Development of Skyward Sword is all but finished

Hints of a simultaneous worldwide release plus lots of other new info inside

Zelda producer Eoji Aonuma has recently shared a heap of fresh info about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, one of the final "big" Nintendo titles on the horizon for the Wii. There may or may not be spoilers for you in here, so if youre one of those sensitive people, you know what to do.

"The whole game is complete, and were fine-tuning the balance right now," Aonuma says. Lets all breathe out a sigh of relief together, people. "Theres so much volume to it, neither I nor [Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto] have gotten to fully play out every aspect," he continues. Also, the development team is hoping to have the game released in all regions on the same day, lest the story "get spoiled". Hooray indeed.

Aonuma revealed further tidbits about the game, suggesting that Ganon might be taking some time off from his usual big-bad-guy duties this time around. Given the games place very early in the Zelda timeline, it makes sense as Ganon likely hasnt come into power yet. "This game talks about the birth of the Master Sword, and it touches on why Ganondorf showed up," says Aonuma. "If you play it, I think youll get some understanding on that. It connects to Ocarina, so if you play Ocarina of Time 3D and move on to this game, I think youll catch on to a lot of things."

Nevertheless, there is a new villain called Ghiraham, who was first seen in an earlier trailer. Apparently, Link will fight him numerous times throughout the game, and at first Ghiraham acts cool and collected but as Link keeps coming back, he becomes ruder. "I think hes a pretty good change of pace as bosses go, and hell change gradually throughout the game," says Aonuma.

It appears that our fair princess has not risen to throne (yet) in Skyward Sword either. "Shes a childhood friend [of Links], but she goes away in the midst of the game and its Links job to search for her," explains Aonuma. Theyre not just friends, but classmates too, continues Aonuma. "This games plot is something like a school drama, you could say. The flying sequence at the E3 demo is Link competing against his classmates. One of them looks kind of a like a bad guy, as you saw, and he shows up in other ways in the game too, since he has a major thing for Zelda." Spicy.

Also, you wont have to trudge too long to get cool items in the game, compared with previous Zeldas. "You [would normally] need to have the basic item set or it wouldnt be Zelda, so the new items tended to get shunted to the latter part of the game. Miyamoto said that had to change, like This is neat, lets bring it out from the start. So a lot of neat new items will show up pretty early on," says Aonuma.

Birds will indeed play a big part in the game. At first, they were to be used to move quickly between objectives, but the development team realised the fun that was had in soaring through the air at top speed, so they fleshed out the mechanic. In terms of their significance, they are the traditional way of getting around Skyloft and everyone has their own. Link, of course, has a very rare one, which he soon discovers that it allows him to travel to the land beneath the clouds.

So those are the key bites of info to come from Aonuma, and you check out some more at IGN. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be out by years end.

Source: IGN