Support NeoGAF

[Shard]

http://nintendoeverything.com/tanta...ndos-involvement-amiibo-dev-length-much-more/

Much more at the jump above:

Crago went in-depth about developing Twilight Princess HD. That includes how Tantalus landed the job, Nintendo’s involvement and working with series producer Eiji Aonuma, coming up with the new Wolf Link amiibo and Cave of Shadows functionality, how long it took to come together plus the amount of people involved, and more.

Read on below for Crago’s comments about working on Zelda: Twilight Princess HD.

On landing the role of the developer of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD…

It’s an interesting one. I mean we had a game that was published by Nintendo in the past. That game was called Top Gear Rally on the Game Boy Advance which we developed originally for a very small Japanese publisher called Kemco. And Nintendo liked it, so they decided to publish it as a second-party title, and in the course of building that relationship, I was able to go to Kyoto a couple of times – and obviously when you get the opportunity to go to Nintendo headquarters and meet people there, these are relationships that you want to nurture when you’re making video games, so that’s what I did. I kind of kept those lines of communications open.

But I think the big thing actually for Nintendo was when we did Mass Effect 3 on Wii U… the two big ones that we did on Wii U were Mass Effect 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Nintendo were pretty impressed by those games technically, I think. They liked how we’d taken the original games from PC and console and brought them onto Wii U. So when they were thinking about a Zelda title and looking around for external developers, then it’s kind of a pretty short list of studios who had kicked some goals on the Wii U at this point. So they approached us, which is a pretty nice fun call to receive when you’re asked if you’d have any interest in working with The Legend of Zelda. We jumped up and down in excitement, and then commenced the fairly long process of convincing them that we could do that job.

On how long it took to convince Nintendo that they could do it…

Several months. I mean they are obviously an incredibly meticulous company, and we’re talking about a beloved property – one of the most beloved properties in the whole house of Nintendo, so we approached it very diligently and carefully, and we went to Kyoto a couple of times to meet with Aonuma-san and his team, and to talk to them about the work that we’d done and what we proposed to do on Twilight Princess, and then there are a series of experiments and tests and trials and so on before you have the opportunity to actually go into full development, and we are fortunate that we got that opportunity.

 

[capylikesgames]

Oh wow, Tantalus was behind Human Revolution's Wii U port? I planned on grabbing it eventually, and this just gives me more incentive. Looking at their Wikipedia page, they apparently also did House of the Dead's Saturn port. I was watching footage earlier this week, and felt it was impressive for the hardware. Good to know such a talented studio has sustained for all these years.

 

[OricWindstar]

Man, I haven't thought of Top Gear Rally in years. I fucking loved that game growing up; wonder how well it's aged.

 

[RoninChaos]

Hope they work on a switch version. I'm hoping tons of titles from the Wii U make it to switch.

 

[Roo]

"Hey, its Nintendo here, would you like to work on The Legend on Zelda?"

Tantalus:

"Yeah, it's an HD port of Twilight Princess"

Tantalus:

No, but seriously, they did a great job with Deus Ex and Nintendo couldn't have found a better developer to work on the Zelda port than Tantalus.
Nice article btw, didn't know they were behind that little GBA game.

 

[kunonabi]

Wasn't happy with their work on Twilight Princess but I did like the Wii U version Deus Ex quite a bit.

 

[Jon Carter]

I guess now we need Top Gear Rally HD.

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

The part about having to pass a series of experiments, tests and trials first kills me, especially when Nintendo were the ones that approached them.

 

[Zee Giesbrecht]

"We touched every single art asset in the game"
They so didn't. I recently wrote a post here pointing a lot of things they neglected and should be fixed. This interview makes it sound like they did a great job.
My post with pictures:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=232343132&postcount=80

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Not the best remaster. Especially if compared to Wind Water HD.

 

[@MUWANdo]

It's weird that Tantalus somehow gained a reputation for being an amazing port house when Deus Ex HR is pretty much the only port of theirs that fits the bill, everything else has been completely run-of-the-mill or even kinda shoddy.

Then again, they mention in the interview that the pool of Wii U developers was pretty shallow.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

I will buy Mass Effect 3: Special Edition but probably never play it. I would want to start such a series with the first one.

Already own Deus Ex: DC.

 

[Neiteio]

I didn't pick up TPHD, but it looked really pretty from what I saw.

Let them work on a Metroid Prime Trilogy HD.

 

[chronic_archaic]

It reminds me of how xseed almost localized Final Fantasy Type-0 around 2012 before Square decided to pull out because they didn't want them handling such a important franchise only instead Tantalus got the job and it came out..

