The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes - costume talk, reaching a wide range of gamers

Coming from a Polygon interview with game director Hiromosa Shikata...

"I remember talking about it during the development of A Link Between Worlds. [We] had wanted to do more multiplayer Zelda ... and in [Spirit Tracks] there's a portion where you control the Phantoms. That element really intrigued me and brought out the idea that I wanted to try multiplayer as well. We really got started on it during development of A Link Between Worlds, that feeling of wanting to explore more multiplayer. It was sort of revitalized and came out of hibernation for me while I was working on A Link Between Worlds."

- throw boomerangs at other Links to help them get by holes
- face a group of Hinox where you toss bombs at each other
- costumes revealed thus far include cat suit, loungewear, samurai armor, a bomb suit
- there will be more costumes in the final version
- Link travels to a kingdom obsessed with fashion to help save a princess
- wardrobe will reflect your progress in the game
- craft outfits from materials found by clearing dungeons

"We consulted with folks here in the U.S. and in Japan, and asked ‘Do we think we're going too much of a negative reaction by having Link wear a dress?' For us as developers, the more variation we have, and that we can provide to players, the better for everyone. While there are a lot of aspects of Triforce Heroes that will appeal to young boys, we did think that by including outfits like the Legendary Dress that we would broaden that appeal to some of our younger female gamers as well."

- some outfit materials will only be available as part of the game's Colosseum
- single player and multiplayer both feature the same dungeons
- more puzzle elements you have to tackle on your own in single player

"We could have implemented a more detailed or robust communication system. "However, when you do that, I've seen many cases where you have a veteran player who really knows the game and they're paired up with someone new and they'll just say ‘Go here, do this, do that.' They're going to spoil the experience for the new gamer. We do have the eight emotion placards [and] we experimented with more and less. But when we tried that out online we found that to be sort of a sweet spot for us. There was some irritation but when you were able to use these to convey what you wanted, it's such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. We think it works really well.

I think we've created two super fun experiences that are very different from each other. Even if you do have the ability to play with other friends, I want to encourage people to try online play."