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Miyamoto looks back on Ocarina of Time's development - Dev time, changes, first-person ideas and more
During the development of Super Mario 64 and how it played into Ocarina of Time
“Back then we didn’t really have a good idea of how strong the 3D visuals were, how strong they would be and what experience they would give. As we were developing Mario 64 we were experimenting with what was possible within that space. We tried to apply what we had learned to the next big franchise for us, which was going to be Zelda. At that time there really was no blueprint for how to create that kind of game in a 3D space. No-one had done it before. There were no rules for us to follow. It was an era where there was a lot of exploration in development, exploration in general. It was quite a bit of fun for us because of the nature of the work.”
On Miyamoto originally wanting Ocarina of Time to be first-person
“There were lots of challenges in trying to show the game from a third person perspective. We had also experimented with moments where the battles were in 3D but parts of the game were on rails. We looked at the idea of taking a Mario 64 approach where you have a Mario 64-style castle, the equivalent of that being Hyrule castle, and you explore and encounter the gameplay through that central area.”
On learning what the N64 could do
“We really wanted to create a very distinctive world of Hyrule, with changes in weather and things like that. We eventually found what the N64 was able to do. It was a system that felt really well designed to bring Hyrule to life.”
On Epona and Link himself being turning points for the title
“The horse was a turning point. The moment that we saw you could ride around on a horse in 3D, we instantly realised that we needed a giant field that people could ride through.
The other turning point was Link himself. ...We started off creating the more grown up model of Link. After creating that model we then asked, ‘well, what if we were to create a younger Link?’ Then we asked, ‘which one should we go with?’ When we created the younger Link, that’s when we realised we could use both versions of Link and have him grow from being a child to being a grown up. I wanted to make sure we had something that felt a little bit simpler in terms of the differences between the world that Link experiences as a child, and the world he experiences as an adult.
For example you would see how his relationship to the girls in the game would change from when he was a boy and he was an adult. When you were a child certain characters might have been scary. Or the adults who seemed stupid, how did you see them when you were a child? It was about portraying the differences between those two to tell the story of a boy growing up.”
On upending the teatable
“We wondered if the game was ever going to get finished, but everyone was having a lot of fun. We had to ensure those random events happened at points where it didn’t cause inconsistencies in the game. I decided we had to double them (the amount of songs). It resulted in a big change in gameplay! The team was confused initially, but in the end it was good!”
On the water dungeon
“It remains a regret for Eiji Aonuma to this day, mainly because he continually hears from everyone about how difficult the dungeon was! But he continues to insist that the dungeon wasn’t hard. It was just a pain because you had to keep taking the boots off and then put them back on He says it wasn’t hard, just inconvenient!”
On finishing the game
“I was just glad we could put it out there for people to play. It was the first game that my daughter sat down and played a lot of, and as a result of that she became a really big Zelda fan. I remember Ocarina of Time as the game that allowed my daughter and I to start having a lot of conversations about video games.”
Full feature here
“Back then we didn’t really have a good idea of how strong the 3D visuals were, how strong they would be and what experience they would give. As we were developing Mario 64 we were experimenting with what was possible within that space. We tried to apply what we had learned to the next big franchise for us, which was going to be Zelda. At that time there really was no blueprint for how to create that kind of game in a 3D space. No-one had done it before. There were no rules for us to follow. It was an era where there was a lot of exploration in development, exploration in general. It was quite a bit of fun for us because of the nature of the work.”
On Miyamoto originally wanting Ocarina of Time to be first-person
“There were lots of challenges in trying to show the game from a third person perspective. We had also experimented with moments where the battles were in 3D but parts of the game were on rails. We looked at the idea of taking a Mario 64 approach where you have a Mario 64-style castle, the equivalent of that being Hyrule castle, and you explore and encounter the gameplay through that central area.”
On learning what the N64 could do
“We really wanted to create a very distinctive world of Hyrule, with changes in weather and things like that. We eventually found what the N64 was able to do. It was a system that felt really well designed to bring Hyrule to life.”
On Epona and Link himself being turning points for the title
“The horse was a turning point. The moment that we saw you could ride around on a horse in 3D, we instantly realised that we needed a giant field that people could ride through.
The other turning point was Link himself. ...We started off creating the more grown up model of Link. After creating that model we then asked, ‘well, what if we were to create a younger Link?’ Then we asked, ‘which one should we go with?’ When we created the younger Link, that’s when we realised we could use both versions of Link and have him grow from being a child to being a grown up. I wanted to make sure we had something that felt a little bit simpler in terms of the differences between the world that Link experiences as a child, and the world he experiences as an adult.
For example you would see how his relationship to the girls in the game would change from when he was a boy and he was an adult. When you were a child certain characters might have been scary. Or the adults who seemed stupid, how did you see them when you were a child? It was about portraying the differences between those two to tell the story of a boy growing up.”
On upending the teatable
“We wondered if the game was ever going to get finished, but everyone was having a lot of fun. We had to ensure those random events happened at points where it didn’t cause inconsistencies in the game. I decided we had to double them (the amount of songs). It resulted in a big change in gameplay! The team was confused initially, but in the end it was good!”
On the water dungeon
“It remains a regret for Eiji Aonuma to this day, mainly because he continually hears from everyone about how difficult the dungeon was! But he continues to insist that the dungeon wasn’t hard. It was just a pain because you had to keep taking the boots off and then put them back on He says it wasn’t hard, just inconvenient!”
On finishing the game
“I was just glad we could put it out there for people to play. It was the first game that my daughter sat down and played a lot of, and as a result of that she became a really big Zelda fan. I remember Ocarina of Time as the game that allowed my daughter and I to start having a lot of conversations about video games.”