The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time-- 10 Things You Didn't Know

For diehard Zelda fans, knowing every detail of every game is part of the job description. From the different types of Zoras to Kaepora Gaebora's tenure as an ancient sage, no detail is too trivial to gobble up. But between a recent interview we had with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma and the newest edition of Iwata Asks featuring a few members of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's original development team, new information has come to light. During these candid interviews, the team gave us some new insight into Ocarina of Time's creation, as well as a few surprising revelations.

Below we've compiled the most interesting tidbits for your memorizing pleasure. So read on, and find out if you know this legendary game as well as you think you do.

Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the auto-jump mechanic that 3D Zelda games are known for actually came along later on in Ocarina of Time's development. At first, just like in Super Mario 64, you had to push a button to make Link jump. This was removed to simplify the experience and shift the focus to the puzzle elements rather than the action.

While Nintendo President Satoru Iwata admits that Ocarina of Time eventually became "a massive project that mobilized nearly everyone who belonged to EAD at that time," it initially started out as a three-member team made up of Jin Ikeda, Toru Osawa, and eventually Koizumi-san.

It was Takao Shimizu's (of Star Fox 64 fame) idea to make a Zelda game with chanbara-style action (chanbara is a type of Japanese sword-fighting movie).

"When people talk about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, they mention various things like an epic story, solving puzzles, trotting across a broad field on a horse and how cool Link is, but it began with the single theme of making a Zelda game that included chanbara-style swashbuckling!" Iwata-san said.

Apparently Koizumi-san and Shimizu-san were huge fans of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. In fact, before Super Mario 64, Koizumi-san had actually been working on a polygonal Zelda II with Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto for the SNES.


"We were experimenting with a thin, polygon Link seen from the side and fighting with his sword," Koizumi-san said. "Chanbara was a pending issue at the time. We couldn't really bring Zelda II: The Adventure of Link into form at that time, but I kept that desire to achieve a sword-fighting Zelda game until I joined this team."

While it's hard to imagine a Zelda game where you can't see the Hero of Time, Koizumi-san reveals that at first Miyamoto-san wanted to make Ocarina of Time a first-person perspective game.

"In the beginning, he had the image that you are at first walking around in first-person, and when an enemy appeared, the screen would switch, Link would appear, and the battle would unfold from a side perspective," Koizumi-san said.

Even though, after working on Super Mario 64, Koizumi-san knew how incredibly difficult it would be to constantly display a character running around a huge field, he still resisted the idea. "While it wasn't very nice of me toward Miyamoto-san -- I didn't try a first-person scene even once!"


The reason? As the one who created Link's model, Koizumi-san couldn't stand to see Link not appear in the game. "Link is cool, so I wanted to always be able to see him," he said. Luckily, some nifty things came out of this hard-headedness, as Z-targeting (a revolutionary mechanic that has since been copied countless times) was invented to help make battling in third-person possible.

The idea for Z-targeting came to Koizumi-san while he and Osawa-san were at Toei Kyoto Studio Park. While they had already started thinking about a better way to hit opponents in front of you during Super Mario 64's development, a sword-fighting show at the park is what made it all click. As he watched, Koizumi-san wondered how it was possible that they had one hero defeating 20 ruffians at once.

"I thought there must be some kind of trick, so I watched very closely, and it was simple," he said. "It's a sword battle, so there's a script and a certain setup. The enemies don't all attack at once. First, one attacks while the others wait. When the first guy goes down, the next one steps in, and so on." This helped him figure out how to make Z-targeting work with multiple enemies. "Watching that show at the studio park was a clue toward solving that problem. Z-targeting flags one particular opponent, telling the other enemies to wait."

Yes, you heard correctly. Navi started out as a triangle... which arguably would have been better for all of us. When figuring out exactly how to make the Z-targeting system work, Koizumi-san remembers that they wanted to make it easy for players to tell which enemy they were targeting. That's where the idea of using an upside-down triangle as a marker came about. This triangle eventually became Navi, the loud-mouthed fairy we've all come to know and love/hate. "I was a designer, so I didn't want to use such a simple marker," Koizumi-san said. "I wanted to make something else, so I came up with a fairy. After all, it was The Legend of Zelda."

Koizumi-san ideally wanted to make a cute girl for the fairy, but as it wasn't possible with the N64 hardware, he made it a ball of light with wings instead. "I called it the Fairy Navigation System." When he showed Osawa-san, he immediately came up with the idea of naming it Navi "because she navigates!" Once the name was set, the ideas started rolling in, like using color to tell whether the person you're facing is good or bad and making Navi an important guide for the story.

While the concept of going back and forth between childhood and adulthood is now a defining characteristic of the game, at first Link was only going to be featured as an adult. The development team felt this best suited the chanbara style of combat. "With a child form, the sword would be small and his reach too short, so he would be at a terrible disadvantage, especially against large enemies," Osawa-san explained.

Not too surprisingly, these plans were thrown out when Miyamoto-san and a few others on the staff declared that they wanted to see "a cute little Link." Not ones to turn down a challenge, they started thinking about how they could have both the child and adult forms of Link appear in the same game. "[We] came up with the device of going seven years into the future by drawing the Master Sword and then returning back to his child form when he returns it to the pedestal," Osawa-san said.

Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma admits this change was an important one. "The game transformed into something completely different from what we had imagined before," he said. Another thing they had to reassess during development was their original intention to have Link get a spell for each sage he awakened, for a total of seven spells he would acquire in over the course of the adventure. "But to maintain the appropriate balance with the other items, we decided to limit the final number of spells to three, one for each of the three goddesses."

Epona is well-known as Link's constant companion in 3D Zelda games, but she almost made her debut in Super Mario 64. The idea of having a horse in the 3D platformer was eventually dropped, but Koizumi-san was intent on doing it for Ocarina of Time.


As for where the loyal steed got her name, that idea came from Koizumi-san. The team was initially calling her Ao, but he insisted they go with Epona. "Epona is the goddess of horses and fertility in Celtic mythology, so I used that," Koizumi-san said. "When you name something, it increases your affection for it, so I worked hard to make her a good horse."

Link is known for his sharp, elflike features, but Koizumi-san revealed that his design went through many changes. At first the Hylian hero actually sported a button nose and more rounded features. This design changed at the urging of Koizumi-san's wife. "[She] said, 'All of Nintendo's characters have funny noses. Don't you have any handsome ones?' I was shocked." As a result, he made Link's design "a little better-looking," and pierced his ears to make him a little cooler.

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What do you think of these revelations? Would Navi have been better off as a triangle? Should Epona have been Mario's steed instead? And which one shocked you the most? Sound off in the comments section below!

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