Reasons for Link and Sonic Crossovers Explained
Posted on October 12 2014 by Jessica
If you’ve ever had the longing desire to see your favorite, Nintendo characters in another game, you might wonder how that process comes about. Of course there might be some marketing behind it, but with a character as inspiring as Link, the idea of paying tribute to the Legend of Zelda series as either DLC or an crossover is an honor for developers and fans to enjoy. Hit the jump to hear what Capcom president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto’s reasoning behind the Zelda tributes in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Sonic: Lost World.
In a recent interview with Siliconera, Haruhiro Tsujimoto revealed how the Monster Hunter 4 Ulitmate devteam managed to implement their favorite hero in green into their own game. Not only did the devteam want to feature some of their favorite characters, they needed to choose faces popular enough to appeal to audiences in the West; seeing as how most crossovers are generally exclusive to Japan Fortunately the devteam was able to settle with bit of influence from The Legend of Zelda. Here’s a bit of reasoning as to how Link influenced Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.
“As you know, Nintendo helped a lot with development and they’ve been very good partners, so we wanted very much to take some kind of a Nintendo IP and do some sort of crossover that seemed to make sense from our point-of-view,” Tsujimoto shared. “And of course, with us on the development side, when you think of Nintendo, the first thing you think of are Mario and Zelda characters. Certainly, for those of us on the devteam that are in our 30s and 40s, that’s exactly the first thing that comes to mind.”
“So, we started to think of what we could do with Mario and Link-type characters. It occurred to us… as you know, in Monster Hunter, you’ve got a Sword and Shield, and Link is the same way, so it would be a perfect match. So, we went over to Nintendo, discussed, got permission, and went ahead and did it.”
According to Sonic producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, the reason behind the Zelda crossover in Sonic: Lost World is a little more to the point.
Though Tsujimoto’s reasons might not come as a huge surprise as to why developers choose certain characters for DLC or crossovers, an explanation from behind the scenes is always interesting to hear. If you could choose any video game characters to be featured as DLC, crossover, or easter egg, who would you choose and in which game? Leave your thoughts in comments below!
