeye - how these same characters in old cartoons would play different roles every time, and that is kinda how the Mario characters have become. He then mentions that it would be great if people could accept him doing that with the Zelda characters.
- He explains that pre-rendered cut scenes don't line up with his design style at all, and if they have to put some in his games he makes sure that they're done so that they can be easily changed on the fly. So he prefers doing them in real time.
- For the scene in Lon Lon ranch where Ingo chooses to be a sore loser and lock the doors so Link can't get out - originally he wanted to have Ingo burn the ranch down in reaction to that. But then someone brought up "well, what do we do when people go back to the ranch after that?" and that's when Miyamoto chose to give up on that idea.
- At the end, talking about the 25th anniversary Miyamoto reveals that Nintendo of America proposed doing a collectors pack exactly like they did with Mario 25, but Miyamoto and Iwata both shot that down saying that wasnt very Nintendo-like. (Doing it two years in a row)
