“Hey! Listen!” How many times have you been annoyed by that shrill voice while trying to solve a puzzle in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time? While Navi was just trying to be helpful, the fairy only ended up annoying players with her grating voice and unsolicited advice. It’s a wonder how Link got about his adventures after waking up to that sound.
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Everyone who has played the game, either when it launched in 1998 or after that, has wished there was a way to mute her. It seems that we weren’t the only ones. While Navi was created as a way to help players and provide hints, it turns out even the devs at Nintendo weren’t too fond of her, and that includes the legendary creator of The Legend of Zelda and Mario, Shigeri Miyamoto.
Shigeru Miyamoto Wasn’t Too Fond Of Navi Either
In a very old interview that was recently translated by shmuplations, Miyamoto admitted that while Navi was necessary, he thought the whole system was a major weak point in Ocarina of time (thanks, GamesRadar).
I think the way we give hints is still a little too unfriendly,” he said back then in the interview which originally took place in 1999. “Speaking plainly, I can now confess to you: I think the whole system with Navi giving you advice is the biggest weak point 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…”
He continued to say that Navi would keep repeating the same thing over and over again, which both the devs and players found quite irritating. They had to purposely make the angel sound a bit “stupid” as if they made it more sophisticated, it would stand out even more.
“The truth is I wanted to remove the entire system, but that would have been even more unfriendly to players,” he admitted. “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.”
