This had a fun amount of texture hacking I had to do to get the paintings to look this way in the artistic rendition, which felt like a real callback to when I use to work with the TH-camr, TamashiiHiroka (Now Tama Hero) on texture hacking Super Mario 64 to look like Pokemon.... that was a good 12 years ago I think lol.
@@ddsjgvk I'll be honest... I think this might be fan made and sold as a rendition of what Hyrule could look like. Unless there is definitive proof that Nintendo made this during the Zelda 64 era, I can't confirm this as legit unfortunately
I thought it would have been cool to have that castle as the hub world too, but I have to agree that it wouldn't feel like a Zelda game, but a cheap Mario 64 parody.
Even if they could explain it away in storyline, yeah, it would have been kind of a letdown. People would have still loved it but there would always be the criticism that they just copped out and repeated the Mario 64 hub layout.
Agreed. It worked for Mario 64 because the Mario series has always been level-based, but the Zelda series has always been about exploration and having a more linear-based structure would've felt too restricted and just wouldn't have felt like a Zelda game.
I love these videos. It's fascinating to see just how much changed and what could have been. Great job, and here's hoping for another massive cart-dump
I hope Nintendo one day makes a Zelda game with this concept, would be neat! Maybe like a sort of ''spin off'', like how Majoras Mask and Link's Awakening were ''different'' from the traditional Zelda norms. Maybe this game just focuses on Link trying to escape the curse of Ganon's castle that have bound him to the castle.
I get a feeling the Ganon's Castle Hub was never programmed into the game, but was just an idea to link all the areas together. What little they did build of the castle was probably reused as Ganon's Tower in the final game (especially since it's quite suspicious that the game specifically transitions to a new map for that final area)
@@undeadknight01 I just mean the game loads a new area. Other dungeons don't do that IIRC outside of Boss Rooms. I'm guessing it's because they used what little they'd made of beta Ganon's Castle and repurposed it as the final area.
Yeah I somewhat have this theory myself. I did use the final Ganon's Castle as a basis to make this artistic rendition here, but wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat how the original looked too especially since the final "Inside Ganon's Tower" is quite familiar to the beta version.
Funny Story: They actually did later revive this concept in TriForce Heroes in a way. And people hated it! However, it was only mostly really because of the horrible handling of multiplayer and single player modes and severe lack of story.
@@TheObsessiveGamer Yeah! Sad, but so true. Four Swords Adventures is so underrated and forgotten by Nintendo is just so depressing. I mean, the fact that they still remember Zelda II but not Four Swords Adventures, only makes just how underrated and forgotten FSA is all the more heartbreaking. And unlike the other two multiplayer Zelda experiences, FSA was actually worthy of being called a masterpiece. I really don't know what possessed to Nintendo to think that the original Four Swords type of experience was better than the Four Swords Adventures experience. Everyone loved the FSA experience over FS experience but of the two Nintendo chose to revisit the FS type of experience for TriForce Heroes over the type of experience that everyone actually enjoyed. It makes no sense. Nintendo is just really dumb sometimes, it sucks.
You could sorta argue that Skyward Sword was based off this concept to an extent as well, with Skyloft being a hub world and the three main areas being more linear rather than there being a large open world.
It's like comparing Demon's Souls to Dark Souls. The hub of Demon's Souls has things going for it but the interconnected map of Dark Souls elevates that game above it's predecessor.
@@TheObsessiveGamer Dark Souls is tied my top favourite game of all time with Breath of the Wild. Souls is very much geared towards combat and exploration, there is no puzzle solving the way Zelda games do it, however it does have some well hidden secrets. A lot of people will say to go into it blind, however there is no problem with looking up hints or reading a guide if you find yourself stuck or unsure of what's going on. It's a tough game that will reward you if you have the patience to learn and master it.
Now it doesn't surprise me that it found its way into OoT. Since they based a lot of the ideas on SM64, maybe they used assets from it as placeholders and this one just never got taken out. I wonder if that same texture is in SF64, but hidden behind some panel or inside some model you can't get to.
What makes this so interesting to me is how different things would be for all of us. Like no matter who or what a person is they would have experienced something so different. It goes so much further than that as well. How would it have effected every other Zelda game after? Now that's even more drastically different experiences for all of us. I think about how some video games shaped who I am as a person and how even some of these small changes would change how a game effected someone. So crazy. Keep up the good work, some of my favorite videos to watch.
I imagine if this formula succeeded they'd keep it for a while until they could build a more open world Zelda along the lines of ALTTP once they had the hardware to do so. Probably impact of the Wind Waker could have been massive then since that would have been a massive leap to open world then.
I actually think the Ganon's Castle hub idea spurred the team to make Miyamoto's impossible Hyrule Field dream, possible. The team wouldn't have wanted to be known as just a Super Mario 64 clone, they wanted to stand out...... cue OoT.
There is a rumor that they change the oot engine because they saw rareware doing banjo-kazooie and it was much better becuase of the rare's computer tecnology. Oh, and Myamoto wished he could help banjo kazooie develoment but he couldn't because of oot, since both games came in 1998
I'm so happy you're making these videos. I've been following beta zelda64 since I was like 9? Whenever I was able to use the internet (we took a while to switch from dial-up), early 2000s. And there's still so much I don't know and you've done a great job synthesizing it!
Really fascinating concept. I wonder how far they ever got with this idea (beyond the Forest Temple room). Also, as mentioned in your previous videos, there was that other intermediary version of Hyrule Field where the large central Hyrule Town structure hadn't been moved to the edge of the map yet (like in the final), and had entrances on different sides. I guess that was another example of them testing to see what the most tech efficient way of building a world world would be on N64. Anyways great video, keep up the awesome work! It gives me way too much Zelda stuff to think about. Lol
Thank you! I wouldn't call that version, a version of Hyrule Field. All it was was just the hyrule castle town walls in a map on its own. Its borders only stretched slightly beyond its walls actually. Not sure what the purpose of that map was. Maybe it was for testing these walls before putting it in the stage 2 map? Maybe it could have even been what was was sent to via jumping in a painting? All together I more theorize it was more for testing purposes at that point.
