You may not have heard of Tomomi Sano before, but the Nintendo employee just broke a major barrier in the Legend of Zelda series. She now becomes the first female director of the series after helping direct The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which comes out just days later.
Nintendo revealed Sano’s milestones in a new Ask a Developer volume, focusing on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. She is part of the company’s Production Group 3 entertainment planning and development arm and has previously worked with Grezzo on several Zelda remakes: Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora’s Mask 3D and “Link’s Awakening”. (Yes, Nintendo finally confirmed Grezzo’s involvement as a developer on the new Switch-exclusive game.)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom plays like Mini Kingdom Tears
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Additionally, Nintendo and Grezzo also revealed the origins of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. In fact, the project sounds like something out of the Zelda franchise—similar to the Super Mario Maker series—but this time focused on dungeon creation and sharing. Grezzo’s Satoshi Terada, who co-directed the game with Sano, discussed his team’s opportunities to create new games in the Zelda series and their different ideas.
“We’re exploring a few different ways to play the game in parallel. In one approach, Link can copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons,” Terada said. “During this exploration phase, the idea is called Edit Dungeons, as players can create their own gameplay of The Legend of Zelda.”
Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma added that “while it’s fun to create your own dungeons and let others play them,” what stands out to him is copying and pasting items. Apparently, this leads to one of the game’s main draws: “Gameplay shifts from creating dungeons to using copy-and-pasted items as tools to further your own adventure.”
This led to Sano mentioning that Aonuma essentially turned the tea table upside down, a statement often attributed to Miyamoto. But she supported Aonuma on her shift, saying, “Sure, it’s fun to create dungeons, but it’s even more fun to be able to copy various objects and use them in different places.”
The Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom ROM was reportedly leaked earlier this month, so beware of spoilers online for the game, which will be released later this week (September 26). News, check out GameSpot’s preview of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which states that the game will play like Mini Kingdom Tears.
