Miyamoto reveals inspiration for plot of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo fame was interviewed in an issue of Famitsu (read the full thing here) about his work for the Zelda series. One interesting part of the article is where Miyamoto speaks about his inspiration for major elements of the final Wii Zelda game, Skyward Sword. Excerpts of the translated interview can be found after the break.

"[American] culture has always played a bit of a role in my design style," Miyamoto says. "One of my favorite things about western culture is their music. Whenever I was designing Skyward Sword, I was listening a lot to that Electric Light Orchestra band. While they have some interesting melodies, I couldn't help but listen to the lyrics closely. More specifically, the song 'Don't Bring Me Down.'"

Miyamoto continues: "...'You got me running, going out of my mind, you got me thinking that I'm wasting my time' made me think of having a deeper relationship between Link and Zelda. 'You want to stay out with your fancy friends' had me thinking of making Zelda something more, and thus Zelda's role as a middle-man for people and the goddesses, as well as Impa in the beginning of the story. 'What happened to the girl I used to know?' refers again to Zelda's role, but from Link's perspective.'"

Miyamoto finished by saying, "there's also some strange words in the chorus that sounds to me like they're singing 'Groose.' If you've played the game, you'll know that I made that the name of early-game antagonist turned good. And of course, the title of the song put a strange image in my head of people living in the sky, and nobody wants to go on the ground, so naturally I put the main populous of the game in the skies. Maybe it doesn't help that I had been drinking a bit too much the night I listened to the song. (laughs)"