@@TheObsessiveGamer Good point, it did look like they were testing some area ideas to see what worked. Like that really early Lost Woods, which had the castle town structure in background of the screenshots, but no one noticed for decades. Lol Personally, I got the impression the large central structure design was to help with culling/streaming the overworld areas, so the game wouldn't have to display too much of an open map at once. But I digress.. All these discoveries have me wishing Nintendo would do something cool for Ocarina fans this year for Zelda's 35th. Shame you can't even play it on Switch yet!
So basically they made Hyrule Field the hub world and made you feel like it was a much more open world within the limited system of the N64. Ingenious, really. They totally got the most they could out of the system.
I thought Stage 1 Had Hyrule Castle in the center with the 4 exits leading to different places making the Ganon Castle hub area even earlier than that of Stage 1 of development.
That WAS a theory but it's basically debunked now since January's Overdump that got us the Hyrule Field that had that very castletown in that map. The map with the hyrule castle town walls on its own can't have been any sort of hub world. It's boundaries are too short at only slightly past the walls at that. Theorize that map was just a test map to place the model in or literally just the map you went to by hopping into a painting prior to hitting up Castle town
There's also a connection in this hub world concept with the original Legend of Zelda although maybe more indirectly. That game only started as just the dungeons with a scrolling selection screen showing graphical representations of the dungeon entrances topside (of which images somewhat recently came to light). Not quite a hub world but it's essentially the same concept with two different reasons asking, "why isn't there a world to traverse between these places?"
Hey if there was nothing keeping all the paintings being accessible the game probably would have been super cool. It could have even been very similar. Like entering kakariko to get the hookshot to access another area in another painting, only to return for some sort of shadow temple. At least it's nice to think it wouldn't be linear, that would actually make me think of it as being better.
People on the TCRF Discord server speculated that the castle map you showed that was only discovered as a collision map (The square map with a tunnel entrance on each corner, and a small castle in the center, you thought it was Hyrule Castle or the Temple of Time) was this version of the hub world. Ganon's castle in the role of Hyrule Field apparently WAS that map.
Yeah the theory that that map plays the hub world has been debunked eversince we got the Hyrule Field from stage 2. We have that very map there as the gates to Hyrule Castle Town and Hyrule Castle itself. I believe that collision map may have been an even earlier version where Hyrule Castle Town including its gates were their own map. Potentially this is what one would warp too by jumping into painting even? Only a theory on that latter of course.
@@WinVisten Some still may not declare it debunked heads up, but this was before we got the stage 2 Hyrule Field, which effectively proves this was never meant to be a field but rather just a singular map featuring the castle possibly for testing reasons or something else we aren't sure of.
@@TheObsessiveGamer I think it being a Temple of Time wouldn't make sense because it appears way too big, but maybe it COULD'VE been Hyrule Castle or Ganon's Castle. Then again, the Temple of Time in the A + b and A +C stages is fricken huge.
@@WinVisten oh I let go of that Temple of time idea ever since we got the city in Hyrule field as we can see a clear castle there. I do now say it is Hyrule Castle as it stood right smack in the middle as Hyrule Castle normally did in the final game too
There being a larger focus on puzzles and actual danger hiding in parts of Ganondorf's castle would have made for a hub world even more interesting than Peach's castle. Not to mention assuming the gameplay mechanics and enemy designs would have been nearly the same as in the actual final product would have still made for a fun game with a Zelda 64 that focused on a system where you enter an explorable location via one of the paintings and find the dungeon in said location. Especially if you add in the unused "Ganondorf is gradually mutating into Ganon" idea. The closest to that in the final product is Phantom Ganon, Ganondorf, and Ganon. Encountering him a few times as he becomes Ganon would have been more exciting than the Bowser fights in 64 (though the final Bowser fight was epic for the time). Then again, that would have probably meant Ganondorf would have been a one-time thing for Zelda 64; which just wouldn't have been the same. It seemed like there used to be more emphasis on Zelda 64 being a prequel of ALTTP at the time; especially with ALTTP mentioning that Ganon was once a human thief. Either way, I am still personally glad they were able to put in Hyrule Field in the long run. It added in a sense of open exploration that just wouldn't have been as prevalent with the original hub world concept. Not to mention that Ganondorf would go on to become more iconic than Ganon, which is ironic since both are the same person.
A fully puzzled Ganon's castle to get to the next painting would have it's own style of being a sort of 3D Metroidvania if one really thinks about it even. Could have indeed been a neat concept too.
I love all this beta info from the making of Ocarina of Time. It's one of my favorite games, and it's so interesting seeing bits and pieces of how came to be get revealed.
I suspect this concept is closer to Stage 0. The way Miyamoto explains it, it sounds like this was likely a VERY early concept idea that may predate most of the game design itself. Considering how close it is to Mario 64's design, this seems like something that would have been roughly planned when the concept video was shown using low polygons similar to Super Mario 64. What existed of "Ganon's Castle" may not have been more than a couple test rooms at Stage 1, eventually being recycled as the Phantom Ganon boss room and the rooms/staircase leading to Ganondorf. That would explain all of the paintings lined up in a single small room, allowing devs to quickly travel between areas they're developing. I say this was probably abandoned very early because I'd imagine Miyamoto wanted a much larger scope for an overworld in the game, but didn't know how to make it happen yet. His vision for the first game in the series was inspired by his experience exploring the wilderness as a child. That leads me to believe that his vision for Zelda as a whole has always been more about the exploration than anything, and that would require a lot more world building than Mario's world of creative platforming mechanics.
It would be very interesting to see the painting concept tied to Zelda, perhaps when you entered a room, only one painting worked, and brought you to the start of an area, but then you could enter sub-areas like a town/dungeon, and once you exited, the paintings beside the first would bring you back to that sub-area without having to travel through the previous ones. could make for a cool game, gaining new abilities from each place to slowly unravel a twisted hub castle. they tried to do something similar with the DS zeldas, but it just didn't work out because they made you re-do so much of the dungeon you already cleared each time.
