How long do you think it takes to make a HD remake of a popular game from the past? According to Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, not that long. In a recent interview with 4Gamer, Aonuma said that work on The Wind Waker’s HD remake took only about six months. He said that development was difficult, mostly due to the differences in hardware, but it was doable. If Aonuma’s time frame is accurate, that means that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD that we saw at E3 was literally the very start of the remake’s development.
Aonuma talked about how old programming tricks caused some issues with the HD remake of the game. For example, the original game was at a 4:3 screen ratio. So if they needed characters to be out of frame, they would simply move them off screen where they couldn’t be seen. Unfortunately, when altering the game for a 16:9 presentation, those characters could still be seen at the edges, so t hey had to be edited out.
He also commented on the game’s style of cel-shading, stating, “There is a technique known as toon shading, which gives the game a very animated look. At that time, the technique was established, but had not be used before by our staff, everyone had to do everything by hand.”
Source: Siliconera