Inception as a GameCube game , the director of
Twilight Princess, at the 2007
Game Developers Conference In 2003,
Nintendo announced a new
Zelda game for the GameCube by the same team that had created the
cel-shaded The Wind Waker. At the following year's
Game Developers Conference, director
Eiji Aonuma unintentionally revealed that it was in development under the working title
The Wind Waker 2, with a similar graphical style.
Nintendo of America told Aonuma that North American sales of
The Wind Waker were sluggish because its cartoon appearance created the impression that it was designed for a young audience. Aonuma expressed to producer
Shigeru Miyamoto that he wanted to create a realistic
Zelda game that would appeal to the North American market and meet Miyamoto's original vision of realism for the series. Miyamoto, hesitant about solely changing the presentation, suggested the team should focus on gameplay innovations. He advised that Aonuma should start by doing what could not be done in
Ocarina of Time, particularly horseback combat. Early development of what would become
Twilight Princess began and special care was taken to improve the realism of the horseriding, with lead character designer Keisuke Nishimori riding a horse for himself to feel what it was like. Just as the
original Legend of Zelda was inspired by
J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings novels, the aesthetic of
Twilight Princess was inspired by the
Lord of the Rings films, as they had just come out and were very popular at the time. It was developed with a large convincing world in mind, one with a vast scale to meet the expectation for fantasy worlds that audiences had become accustomed to with
The Lord of the Rings. In four months, Aonuma's team managed to present realistic horseback riding, a true sequel to it was released for the
Nintendo DS in 2007, in the form of
Phantom Hourglass. Miyamoto explained in interviews that the graphical style was chosen to satisfy demand and that it better fit the theme of an older incarnation of Link. The game runs on a modified
The Wind Waker engine. Prior
Zelda games have employed a theme of two separate, yet connected, worlds. In
A Link to the Past, Link travels between a "Light World" and a "Dark World"; in
Ocarina of Time, as well as in
Oracle of Ages, Link travels between two different time periods. The
Zelda team sought to reuse this motif in the series' latest installment. It was suggested that Link transform into a wolf, much like he metamorphoses into a rabbit in the Dark World of
A Link to the Past. The concept for Link to transform into a wolf and its surrounding narrative elements came from a dream that Aonuma had while overseas on a business trip. He dreamt that he was a wolf, locked inside a cage, and, after he woke up, he was confused and disoriented and it took a while for him to remember where he was. Takano created the script for the story scenes, Originally, Link was planned to be a wolf from the start to bluntly contrast the
Ocarina of Time formula, but this was changed so that new players could be eased into the
Zelda series' traditional gameplay and narrative formula. The narrative premise in the story regarding the children of Ordon village being kidnapped was an example of the darker story elements.
Transition to the Wii Aonuma had anticipated creating a
Zelda game for what would later become the Wii, but had assumed that he would need to complete
Twilight Princess first. His team began work developing a pointing-based interface for the bow and arrow, and Aonuma found that aiming directly at the screen created a new feel, just like the DS control scheme for
Phantom Hourglass. Aonuma felt confident this was the only way to proceed, but worried about consumers who had been anticipating a GameCube release. Developing two versions would mean delaying the previously announced 2005 release, still disappointing the consumer. Nintendo President
Satoru Iwata felt that having both versions would satisfy users in the end, even though they would have to wait for the finished product. Aonuma then started working on both versions in parallel. At
E3 2005, Nintendo released a small number of
Nintendo DS game cards containing a preview trailer for
Twilight Princess. They also announced that a
Zelda title would appear on the Wii (then codenamed "Revolution"), but were not clear to the media if this meant
Twilight Princess or a different game. The team worked on a Wii control scheme, adapting camera control and the fighting mechanics to the new interface. A prototype was created that used a swinging gesture to control the sword from a first-person viewpoint but was unable to show the variety of Link's movements. When the third-person view was restored, Aonuma thought it felt strange to swing the Wii Remote with the right hand to control the sword in Link's left hand, so the entire world map was mirrored for the Wii version. Details about Wii controls began to surface in December 2005 when British publication
NGC Magazine claimed that when a GameCube copy of