 

[Yarbskoo]

Let them work on a Metroid Prime Trilogy HD.

That's what I really want.

As long as there's still an option for gyro aiming.

 

[Neiteio]

That's what I really want.

As long as there's still an option for gyro aiming.

Gyro aiming enhanced with HD Rumble so you can feel the power building up in Samus' arm cannon, or the grapple beam lashing out, or the morph ball rolling around!

 

[The Giant]

I was waiting for an interview regarding this. Nice info.

Deus Ex on Wii U was the biggest surprised for me. I got it just for the hell of it, cause it was $20 aud. Knew nothing about the game and loved it.

 

[Lyriell]

I will tell you this. This was almost Skyward Sword HD.

 

[TheGamingBox]

It's weird that Tantalus somehow gained a reputation for being an amazing port house when Deus Ex HR is pretty much the only port of theirs that fits the bill, everything else has been completely run-of-the-mill or even kinda shoddy.

Then again, they mention in the interview that the pool of Wii U developers was pretty shallow.

You forgot the mass effect 3 port

 

[Lights and Waves]

This remaster was such a step backwards from the Wind Walter remaster.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

It reminds me of how xseed almost localized Final Fantasy Type-0 around 2012 before Square decided to pull out because they didn't want them handling such a important franchise only instead Tantalus got the job and it came out..

Pretty sure Tantalus didn't do Type 0 HD...
Edit: Yup, it was Hexadrive.

 

[@MUWANdo]

You forgot the mass effect 3 port

I'm not hating on it at all--it was a launch game and runs on an engine that never had great support on Wii U--but the Mass Effect 3 port is not an especially good port, nor was their ZombiU port or any of the other ports they've done going back to the Saturn days. I'm glad they got the Zelda gig and it's cool to see an Aussie studio make a name for themselves like they have but I do think their reputation is way overblown.

 

[G0523]

Not the best remaster. Especially if compared to Wind Water HD.

This remaster was such a step backwards from the Wind Walter remaster.

Damn autocorrecting, am I right?

Tantalus did a great job with Twilight Princess HD. I hope they get to work with Nintendo again in the future for more HD remasters.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

Disappointing compared to Windwaker remaster but so was the original.

Jokes aside, the remaster plays better than the original and I had fun with it so it was a proficient job. That TP:HD Link model in the BotW GDC panel this year looked better than Tantalus though.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

It reminds me of how xseed almost localized Final Fantasy Type-0 around 2012 before Square decided to pull out because they didn't want them handling such a important franchise only instead Tantalus got the job and it came out..

Uh, where'd you hear that? Square Enix were fully intending to localize Type-0 originally and actually got a large amount of work done on it, but it was cancelled because the PSP got the plug pulled on it. The HD release allowed them to salvage a lot of loc work that was already done (including its complete dub).

 

[Lord of Ostia]

This remaster was such a step backwards from the Wind Walter remaster.

It's still a big improvement on the original game though. I would say it's the definitive version, despite not being as good as Wind Waker HD. And honestly, did anyone expect an HD remaster from a smaller third party dev to match one done by Nintendo internally? I think it's pretty good given Tantalus's track record. I'd love to see them do another remaster, maybe another GameCube property.

 

[IronicSonic]

Oh wow, Tantalus was behind Human Revolution's Wii U port? I planned on grabbing it eventually, and this just gives me more incentive. Looking at their Wikipedia page, they apparently also did House of the Dead's Saturn port. I was watching footage earlier this week, and felt it was impressive for the hardware. Good to know such a talented studio has sustained for all these years.

I think they also did Manx TT Superbike port for Saturn. Both 7/10 ports


I love TP HD btw

 

[watershed]

Nice interview. I didn't realize they also did the Deus Ex WiiU port. I'd love to play that game one day but there's no way I'm buying a WiiU now!

 

[Shard]

I think they also did Manx TT Superbike port for Saturn. Both 7/10 ports


I love TP HD btw

This by the way is how they got to work on Sonic Mania.

 

[Hero]

Uh, where'd you hear that? Square Enix were fully intending to localize Type-0 originally and actually got a large amount of work done on it, but it was cancelled because the PSP got the plug pulled on it. The HD release allowed them to salvage a lot of loc work that was already done (including its complete dub).

There was an old interview where someone from XSEED basically they had this really major IP localization project that the publisher yanked and the only game that really fit the bill was FF Type 0.

