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Hi! Hiromasa Shikata here, the Director of Tri Force Heroes. I have to tell you, I've been doing a lot of interviews about the game recently, both online and for magazines, but I made sure to keep a few good anecdotes up my sleeve, just for this Miiting!

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Nice to meet all of you out there on Miiverse! My name is Mikiharu Oiwa, from GREZZO, Co. Ltd., which has its headquarters in the Shibuya area of Tokyo. I was responsible for the game's bosses and effects. I also managed business on the GREZZO side and communicated with Nintendo about development issues. This is actually the first interview I've ever done about Tri Force Heroes, so I'm a little tense, but I'm also very excited! Hopefully I won't get too tongue-tied...

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Well, roughly speaking, GREZZO did most of the work on making the levels, creating enemies, dealing with the user interface and so on, while Nintendo took care of programming the main game systems and laying out the level concepts. Does that sound about right?

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The way I recall it, it was the first time creating levels for quite a few of our staff, so some Nintendo people came to Shibuya and we agreed on how we wanted the levels to go and things like that. Later we got a lot more free rein, and, well, it was certainly a learning experience!

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To be honest, this was my first time working with an external company, so it was a little stressful at first! At the office, I only need to turn around to see everyone I work with, but it felt like taking a little vacation every time I needed to meet with GREZZO folks!

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That's right! It wasn't even just a case of simple geographical separation - we didn't want our hearts and minds to grow apart, so from the very start we took pains to close that distance. For example, we made sure to hold a videoconference every day, even when we didn't have anything specific to talk about!

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Exactly! You hit the nail on the head, MariChan. Other times, it felt more like taking a little break, so we'd slump in our chairs until only our heads were showing on the screen. Well, all I can say is that every day was something new!

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And it wasn't just work, either! Sometimes we'd have little celebrations after completing development milestones. On those days we'd make sure to have a video link running between Kyoto and Tokyo so that we could participate in each other's parties through the screens.

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It was certainly unusual, I'll give you that. Those milestone celebrations were one thing, but we also had these meetings where we'd have Mr Aonuma play through sections of the game to check them. Those were certainly some of our most stressful days.

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Oh, definitely. If something was wrong or didn't play right, he might metaphorically flip the table over and we'd then have to redo whole sections from scratch... The meetings would always take place at GREZZO, and everyone wanted to see Mr Aonuma play the game, so GREZZO's meeting rooms overflowed with people on those days.

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It didn't really happen this time round. The thing is, when you see Mr Aonuma play the game in various video clips, he's always a perfect gentleman. But when he played it in the office, he'd obviously play with other Nintendo staff members, and whenever he got annoyed he'd shout stuff like "What're you doing?!", or "Don't go there, come here!"

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Our meetings weren't particularly formal, so we felt these outbursts were quite representative of what real users would say. As a result, we kept very detailed notes of everything Mr Aonuma happened to shout.

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It looks like you're really trying to expose our dark sides, but I have to say that I don't think that ever happened - not even once.

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I would have to agree. We had far more internal disagreements than anything else. Every time they sprang up we'd just go to the in-game coliseum and let off some steam.

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Well, considering that only the winner gets materials as a prize, the battles can get pretty intense. I don't know if I'd call the coliseum a "break", but it's certainly a very different experience from the main game, and quite a fun one at that. It's perfect for de-stressing. Incidentally, I have to say that everyone at GREZZO got exceptionally good at it! Nobody on our side was even close to being a match for them. Which ironically caused a bit of stress...

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Oh no, no, no, that's not true at all! I suppose it could work as stress relief, but mainly it was just good fun! It's easy to play that mode with just two players, or add a third for a more hectic match, so it's a bit different every time you play.

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Funny you should say that, because when the game was complete, we did all actually gather in Kyoto for a massive tournament-style competition with GREZZO and Nintendo staff. We called it the "Provisional World Championships". We thought everyone would use the same outfit, but there was a surprising amount of variety in that regard.

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The game wasn't out yet, so whichever staff member came out on top would be the number one player in the world, at least for a while! As for the variety of outfits, some of them have special powers that only function in the coliseum, and every player has their own favourite item, so it's true that we saw lots of different styles. It was all done in Local Play, so you could see everyone staring into their screens, or cheering others on. It made for an odd...uh, I mean, a really cool scene!

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I find myself using the Kokiri Clothes quite a lot. When you shoot three arrows at once, it gets a lot easier to hit opponents even if they try to dodge.

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I'm partial to the Big Bomb Outfit, myself. If you time your throws well you can defeat enemies that are way ahead of you, and even if you don't score a direct hit, they might still take damage from the blast. Although you might get hurt, too, so it's a little risky...

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What a mean way to play! In case you were wondering, the winner of the tournament was wearing the Ninja Gi.

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He was part of my team. After the tournament was over, people called him "Ninja Guy" for a good while!

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I wonder...

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Oh no, no, no, he's actually a very relaxed guy who enjoys his work as motion designer! I think it's clear when you look at the game, but the designs are all quite intricate, and a lot of work went into them. There's no way that would be possible if we didn't all enjoy what we do!

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Since the costumes are all the same in every version across the world, we had to make sure everyone would "get" them. On the other hand, they couldn't be so detailed that they'd get confusing in-game. It wasn't an easy job, that's for sure!

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In some cases more than others. Sometimes we'd think up an outfit that was easy to design and understand, like the greed-is-good splendour of the Rupee Regalia, but other times, well... How do you design an "outfit that increases your allies' energy gauges"? I remember we were all stuck on that one for a while.

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I think we had more trouble than we expected with the black tights that Princess Styla wears for most of the game. They were a major headache!

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You could say that again! In some of the early designs you could hardly even tell it was a girl wearing them...

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We asked the artists to draw something that would make players take pity on her and want to help, and this is the sort of thing they came up with.

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But some people thought that it actually looked cute and didn't seem like much of a curse, so we had to go back to the drawing board. We tried all sorts of styles for the tights, as you can see on this picture.

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Well, it was meant to be a curse, so we thought that anything even remotely stylish - like flowers or crosses - was out of the question, so we settled on this. Now that I think about it, doesn't it make her look a bit like a ninja?

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From there, we thought of these...

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At the end of the day, there's only so much you can do with tights.

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It just reinforces the idea that the simplest designs are the hardest to get right.

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There weren't any outfits that we created but ended up cutting from the game, but we did abandon a few ideas in the planning phase. Let's see... We thought about creating a "Stinky Costume" which would keep enemies at bay, or a "Kansai Outfit" which would put the situation reports into the Kansai dialect of Japanese.

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We also considered "Emperor's New Clothes", which would make you look naked to other players, and a "Handsome Outfit" that made you look really cool in photos.

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Oh, you mean the ones mentioned in the "Diary from the Drablands". Yes, every level has a secret scenic spot. We designed them to be inconspicuous when you're playing normally, and as a result they're pretty tough to find.

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Now that I think about it, they might be a bit too difficult to find...