Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Remake Fixes One Of Its Most Controversial Characters

Published Oct 18, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Yuliya Geikhman has been writing professionally for over 17 years. She started out in the MMO scene with Pando Media Booster and now dives into everything gaming at Screen Rant. She's a lifelong gamer, a relentless industry sleuth, and a passionate follower of everything happening in the games industry.

The upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time makes the nearly 30-year-old game accessible to modern audiences. As part of modernizing the title, Nintendo has, of course, upgraded its visuals—seriously, you can see every thread in the characters' clothes. But as I saw when I previewed the game at the NYC 2026 Nintendo holiday showcase, the upcoming game also reimagines many aspects of the gameplay.

The remake makes some much-needed quality of life upgrades to make the game as smooth and fun to play as possible, while retaining the feel of the original. The characters are more alive and full of personality, you can now jump on command, and you no longer need to open your inventory every time you want to switch weapons. Among these updates, the new Ocarina of Time also fixes one of the most irritating moments from the original game.

New OOT Players Will Miss Out On This Classic Moment

In the 1998 Ocarina of Time game, when Link exits Kokiri Forest and prepares to embark on his adventure across Hyrule, he encounters an owl. This owl, named Kaepora Gaebora, helpfully explains to Link how to navigate around the large world. He explains how to access and use the map, and where Link should go next.

It's a lengthy bit of dialogue, and when he finishes speaking, the owl asks Link if he's got all that. By that point, nearly all players would be mashing the A button to get through the dialogue. So when the default selected option that appears is "no," the Kaepora Gaebora helpfully repeats the entire long dialogue again. And yes—you could absolutely get caught in this dialogue loop for as long as it takes for you to slow down and finally tell the owl that yes, you've got it, and to please let you continue the game already.

Link goes on to meet Kaepora Gaebora several more times throughout the game, each time, sharing some useful information. The questions are mixed up to keep you on your toes, too, sometimes asking if you understand ("yes") or if you need the info repeated ("no")—with the option that will endlessly repeat the dialogue always selected by default. In future encounters, though, players will probably have caught on and slowed down, which was likely the purpose of this trap.

This is such an iconic moment that nearly all players who played the original game got to experience it. When I tried out the remake preview, I got to play through that section of the game. And I am both excited and saddened to report that this moment is now gone. When you meet the owl on the edge of Hyrule Field, he says what he has to say and then simply flies off.

OOT Remake Fixes More Pain Points From The Original

On one hand, getting caught in an annoying dialogue trap was never "fun" and did slow down the game experience. It's a good thing that Nintendo decided to write it out of the game entirely. But on the other hand, the moment has always been such an integral part of the experience that it's a bit disappointing that newcomers to the game will miss out on it.

In the interest of making the game as fun as possible for both old and new players, Nintendo made several more changes of a similar nature. I already mentioned that you don't have to go into your inventory to switch weapons; instead, you can cycle between them like in Breath of the Wild.

Another example is Navi, who now has full voice-acted lines during cutscenes, and whose cries of "listen" and "watch out" aren't nearly as repetitive anymore. One more instance of this is the new ability to dash after rolling, so you no longer have to continuously roll across Hyrule Field to speed things up.

All of these examples are definitely fixes, since they update the game to be better in general. Being annoyed or bogged down are never fun parts of the gameplay experience, after all. At the same time, this shows the balance Nintendo had to play when deciding how many of the original game's "faults" were a part of the gameplay experience, and how many should be fixed now that they have the benefit of hindsight and improved hardware.

Nintendo nailed the feel and look of the remake, and the decision to remove annoyances was probably for the best. All of this does make me wonder how the upcoming game dealt with the notoriously frustrating Water Temple.

We won't have to wait too much longer to find out. Fans can experience the new yet familiar experience for themselves when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launches on the Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026.