It seems now as though a day does not go by that the overseer of The Legend of Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma, does not give an interview. Once Spirit Tracks is out, however, I'm sure we will hear little more than a few peeps from him before E3. But for now, here is his video interview with IGN:

More The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Info

Some notes, for those unable to view it. Much of the interview is spent looking back at the Zeldas that have come before and the development process; later, Aonuma is asked how he sees the future of the series evolving.

He says "Right now, we are making the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda and we are taking advantage of the Wii Motion Plus technology. It has become very natural, I mean the movement of your arms are precisely reflected in the gameplay whereby Link is wielding his sword just as you shake the Wii Mition Plus remote. Thanks to such technological advancements, we hope that the gameplay can be more accessible to more people around the world."

"I think the Zelda franchise can, with the help of technology, become increasingly accessible."

That leads to a question of whether or not he has considered going back and remaking an older Zelda game with newer technology.

"Well, sometimes I hear such requests from people who want to play Ocarina of Time on Wii," he says, "they ask us to remake it and take advantage of Wii technology. Whenever we have to think about the remake, we have to also think about the background, especially what kind of situation, what kind of period and time that previous game was played in, because, be it Ocarina of Time or any other games, whenever they say they want to have a remake on whichever platform, they have some emotional attachment from playing that game at that particular time or environment."

"That sort of background is always there when they talk about or request a remake of a game. We cannot afford to destroy that kind of emotional attachment."

"Still," he continues, "even if we are going to take advantage of the improved technology, we have to have some breakthrough in the gameplay. That combination is not an easy one, whenever we talk about this breakthrough technology, we come up with ideas we would like to incorporate into the new Zelda franchise."

"So that's the current situation and that's the reason we are not very aggressive in exploring the possibility of remaking the past Zelda series. If I can think how to do it, or any inspiration comes to me, without destroying the emotional attachment people have to the past game, and I can make some great innovation or renovation on the remake, then I might be able to think about it further."

Sometimes I think he's putting far too much consideration into such a prospect. I don't see what's wrong with taking the old game, polishing it up to modern standards, tweaking some of the things people have complained about (such as boots in the Water Temple), and sending it on its way.

Instead, he seems to be caught up in trying to figure out how to make it the same experience it was before, but a new experience altogether. I'm really not sure if that's the right way to approach it, particularly in terms of a remake.

Metroid: Zero Mission was pretty well loved, but it was hardly groundbreaking; it merely took the original game, and brought the adventure up to the standard set by Super Metroid (not saying it's as good or better, but that it's comparable now).

He is asked about the new Wii Zelda, and he doesn't really share any new info, save for maybe the fact that Link is indeed wielding a sword in their studio right now. Given that they pointed out Link didn't have his sword at E3, that's probably significant to note, even if it's not especially surprising.

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Eurogamer has its own video interview with Aonuma, but unlike IGN's, it cannot be embedded. So you can click over to watch, and we'll post some notes from the transcript below.

First up, Aonuma explains how development began on his first game in the role of project lead, Majora's Mask:

...in my mind I did not think that Legend of Zelda was already an established franchise, especially because Ocarina of Time turned out to be the very first 3D Legend of Zelda. So I thought there were many things we were able to explore and in fact many people, including Mr Miyamoto himself, were looking forward to the new directions future 3D Zeldas could take. And it was actually Mr Miyamoto who wanted to take the same engine as Ocarina of Time, yet try to make something really new. That mission was assigned to me by Mr Miyamoto.

So taking on the assignment itself was not that difficult. The most difficult part was when Mr Miyamoto told me: 'you've got to finish it within one year'! And at first I was quite at a loss what to do: what we could do with the Zelda franchise within just one year? And then there came help from the Ocarina team and we were able to use the same team members who already had experience of working on the same engine, and also Mr Miyamoto advised us to think about anything that was left undone during the development of Ocarina.