Yeah might have even played like that. Yeah Phantom Hourglass did it somewhat but because of stealth, it was tedious to many. I didn't mind it since I actually am pretty good at stealth lol
I have this weird picture of what looks to be a beta Zelda OOT map with a snow town. Ruins on floating islands. The great deku tree a giant fish with a horn in a lake. I wish I could upload it somewhere I found it on a poster a store
I want to correct some terminology here for the word "Beta". In the game industry, "Beta" is used to refer to the second to last stage of the entire project. At the point of something being called "Beta", that means that the final choices for everything have been set in stone, and that the majority of the game is completed, with only bug and minor changes being fixed/worked on. It's used to refer to the stage of the product as a whole. Calling something within the game a "Beta" of its final version, doesn't really work. I would recommend using "Revision", "Version", or "Design", though those also have their own nuances. They also need to be broken into their own timelines. For example, with the Hyrule Field maps, Revision 1 is when Miyamoto most likely had the "central hub" way of thinking. "Stage 3" as you call it, appears to be an earlier "Design" for "Stage"/Revision 4. You COULD say "The A+B Builds version of Hyrule field...." for example.
While I thank you for providing some terminology here, this is all stuff I am aware of. The reason I use the word beta is because the general public usually thinks of "beta" as just the development stage overall. Basically i'm just using it as a blanket term here for better understanding rather than use words like Alpha which may not be something too many understand in the development side of things. As for the "Revisions" these are all in sequential order as I call them "Stages". Each being rather distinct from one another too and for the longest time in the Zelda 64 Cut Content community ti was still divided like that except said as "A+B Build" and such, but I decided to simply the term for people to better understand it as they watch. Both are correct as such, one is just more technical. As for the Stage 3 I mention, there is a clear difference between it and Stage 4, as Stage 3 is an Adult only era of Link, with Stage 4 being rather distinct by including Child Link. These being just some of the many difference that set them apart. I have more videos that better explain this if interested
@@TheObsessiveGamer Thanks for the follow up! I totally understand; you're trying to give your viewers a better understanding regardless of their knowledge of the subject. With companies throwing around the word "Beta" for various things, I feel the word has sorta lost it's meaning a bit. I just feel it's important for people to understand the definitions. Knowing more isn't a bad thing :) I should probably reframe my comment: rather than a correction, my comment is more of an effort to clarify the more technical terminology of game development. This games development history is fascinating and important, and I want to thank you for getting your hands dirty with it and sharing this information. If you have videos on the matter, please link me to them!
@The Obsessive Gamer What do you think about this below: I just HATE how Nintendo said Master Quest WAS Ura Zelda. I mean, come on… There was no difference except the fact the Temples were switched to ULTRA HARD and the doggone Boss Key was in a completely different Location. I spent 60 dollars for what I thought was Ura Zelda on the Gamecube!!! Too bad I didn’t have Internet at 12 years old…
No I believe it was Ura Zelda. The reason for the is that there is ALOT of misinformation on what Ura Zelda actually is, when infact we didn't know very much. What is presumed to have happened is that alot of what was being made for Ura Zelda was moved to Majora's Mask and these remixed Dungeons were all that were left that they could use to make a released version. I plan to make a video better covering this one day
@@TheObsessiveGamer thank you bro appreciated very much!!! Too bad I sold it. I kinda miss the Gamecube Collector’s Edition since I will never afford a Switch. Lol
There is a very early huryle field that was basically focused around the Castle being the center of the world and you go in 4 directions exactly like Majora's mask... It was found in the giga leak. It didnt came with textures. You're mixing up the Giant hyrule Castle entrance with the early hyrule.
I know the one you are speaking of and that isn't Hyrule field actually. It's literally just the Castletown walls that you find in stage 2 in a map of its own. The boundaries end shortly beyond the walls actually. Hard to say what the purpose of this was, but it couldn't have been a hub world since the map doesn't stretch further than that. I theorize maybe it was a test map for the castle before being use for Hyrule Field Stage 2 map or it was meant to be its own map that maybe you enter through the paintings even for all we know.
I’m so glad we never got a Zelda game like this on the 64 as the franchises debut into 3d. A hub world makes sense for a Mario game which typically aren’t very story oriented and where the physics are cartoon like in nature and gameplay is centred around completing very loosely connected platforming levels, and I think peaches castle as a hub world for Mario 64 was perfect for that game, but Zelda games are story oriented and gameplay focuses heavily on exploring the world of hyrule and its hidden secrets with a much less cartoonish atmosphere about it. I wonder if they didn’t scrap this original concept and botched this first 3d game if Zelda as a franchise would have continued to have been as relevant going into the 3d era and beyond.
Huh, they kinda reused the idea in Skyward Sword. (I really wish people didn't suck at using the Wiimote's motion controls, that game is so fucking fun if you know how to control it and I legitimately don't understand why people struggled. Did you not play with sticks as kids or something?)
I glad they changed the concept of hub castle area to a huge field. Because if they wouldn't then everybody started to think Nintendo ran out of ideas and they just can't create something new👍
In that era, such open worlds were kinda non-existent due to hardware limitations, so people might have understood it had to be done like that I guess? but yeah I theorize the comparisons to Mario 64 would be crazy if this happened.
In the end... The game that had that might be the closest to the original idea might be Skyward Sword, with Skyloft being an hub world where you reach the levels from it. Man... I wonder how the serie would have evolved if they kept this idra of Ganon's castle.
True, Skyward Sword basically was this but just more seamless. I know thought a lot complained about how the overworld of Skyward Sword worked as such.
If you think about Mario and compare the top of the mountain in Bombomb Battlefield to a dungeon then yeah it could have made a good game. Especially if every level was huge like the old hyrule field. I would love to see this game redone like that
Based on those old screenshots, every area seemingly would have been large too including the Hyrule Castle Town that we all wish we could have in full 3D there
Great video. This sounds like a very convincing idea, though I'm glad they moved away from this tower as the game wouldnt have felt like a giant open world to adventure in! Also one of my biggest desires is a more complete dump of the beta files so we can see the rest! If someone finds please dump it!!!
