Because of the similarities between the two games, both “Fire Emblem Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and “Fire Emblem Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” seem to be deeply reminiscent of one another, to the point where if the two games are played together, you feel as if you are playing the same game throughout the entire game. There is no doubt that even when the developers of the sequel were working on the original game, they experienced the same reactions when they had to create the sequel as well.
Recently, an interview conducted by Nintendo revealed that Tatsuya Takizawa, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, and Eiji Aonuma, three of the members of the Tears of the Kingdom team, spoke about the similarities between Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, which is Tears of the Kingdom’s predecessor. “The word ‘déjà vu’ cropped up many times during development,” at one point, Aonuma explained, “we were supposed to be making something different, but the various things we made gave off a similar impression to what we’d done previously.”
“But as development went on, we’d look at the game as a whole and sometimes discover that those things suddenly took a different shape because of the new elements we’d added,” explains the game’s producer, “until then, we were anxiously trying to change things up, but at some point, we realized that some of them were already as they should be.”
I find it quite surprising that Fujibayashi adds the following, especially considering the huge gap between the two games: “There were many instances, even later on in development, where we struggled to differentiate the two.” In addition to what he has said, he continues by saying, “It was a constant and difficult process where we and the development team continued to mull over and discuss until we all came to an agreement.”
In response to Aonuma’s comments on déjà vu, Takizawa reiterated what Aonuma had said: “We often experienced strong déjà vu, particularly in the early stages, and we thought it was imperative to transform how the game felt as much as we could. We worked hard with that thought in mind, but once we got to a certain point in development, we were able to identify areas that would lose their appeal if we changed them.”
A number of key players who were involved in the development of the upcoming game, including Takahiro Okuda and Hajime Wakai, are included in the interview, along with some intriguing insider details about the game and some interesting behind-the-scenes details about its development. This interview has been divided into several parts, with each part including a different player. It has been praised to the extent that Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a resemblance of Breath of the Wild, yet it is not a requirement that you have played Breath of the Wild before playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in order to enjoy it. Since Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom can be played without having played Breath of the Wild, it is not entirely necessary that you play Breath of the Wild first.
