Grezzo Didn’t Know About the New Nintendo 3DS Until Late in Development

Grezzo, the company responsible for Majora’s Mask 3D, apparently wasn’t even aware of the New Nintendo 3DS until very shortly before it was unveiled publicly in a private meeting at Nintendo’s headquarters. Aonuma really had only one demand during that meeting – to create a free roam camera with the C-Stick. This is because of how much he fell in love with it in The Wind Waker – he just knew it was an experience he wanted in Majora’s Mask 3D (and, likely, all future 3D Zelda titles). The meeting itself was a bit of an odd one, because Nintendo usually met with Grezzo at their place in Tokyo, but this particular meeting made Grezzo come to Nintendo.

Ooiwa: We were already in the second half of the development stage. We finished the porting processes in general and were starting to incorporate the new challenging elements one by one. That’s why we usually had our meetings at the GREZZO office in Tokyo around that time, but one day out of the blue, you had asked us, “How about having a meeting in Kyoto for a change?”

Iwata: Now that’s a suspicious invitation! (laughs)

Ooiwa: It was! (laughs) However, at the time, we thought, “It isn’t bad to have meetings in Kyoto once in a while.” So we decided to take up the offer.

Iwata: At the time, you probably thought “Yes, we get to visit Kyoto for the first time in a long time!” all the while being oblivious to the workload that awaited you. (laughs)

Ooiwa: That’s right! (laughs) After we got there, we were shown the New Nintendo 3DS.

Yamamura: The system wasn’t announced yet, so we asked you to come all the way to Kyoto.

Aonuma: And when they arrived, I immediately requested to add a feature to spin the camera with the C-Stick¹⁸in-game.18. C-stick:An analog stick newly added on the left side above the A B X Y buttons on New Nintendo 3DS consoles.

Ooiwa: I was surprised that you asked for such a request at that timing! (laughs)

Aonuma: Sorry about that, but I really wanted to move the camera around in this game. We integrated the free-to-control camera for the first time in The Legend of Zelda:The Wind Waker¹⁹, and from that experience I knew how well it felt when I was able to use that.19. The Legend of Zelda:The Wind Waker: An action adventure game released on Mar. 2003 for the GameCube console.

Ooiwa: So, after that I brought back a large task given by Aonuma-san. However, at the time, the New Nintendo 3DS system was still confidential, so we couldn’t talk about it to most of our staff. We had to gather up a limited number of people, such as the programmers in charge, and worked on this task in a hush-hush manner.

Iwata: “Hush-hush”, huh! (laughs)

Ooiwa: But thanks to integrating this feature, players can now see the icon of this game, the Moon, while they move Link around.

Aonuma: And you couldn’t do that in the Nintendo 64 version. You have an idea that the moon is falling lower, but you couldn’t really see it.

Sano: You expect the Moon to look bigger on the third day, but you can’t really see it. But now, you can enjoy gazing at the Moon whenever you want! (laughs)

Aonuma: It’s really nice, isn’t it? (laughs)

Iwata: But wasn’t it hard to add the camera rotation feature after you had reached near the end of the development process?

Ooiwa: It was. After all, Majora’s Mask has many types of programming that determines the camera controls.

Iwata: So it’s a system where there are many different types of camera programs depending on the scene?

Yamamura: That’s right. There are various types of camera programs that adjust to match different scenes like climbing ladders and flying as Deku Link. Even compared to Ocarina of Time, there are quite a number of them.

Ooiwa: This is why we had to experiment on an enormous scale of how we could combine the many camera programs with the camera controls of the C-stick.

Yamamura: Above that, we needed to consider Link’s transformations. The default Link and Goron Link are different heights, so the height of the cameras are different, too.

Ooiwa: And by being able to moving the camera around freely, you’re now able to see stuff that you weren’t supposed to see…

Iwata: So those are the problems you faced when integrating the C-stick.

Ooiwa: Right, so unexpected problems appeared here and there, so it wasn’t an easy task.

Iwata: I see. I think I learned another reason why developing this game took such a long time! (laughs)

Aonuma: But we gained a tremendous result for pulling through, didn’t we?

Ooiwa: Definitely.

Source: Iwata Asks