A newly translated interview has revealed some incredible new insights into the development of the 1998 N64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
This includes some amazing details such as that Miyamoto once considered the 64DD version of Ocarina of Time to be "completed"; that Nintendo employees wanted to have Link ride a moose or a unicorn instead of Epona; and that the series creator was apparently "surprised" at the similarities between the game and Studio Ghibli's 1997 animated film Princess of Mononoke when he first saw it.
The interview in question was originally published in the February 1998 edition of the multi-format Japanese magazine GameJin, and was recently translated and formatted into English by Roryj and Javed Sterritt for the video game website Good Blood.Games.
As outlined in the transcript on that site, the topic of Studio Ghibli came up in the interview after the interviewer asked about the wildlife in Hyrule (including why Link can continuously abuse cuccos). This then led onto the topic of Epona, with Miyamoto then sharing the following about the development of Link's beloved companion, and how it threw up some similarities to the 1997 Hayao Miyazaki film:
"During development some staff argued about making it a unicorn or a moose but in the end we ended up going with a horse. The game was certainly also influenced by [Ghibli’s] Mr. Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Both works were roughly in development around the same time and when we finished I was surprised at the similarities. Scenes of Link firing the bow and arrow while riding Epona or the Giant Goron walking behind the mountain stirred thoughts like “oh that’s Ashitaka!” or “That looks like the Nightwalker”. We really struggled with the similarities. However, in the end we decided to really build up Hyrule this time to differentiate it.."
If you're interested, you can read the rest of the translation on Good Blood.Games, alongside translations of interviews with Zelda developers who worked on games like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and The Wind Waker.