Eiji Aonuma

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Eiji Aonuma

Eiji Aonuma at the Game Developers Conference 2007
Born 1963
Japan
Occupation Director and producer of video games at Nintendo, EAD Group 3 Manager

Eiji Aonuma (青沼 英二 Aonuma Eiji?, born 1963) is a Japanese video game designer and video game director. He currently works for Nintendo, and has overseen several installments in The Legend of Zelda series of video games.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Education

Aonuma attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music where he majored in design, working on moving mechanical figures (whose members were articulated), which were essentially marionettes. He graduated in 1988 and then acquired his job at Nintendo, with whom he has remained since.

[edit] Nintendo

Aonuma began work on the Super Famicom game Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajim, which was only released in Japan and was influenced by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and had two spin-offs, BS Marvelous: Camp Arnold and BS Marvelous: Time Athletic, both released exclusively for the now-defunct Satellaview. Aonuma was enlisted by Shigeru Miyamoto to work on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64, where he was responsible for designing the game's dungeons. Afterwards, he was promoted to director for the following games in The Legend of Zelda series, Majora's Mask, the Nintendo 64 sequel to Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker, the first Zelda game for the Nintendo GameCube. After The Wind Waker, Aonuma considered moving onto other projects, but was convinced by Shigeru Miyamoto to continue with the Zelda series.[1] He later finished work on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the second major Zelda game to be released for the GameCube and a launch game for the Wii. He was voted Designer of the Year for his work on Twilight Princess in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 2006 1Up Network Awards.[1] He then completed work on a sequel to The Wind Waker for the Nintendo DS, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, followed by another Nintendo DS title, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. He also helped develop Link's Crossbow Training, which is the first game to use the Wii Zapper.

[edit] Other work

Aonuma is a member of a wind orchestra called "The Wind Wakers", named after The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which is composed of several Nintendo employees who perform concerts four times a year for employees of the company. He plays percussion, including instruments such as bongos, congas and timpani.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 213, March 2007. Page 79.

[edit] Quote

"Ocarina of Time was the first title I worked on, and I was continuously tackling challenges every day during its development, so I think this is the title I feel I impacted the most. I believe that experience made me what I am now. I always think about what we couldn't do and what didn't work well in the previous game when we start a new title, but there's no game that I would want to actually change as such. I have to say though, the first Zelda game that I played and felt potential in was A Link to the Past. I'm actually very interested in what it would be like if we remade that title as a 3D game."[1]

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Aonuma"