Iwata Asks About More Ocarina of Time 3D Details, Link’s Age, and More

Iwata’s talked with the original Ocarina of Time development team, with the 3D remake team over at Grezzo, and now his interview with Mr. Miyamoto has gone online. This one’s of course a lot more personal since it’s just Iwata and Miyamoto, so a lot of really neat details come out here, including clarification of the ages of some of the Links in the series – a hot topic of debate among Zelda enthusiasts.

Curious? Find out the answer, along with a whole lot more about Ocarina of Time that you may not have known before, in this detailed breakdown, summed up by GoNintendo.

• 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 (sic) 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

Source: Iwata Asks: Ocarina of Time 3D with Mr. Miyamoto via GoNintendo