If you ask someone what the “greatest video game ever” is, you’ll get different answers based on who you talk to. It’s the same way with comics, movies, TV shows, music, and every other form of medium. However, a few titles stand out from the rest, and one of them is The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Even after several generations of games, consoles, and other Zelda titles, the game still stands tall as peak game design in many respects and has won numerous awards as a result. However, even Shigeru Miyamoto knows that one element isn’t the best…and he almost had it removed initially!
In an unearthed interview from 1999 that was translated by shmuplations, Shigeru Miyamoto points out that Navi’s “guidance” was not beloved by him:
“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…”
Oh, he didn’t stop spilling the tea there, though:
“If you read Navi’s text, she says the same things over and over. I know it makes it sound bad, but we purposely left her at a kind of ‘stupid’ level. 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)”
It’s fascinating to see these quotes after all these years, and it shows that Shigeru Miyamoto really did understand things even before gamers got to experience it themselves. Obviously, Ocarina of Time still became an all-time title, even with Navi telling us to “LISTEN!!!!” a lot. it does make us wonder what would’ve happened if Miyamoto got his way…
