Heroes of Hyrule

Heroes of Hyrule is a concept pitch drafted by former Retro Studios employees Paul Tozour and Mark Pacini.^[1]

The pitch was meant for a Legend of Zelda spin-off that would take the form of a strategy role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. Notably, the game would not have featured Link as a playable character, focusing instead on a boy named Kori, alongside a party of three other characters.

The pitch for Heroes of Hyrule originally began as Retro Studios was in the process of completing development of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in 2004. The studio's senior producer Bryan Walker had been encouraging the idea of Retro Studios working on a Nintendo DS game and appointed Tozour to spearhead the game's engineering effort.^[2] Tozour had already been thinking of ideas for a strategy role-playing game, and upon learning of this, Pacini suggested they conceive a strategy RPG set in the Zelda universe.^[3]

Heroes of Hyrule was pitched to Retro Studios' contacts at Nintendo SPD in May 2004, and was rejected, resulting in the game never entering production.^[4]^[5]

Important:

All story, gameplay, and character information below is quoted verbatim from various sections of the game's original pitch document, sourced by investigative YouTube channel Did You Know Gaming.

Pitch Summary

Executive Summary

Heroes of Hyrule (HoH) is a story-driven game of exploration, puzzle-solving, and strategic combat in the Zelda universe. Designed for the Nintendo DS, HoH will appeal to fans of games such as previous Zelda titles and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Why Do This?

Heroes of Hyrule expands the rich Zelda universe with new characters, storylines, and play mechanics. It also injects exciting new themes into the proven handheld strategic RPG market segment, ultimately providing a product worthy of the Nintendo name.

Key Features

HoH differentiates itself from previous strategic RPG-style games in a number of ways:

Focus on item collection: There are no character classes or "levelling" per se'. HoH characters only increase in Health and Mana, with all other capabilities coming from items acquired during gameplay.

Interactive environments: Environments in HoH will be highly interactive, each offerring compelling challenges as the player uses objects to achieve the goal.

Unique Back-and-Forth Gameplay: The compelling story in HoH sees the player controlling the three Heroes (combat) in the "past," and the boy (exploration) in the "present." This concept of dynamically linked timelines introduces exciting possibilities where events in each world reveal new possibilities in the other.

Minigames: HoH will include a collection of novel and entertaining mini-games such as kite-flying, fishing, and scavenger hunts.

Story & Gameplay

Story summary

"100 years ago, three heroes defeated an ancient evil and sealed it away in a magical book. For many ages, the people lived in peace and freedom, free of the scourge that had tormented them for so long. Until one day, when the book came into the hands of a young boy..."

The Book is actually Ganon's spell book, which he created as an instrument to enhance his evil power. Ganon infused this book with his own life essence, which allowed him to become much stronger when in its presence. After Ganon's defeat at the hands of the Heroes, he cast his soul into the Book, which allowed his spirit to live on in a badly weakened state. The Heroes tried to destroy the Book by burning it, but its pages would not catch fire. So the Heroes decided to remove many of the Book's key pages instead, which would ensure that Ganon would never be able to become whole again. The pages were scattered across the lands of Hyrule, and the remains of the Book were entrusted to Link.

Kori begins to find and collect missing pages of the Book scattered around town. Unbeknownst to him, the return of these pages is strengthening Ganon's spirit, which resides in the Book.

Gameplay summary

Each page of the Book of Ganon corresponds to a single "area" of gameplay in the Heroes' world. However, each area is divided into several distinct sections, or phases, which are separated by environmental puzzles and obstacles.

Much as in a Metroid game, these obstacles act as gates to limit the party's progress until they earn the items they need to overcome the obstacles and proceed to the next phase. This design encourages the player to revisit areas he has already explored in order to advance the Heroes' quest.

Similarly, completing adventures and battles in the Heroes' world rewards Kori with new knowledge that he can use to unlock new parts of his own world. For example:

The Heroes speak to a great Deku tree. Kori later recognizes it as the tree in the center of his own town's commons, and he can now speak to this same tree (it is now 100 years older).

One of the Heroes plays a melody on an ocarina to celebrate an enemy's defeat, and Kori can now play that same tune in a music contest at the nearby music hall.

The Heroes discuss the pronunciation of a certain magical symbol, and when Kori sees the same symbol on a door in his town, he speaks the word out loud to open the door.

Many of the pages also contain the outlines of illustrations. Kori can obtain various special items in his own time which will fill in these illustrations when the player inserts them into the book. Each of these drawings will have some specific effect on the corresponding encounter in the Heroes' time, such as giving the Heroes additional health or magic.

When the player successfully complete a task or a minigame, he will typically receive a Book page, a special item to be placed in the book, or a piece of information about the history of the town and the ancient legend of the Heroes of Hyrule.

The gameplay alternates between the boy's world (the present) and the world of the Heroes (the past). Events in each of the two worlds can unlock elements of the other, and the Book of Ganon acts as the link between the two. The gameplay in the boy's world is approximately one-third of the gameplay of Heroes of Hyrule, and the Heroes' world comprises the other two-thirds.

Although there is no combat in this mode, Kori can speak to the townspeople, perform various tasks, and play minigames. Tasks include delivering items, searching for hidden objects around town, digging for treasure, and ferrying items between townspeople. Minigames include simple activities such as a fishing contest, a kite-flying contest, a scavenger hunt around town, and a music game at the town's music hall.

