With Nintendo rumoured to be planning a remake of one of their most beloved video games, a reader suggests a number of changes for a modern version of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time.

Nintendo don’t make a lot of remakes, but it’d be wrong to say they don’t ever do them. They are usually for more minor games though, like Super Mario RPG and a few Kirby games. It’d also be wrong to say there are never leaks about their upcoming games. It’s not common, unlike with other publishers, but it does happen – with Donkey Kong Bananza having been leaked years ahead of time, even if the information was a bit vague.

The latest leak didn’t really have any information though, beyond the fact that a remake of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is coming. There’s no hint of who’s making it or how far it’ll go in changing things. Will it be a Resident Evil 2 style deal or something closer to the 3DS version of Ocarina Of Time, which was really just a remaster.

I have no idea, but naturally I’m hoping it’s as big budget an effort as possible, which seems likely if it’s supposed to be their key Christmas game. If it is that kind of effort though that implies changes – just like the Resident Evil remakes – and I have some ideas for what they could be.

I will say from the start, that I’m hoping the changes will be relatively minimal. I don’t think there’s any need to change the combat or (with one exception) the dungeon designs, but there is a lot of fine tuning that would be useful. However, another thing I don’t want them to change is the creepiness and weirdness of the game, which is more extreme than most of the modern ones – so it’ll need actually scary ReDeads and keeping the Forest Temple as it is.

The first change I’d make is simple: voice-acting. The most recent games have been slowly adding more but while I absolutely agree that Link shouldn’t talk everyone else should. It just spoils the immersion when they don’t, and I don’t believe they have it that way for any reason other than Nintendo don’t like spending money on actors.

Another big decision is the art style. It’s hard to tell whether the original was meant to be photorealistic or not, given the limited tech, but while it’s close I’d say it was stylised a bit and it should stay that way. Looking at character faces in particular, you can see a subtle cartoonish effect and I’d like them to keep that.

Some basic changes would be making Hyrule Field bigger and/or filled with more things and generally ensuring that the whole game is just one big open world, just with the same design as the original. That should be no problem given the last two games.

One of the biggest problems I can foresee is that Ocarina Of Time is a lot more complicated than a modern game, especially in terms of dungeon puzzles. It wasn’t considered particularly hard at the time but nowadays people aren’t going to be used to the lack of hand-holding.

The infamous Water Temple is going to flummox any younger gamer, so I think that either has to be changed or, and this would be my preference, they have alternative versions of the dungeons and maybe the game as a whole, with a lite mode that’s easier and simpler and the full fat version.

There’s a lot of other stuff that could be added, like new side quests (the original doesn’t actually have many), more monsters everywhere (again, there’s not many, which is probably because of the limitations of the N64), and maybe even a new dungeon (a lot of fans think there should’ve been a Light Temple).

On a story note, I’d also like some clarification on what happens to Navi at the end, hopefully leading into a tease about a Majora’s Mask remake. I never liked that her fate was never revealed.

Considering how beloved the game is and how many later ones copied it, especially Twilight Princess, I don’t envy whoever gets the job of doing the remake but I can definitely say that I will be there day one.

By reader Onibee

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