This article has been translated from the original Japanese content.
The interview featured in this volume was conducted before the game was released.
This interview series, titled Ask the Developer Vol. 24, conveys the developers' own words regarding Nintendo's thoughts about creating products and the unusual details they focus on.
The discussion centers on the developers behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
In the interview, Eiji Aonuma, referred to as Aonuma, introduced himself as the producer of the Legend of Zelda series. He has been involved in the development of every title in the series since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64, and he served as a producer for the game being introduced.
Hidemaro Fujibayashi, referred to as Fujibayashi, first joined the series with The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. He later served as a director on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. For the game under discussion, he also served as a producer alongside Aonuma-san.
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons was released for the Game Boy™ Color system in May 2001 in North America. In this title, Link undertakes an adventure where he can manipulate the seasons using the Rod of Seasons. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages involves Link solving puzzles and traveling through time using the Harp of Ages. Players can connect these two adventures and travel between their worlds by entering passwords obtained in each game.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was released in November 2011 for the Wii™ system. This game featured an intuitive control system utilizing the technology of the Wii Remote Plus and Wii MotionPlus accessories. A remaster of this game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, was released in July 2021 for the Nintendo Switch.
The foundational influence of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on modern game development is evident in subsequent titles and technological innovations.
The Legacy of Ocarina of Time
The original The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64. At that time, 3D technology had greatly expanded the possibilities for Nintendo games, leading development staff to discuss a Legend of Zelda game after Super Mario 64 took full advantage of that technology.
The game itself featured a dynamic 3D game with a rich narrative, marking it as one of the first large-scale projects Nintendo undertook. It introduced a significant control system: Z-targeting. By pressing the Z Button on the Nintendo 64 controller, the camera moved behind Link, allowing him to move and battle while locking on to enemies or certain targets. This feature allowed players to fight without needing to pay attention to the camera, using only simple controls.
This Z-targeting system became a standard feature of the Legend of Zelda series. The story of Ocarina of Time follows Link, the protagonist, embarking on an adventure alongside the fairy Navi, guided by Princess Zelda. Link travels between his childhood and adulthood, exploring Hyrule in his quest to defeat the antagonist, Ganondorf.
This legacy of world exploration and narrative continuity is seen in later entries. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, released in March 2017 for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U, required the protagonist, Link, to explore and survive the vast and dangerous land of Hyrule to regain his memories.
Further building on this world, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a Nintendo Switch game released in May 2023, takes place after the story of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and is set in the same world. Players in this title can pick up, move, and fuse together many objects to create things like vehicles and weapons across the land and skies of Hyrule.
Twenty-eight years have passed since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64.
The Challenge of 3D Camera Orientation
One of the biggest challenges in developing 3D games at the time was determining how to orient the camera within a three-dimensional space. When developers experienced Z-targeting while playing the game, they were impressed, realizing that this method was how that challenge was overcome.
The Nintendo 64 controller was notable because it was the first Nintendo controller to feature a Control Stick. However, because it only possessed one stick, players could not freely control the camera in the same way they can with modern controllers.
To address this limitation, a gameplay system was developed by figures including Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshiaki Koizumi. This system allowed players to easily target enemies by locking the camera onto them using the Z Button. Developers fine-tuned the camera movement right up until the very last minute.
Although The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 was released in 1998, the Z-targeting system has remained largely unchanged in subsequent 3D Legend of Zelda games. It has stood the test of time and is still effective today.
The development of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time involved intense daily challenges and a dynamic team environment.
One developer joined the project midway through, focusing primarily on dungeon and enemy design. The experience was characterized by constant excitement and chaos, and the team operated under a multi-director structure where roles were not clearly defined.
The process demanded efficiency, requiring the team to build the necessary tools and systems to make the development process efficient.
The development cycle involved significant highs and lows. For instance, after completing a boss battle just before the deadline, a request was made to Koji Kondo to compose background music. The initial piece provided was bright and upbeat, which was not the desired result. Kondo responded by agreeing to change it, and the very next day, he delivered the battle theme players recognize today. This rapid turnaround led to jokes that Kondo must have had two versions prepared from the beginning.
Koji Kondo was a Sound Producer in the Entertainment Planning & Development Division, having composed music for titles such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
Looking back, this experience was highly valuable. Watching the game’s ending brought a flood of emotions, including tears. Since 3D games were uncommon at the time, there was anticipation and anxiety regarding whether players would enjoy a game that the developers had essentially figured out as they progressed.
