Early Ocarina of Time footage from Spaceworld 1996 surfaces online

This article was originally written for Zelda Universe.


Over on the ol’ Tube of You, a user by the name of kukun kun has uploaded some footage from an old Japanese TV show. Not that exciting in itself, except the footage in question was actually shot at Nintendo’s Spaceworld event from 1996.

Amongst the usual hyperactive Japanese fare, we get a few quick shots of what is a beta version of Ocarina of Time. The images feature early builds of town and mountain areas, as well as a mysterious sky platform surrounded by grey clouds.

We get some cool early shots of Stalfos too, who look a lot plainer than their final design. There’s also a Stalfos battle in a room reminiscent of the one in which you fight the Iron Knuckle in the final version of the game’s Spirit Temple. It’s cool to see the origins of some of these ideas even if they didn’t make it into the final game.

As a final treat, we also get a look at the infamous ‘Triforce Dungeon’ – including shots of Link opening up an ethereal blue chest containing the sacred triangles themselves.

Check out the footage yourself below. The relevant section starts at the 10:49 mark, but we recommend starting from around 10:30 to get a glimpse of the scrapped Earthbound 64 as well.