Miyamoto has revealed a huge ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ mistake he made during development

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is considered by many to be a masterpiece that demolished the expectations of players with its 3D gameplay and combat that pioneered the mechanics in the time of the Nintendo 64. The boom it caused in its day is equated to myths like Super Mario 64, but Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t exactly happy with the final result. There was an element of the game that the creator did not like, so much so that he even revealed it to the public in an interview he gave in 1999 to a Japanese magazine dedicated to guides.

For Miyamoto, the biggest mistake in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ was Navi

As it turns out, the developer behind Mario Bros and a few other classics that have given meaning to the Nintendo that we know today was convinced that Navi the Fairy’s clue system was too technically complex. So much so that he considers it “the biggest weak point” of the entire game. This is how he narrated it (translation by shmuplations):

“I think the way we give hints is still a little too unfriendly. Speaking plainly, I can now confess to you: I think the whole system with Navi giving you advice is the biggest weakpoint of Ocarina of Time. It’s incredibly difficult to design a system that gives proper advice, advice that’s tailored to the player’s situation. To do it right, you’d have to spend the same amount of time as you would developing an entire game, and I was very worried we’d be digging ourselves into a hole, if we pursued perfection there…”

Having Navi repeat the same topics over and over again was a solution the team came up with. In fact, Miyamoto points out that the fact that she conveyed that she was “stupid” was something premeditated. “I think if we’d tried to make Navi’s hints more sophisticated, that “stupidity” would have actually stood out even more. The truth is I wanted to remove the entire system, but that would have been even more unfriendly to players. You can think of Navi as being there for players who stop playing for a month or so, who then pick the game back up and want to remember what they were supposed to do. It’s a brazen excuse, I know. (laughs).”

The original goal of Navi was to be able to help solve puzzles that players got stuck on, but at that time it was not possible to make it ‘smart’, so to speak. Miyamoto was aware that the hints players would need would vary from person to person. It depends on the situation, the context, and what they have progressed or stopped advancing... “There is no consistency,” he said. “We can’t help there in a game like Zelda, which combines action with puzzle solving,” he concludes.

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