I wish someday, Nintendo revisits this idea, sounds like a cool thing to have in a Zelda game, and quite original from a Zelda final dungeon point of view. Game developers have sometimes revisited old ideas from long ago, for a new game. Such as Gamefreak with Pokemon how they used an old design of a scrapped Pokemon to make Drednaw (as far as I can tell anyways), or SEGA taking the odd wall-scaling mechanic from the canceled Sonic Xtreme, to be used in Sonic Lost World. I didn't say that ALL revisited old ideas for new games were put into good games.
It would be neat to see it back if a creative way. I do already like to think Skyward Sword kinda did that with the Sky kinda acting like a hub world on its own that one has to return to over and over
See I am not sure if Ganon's castle would of been the HUB world. I just assume (This is just me by the way) that the field wasn't finished yet so they just showed areas that they finished.
Miyamoto confirmed it in that very interview I mentioned in the video that it was going to be the hub world and no Hyrule Field due to what they thought was hardware limitations
This may be a hot take, but I have never liked Miyamoto’s ideas for Zelda games, some of them are good, but when skyward sword came out it was literally just what this video describes and it was SO disappointing to me, it felt like a Mario game with Zelda characters, it was the first Zelda game in a while where Miyamoto was more hands on with it, and it shows. Aonuma, on the other hand, makes the absolute best Zelda games IMO.
Yeah it's hard to say how far they went with it, but I won't be surprised if they wanted to make that last even after making the other areas so they can sync them using this but then switched to using a Field instead.
@@TheObsessiveGamer true. I think it was never their actual preference but they simply did not know how to properly use the hardware so far. It would have been odd story-wise that Link begins in Ganon's castle.
hub worlds just dont feel the same. I am on sky keep on skyward sword and the game is good (never played, started picking up nintendo games again in my late 20s, reminds me of simpler times) and the hub aspect of the game doesn't give the same feel as OoT, wind waker, or other classics. Doesnt help i plated BOTW first as well
Oh yeah the tidbit that Ganon's Castle was planned as the hubworld of OoT... That's well-known, and boy am I happy that it's not the case in the final game... Because: I don't like Mario 64. And no, I am not taking that back.
I really wish somebody made a mod that restored all the cut content in to a playable version of what oot couldhave been,but nobody will ever succeed at recreating such a concept ever and nintendo its too dumb to realize how much people want this.
That's not open world. It's literally just stitching a bunch of big maps like Hyrule Field together to make a connected world. Open World is more a modern thing due to how the hardware allows it, where the whole map is just one big map all loaded at once and you can go anywhere on it without any loading screens to another map. Breath of the Wild is an example of it in this case.
Yeah I feel the way you do where the game would have been almost just as good with Ganon's Castle as a hub world, but I'm glad they didn't do that because the game sure does feel a lot more adventurous as is
Zelda is an adventure game so having a field places it feel like an adventure rather than what is a level selector that is more appropriate for a Mario game
I'm glad they never did this, I don't think I would of enjoyed it as much if it was just a glorified level select stage. Zelda is meant to be open world!
Ocarina of Time is the worst Zelda game. It uses the Mario 64 engine, but in a worse way. It cribs ALttP's story, but is told in a worse way. The only reason why most people love it is it was babby's first Zeldy game.
given how important The Master Sword is in modern zelda and the final version of OoT, I wonder if originally you needed to find the silver or light arrows in this build of the game in order to defeat ganon. it isn't exactly clear as far as I know if the paintings are just self-contained worlds or maybe Ganon trapped hyrule in his tower, so I doubt there would be a way to implement the master sword in this build. maybe instead you find a magical sword at the midway point of this concept, and the silver/light arrows later? or maybe you even start with the master sword, and defeating the boss monsters in the paintings would weaken 'Dorf's power and put him in a state where the sword could harm him. since in a Link To The Past the master sword was just a powerful sword that could fight off dark magic and you needed the silver arrows to even finish off the king of evil at the end. maybe they never even thought that far ahead unfortunately. I hope one day a book about Ocarina of Time's long development is released since it could shed a lot of light on these mysteries
This had a fun amount of texture hacking I had to do to get the paintings to look this way in the artistic rendition, which felt like a real callback to when I use to work with the TH-camr, TamashiiHiroka (Now Tama Hero) on texture hacking Super Mario 64 to look like Pokemon.... that was a good 12 years ago I think lol.
Do you think you would make more Zelda vids?
www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/odsthp/beta_zelda_map/
Here is that Beta? Zelda map
Can you make a short or a full video on it? More people should see it. Imo I found it in a store at the mall fyi
@@Cinder896 well I already have made plenty and I do plan to make more yes lol
@@ddsjgvk I'll be honest... I think this might be fan made and sold as a rendition of what Hyrule could look like. Unless there is definitive proof that Nintendo made this during the Zelda 64 era, I can't confirm this as legit unfortunately
As cool as that sounds I’m glad we got the open world in the final product
I'm glad Ganon's Castle wasn't the hub. Zelda is meant to be an open world.
I thought it would have been cool to have that castle as the hub world too, but I have to agree that it wouldn't feel like a Zelda game, but a cheap Mario 64 parody.
Even if they could explain it away in storyline, yeah, it would have been kind of a letdown. People would have still loved it but there would always be the criticism that they just copped out and repeated the Mario 64 hub layout.
Maybe they could have used it after you beat the game so you could revisit dungeons more conveniently in case you forgot stuff.
Agreed. It worked for Mario 64 because the Mario series has always been level-based, but the Zelda series has always been about exploration and having a more linear-based structure would've felt too restricted and just wouldn't have felt like a Zelda game.
@@Vinnay94 So, the warp songs?
I love these videos. It's fascinating to see just how much changed and what could have been. Great job, and here's hoping for another massive cart-dump
Thank you! and here's hoping! would love to keep doing more videos on Zelda64, so here's hoping!