So we focused on the time mechanism already included in the Ocarina engine and decided that we should focus on the three-day system. And by adapting it so that everything would reset if the game cannot be completed within three days, I think that we were able to come up with one idea after another which made for a very fast-paced, excited game.

As I really wanted to surprise people in a very meaningful way that was something which suited my own desire. And even though we had to tackle the challenge of completing the game in one year, it was actually an exciting challenge and I felt the team could make it.

He then explains how Miyamoto's role in the series has changed, and how he has become more distant from it when he still wants to be more hands on.

That's why, in the case of the new Legend of Zelda on Wii, he's trying to take more direct hands-on and specifically at least once every month we are having a very intimate meeting where we confirm the status quo, we discuss what needs to be done and Mr Miyamoto gives instructions as to what we need to do.

And in such a situation, of course there are some heated arguments, because each of us has his own idea as to what a Zelda game should look like, should play like. As time passes and as we are growing in terms of number of people working for the same department, naturally Mr Miyamoto has to keep some distance away from any other producers and developers, but I think we always try to have as close communications as possible in one way or the other. That's how I think everyone including me has been communicating with Mr Miyamoto at Nintendo.

On whether the Toon Link style works better on handhelds, or if a return to consoles may be in the cards:

You say it might be good for handheld: exactly, that's the point. On handheld devices like DS, for the grand universe of Zelda to be correctly depicted, cel-shading or toon-shading style is the most appropriate. For example, for the touch operation we're using on DS, top-view angle is necessary. If we're going to apply photorealistic proportions between human characters and objects, the player character would have to be really small.

But with more anime/Manga-style art, deformation is allowed and taken as a natural. By that I mean that building and some other objects around you can be very small compared with real life, but yet it's not strange in the anime style. That kind of deformation is readily available with cel-shading technology and thanks to that kind of graphical style we are now able to put Zelda in an adventure where people can identify the most important items without difficulty in understanding proper distance or proportion between character and object.

For more, including the change from Phantom Hourglass to Spirit Tracks, a day working at Nintendo, and on working on something else that isn't Zelda, check out the full transcript.

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Finally, the addition of a train has caused a little bit of controversy among Zelda fans, some feeling it makes the series seem "too modern." This, despite the series' inclusion of bombs (or perhaps more specifically, Bombchus), bazookas, cameras, telephones, televisions, walking mechanical cannons, the Tingle Tuner, and so much more, has led Kotaku to put the question right to Aonuma: "how modern can Zelda get?"

"Spirit Tracks features a train, which may be the most modern piece of technology included in a Zelda game," Kotaku asked. "How modern do you think the Zelda universe can get? Could it include, for example, a radio? A car? A gun?"

"Technology actually was not a major concern for us when we decided to use the train," Aonuma replied. "In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the boat was the key mode of transportation. Now that Spirit Tracks takes place on land, we needed a new way for players to get around, and felt that the train offered the best sense of exploration and discovery. We don't think it feels out of place in the game world. Trains are also a popular mode of transportation in Japan. My children and I still feel a great sense of adventure when we ride trains in Japan."

Kotaku notes how Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft have managed to modernize, or even get futuristic. But Zelda? Aonuma says:

"Regarding use of other forms in technology in the future, as long it adds to the overall game experience and is something we feel the player would enjoy, we wouldn't be afraid to implement it. As a matter of fact, we have used the Hook Shot in several previous games, which would be considered a very modern type of technology, even by today's standards."

The man has a point. That thing is practically Batman material.

Personally speaking, I don't mind more modern implements, as long as they don't seem modern. The train and the hookshot, for example, don't look very modern or futuristic at all compared to the bullet trains of Japan or the gizmos on the Dark Knight's utility belt.

I've seen some people tease the idea of steampunk, and that seems like as far as I'd be comfortable with the series going in tech, at least aesthetically.

That is, unless they did something really drastic and into the far-flung future... sort of like this. As a one-off thing that's almost a separate story unto itself, I'd be... intrigued.