Twilight Princess was played on the Revolution, it would give the player the option of using the Revolution controller. Miyamoto confirmed the Revolution controller-functionality in an interview with Nintendo of Europe and
Time reported this soon after. However, support for the Wii controller did not make it into the GameCube release. At
E3 2006, Nintendo confirmed that both versions would be available at the
Wii launch, and had a playable version of
Twilight Princess for the Wii. Nintendo staff members reported that demo users complained about the difficulty of the control scheme. Aonuma realized that his team had implemented Wii controls under the mindset of "forcing" users to adapt, instead of making the system intuitive and easy to use. He began rethinking the controls with Miyamoto to focus on comfort and ease. The camera movement was reworked and item controls were changed to avoid accidental button presses. In addition, the new item system required use of the button that had previously been used for the sword. To solve this, sword controls were transferred back to gestures—something E3 attendees had commented they would like to see. This reintroduced the problem of using a right-handed swing to control a left-handed sword attack. The team did not have enough time before release to rework Link's character model, so they instead flipped the entire game—everything was made a mirror image. Link was now right-handed, and references to "east" and "west" were reversed. The GameCube version, however, was left with the original orientation. The
Twilight Princess player's guide focuses on the Wii version, but has a section in the back with mirror-image maps for GameCube users.
Music and sound The score was composed by
Toru Minegishi and Asuka Ohta, with series regular
Koji Kondo serving as the sound supervisor. Minegishi took charge of composition and sound design in
Twilight Princess, providing all field and dungeon music. For the trailers, three pieces were written by different composers, two of which were created by
Mahito Yokota and Kondo.
Michiru Ōshima created orchestral arrangements for the three compositions, later to be performed by an ensemble conducted by Taizo Takemoto. Media requests at the trade show prompted Kondo to consider using orchestral music for the other tracks, a notion reinforced by his preference for live instruments. Kondo later cited the lack of interactivity that comes with orchestral music as one of the main reasons for the decision.
Technical vulnerability Following the discovery of a
buffer overflow vulnerability in the Wii version of
Twilight Princess, an
exploit known as the "Twilight Hack" was developed, allowing the
execution of custom code from a
Secure Digital (SD) card on the
console. A specifically designed
save file would cause the game to load
unsigned code, which could include
Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) programs and
homebrew Wii applications. Versions 3.3 and 3.4 of the
Wii Menu prevented copying exploited save files onto the console until circumvention methods were discovered, and version 4.0 of the Wii Menu
patched the vulnerability.
Twilight Princess HD A
high-definition remaster,
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, was developed by
Tantalus Media for the
Wii U. Announced during a
Nintendo Direct presentation on November 13, 2015, it features enhanced graphics and
Amiibo functionality. The idea for a high-definition version of
Twilight Princess first originated during the production of
Breath of the Wild. Nintendo experimented with an HD version of
Twilight Princess running on
Wii U development kits when trying to settle on a graphical style for the new game. This ultimately led to the production of
The Wind Waker HD, whose success encouraged the
Zelda team to pursue other high-definition remasters. After its release, which was developed internally at
Nintendo in only six months, the
Zelda team settled on an HD
remaster of
Twilight Princess. At the time, most of the
Zelda team was preoccupied with
Breath of the Wild, so Nintendo sought a partnership with an external
development studio, the Australia-based
Tantalus Media, to work on
Twilight Princess HD. According to
Eiji Aonuma, who directed the original release and produced
Twilight Princess HD, ensuring the remaster would take advantage of the
Wii U GamePad was a point of focus early in the title's development. The control scheme used in the
GameCube version was adapted for the remaster due to similarities between the button layouts of the two
consoles' controllers. A commitment to "preserving the feel of the original" inspired several design decisions, such as keeping the
frame rate at 30 frames per second. and can carry data over to
Breath of the Wild. In the Cave of Shadows, Link fights waves of enemies while restricted to his wolf form. Other
Zelda-related Amiibo figurines have distinct functions: Link and Toon Link replenish arrows, Zelda and
Sheik restore Link's health, and Ganondorf causes Link to take twice as much damage. A three-disc original soundtrack consisting of 108 pieces was released in Japan in July 2016. ==Reception==