Aria is an enigmatic figure.
I hope Nintendo one day makes a Zelda game with this concept, would be neat! Maybe like a sort of ''spin off'', like how Majoras Mask and Link's Awakening were ''different'' from the traditional Zelda norms. Maybe this game just focuses on Link trying to escape the curse of Ganon's castle that have bound him to the castle.
The 'hub world' idea was probably never implemented but was only a "Plan B" if they ran out of space on the cartridge.
I get a feeling the Ganon's Castle Hub was never programmed into the game, but was just an idea to link all the areas together. What little they did build of the castle was probably reused as Ganon's Tower in the final game (especially since it's quite suspicious that the game specifically transitions to a new map for that final area)
Transitions to a new map? Can you elaborate?
@@undeadknight01 I just mean the game loads a new area. Other dungeons don't do that IIRC outside of Boss Rooms. I'm guessing it's because they used what little they'd made of beta Ganon's Castle and repurposed it as the final area.
Yeah I somewhat have this theory myself. I did use the final Ganon's Castle as a basis to make this artistic rendition here, but wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat how the original looked too especially since the final "Inside Ganon's Tower" is quite familiar to the beta version.
Funny Story: They actually did later revive this concept in TriForce Heroes in a way. And people hated it! However, it was only mostly really because of the horrible handling of multiplayer and single player modes and severe lack of story.
I feel multiplayer Zelda almost never has been done properly except for 4 Swords Adventure but seems they don't wanna revisit that concept again
@@TheObsessiveGamer Yeah! Sad, but so true. Four Swords Adventures is so underrated and forgotten by Nintendo is just so depressing. I mean, the fact that they still remember Zelda II but not Four Swords Adventures, only makes just how underrated and forgotten FSA is all the more heartbreaking. And unlike the other two multiplayer Zelda experiences, FSA was actually worthy of being called a masterpiece. I really don't know what possessed to Nintendo to think that the original Four Swords type of experience was better than the Four Swords Adventures experience. Everyone loved the FSA experience over FS experience but of the two Nintendo chose to revisit the FS type of experience for TriForce Heroes over the type of experience that everyone actually enjoyed. It makes no sense. Nintendo is just really dumb sometimes, it sucks.
@@PJCVita92 I've played FSA, Nintendo should re-release it on Switch.
You could sorta argue that Skyward Sword was based off this concept to an extent as well, with Skyloft being a hub world and the three main areas being more linear rather than there being a large open world.
It's like comparing Demon's Souls to Dark Souls. The hub of Demon's Souls has things going for it but the interconnected map of Dark Souls elevates that game above it's predecessor.
Ooh. I really should play the Souls series then.
@@TheObsessiveGamer Dark Souls is tied my top favourite game of all time with Breath of the Wild. Souls is very much geared towards combat and exploration, there is no puzzle solving the way Zelda games do it, however it does have some well hidden secrets.
A lot of people will say to go into it blind, however there is no problem with looking up hints or reading a guide if you find yourself stuck or unsure of what's going on. It's a tough game that will reward you if you have the patience to learn and master it.
The L is real texture actually is in the final build
Yep, inside Dodongo's Cavern
@@TheObsessiveGamer I guess that makes sense, since that was one of the earliest areas shown.
Only n64 kidda
Now it doesn't surprise me that it found its way into OoT. Since they based a lot of the ideas on SM64, maybe they used assets from it as placeholders and this one just never got taken out. I wonder if that same texture is in SF64, but hidden behind some panel or inside some model you can't get to.
The Legend is real
Dang, that would've been a cool hub world! Like a twisted version of Princess Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64!
What makes this so interesting to me is how different things would be for all of us. Like no matter who or what a person is they would have experienced something so different. It goes so much further than that as well. How would it have effected every other Zelda game after? Now that's even more drastically different experiences for all of us. I think about how some video games shaped who I am as a person and how even some of these small changes would change how a game effected someone. So crazy. Keep up the good work, some of my favorite videos to watch.
I imagine if this formula succeeded they'd keep it for a while until they could build a more open world Zelda along the lines of ALTTP once they had the hardware to do so. Probably impact of the Wind Waker could have been massive then since that would have been a massive leap to open world then.
Great video man! Keep digging this stuff up we need to show the world this
I actually think the Ganon's Castle hub idea spurred the team to make Miyamoto's impossible Hyrule Field dream, possible. The team wouldn't have wanted to be known as just a Super Mario 64 clone, they wanted to stand out...... cue OoT.
Wouldn't surprise me if they really scrambled to think of a new ides to work... And an interconnected hub field worked well
Awesome video i love how youre putting all the pieces of the puzzles together
Been a long process, and was very happy to see how all that fit so well together to make this.
There is a rumor that they change the oot engine because they saw rareware doing banjo-kazooie and it was much better becuase of the rare's computer tecnology. Oh, and Myamoto wished he could help banjo kazooie develoment but he couldn't because of oot, since both games came in 1998
Yo those edits are clean af! 💎 @8:42
I'm so happy you're making these videos. I've been following beta zelda64 since I was like 9? Whenever I was able to use the internet (we took a while to switch from dial-up), early 2000s. And there's still so much I don't know and you've done a great job synthesizing it!
Thank you! I'm glad you've been enjoying it. I have been following this since the early 2000s myself. I got more videos planned still too!
Really fascinating concept. I wonder how far they ever got with this idea (beyond the Forest Temple room).
Also, as mentioned in your previous videos, there was that other intermediary version of Hyrule Field where the large central Hyrule Town structure hadn't been moved to the edge of the map yet (like in the final), and had entrances on different sides. I guess that was another example of them testing to see what the most tech efficient way of building a world world would be on N64.
Anyways great video, keep up the awesome work! It gives me way too much Zelda stuff to think about. Lol
Thank you! I wouldn't call that version, a version of Hyrule Field. All it was was just the hyrule castle town walls in a map on its own. Its borders only stretched slightly beyond its walls actually. Not sure what the purpose of that map was. Maybe it was for testing these walls before putting it in the stage 2 map? Maybe it could have even been what was was sent to via jumping in a painting? All together I more theorize it was more for testing purposes at that point.
