Golden Joystick Awards 2016: Lifetime Achievement award for Eiji Aonuma
Last week, during the Golden Joystick Awards 2016 ceremony, Eiji Aonuma receive a Lifetime Achievement for his work on the Legend of Zelda of series. While he wasn’t there in person to receive the award, Nintendo did record a message with Eiji Aonuma’s speech.
Here’s the recording of the speech, provided by Nintendo UK:
If you cannot watch the video at the moment, here’s our transcript of the speech:
Hello, Golden Joysticks and UK Nintendo fans. I’m Eiji Aonuma, producer of The Legend of Zelda series at Nintendo. I am glad, honoured, and really humbled to be awarded the Golden Joysticks 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award.
I say I’m humbled because when I heard about this award, I had to ask myself… “am I truly qualified to be accepting this myself as an individual, when the award belongs more to The Legend of Zelda series?” I wasn’t even involved in the first couple of games!
With this understanding I accept this award with pleasure on behalf of more than 1 000 creators, artists, engineers and composers who have worked on the series for more than 30 years, including people such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Koji Kondo, Takashi Tezuka, and Yoshiaki Koizumi.
This award symbolizes the love of UK fans and recognises the efforts made by so many people who have been involved with the series. Without their efforts, The Legend of Zelda could not have celebrated its 30th Anniversary this year.
One of my first jobs on The Legend of Zelda series put me in charge of dungeon design for Ocarina of Time. When I was at aschool, I used to make things all by myself, so I guess I had an inflated opinion of myself… and I doubted others’ abilities.
At Nintendo, I felt puzzled at first, because so many people were involved in making a Legend of Zelda title. However, this was my first time making a 3D game. Watching people take my prototype designs and seeing how tiny ideas morph into truly unique ideas, I came to realise that other people can give you a perspective you could never otherwise achieve.
Talking about having a different perspective on things, there is one person who constantly surprises me with his unique and varied perspective. It is none other than Shigeru Miyamoto, the original creator of The Legend of Zelda. Having worked with him for 20 years, I should be able to anticipate what he will think. The fact is, even today, he surprises me with his unexpected ideas, which are beyond my own boundaries.
Sherlock Holmes is the protagonist of the British detective stories that I was deeply into during my childhood. He solved difficult cases, one after another, with his super-human observational skills, but Mr Holmes could not have arrived at these splendid conclusions without Dr Watson, who was able to share with him the viewpoints that Sherlock could not see. I believe that kind of relationship is also important in game design. I would like to leave it to you to decide which of us is Holmes, and which is Dr Watson!
This year also marks the 30th Anniversary of the European launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. From the original The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, that you can enjoy on the Nintendo Classic Mini, to the most recent The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The vast worlds, variety of unique characters, memorable stories, and difficult challenges have all helped to build a unique universe… they are all the fruits of so many talented people, and I am very proud that I have been able to work on the series with them.
Finally, I would like to thank you all again – to the Golden Joysticks and so many Zelda fans in the UK – on behalf of all the team who have enabled the series to steadily grow over the past 30 years.
And when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is released… please play it!
A new world awais for you, and I really hope that it will make people all across the UK fall more in love with The Legend of Zelda.
Thank you.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U, Switch) comes out next year, worldwide.
