#LinksAwakeningQuote
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Link's Awakening turns 33 today! This is especially poignant with Takashi Tezuka's upcoming retirement
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Miyamoto on his favorite Zelda game, 2003.

Source: Nintendo Prime

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #TezukaQuote

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGDz...
PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 50. Producer & Co-Director of the first Zelda. Producer of Link’s Awakening. - Takashi Tezuka, age 42. Co-Director of the first Zelda. Director of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: Q: [What is your favorite Zelda?] Miyamoto: It has to be Link’s Awakening. I wasn’t very involved in the development of that game. I played that game a lot after it was finished, and I thought it was very fun. [laughs] That one was directed by Mr. Tezuka, actually. There are many elements portraying the pure Tezuka style, so I spent my time looking for the classic Zelda elements. … The one I most enjoyed relaxing with was Link’s Awakening.
June 6, 2026 at 7:52 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
#Linktober 11: Dream/Nightmare

Koizumi on writing the story for Link's Awakening, 2007.

Source: Wired

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#KoizumiQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/adccbdbf92a3...
PEOPLE: - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 39. Writer for A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 55. Producer of A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: Koizumi: Back then, the people who wrote the manuals often became the people who came up with most of the backstory for the entire game. The first real game work that I did was on Link's Awakening. … I came in to write the manual, as I did on [A Link to the Past]. But they had nothing in place. So I ended up making an entire story to go along with the game. The dream, the island, that was all mine. And so that was my first experience doing the kind of work that we would now call "event design." But there were not too many people at the time with expertise in that area, so I really had free reign to do what I wanted, so long as I didn't make Miyamoto angry.
October 11, 2025 at 6:17 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Koizumi on sneaking story into the Zelda games, 2007.

Source: Wired

#Zelda
#OcarinaofTimeQuote, #MajorasMaskQuote, #LinksAwakeningQuote
#KoizumiQuote

www.wired.com/2007/12/inte...
PEOPLE: - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 39. Writer for Link’s Awakening & A Link to the Past. 3D Gameplay Director for Ocarina of Time. Co-Director of Majora’s Mask. QUOTE: Koizumi: I was the one coming up with scenarios, just on my own, ever since the time of Link's Awakening. … I felt like I came up with this entire scenario and a backstory for Link, but nobody really seemed to care. They were always saying “Let's not try to push the story forward too much.” So I would try to find sneaky ways to get it in without them noticing too much. For example, I always liked the idea of you coming upon another character and hearing little bits of conversation that slowly begin to reveal different parts of the story. And that was the way that I tried to work on Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
June 9, 2026 at 3:58 AM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Link's Awakening turns 33 today!
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Tezuka on the team's frame of mind while developing Link's Awakening, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#TezukaQuote

iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/d...
PEOPLE: - Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Director of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: Tezuka: I remember that we made Link's Awakening in a real peculiar frame of mind. We began in the free spirit of an afterschool club, so the contents are quite unrestrained. If you look at it, you can tell. Characters similar to Mario and Luigi appear, and Yoshi dolls appear, too. It was for the Game Boy system, so we thought, “Oh, it'll be fine.” [laughs] … We moved along at quite a good clip in a relatively freewheeling manner. Maybe that's why we had so much fun making it. It was like we were making a parody of The Legend of Zelda.
June 6, 2026 at 7:49 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Miyamoto on his favorite Zelda game, 2003.

Source: Nintendo Prime

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#MiyamotoQuote,#TezukaQuote

www.notion.so/12641fe961fd...
PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 50. Producer & Co-Director of the first Zelda. Producer of Link’s Awakening. - Takashi Tezuka, age 42. Co-Director of the first Zelda. Director of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: "Q: [What is your favorite Zelda?] Miyamoto: It has to be Link’s Awakening. I wasn’t very involved in the development of that game. I played that game a lot after it was finished, and I thought it was very fun. [laughs] That one was directed by Mr. Tezuka, actually. There are many elements portraying the pure Tezuka style, so I spent my time looking for the classic Zelda elements. … The one I most enjoyed relaxing with was Link’s Awakening."
November 3, 2024 at 6:02 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
After that was Link's Awakening. The Windfish's egg and his concept, and though he left the script of the main quest to Yoshiaki Koizumi, he himself wrote most of the odd side characters' dialog.