@@TheObsessiveGamer Good point, it did look like they were testing some area ideas to see what worked. Like that really early Lost Woods, which had the castle town structure in background of the screenshots, but no one noticed for decades. Lol
Personally, I got the impression the large central structure design was to help with culling/streaming the overworld areas, so the game wouldn't have to display too much of an open map at once.
But I digress.. All these discoveries have me wishing Nintendo would do something cool for Ocarina fans this year for Zelda's 35th. Shame you can't even play it on Switch yet!
Dude these OOT vids are awesome. It’s my fav Zelda game and I also love game development stories too! It’s perfect 😄
Another great informative vid. I never knew any of this ! Great work as always
Thank you!
So basically they made Hyrule Field the hub world and made you feel like it was a much more open world within the limited system of the N64. Ingenious, really. They totally got the most they could out of the system.
Indeed was genius and I guess in many ways it was considered so revolutionary for its time as no one else had attempted such things in 3D yet
I thought Stage 1 Had Hyrule Castle in the center with the 4 exits leading to different places making the Ganon Castle hub area even earlier than that of Stage 1 of development.
That WAS a theory but it's basically debunked now since January's Overdump that got us the Hyrule Field that had that very castletown in that map.
The map with the hyrule castle town walls on its own can't have been any sort of hub world. It's boundaries are too short at only slightly past the walls at that. Theorize that map was just a test map to place the model in or literally just the map you went to by hopping into a painting prior to hitting up Castle town
There's also a connection in this hub world concept with the original Legend of Zelda although maybe more indirectly. That game only started as just the dungeons with a scrolling selection screen showing graphical representations of the dungeon entrances topside (of which images somewhat recently came to light). Not quite a hub world but it's essentially the same concept with two different reasons asking, "why isn't there a world to traverse between these places?"
Hey if there was nothing keeping all the paintings being accessible the game probably would have been super cool. It could have even been very similar. Like entering kakariko to get the hookshot to access another area in another painting, only to return for some sort of shadow temple. At least it's nice to think it wouldn't be linear, that would actually make me think of it as being better.
Indeed and that's why I think it more or less would have still been the same game minus any cutscenes on Hyrule Field
People on the TCRF Discord server speculated that the castle map you showed that was only discovered as a collision map (The square map with a tunnel entrance on each corner, and a small castle in the center, you thought it was Hyrule Castle or the Temple of Time) was this version of the hub world. Ganon's castle in the role of Hyrule Field apparently WAS that map.
Yeah the theory that that map plays the hub world has been debunked eversince we got the Hyrule Field from stage 2. We have that very map there as the gates to Hyrule Castle Town and Hyrule Castle itself. I believe that collision map may have been an even earlier version where Hyrule Castle Town including its gates were their own map. Potentially this is what one would warp too by jumping into painting even? Only a theory on that latter of course.
@@TheObsessiveGamer It was debunked? I didn't know. Thank you for telling me.
@@WinVisten Some still may not declare it debunked heads up, but this was before we got the stage 2 Hyrule Field, which effectively proves this was never meant to be a field but rather just a singular map featuring the castle possibly for testing reasons or something else we aren't sure of.
@@TheObsessiveGamer I think it being a Temple of Time wouldn't make sense because it appears way too big, but maybe it COULD'VE been Hyrule Castle or Ganon's Castle. Then again, the Temple of Time in the A + b and A +C stages is fricken huge.
@@WinVisten oh I let go of that Temple of time idea ever since we got the city in Hyrule field as we can see a clear castle there. I do now say it is Hyrule Castle as it stood right smack in the middle as Hyrule Castle normally did in the final game too
I would love to play a romhack that includes all the cut content areas. Just cuz I'd love to run around them. And maybe use all the cut items too
If you check Z64 Me's channel, he has a compilation of a number of them under one of his videos actually
Incredible research and editing
Thank you!
It's 2021 and we are still talking about Ocarina of Time. LOVE IT!
Here is to hopefully 10 more years of it XD
these videos are amazing, thank you
There being a larger focus on puzzles and actual danger hiding in parts of Ganondorf's castle would have made for a hub world even more interesting than Peach's castle. Not to mention assuming the gameplay mechanics and enemy designs would have been nearly the same as in the actual final product would have still made for a fun game with a Zelda 64 that focused on a system where you enter an explorable location via one of the paintings and find the dungeon in said location. Especially if you add in the unused "Ganondorf is gradually mutating into Ganon" idea. The closest to that in the final product is Phantom Ganon, Ganondorf, and Ganon. Encountering him a few times as he becomes Ganon would have been more exciting than the Bowser fights in 64 (though the final Bowser fight was epic for the time). Then again, that would have probably meant Ganondorf would have been a one-time thing for Zelda 64; which just wouldn't have been the same. It seemed like there used to be more emphasis on Zelda 64 being a prequel of ALTTP at the time; especially with ALTTP mentioning that Ganon was once a human thief.
Either way, I am still personally glad they were able to put in Hyrule Field in the long run. It added in a sense of open exploration that just wouldn't have been as prevalent with the original hub world concept. Not to mention that Ganondorf would go on to become more iconic than Ganon, which is ironic since both are the same person.
A fully puzzled Ganon's castle to get to the next painting would have it's own style of being a sort of 3D Metroidvania if one really thinks about it even. Could have indeed been a neat concept too.
I love all this beta info from the making of Ocarina of Time. It's one of my favorite games, and it's so interesting seeing bits and pieces of how came to be get revealed.
could we do Metroid fusion next?or you have another video planed out then I shall wait
I do wanna get through the Prime games first so I got MP2 planned next. Afterwards, we can tackle the 2D series including Fusion.
