Miyamoto thought Wind Waker was “cringe”

DidYouKnowGaming recently published a translation of a old interviews with Eiji Aonuma in Nintendo Dream Magazine. It looks like Nintendo actually wanted to improve the visuals of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask with Wind Waker, and even had a prototype in this graphic style ready. However, one member of the development team drew the now well-known Toon Link, which the rest of the team fell madly in love with. That’s probably why we now have the art style for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and similar titles.

MIyamoto wasn’t a fan of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

However, not everyone was so enthusiastic about the new design. Aonuma already figured that Miyamoto wasn’t going to be a huge Toon-Link fan, so he waited as long as he could before showing Miyamoto the new design. Aonuma described his reaction as “literally cringed”.

“If I’d talked to him from the start, he probably would have said, ‘How’s that Zelda?’ Miyamoto had some trouble letting go of Link’s realistic style until the very end. At one point, he had to give a presentation against his will. So he kind of said to me, ‘You know, it’s not too late to change course and make a realistic Zelda’.”

Zelda’s new look was also quite a controversial topic among gamers, and many fans wished Nintendo would go back to the old style. However, due to the enthusiasm of the Zelda team and Miyamoto’s belief that it would take a decade to create a realistic Zelda for the Gamecube, Wind Waker kept that chibi look.