#LinksAwakeningQuote
#TanabeQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/Link-s-Awake...
PEOPLE: - Kensuke Tanabe, age 35. Link’s Awakening Writer. - Takashi Tezuka, age 38. Link’s Awakening Game Director. - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 30. Link’s Awakening Writer. QUOTE: Tanabe: When I started [on Link’s Awakening] I was given a list of requirements by the director, Mr. Tezuka, such as no Triforce, no Princess Zelda, no Hyrule, and a closed field. ... Mr. Tezuka requested a world full of strange characters like in Twin Peaks, which was a popular show back then. I then wrote a script that fit my vision of an egg hatching on a mountaintop ending the world with Koizumi’s “Your dream? Or someone else’s dream?” Koizumi worked on the main thread of the story and I did the odd characters.
January 22, 2026 at 4:41 AM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Link's Awakening turns 33 today!
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Morita on the experiments that led to Link’s Awakening, 2006.

Source: Nintendo Power

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#MoritaQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/Nintendo-Pow...
PEOPLE: - Kazuaki Morita, age 40. A Link to the Past Object Programmer, Link’s Awakening Main System Programmer. QUOTE: Morita: The first Zelda game that featured fishing was Link's Awakening on the Game Boy. That happened during a short period of downtime after the massive Link to the Past project ended in the early ‘90s. I wanted to learn how to program for the Game Boy, and did a lot of experiments. Once I started, I discovered that Game Boy programming was quite sophisticated, yet very accessible. Far beyond our original expectations, we did so many wonderful things with our experiments that we decided to re-conceive it all as part of a Zelda game for the Game Boy.
June 6, 2026 at 7:48 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
In honor of Link's Awakening's 31st anniversary today:

Tezuka on the team's frame of mind while developing Link's Awakening, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#TezukaQuote

www.notion.so/ec1e46301023...
PEOPLE: - Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Director of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: "Tezuka: I remember that we made Link's Awakening in a real peculiar frame of mind. We began in the free spirit of an afterschool club, so the contents are quite unrestrained. If you look at it, you can tell. Characters similar to Mario and Luigi appear, and Yoshi dolls appear, too. It was for the Game Boy system, so we thought, ‘Oh, it'll be fine.’ [laughs] … We moved along at quite a good clip in a relatively freewheeling manner. Maybe that's why we had so much fun making it. It was like we were making a parody of The Legend of Zelda."
August 6, 2024 at 6:23 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Frost on meeting with Nintendo to talk Twin Peaks & Zelda, 2024.

Via The Verge.

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#FrostQuote

www.notion.so/42cc20d9cab2...
PEOPLE: - Mark Frost, age 70. Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Twin Peaks. QUOTE: "Q: [Interviewer asks about his meeting with Nintendo developers, who were reportedly inspired by Twin Peaks for Link’s Awakening] Frost: They were talking to me about a Twin Peaks game, and they mentioned Zelda at the time. They said, ‘One of the things we love about your show [Twin Peaks] is how there’s all sorts of sideways associations that can drive the story forward.’ They asked me about that as they were thinking about expanding the Zelda universe. ... I’d played lots of Dungeons & Dragons when I was young, so I was familiar with the kind of story they were thinking about. I think I said, ‘Don’t be afraid to use dreamlike, Jungian symbolism. Things can connect thematically without having to connect concretely.’ It was things like that that I was urging them [to consider]."
February 26, 2024 at 5:13 AM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Morita on the experiments that led to Link’s Awakening.
Via Nintendo Power, 2006.

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#MoritaQuote

hyruleinterviews.notion.site/Nintendo-Pow...
PEOPLE: - Kazuaki Morita, age 40. A Link to the Past Object Programmer, Link’s Awakening Main System Programmer QUOTE: "Morita: The first Zelda game that featured fishing was Link's Awakening on the Game Boy. That happened during a short period of downtime after the massive Link to the Past project ended in the early ‘90s. I wanted to learn how to program for the Game Boy, and did a lot of experiments. Once I started, I discovered that Game Boy programming was quite sophisticated, yet very accessible. Far beyond our original expectations, we did so many wonderful things with our experiments that we decided to re-conceive it all as part of a Zelda game for the Game Boy."
November 6, 2023 at 4:19 PM
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Tezuka on luring Koizumi to work on Link's Awakening and Miyamoto's distraction, 2009.

Via Iwata Asks.

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#TezukaQuote,#KoizumiQuote,#MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/ec1e46301023...
PEOPLE: - Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Director of Link’s Awakening. - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 41. Writer for Link’s Awakening. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 57. Producer of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: "Tezuka: It looked like [Koizumi] would be good at creating a story, so we lured him into our afterschool club. Koizumi-san was in charge of the opening movie and main story. He's a romantic, and I think that shows in Link's Awakening. He was in charge of the whole flow of the story. Iwata: What was Miyamoto-san doing [during Link’s Awakening development]? Tezuka: I think he was busy with something and didn't pay us much mind."
December 18, 2023 at 7:17 PM