I suspect this concept is closer to Stage 0. The way Miyamoto explains it, it sounds like this was likely a VERY early concept idea that may predate most of the game design itself. Considering how close it is to Mario 64's design, this seems like something that would have been roughly planned when the concept video was shown using low polygons similar to Super Mario 64. What existed of "Ganon's Castle" may not have been more than a couple test rooms at Stage 1, eventually being recycled as the Phantom Ganon boss room and the rooms/staircase leading to Ganondorf. That would explain all of the paintings lined up in a single small room, allowing devs to quickly travel between areas they're developing.
I say this was probably abandoned very early because I'd imagine Miyamoto wanted a much larger scope for an overworld in the game, but didn't know how to make it happen yet. His vision for the first game in the series was inspired by his experience exploring the wilderness as a child. That leads me to believe that his vision for Zelda as a whole has always been more about the exploration than anything, and that would require a lot more world building than Mario's world of creative platforming mechanics.
It would be very interesting to see the painting concept tied to Zelda, perhaps when you entered a room, only one painting worked, and brought you to the start of an area, but then you could enter sub-areas like a town/dungeon, and once you exited, the paintings beside the first would bring you back to that sub-area without having to travel through the previous ones.
could make for a cool game, gaining new abilities from each place to slowly unravel a twisted hub castle. they tried to do something similar with the DS zeldas, but it just didn't work out because they made you re-do so much of the dungeon you already cleared each time.
Yeah might have even played like that. Yeah Phantom Hourglass did it somewhat but because of stealth, it was tedious to many. I didn't mind it since I actually am pretty good at stealth lol
00:20 what did he say?
I have this weird picture of what looks to be a beta Zelda OOT map with a snow town. Ruins on floating islands. The great deku tree a giant fish with a horn in a lake. I wish I could upload it somewhere
I found it on a poster a store
just put it on imgur and post the link , i’d like to see that
Odd, never seen it. Mind uploading it and linking it to me to see?
Why can't you?
@@TheObsessiveGamer www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/odsthp/beta_zelda_map/
@@TheObsessiveGamer do you have an email I can send it to you so you can get it better
I want to correct some terminology here for the word "Beta". In the game industry, "Beta" is used to refer to the second to last stage of the entire project. At the point of something being called "Beta", that means that the final choices for everything have been set in stone, and that the majority of the game is completed, with only bug and minor changes being fixed/worked on. It's used to refer to the stage of the product as a whole.
Calling something within the game a "Beta" of its final version, doesn't really work. I would recommend using "Revision", "Version", or "Design", though those also have their own nuances. They also need to be broken into their own timelines. For example, with the Hyrule Field maps, Revision 1 is when Miyamoto most likely had the "central hub" way of thinking. "Stage 3" as you call it, appears to be an earlier "Design" for "Stage"/Revision 4. You COULD say "The A+B Builds version of Hyrule field...." for example.
While I thank you for providing some terminology here, this is all stuff I am aware of. The reason I use the word beta is because the general public usually thinks of "beta" as just the development stage overall. Basically i'm just using it as a blanket term here for better understanding rather than use words like Alpha which may not be something too many understand in the development side of things.
As for the "Revisions" these are all in sequential order as I call them "Stages". Each being rather distinct from one another too and for the longest time in the Zelda 64 Cut Content community ti was still divided like that except said as "A+B Build" and such, but I decided to simply the term for people to better understand it as they watch. Both are correct as such, one is just more technical. As for the Stage 3 I mention, there is a clear difference between it and Stage 4, as Stage 3 is an Adult only era of Link, with Stage 4 being rather distinct by including Child Link. These being just some of the many difference that set them apart. I have more videos that better explain this if interested
@@TheObsessiveGamer
Thanks for the follow up! I totally understand; you're trying to give your viewers a better understanding regardless of their knowledge of the subject.
With companies throwing around the word "Beta" for various things, I feel the word has sorta lost it's meaning a bit. I just feel it's important for people to understand the definitions. Knowing more isn't a bad thing :)
I should probably reframe my comment: rather than a correction, my comment is more of an effort to clarify the more technical terminology of game development.
This games development history is fascinating and important, and I want to thank you for getting your hands dirty with it and sharing this information. If you have videos on the matter, please link me to them!
@The Obsessive Gamer
What do you think about this below:
I just HATE how Nintendo said Master Quest WAS Ura Zelda. I mean, come on… There was no difference except the fact the Temples were switched to ULTRA HARD and the doggone Boss Key was in a completely different Location. I spent 60 dollars for what I thought was Ura Zelda on the Gamecube!!! Too bad I didn’t have Internet at 12 years old…
No I believe it was Ura Zelda. The reason for the is that there is ALOT of misinformation on what Ura Zelda actually is, when infact we didn't know very much. What is presumed to have happened is that alot of what was being made for Ura Zelda was moved to Majora's Mask and these remixed Dungeons were all that were left that they could use to make a released version. I plan to make a video better covering this one day
@@TheObsessiveGamer thank you bro appreciated very much!!! Too bad I sold it. I kinda miss the Gamecube Collector’s Edition since I will never afford a Switch. Lol
There is a very early huryle field that was basically focused around the Castle being the center of the world and you go in 4 directions exactly like Majora's mask... It was found in the giga leak. It didnt came with textures. You're mixing up the Giant hyrule Castle entrance with the early hyrule.
I know the one you are speaking of and that isn't Hyrule field actually. It's literally just the Castletown walls that you find in stage 2 in a map of its own. The boundaries end shortly beyond the walls actually.
Hard to say what the purpose of this was, but it couldn't have been a hub world since the map doesn't stretch further than that. I theorize maybe it was a test map for the castle before being use for Hyrule Field Stage 2 map or it was meant to be its own map that maybe you enter through the paintings even for all we know.
It would be an interesting idea for a spin off title
Hmmm you been doing alot of zeldas ocarina of time beta vids!!
Witch is ok!
Commenting for the algorithm, since it failed to notify me
I love the earlier models of link with brown hair and what not
Interesting...
(It's been since I've watched your Zelda cut content...)
