In the last Iwata Asks, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's developer interview series, we learned some fascinating stuff from the original team behind "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." For one thing, did you know that "Zelda" creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, considered making it a primarily first-person experience? The latest Iwata Asks features Miyamoto himself, who gives some interesting insight into the game's development, including one aspect that would have changed the experience entirely.
Speaking about the memory limitations on the N64, Miyamoto says that he considered making the entire game in just one location. "We put constructing the system first, and since we were going to determine the story in line with the system's capacity, at first I thought only having Ganon's Castle might be enough," he explained.
Apparently it wouldn't just be indoors, though. "I thought about putting in all kinds of adventures into the different rooms, like making a dark meadow or an ocean—like in Princess Peach's Castle in 'Super Mario 64'...At first, I didn't mind making the game complete within a single building as long as I got to make Link in 3D. In other words, it might have turned out like 'Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.'"
Another interesting tidbit about the game's development was Miyamoto's source of inspiration regarding the world and its characters:
"I noticed that I didn't want to tell a story so much as I wanted to have a lot of people appear around the main character and portray their relationships. Some years back, a television show called 'Twin Peaks' was popular. When I saw that, the most interesting thing wasn't the ins and outs of the story, but what kinds of characters appeared."
Kinda makes you wonder what Miyamoto thought of "Alan Wake."
The interview is one of the most fascinating Iwata Asks yet, and it's well worth a read...especially if you're in the midst of playing through "Ocarina of Time 3D" on the 3DS.