 

[chronic_archaic]

Uh, where'd you hear that? Square Enix were fully intending to localize Type-0 originally and actually got a large amount of work done on it, but it was cancelled because the PSP got the plug pulled on it. The HD release allowed them to salvage a lot of loc work that was already done (including its complete dub).

Oh, I meant that in this case, Tantalus got the OK to do the port and release the work. Not that they did Type 0 HD. This is the quote I'm referencing

"Most of the big names that people keep requesting from us over the years, we've been in talks on," Berry said. "There's a couple that we were right there... like one that would've pretty much shocked the industry if we could've announced it. But for whatever reason, at the very end, maybe some executives at the company just realized that this brand is too important to their company to license out to another company. Even if their U.S. branch isn't going to publish it, they can't let anyone else publish it.

 

[TheGamingBox]

I'm not hating on it at all--it was a launch game and runs on an engine that never had great support on Wii U--but the Mass Effect 3 port is not an especially good port, nor was their ZombiUport or any of the other ports they've done going back to the Saturn days. I'm glad they got the Zelda gig and it's cool to see an Aussie studio make a name for themselves like they have but I do think their reputation is way overblown.

uhh yes it was. I suggest actually playing it befor dissing it

 

[Yukinari]

Time to fire everyone who agreed that the Cave of Shadows was a good idea.

Oh and Midna's Lament still gets interrupted by enemy music.

Oh and Wolf Link still cant finish off downed enemies.

 

[kunonabi]

Disappointing compared to Windwaker remaster but so was the original.

Jokes aside, the remaster plays better than the original and I had fun with it so it was a proficient job. That TP:HD Link model in the BotW GDC panel this year looked better than Tantalus though.

TPHD plays like ass. The horse controls and camera were awful and pacing alterations felt really awkward compared to the better implemented WWHD tweaks. As needed as Hero mode was it wasn't enough to save how sloppy the rest of it turned out.

 

[wrowa]

"We touched every single art asset in the game"
They so didn't. I recently wrote a post here pointing a lot of things they neglected and should be fixed. This interview makes it sound like they did a great job.
My post with pictures:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=232343132&postcount=80

Holy mother of nitpicking.

The new assets are great. Much better than what was done for Wind Waker HD, even though that game's visuals aged a lot better than TP's.

I'd like to know who was responsible for messing up Epona's controls, though.

 

[Banjotanooki]

TPHD plays like ass. The horse controls and camera were awful and alterations felt really awkward compared to the better implemented WWHD tweaks. As needed as Hero mode was it wasn't enough to save how sloppy the rest of it turned out.

THIS.

I have no idea what they did to Epona's handing but it feels so awkward riding her now. Honestly, it stopped me from finishing the game because of how shitty the horse controls are.

Thank God for BOTW going back to normal controls.

 

[@MUWANdo]

It's still a big improvement on the original game though. I would say it's the definitive version, despite not being as good as Wind Waker HD. And honestly, did anyone expect an HD remaster from a smaller third party dev to match one done by Nintendo internally? I think it's pretty good given Tantalus's track record. I'd love to see them do another remaster, maybe another GameCube property.

Nintendo didn't do Wind Waker HD, Hexadrive did.

That being said, Wind Waker's the sort of game that could be made a lot better with relatively minor improvements whereas TP requires a more thorough overhaul to "fix" and I don't think Nintendo was really interested in a project of that scope, no matter the developer.

TPHD plays like ass. The horse controls and camera were awful and alterations felt really awkward compared to the better implemented WWHD tweaks. As needed as Hero mode was it wasn't enough to save how sloppy the rest of it turned out.

The horseback controls (as well as underwater controls) were deliberately altered as per Aonuma's instruction, IIRC.

uhh yes it was. I suggest actually playing it befor dissing it

I've played it, there's absolutely nothing remarkable about it or most of the other ports they've done.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

I think the Deus Ex HR Wii U Director's Cut is honestly the best version of Human Revolution. The features it adds are easily worth the visual tradeoff vs. PCs, I found it much more playable. The great tragedy of the Wii U is that we didn't get more third party ports with added gamepad features.

 

[Jonneh3003]

"We touched every single art asset in the game"
They so didn't. I recently wrote a post here pointing a lot of things they neglected and should be fixed. This interview makes it sound like they did a great job.
My post with pictures:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=232343132&postcount=80

Those are hardly even issues, they did a great job overall. The original TP was criticised for its texture work even when it was brand new (see IGNs 2006 review) and Tantlus did an amazing job revitalizing it.

 

[VDenter]

This port was incredibly disappointing coming off from Wind Waker HD. It costs just as much as the original did back in 2006 and yet it had most of its new features locked behind amiibos.

