Most people on the internet have sounded off about how they feel about the visuals in the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake–us included! While there was inevitably going to be strong reactions due to the mythical status Ocarina of Time has accrued, Nintendo’s artists didn’t just bump the level of detail up and call it a day. In the latest “Ask the Developer” column focused on this remake, Nintendo’s Aya Shida, Hiroki Taguchi, Eiji Aonuma, and Hidemaro Fujibayashi provided insight into the design process for recreating this legendary game.
Shida explained how the goal from the outset was not to make everything “look realistic.” She noted how Ocarina of Time has a strong contrast between its dark setting and colorful, quirky characters. That was key to the “dreamlike charm” of the original, to which Shida said, “for this game, we wanted to rebuild Hyrule as a rich, dense world that felt as though it could truly exist, while retaining the feel of the original.”
She continued, “early in development we used phrases like ‘a puppet-show feel’ and ‘the analog feel of practical effects films’ as keywords. Neither puppet shows nor practical effects films reproduce reality exactly as it is. Even so, both create a convincing sense that the characters truly exist within their respective fantasy worlds.” I can completely see that, especially since puppet shows walk a line between reality and fantasy by having abstract characters inhabit real-world locations.
Aonuma brought up how when designing the original N64 game, the team wasn’t aiming to evoke nostalgia in its designs. “We thought we were making something cutting-edge for the time,” he said, noting that its interesting how the new team decided to express their nostalgia for the original with a puppet-show aesthetic. Fujibayashi then stated that the N64 classic was created with exaggerated character movements and expressions to really bring their unique qualities out. “But if we recreated all of that precisely with today’s technology, it might look a little creepy,” he laughingly added.
Finally, Shida gets to one of the more contentious parts of the remake’s visual design: Link’s tunic. “Take Young Link’s clothes, for example. If the fabric looked too neat, as though it had been machine-woven,” she said, “it wouldn’t look like something the children living in the forest had made themselves. It just wouldn’t feel believable.”
Taguchi closes out discussion of the new art direction by stating that when he first saw what the team was aiming for, he was convinced. “It just felt right,” he said. “This wasn’t simply about making the game look better. It was about reinforcing the sense that the characters really existed within this rebuilt world.” I do think there are still some issues with over-designing costumes, but viewed through this lens, I get it. There would be no sense in recreating the original concept art because Nintendo applied that approach to the 3DS version in 2011. 15 years later, it truly is time for a different interpretation.
We’ll have even more insights into The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s remake tomorrow when Nintendo posts parts three and four of its “Ask the Developer” series on this game.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
