Nintendo front man Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken on the development of the Zelda series, dropping a few anecdotal nuggets like Ocarina of Time was almost made in first-person perspective.
"At first when we were developing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I even proposed using a first-person perspective," he said.
"I thought that the FPS system would be the best way of enabling players to take in the vast terrain of the Hyrule Field. Besides, by not having the player's character on the screen, we can spend more time and machine power on creating enemies and the environments." Which logically makes sense, even if it emotionally makes us wretch in disgust.
Ultimately, the desire to show Link as both a child and adult put an end to Miyamoto's dalliance with the first-person design.
The revelation comes in an interview by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata addressing the development of Link's Crossbow Training. Miyamoto also touches upon the development of the Wii Zapper in the interview and why he chose a Zelda spin-off to launch the peripheral.
After vetoing Mario and Animal Crossing as potential candidates, Miyamoto said: "We figured that Link was the logical choice. Then we argued that it would've been kind of strange for us to give Link a gun, so I proposed a sort of Terminator style story about a time warp from the future, but [the development team] vetoed that idea immediately."
May 9, 2008
After a year of trying, Zelda: Majora's Mask streamer becomes world's first to pull off randomized no-hit run where even blocking causes a game-ending Mooncrash
"I can't go through [with] this": The weirdest Zelda ad didn't get Nintendo's approval, but it probably happened anyway because the marketing execs were already on-site
