The director behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has shared a story of the artist who designed the villainous Ganondorf. Nintendo's Tears of the Kingdom has finally released after much hype, and this entry is already seeing massive critical acclaim from fans and critics. While Link and Zelda have been primarily the focus of fans when it was first announced, the one thing that got many fans excited was Ganondorf's return. When Ganondorf was finally revealed in a trailer for Tears of the Kingdom, fans were very impressed with his design.Before the official reveal of the character's design, a common meme within the Zelda fandom was "Rehydrated Ganondorf," which played off of how Ganondorf's dried-up corpse in the initial trailer would become something more familiar if he was "rehydrated" so-to-speak. Once Ganondorf's design in Tears of the Kingdom was shown off, many found were impressed with his chiseled demon warrior king appearance. The director of the game, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, regaled the story of how this design came to be and why he looked so "hot" this time around.In an interview between The Verge, himself, and Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, Fujibayashi was asked about how this iteration of Ganondorf was so creatively designed and why he ended up looking so handsome. Fujibayashi explained it all stemmed from Ganondorf's design from Twilight Princess by staffer Satoru Takizawa, who had been in charge of the character's design ever since, even saying that the character holds a special place in his heart. He explains that since Ganondorf is just as important as Zelda and Link, he needs a design that would help him contrast against the heroes. As such, the request that Fujibayashi put in for Takizawa was to make him "a very cool, very awesome demon king."
The director explains that since Takizawa was a veteran of the franchise, he was able to put aside his own wants for the team to work cohesively, but suspected that the love for Ganondorf was sealed away in past designs. However, Fujibayashi recalled when he asked Takizawa to make Ganondorf really stand out in Tears of the Kingdom, as he's going to be an integral character, he saw a sparkle in Takizawa's eyes. This proved to the director he had enough confidence in Takizawa that he could leave the design up to him, and that it would be something great.
Suffice to say, Takizawa had accomplished his goal in making Ganondorf's new design look incredible. There's plenty of fan art that show how much fans love this new Ganondorf, even if he's trying to take over Hyrule again.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Nintendo Switch.
Source: The Verge