When Kori discovers the book in the [redacted] antiquities shop, he literally brings the Heroes' adventures to life by reading the book, and he begins to relive their quests one by one.

Playable Characters

Kori

Kori begins to find and collect missing pages of the [Book of Ganon] scattered around town. Unbeknownst to him, the return of these pages is strengthening Ganon's spirit, which resides in the Book.

When Kori discovers the book in the [redacted] antiquities shop, he literally brings the Heroes' adventures to life by reading the book, and he begins to relive their quests one by one.

When Kori has assembled all the pages, Ganon is reborn from the Book. Just before Ganon can kill the boy, the three Heroes also appear out of the Book, and the four of them defeat Ganon together in a final battle.

Dunar

Dunar is a gruff, tough fighter. He is a Goron who embodies the Triforce aspect of Power.

He is the "strong and silent type," although the few words he does use reveal a surprisingly keen intellect for a Goron.

In combat, the Goron moves slowly and uses melee weapons. His extraordinary physical constitution allows him to handle far more damage than his comrades, and he enjoys placing himself in the thick of battle.

Seriph

Seriph is a hero of the Rito race. She embodies the Triforce aspect of Courage.

She is patient, helpful, and warm-hearted, but she is also remarkably brave and determined and fiercely loyal to her friends. She was the first to discover that Link was kidnapped by Ganon's henchmen, and she organized the Heroes in their quest to rescue Link.

In combat, the Rito moves very quickly, and she wields a bow that allows her to pick off enemies from a distance. Most of the items the Rito use in combat are related to the element of air.

Krel

Krel is a hero of the Zora race. He embodies the Triforce aspect of Wisdom. He is the brains of the party, and he makes no attempts to hide the fact.

Although sometimes he comes across as a cynical and arrogant wisecracker, it quickly becomes clear that his abrasive personality is little more than a mask which barely conceals his warm heart and his deep and abiding loyalty to his friends.

The Zora is the main spellcaster of the party, and he prefers to keep a good distance from his enemies in combat. The Zora tends to use items and equipment related to the element of water.

Ending & Link's Involvement

When Kori has assembled all the pages, Ganon is reborn from the Book. Just before Ganon can kill the boy, the three Heroes also appear out of the Book, and the four of them defeat Ganon together in a final battle.

After the dust has settled, the owner of the antiquities shop (Link) returns from his trip with three elderly friends—a Goron, a Rito, and a Zora. Kori immediately recognizes them as the three Heroes from the Book.

Cancellation

According to Tozour: "We sent it over to [Nintendo] SPD and got an immediate 'no, you're not doing that.' To this day, I do not know why. They just didn't seem to have any interest in that gameplay concept, which is too bad. It was a really solid concept and had the potential to be something great."^[6]

Gallery

Concept art of the playable characters
An explanation of the gameplay

References

↑ "Mark took a look at that and said, 'Hey, let's make a different kind of tactics game in the Zelda universe.' So from my initial idea of RPG Tactics, it evolved into a game that was much more of a puzzle RPG adventure game. Where you've got these three heroes, plus the young boy, and you've gotta figure out, 'How do I use the abilities of these four different characters to get past [lots of] different obstacles.' It turned into a totally different game--it no longer had any resemblance to RPG Tactics. That was just sort of the spark that got this whole thing going. But Mark and I worked together, and I wrote up most of those [documents]. This was more adventurous and puzzles than tactics and RPG, because that's the direction Mark really wanted to take it." —Paul Tozour (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)
↑ "[Retro's senior producer] Bryan Walker was always pushing, like, 'What's our DS side project gonna be?' And he somehow pegged me as the guy who was gonna lead the engineering effort on Retro's first Nintendo DS game.." —Paul Tozour (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)
↑ "Mark took a look at that and said, 'Hey, let's make a different kind of tactics game in the Zelda universe.' So from my initial idea of RPG Tactics, it evolved into a game that was much more of a puzzle RPG adventure game. Where you've got these three heroes, plus the young boy, and you've gotta figure out, 'How do I use the abilities of these four different characters to get past [lots of] different obstacles.' It turned into a totally different game--it no longer had any resemblance to RPG Tactics. That was just sort of the spark that got this whole thing going. But Mark and I worked together, and I wrote up most of those [documents]. This was more adventurous and puzzles than tactics and RPG, because that's the direction Mark really wanted to take it." —Paul Tozour (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)
↑ "They worked on Heroes of Hyrule for about a month and pitched it to Nintendo in May 2004, right around the time they were finishing up on Metroid Prime 2." —Dr. Lava (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)
↑ "We sent it over to [Nintendo] SPD and got an immediate 'no, you're not doing that.' To this day, I do not know why. They just didn't seem to have any interest in that gameplay concept, which is too bad. It was a really solid concept and had the potential to be something great." —Paul Tozour (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)
↑ "We sent it over to [Nintendo] SPD and got an immediate 'no, you're not doing that.' To this day, I do not know why. They just didn't seem to have any interest in that gameplay concept, which is too bad. It was a really solid concept and had the potential to be something great." —Paul Tozour (LOST Zelda Game for Nintendo DS: Heroes of Hyrule - Ft. @Zeltik.)