 

[Barrow Roll]

THIS.

I have no idea what they did to Epona's handing but it feels so awkward riding her now. Honestly, it stopped me from finishing the game because of how shitty the horse controls are.

Thank God for BOTW going back to normal controls.

The heck are you talking about? Horses in BOTW control completely different than horses in previous Zelda games. You tap A to get the horse to start galloping and you steer with the control stick. In previous Zelda games you just hold forward and steer with the control stick and boost with A. In fact, if you use the same control method for Epona in Twilight Princess HD as you do in BOTW she actually controls just fine, so much so that it wouldn't surprise me if Aonuma deliberately did this as a prototype for BOTW's horse controls. If you try to control Epona as she did in the Wii and Gamecube versions then yeah it feels terrible.

"We touched every single art asset in the game"
They so didn't. I recently wrote a post here pointing a lot of things they neglected and should be fixed. This interview makes it sound like they did a great job.
My post with pictures:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=232343132&postcount=80

A small number of oversights for sure, but overall their texture work is the best I've seen as far as Twilight Princess goes. I remember leading up to release people were saying how this is the equivalent of a Dolphin texture mod and I challenge anybody to show me a Dolphin texture mod that updates the textures to HD resolutions while retaining the original artstyle as well as Tantalus did.

 

[ClivePwned]

yeah, after WInd Waker HD, TPHD didn't feel like as much of a huge leap.
It does play better than it did on Wii and they really made the gamepad word really well for things like Inventory management and such.They got the motion control aiming right so I actually used it more and more.

But yeah, the art and sound could definitely have used more work.

So a decent port rather than anything special. Its certainly not a bad port. If they wanna tackle a switch port of SS, I'd be up for playing it.

 

[Jonneh3003]

This port was incredibly disappointing coming off from Wind Waker HD. It costs just as much as the original did back in 2006 and yet it had most of its new features locked behind amiibos.

One reskin of the Cave of Ordeals where you're forced to play as Wolf Link isn't "most of its new features". You're over looking Hero mode, gyro controls, gamepad integration, fewer tears of light and other quality of life improvements. It isn't a feature heavy remaster by any means, it's mostly a texture rework. That being said there are subtle improvements like not having to fish twice for that cat in the beginning that make this the definitive and smartest version of the game.

 

[TheGamingBox]

Nintendo didn't do Wind Waker HD, Hexadrive did.

That being said, Wind Waker's the sort of game that could be made a lot better with relatively minor improvements whereas TP requires a more thorough overhaul to "fix" and I don't think Nintendo was really interested in a project of that scope, no matter the developer.



The horseback controls (as well as underwater controls) were deliberately altered as per Aonuma's instruction, IIRC.



I've played it, there's absolutely nothing remarkable about it or most of the other ports they've done.

a port shouldnt be remarkable, mass effect 3 wiiu version suffers from no major issues, and neither did twilight princess hd, unlike say windwaker hd which suffered major framerate drops even worse than any drop in breath of the wild

 

[VLQ]

Nintendo didn't do Wind Waker HD, Hexadrive did.

Nintendo was main Wind Waker HD developer, Hexadrive made some outsourcing work

 

[Kyzer]

a port shouldnt be remarkable, mass effect 3 wiiu version suffers from no major issues, and neither did twilight princess hd, unlike say windwaker hd which suffered major framerate drops even worse than any drop in breath of the wild

Windwaker HD is not a port.

 

[TheGamingBox]

Windwaker HD is not a port.

yes it is

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Nintendo didn't do Wind Waker HD, Hexadrive did.

Nintendo developed it in-house. Takuhiro Dohta was the lead programmer. He was also the lead programmer of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. He's actually largely responsible for developing that lighting engine in Nintendo Land, Wind Waker HD, and BOTW.

Nintendo was main Wind Waker HD developer, Hexadrive made some outsourcing work

Not even really. Nintendo outsourced most of the ground textures to Imagica-Digitalscape, and HexaDrive basically was the technical assistant converting ID's ground textures back to Nintendo.

 

[atr0cious]

Never played TPHD, but Deus ExHR is by far the best third party port on the Wii U; it just oozes quality especially with the added functionality. Hope they get another project for the switch.

 

[LAA]

Interesting read about trusting devs with Nintendo franchises.
That said, yeah wasn't so impressed with the port, most seemed to think it was great in a thread about it a while ago.
Most annoying thing was the frame rate drops when going through grass.
Appreciated the menu designs and amiibo dungeons though.