Zelda Will Evolve on the Wii U, Aonuma Hints At Voice Acting

[prowler]

The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma has told GameInformer that he personally wants to drive The Legend of Zelda series forward. Initially Aonuma was happy making small, individual changes to the series but he now feels it's time to seriously evolve the franchise.

"I started working on the series not at the beginning but part-way through its history. I think because of that, early on I was more looking objectively at the series and how we could change small, individual elements within it, rather than looking at how the series should evolve. As time has passed – particularly in the last few years – I've started to think a lot more about how I can take the series and really make it my own Zelda and evolve it further. As Mr. Miyamoto has allowed me to take the reins on the Zelda series, ultimately that's what I need to do. Perhaps some people will think it's a little bit late for me to start thinking about that, but as time goes by, that's becoming more of a theme in how I'm approaching the series."

"The most important thing about the Zelda series is that the player becomes Link. One of the challenges with full voice is that if we're trying to convey the player's emotion through Link, but you hear Link talking in somebody else's voice, that creates a disconnect between you and the role that you're taking on."

Aonuma jumped in at this point and clarified, "...if you create a game where everybody else in the game speaks but Link doesn't, it emphasizes the fact that he is silent and draws even more attention to it."

Interestingly, though, Aonuma was not completely opposed to the possibility of voice acting snaking its way into the series."

"Of course, this was the first time we went with fully orchestrated songs in the game, and we've seen what that can do to help bring the world alive and make the game that much more fun. We're continually looking at ways that we can evolve the series. We're not confident that we can find the right balance with full voice, so we'll see."

Aonuma also joked, "Everyone would be speaking Hylian, so even if you heard them speak, you wouldn't understand them."

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/12/02/eiji-aonuma-and-koji-kondo-on-voice-acting-and-zelda-39-s-future.aspx

 

[431unknown]

Change can be good. Hopefully he don't fuck it up tho.

 

[boombox]

That'll be awesome if they speak Hylian, I think this is definitely a step they should take, at least to see the difference it would make..

 

[Pong20302000]

nice

means we could also learn the language rather than just write in it

 

[duel]

I can see Hylian becoming the next Klingon.

 

[Gahars]

The separation with Link is already inherent in the games, with the 3rd Person Perspective and everything. I think it would be better if they stopped straddling the line between making him a character and making him a complete blank slate and just developed him in the next game.

Voice Acting could be a start, but if it's in (essentially) Simlish, I doubt it will immerse people any more. Besides, remember the last time when they gave voice acting a try with the Zelda franchise? And the time before that?

 

[PolloDiablo]

if that's the case... it's not that we dont have voice acting already
both Midna and Fi already speak in some short of language

btw... maybe they could aproach all this voice acting thing with a narrator, that way Link could remain silent

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Well this could be...interesting. If the voice acting is done right then yeah I suppose it would be pretty successful. But to be honest I'd rather have Link stay silent and everyone else can have voice acting.

 

[boktor666]

Of course this could be good. Better have Link's voice actor knowing how to do a full spoken dialogue instead of " HYA, HUH, WHAAA, AIITSJE, OOF and RAAAGHh". I hope to see some nice improvements , it's getting intresting.

 

[KaitoTheRamenBan]

Nobuyuki Hiyama?

 

[BrightNeko]

If done they can have it go the FFT route with you naming link still just everyone says link. However the subtitles and plain text would have what you put. The down side is I don't see nintendo if having link talk would have him talk briefly, he would probably be very much like Pit and sound that nerdy kind of brave.

 

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

How refreshing. It only took them almost three console generations.

 

[prowler]

IMO Links VA should obviously be Jesse McCartney.

 

[KingVamp]

Link, Zelda and Ganondorf should not have voice acting or maybe not any other character. They should give us a option to turn off voice acting at the beginning of the game.

 

[Satangel]

Agreed KingVamp, just give us the choice to turn it on or off, then you can't do anything wrong in my book.

 

[Foxi4]

Zelda had voice acting since the N64.

"HA! HYAH!"

"HEY, LISTEN!"

 

[prowler]

Zelda had voice acting since the N64.

"HA! HYAH!"

"HEY, LISTEN!"

My favourite (Skyward Sword) is the man in that flying shop saying thank you. Literally crying.

 

[T3GZdev]

nice, wouldnt really see a prob with voice acting, in zelda, or metroid, or any nintendo game without it.
but heaving the option to turn on or off would be nice.
2 diffrent game modes one where the characters talking like in other m, or gta games & 1 where the charecters talking like in the pokemon, or twilight princess & every other zelda game games.

 

[Deleted-236924]

The separation with Link is already inherent in the games, with the 3rd Person Perspective and everything. I think it would be better if they stopped straddling the line between making him a character and making him a complete blank slate and just developed him in the next game.

Voice Acting could be a start, but if it's in (essentially) Simlish, I doubt it will immerse people any more. Besides, remember the last time when they gave voice acting a try with the Zelda franchise? And the time before that?

The CD-i games weren't even made by Nintendo.

 

[prowler]

2 diffrent game modes one where the characters talking like in other m, or gta games & 1 where the charecters talking like in the pokemon, or twilight princess & every other zelda game games.

Grand Theft Auto: Hyrule.