Zelda: Ocarina of Time Designer Yoshiaki Koizumi Originally Envisioned Navi to Be a Cute, Human-Like Fairy, Before Nintendo 64 Limitations Changed Her Design

Navi, the glowing fairy who accompanies Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, could have looked very different if Nintendo’s 1998 adventure had been developed for more powerful hardware. Yoshiaki Koizumi, one of the game’s designers, revealed that he initially imagined the character as a cute, human-like girl rather than the floating ball of light familiar to players. Koizumi discussed the idea in a 2011 interview published through Nintendo’s Iwata Asks series. Explaining why the original concept changed,…