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Iwata Asks - Miyamoto on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time development, details, problems and more

by rawmeatcowboy
27 June 2011
GN Version 3.1

- Ocarina of Time was originally supposed to come out the following Christmas after the N64 launch
- development took about two and a half years
- Ocarina of Time was Miyamoto’s biggest project in terms of scale to that date
- Koizumi and a few others put forth the idea of a 3D Zelda game, much like what was done with Mario
- memory constraints made creating Ocarina of Time a struggle
- the team originally thought they’d only be able to pull off Ganon’s Castle, which would have paintings inside of it much like Super Mario 64
- Miyamoto wasn’t too bothered by this idea at first
- the fight with Phantom Ganon is left over from that original idea
- Koizumi made Epona and Miyamoto worked on a broad landform because he wanted Link to ride a horse
- this was taxing on the N64 hardware
- the team tested to see if they could have two horses as once as a test for the hardware, and then they showed that test at SpaceWorld
- Miyamoto didn’t want to make the game without Young Link
- In Legend of Zelda, Link is about 12 years old. In Adventures of Link he is 16
- Miyamoto wanted Link to be somewhat cool, but not too cool
- the idea of having a 9 and 16 year old version of Link in Ocarina of Time gave birth to all sorts of ideas
- Once again, Twin Peaks really inspired Miyamoto and the team to fill the game with characters and relationships
- Miyamoto hardly ever talked about story with Ocarina of Time, but he was heavily involved in character functions
- Nintendo spends a lot of time trying to make stories in Zelda games match up
- Miyamoto really wishes players would not care about that stuff, because it would be easier on him!
- Miyamoto goes into the discussion of worrying about little details that don’t matter, just like Yoshi being a boy or a girl
- Miyamoto says that pre-rendered cut-scenes don’t mix with his style of tweaking games right up to the last minute
- Miyamoto worries more about how fun the game is rather than the cut-scenes
- Miyamoto worked with Kawagoe on the storyboards for Ocarina of Time, but Kawagoe handled most of the camera decisions
- Miyamoto originally had the idea of Ingo burning down the ranch so that Link/Epona have to jump over the fence with a dramatic backdrop of fire
- This was given up due to the idea of people wanting to return to the ranch later
- Miyamoto is heavily influenced by westerns, which is why he wanted a horse in the game so badly
- working on this game was a major learning experience for all the devs, which is why they found the experience so exciting and rewarding
- the dev team said it was weird that you could cut grass down but not signs, which is how the sign idea came up
- Miyamoto was striving for villages that were more distinctive, and this actually lead into cucco flying
- villages were changed in order to provide more slops for cucco flying
- this lead to a redesign of Zora’s River as well
- the guideline for the redesign was “Make it a landform like you don’t usually see.”
- blowing up Gossip Stones to make them take off was added towards the end of development
- Miyamoto believes he and his team delivered ‘warmth, scent and humidity’ through Ocarina of Time
- Miyamoto came up with the auto-jump idea while he was on one of his days off, and was so excited that he couldn’t wait to get back to work
- he ran into work that Monday and spread the word right away
- this auto-jump let the team create the visual style for Link’s jump, including the dive in Zora’s Domain
- Miyamoto thinks the North American marketing of Ocarina of Time worked wonders, all thanks to the ‘epic adventure’ tagline
- Miyamoto knows that people still call Link Zelda, and he says it’s just part of the series’ history now
- Miyamoto thinks the 3DS helps convey Ocarina of Time event better
- multiple textures were completely redone for OoT3d
- there are over 130 hint movies in the game
- Miyamoto feels the 3D really enhances the fun of riding Epona
- a lot of girls were players of Ocarina of Time, says Miyamoto
- He thinks having Link looking even more handsome this time around may help bring in new fans
- There will only be one Legend of Zelda Symphonic event in Japan

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