Ultimately, the game was embraced by many players. Today, many people consider The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time their favorite game, and the developer expresses gratitude for this legacy.
For some developers, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time holds a foundational place in their career. For one developer, it was the starting point for their work in the Legend of Zelda series, and they frequently return to it to reflect on the ideas developed during its creation. This title was also the first Legend of Zelda game that one developer had worked on.
Within the series itself, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is considered a significant turning point. Its impact extended beyond just the transition to 3D graphics.
Since the inaugural Legend of Zelda game, the gameplay structure has consistently centered on the core concepts of exploration and discovery. This gameplay loop involves spotting an object and wondering what might be waiting, investigating that area, and having that discovery lead to the solution of the subsequent puzzle. This principle has been maintained throughout all subsequent Legend of Zelda titles.
As the first 3D title in the series, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time demonstrated that this core experience—centered on exploration and discovery—could remain the central appeal of the series. This principle was consciously returned to when developing titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which focused on exploration and discovery across a vast world.
The core of the Legend of Zelda series has always centered on the encounters players have with people and enemies while adventuring in a vast world. This focus has been cherished since the very first Legend of Zelda game. The ideas concerning who inhabits the world, the nature of the place, and the encounters awaiting the player were consciously pursued to further refine the game, beginning with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was later re-released on Nintendo 3DS, a version that largely preserved the original presentation. Fifteen years later, the game is being fully remade for the Nintendo Switch 2.
The motivation for this remake was partly tied to the 40th anniversary of the very first Legend of Zelda game. The producer sought to determine what to create for the series. This was prompted by the fact that many team members working on Legend of Zelda games today have only experienced developing more recent titles.
The producer questioned whether these team members truly understood the significance of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to the series as a whole. While some team members vaguely know the game and others played it in their childhood, the goal was to explore how they would interpret Ocarina of Time when developing future Legend of Zelda games. By learning the game structure and development style behind the original, and by rebuilding it as a full remake, the project aimed to trigger new insights for future development.
Another key element of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the progression through a carefully paced adventure and story, which gradually builds the player’s growth and understanding of the narrative. Furthermore, the development sought to experience gameplay similar to titles like Breath of the Wild, allowing players to freely choose their own path from the start.
When fully remaking The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, producers had differing approaches regarding giving directions to the development team, specifically concerning whether to implement changes or preserve existing elements.
Producer Philosophies
One producer, Aonuma, operated under the principle that if producers dictate "This is how it should be," the development team would naturally feel obligated to follow those instructions. Aonuma’s approach was to allow the developers to make whatever changes they genuinely felt were necessary. The goal was for the team to make The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time their own and to pursue their own ideas about what the game should be.
Aonuma also took a step back to observe how younger members of the development team would reimagine the game, utilizing the insights and answers they had arrived at independently.
Conversely, Fujibayashi emphasized the importance of clearly defining early on what elements should be changed and what should be left unchanged. This involved discussions about design choices, such as whether to aim to recreate the same feel as the original game given differences in controller layout and available features, or to change those elements.
Individuals familiar with both the original The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and recent 3D Legend of Zelda games possess extensive knowledge regarding game design. This experience informs their perspective when discussing game design.
Fujibayashi supported the team from a broader perspective by taking a step back to help them clarify the specific aspects they needed to be mindful of during the design process.
Reflecting on the development process, participants discussed how observing the project's creation offered new perspectives on the original game's structure.
Player Experience and Design Changes
One perspective involved the mechanics of movement in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Players could move faster by spamming the forward roll, leading to a tendency for players to spend time rolling across Hyrule Field whenever they needed to travel quickly.
During development, there was a proposal to address this by adding warp points to the new version, which did not exist in the original game, intended to give players shortcuts.
However, testing revealed that adding these warp points meant missing out on moments of discovery that occurred from stopping along the way and questioning the environment, such as wondering, “Wait, what’s this?”
This process reinforced the importance of these moments to the structure of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Although the proposal to add warp points was made by one participant, they were ultimately rejected, and the team decided to remove them entirely.
These elements were ultimately decided to remain unchanged. Deciding to keep these elements unchanged presented challenges in figuring out how to present them effectively using modern hardware, which became an area where the development team’s interpretation was evident.
The experience crafted from this game, which was first released 28 years ago, was described as rich. Initially, there was a thought that more changes could be made, but the project revealed how deeply the development team cared about the original game, exceeding initial expectations.
