Star Fox Shows Exactly How Nintendo Should Handle an Ocarina of Time Remake

In a previous post, Nintendo & Storytelling: Ideas for Elaborating on Ocarina of Time’s Lore. I talked about how an Ocarina of Time remake presents Nintendo with an opportunity to significantly expand the game's storytelling without fundamentally changing what made the original so special.

Recently, though, I saw something that gave me even more confidence in that idea.

Star Fox.

Specifically, the way Nintendo handled the prologue in the new Switch 2 version.

If you've played the original Star Fox 64, you'll remember how the backstory is presented. Before the game begins, you're given a series of still images, scrolling text, and voice narration explaining what happened years earlier on Venom. You learn that James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar were sent to investigate Andross. You learn that Pigma betrayed the team. You learn that James was lost during the mission.

It's effective storytelling for a Nintendo 64 game released in 1997.

But it's also largely storytelling through exposition.

You're told what happened. You don't actually see it.

The Switch 2 version changes that.

Now you get to watch those events unfold. You see the mission. You see the betrayal. You see the drama that previously existed only in text and narration.

And that's exactly what I want Nintendo to do with Ocarina of Time.

Ocarina of Time Tells You a Lot... But Shows You Very Little

One of the most fascinating things about Ocarina of Time is just how much of its story happens off-screen.

The game constantly tells you about important events. But you rarely get to witness them.

Take Link's origin story.

We know that Link's mother, mortally wounded during the Hyrulean Civil War, brought him to the Lost Woods and entrusted him to the Great Deku Tree before dying. That's one of the most important moments in Link's entire life. And yet we never see it. Imagine finding the Deku Tree sprout and the game rewards you with a fully realized cinematic sequence showing that very event unfold.

Imagine seeing a wounded mother desperately carrying her child through the forest, eventually placing him under the protection of the Deku Tree.

That's powerful storytelling.

Ocarina of Time Has a Ton of Untapped Storytelling Potential

In that earlier post about expanding Ocarina of Time's lore, I argued that one of the game's greatest strengths is also one of its greatest missed opportunities.

There is an incredible amount of lore and worldbuilding hidden throughout the game, but much of it is simply told to the player rather than shown.

Take the Hyrulean Civil War, for example.

We know from the game's dialogue that a brutal war engulfed Hyrule before Link's birth. We know the King of Hyrule eventually unified the kingdom. We know countless lives were lost. But we never actually see any of it. Imagine opening the game with glimpses of that conflict. Imagine seeing the chaos that eventually led to Link's mother fleeing into the Lost Woods with her infant son.

That's not changing the story.

That's enriching it.

The same applies to smaller pieces of lore as well…

The Composer Brothers are another great example. Their story is fascinating. They served the Royal Family, conducted research into the mysteries of the Royal Tomb, and ultimately became entangled in Ganondorf's search for power. The game tells us all of this through dialogue. But imagine actually seeing some of those events play out through flashbacks or optional cutscenes.

None of it changes the main narrative.

But it gives more depth to the world and the people living in it.

That's what great remakes should do.

Not rewrite history. Expand it.

There are many more examples of places where Nintendo can expand the lore in that older post.

Nintendo Might be on the Right Track Here

When I look at what Nintendo did with the Star Fox prologue, I don't just see a cool remake feature. I see a blueprint. A blueprint for how Nintendo could approach an Ocarina of Time remake.

The story is already incredible. It doesn't need to be rewritten.

It just needs to be expanded.

And if Nintendo is willing to show us the moments that the original game could only tell us about, they have an opportunity to make one of the greatest games ever made feel fresh all over again.