Zelda: Why Navi Was Almost Cut From Ocarina Of Time

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The iconic fairy companion from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Navi, was almost removed from the game prior to its release in 1998. There are now Zelda sidekicks more annoying than Navi, but Link's companion throughout the entirety of Ocarina has a decades-spanning reputation for getting on players' nerves. Navi serves a narrative purpose at the game's outset, and she is integral to the gameplay at large, but her character almost ended up on the cutting room floor.

With the games industry transitioning to 3D during the Nintendo 64 era, Ocarina of Time's Z-targeting system was revolutionary for third-person action games. Aside from waking Link and directing him to the Great Deku Tree, Navi was most often seen floating above whatever the player locked onto. Her other primary function was to supply the player with hints throughout the game. The famed producer of Ocarina of Time, Shigeru Miyamoto, didn't like Navi's hint system, and confessed to wanting to remove that mechanic from the game altogether.

Related: How Ocarina Of Time's Bosses Compared To Their Original Concept Art

This information comes from a 1999 interview with Miyamoto that appeared in a Japanese Ocarina of Time strategy guide. It was recently translated by shmuplations, a repository of old Japanese game developer interviews. Conducted roughly a year after Ocarina of Time's release, Miyamoto discusses a wide range of topics, including some cut content, how the game was viewed as part of the Zelda timeline at that point, and his personal thoughts on the game's difficulty.

With Ocarina of Time broaching the games industry's new territory of three dimensions, Navi was added as a way to help players navigate the game world, but Miyamoto didn't view the