Nintendo comments on Navi’s origins, overcoming N64 limitations
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Navi is central to the game not just for story reasons, but also because she offers advice and takes part in Z-targeting during battle. Originally, a triangular marker would appear above an enemy’s head to indicate what you were targeting, but Nintendo swapped the symbol out with Navi to make it a bit more special.
Satoru Iwata, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Toru Osawa discussed the origins of Navi on the latest Iwata Asks, even noting that the fairy idea helped to tackle hardware limitations with the N64.
Read on for more.
Koizumi: Yeah. But I was a designer, so I didn’t want to use such a simple marker. I wanted to make something else, so I came up with a fairy. After all, it was The Legend of Zelda.
Iwata: So first you went to make a marker, and later you made the fairy?
Koizumi: Right. Usually, if you were to make a fairy, you would make a cute girl, but that wasn’t possible with the Nintendo 64 system, so I just made a ball of light with wings.
Iwata: Uh-huh.
Koizumi: I called it the Fairy Navigation System, took it to Osawa-san, and asked, “How’s this?” He immediately said, “Let’s name it Navi.” Because she navigates! (laughs)
Iwata: Osawa-san called on his simple naming sense. (laughs)
Osawa: Navi—from “navigation.” (laughs) The Legend of Zelda games have a lot of names that show their origin. Link means to bind together. We give a lot of names that serve as functional symbols.
Iwata: Functional symbols are important to Miyamoto-san.
Osawa: I think so. I didn’t just name her Navi out of my simple sense for naming. Rather, I thought I should name her that way out of respect for The Legend of Zelda naming tradition.
Koizumi: But when I heard the name Navi from Osawa-san, I was really happy. I had thought of it as a system, but…
Iwata: Naming it had breathed life into what had been an impersonal marker.
Koizumi: Right. I thought, “This is Navi,” and ideas started coming to me one after the other. Like being able to tell by color whether the person you’re facing is good or bad, and if Navi talked, she could be an important guide for the story. So naming the system Navi really helped it grow.
Osawa: Navi also gives strategy tips.
Koizumi: So the text that Osawa-san had to write increased a lot.
Osawa: (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) The addition of Navi had merits with regard to the script as well. We were able to expand the story around the idea of meeting and saying good-bye to a fairy.
Iwata: Ahh, I see!
Koizumi: And not only the script, but the game mechanics benefited as well. The first location is Kokiri Forest. The village has lots of trees and lots of people live there, but it was difficult to display them all at once.
Iwata: The Nintendo 64 system had limitations making it difficult to display many characters at the same time.
Koizumi: I came up with the idea of having each person living there followed around by a fairy. That way, even if we just showed the fairies…
Iwata: I see. If you see the fairy, you know its owner is there, too.
Koizumi: Right. We solved the problem by having it so that the owner appears when you get close to the fairy.
Aonuma: It also led to the scenario surrounding Link not having a fairy at first.
Osawa: Which led to the whole idea of meeting and parting from a fairy—in which you start by finding a fairy and in the end you say good-bye.
