After months of anticipation, Nintendo officially revealed footage for its upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The big reveal took place as part of Tuesday’s 40th anniversary stream for the Legend of Zelda, which opened with an orchestral take on the franchise theme and spent much of its remainder hyping the November release on Switch 2.
Judging from the substantial footage shown, Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 is a 1:1 remake, aside from a visual overhaul and some smart additions, similar to Starfox from earlier this year. One of the additions I’m less excited about, though, is the introduction of a dedicated jump button that Ocarina of Time doesn’t need.
In Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64, Link negotiated his fair share of platforms. From the very start of the adventure, he jumped between ledges, such as the small islands in a pond in Kokiri Forest. However, the player didn’t control those hops. Instead, they directed Link to run toward the edge of a platform and then he would automatically take a wild leap from its edge, all on his own.
That original approach worked fine, once players grew accustomed to it. In a platformer, it makes sense to require a button press before, say, Mario will leap to the next ledge. That’s part of the experience. But Ocarina of Time is an adventure game. Its appeal comes less from obstacle courses and more from the epic sense of scale on display. By leaving out the simple command, Nintendo’s team gave itself more options for item management. They also eliminated instances when players might press a button just a split-second too late and watch Link dive into a lava lake.
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The Nintendo Switch controller features additional buttons and options that older hardware did not. The remake’s developers also have had decades of quality 3D games to learn from, which is exactly what they seem to have done. As a result, user interface changes are one of seven hidden details you might have missed in the Zelda: Ocarina of Time trailer Nintendo showed at the end of the presentation. Items are no longer assigned to three face buttons, leaving room for other functions… like jumping.
“Even in places with gaps, you can jump, and jump again to cross them,” series producer Eiji Aonuma said (through a translator) during his demonstration of the remake’s early moments. “Just like with the camera, jumping might seem obvious for those of you who have played recent games in the series. But, in the Nintendo 64 game, you’d automatically jump when you got close to an edge. So, jumping by pressing a button is a major change.”
That major change will solve one problem, at least. In the game’s Nintendo 64 edition, Link sometimes had to navigate tight spaces while exploring dungeons or the overworld. From time to time, he took a flying leap when the player didn’t intend for him to, which was frustrating. In other cases, he dropped from a ledge and had to pull himself back up, interrupting the action. While such moments were irritating, they weren’t common enough to require a fix that could drag along some unwanted baggage.
In the remake, one presumes, Link will no longer face such hassles. He might shuffle along the lip of a precipice perfectly fine. I can certainly get behind that. But from what we’ve been shown so far, there aren’t any new areas that require the adjustment. The dungeon segments revealed in the presentation played out the same as ever, except prettier. A dedicated jump button doesn’t seem nearly as impressive as the touchscreen inventory system or the dedicated ocarina button Grezzo added to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D in 2011. It simply adds one more thing to tend to while exploring.
When developers spend time updating their classics, it makes sense to seize the opportunity to polish away rough edges. The Nintendo Direct presentation showed a number of minor differences that might easily enrich the experience we remember so well, from voiced cutscenes to a more elegant camera. But it’s hard to picture a dedicated jump button improving much of anything, especially since this version of Hyrule was specifically designed to not need one. The change adds an element that players were perfectly content ignoring in the past.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” people say. Nintendo is fixing it anyway.