4. The Chest Opening Design Took Three Years
There are many parts of Zelda gameplay that are unique to the series, however none more so than the way Link opens chests. Did you know that it took the developer team almost three years to figure out how to get Link to open a chest by kicking it. It was finally decided that motion capture would be used though the team improvised on this and when Miyamoto returned to the office one day he found an iron-frame treasure chest with two items inside it. It turned out that the team had decided that kicking the hinge of the chest first made the entire action look more realistic. Three years may sound like a long time to figure out one issue, but remember that games like Ocarina of Time had thousands of animation combinations. Pretty nifty for a game that came out almost fifteen years ago.
3. The Camera Was Supposed To Be First Person
When working on the design for Ocarina of Time, Shigeru Miyamoto originally wanted the game to primarily be first person without Link showing up. The idea, according to Yoshiaki Koizumi, was to walk around completely in first person and have the screen switch to third person view when enemies were encountered. Thankfully this idea wasn't implemented due to it not being "visually interesting" and due to the protests of Koizumi who "couldn't stand to see Link not appear."