21 September 2006

Link Only Right-Handed on Wii

Wow, this is strange. Twilight Princess was designed with Link being properly left-handed. Late in the development cycle, they realized that they wanted to make him right-handed to accomodate the poor righties who couldn’t possibly be expected to hold the remote in their left hands, so they mirrored the entire game. If you buy the GameCube version, Link’s a lefty. If you buy the Wii version, he’s a righty, and the entire game is flipped. Right turns are left turns. The map is backwards. Says Shigeru Miyamoto:

Although Link is left-handed, at E3 we noticed people seemed to be using the right Wii controller to swing his sword. That’s why we decided to make Link right-handed. The interesting thing is, on the GameCube Link is still left-handed; because of the mirror mode the game map is reversed.

This almost makes me want to just buy the GameCube version instead, since the Wii is backwards compatible.