Thanks! and welcome back to watching them again :)
I’m so glad we never got a Zelda game like this on the 64 as the franchises debut into 3d. A hub world makes sense for a Mario game which typically aren’t very story oriented and where the physics are cartoon like in nature and gameplay is centred around completing very loosely connected platforming levels, and I think peaches castle as a hub world for Mario 64 was perfect for that game, but Zelda games are story oriented and gameplay focuses heavily on exploring the world of hyrule and its hidden secrets with a much less cartoonish atmosphere about it. I wonder if they didn’t scrap this original concept and botched this first 3d game if Zelda as a franchise would have continued to have been as relevant going into the 3d era and beyond.
Huh, they kinda reused the idea in Skyward Sword.
(I really wish people didn't suck at using the Wiimote's motion controls, that game is so fucking fun if you know how to control it and I legitimately don't understand why people struggled. Did you not play with sticks as kids or something?)
thanks for the video
I glad they changed the concept of hub castle area to a huge field. Because if they wouldn't then everybody started to think Nintendo ran out of ideas and they just can't create something new👍
In that era, such open worlds were kinda non-existent due to hardware limitations, so people might have understood it had to be done like that I guess? but yeah I theorize the comparisons to Mario 64 would be crazy if this happened.
70 watching now. 36 likes... I love stuff like this.
The Legend is real.
Buck yeah
Okay that was awesome
I actually like the early look, it's eerie
The eereeness is kinda why I keep returning to it I feel lol
Sounds like it would been a different game from what we received! :O
In the end... The game that had that might be the closest to the original idea might be Skyward Sword, with Skyloft being an hub world where you reach the levels from it.
Man... I wonder how the serie would have evolved if they kept this idra of Ganon's castle.
True, Skyward Sword basically was this but just more seamless. I know thought a lot complained about how the overworld of Skyward Sword worked as such.
If you think about Mario and compare the top of the mountain in Bombomb Battlefield to a dungeon then yeah it could have made a good game. Especially if every level was huge like the old hyrule field. I would love to see this game redone like that
Based on those old screenshots, every area seemingly would have been large too including the Hyrule Castle Town that we all wish we could have in full 3D there
I don’t think it would be as organic and natural as the original if they would have used paintings. I like what we got 😁
Great video. This sounds like a very convincing idea, though I'm glad they moved away from this tower as the game wouldnt have felt like a giant open world to adventure in!
Also one of my biggest desires is a more complete dump of the beta files so we can see the rest! If someone finds please dump it!!!
We got 66% of the 1997 era stuff..
Now hopefully we can get the rest!
I wish someday, Nintendo revisits this idea, sounds like a cool thing to have in a Zelda game, and quite original from a Zelda final dungeon point of view. Game developers have sometimes revisited old ideas from long ago, for a new game. Such as Gamefreak with Pokemon how they used an old design of a scrapped Pokemon to make Drednaw (as far as I can tell anyways), or SEGA taking the odd wall-scaling mechanic from the canceled Sonic Xtreme, to be used in Sonic Lost World. I didn't say that ALL revisited old ideas for new games were put into good games.
It would be neat to see it back if a creative way. I do already like to think Skyward Sword kinda did that with the Sky kinda acting like a hub world on its own that one has to return to over and over
Oh this seems like it would have been like super Mario 64
Thanks! We are slowly growing, we have come a long way since last year afterall!
Very epic
L is real plak did appear in both games. i’m pretty sure it’s in the death mountain dungeon. fire temple whatever it’s called
Yep it was at the entrance of Dondongo's cavern, but wasn't a plague more than a writing on the wall. Here it was way more blatant
@@TheObsessiveGamer i mean it was the same texture
See I am not sure if Ganon's castle would of been the HUB world. I just assume (This is just me by the way) that the field wasn't finished yet so they just showed areas that they finished.
Miyamoto confirmed it in that very interview I mentioned in the video that it was going to be the hub world and no Hyrule Field due to what they thought was hardware limitations
This may be a hot take, but I have never liked Miyamoto’s ideas for Zelda games, some of them are good, but when skyward sword came out it was literally just what this video describes and it was SO disappointing to me, it felt like a Mario game with Zelda characters, it was the first Zelda game in a while where Miyamoto was more hands on with it, and it shows. Aonuma, on the other hand, makes the absolute best Zelda games IMO.
While the beta stuff is fascinating, Thank god we got the version we have today instead lol. At least most things changed for the better imo.
I'm glad they didn't choose to rip off their own game. That would have squandered the enjoyment of OoT.
I doubth that build idea was ever put into developmemt, from the way they talk about it, it didnt make it past the planning phase
Yeah it's hard to say how far they went with it, but I won't be surprised if they wanted to make that last even after making the other areas so they can sync them using this but then switched to using a Field instead.
This reminds me of the Super Mario Bros. structure
Thus cue the Peach's Castle theme in the video :P
Glad they took it out, it would have been too much like Mario 64
Plus a connected world sounds much nicer
@@TheObsessiveGamer true. I think it was never their actual preference but they simply did not know how to properly use the hardware so far. It would have been odd story-wise that Link begins in Ganon's castle.
Interesanting
"at one point"?
Yeah, that point was the final release.
Pretty sure Hyrule Field is the hub world at release and not Ganon's Castle :P
here what im think what happen when you beat ganon in first stage, ganon will slip and fall to his death
They should have made it Master Quest mode
hub worlds just dont feel the same. I am on sky keep on skyward sword and the game is good (never played, started picking up nintendo games again in my late 20s, reminds me of simpler times) and the hub aspect of the game doesn't give the same feel as OoT, wind waker, or other classics. Doesnt help i plated BOTW first as well
Well even before I played BotW, I wasn't a huge fan of Skyward Swords sky hub since it didn't feel as interconnected as other Zelda games
@@TheObsessiveGamer yeah I also think it gives it a big back tracking feel
Oh yeah the tidbit that Ganon's Castle was planned as the hubworld of OoT...
That's well-known, and boy am I happy that it's not the case in the final game...
Because: I don't like Mario 64.
And no, I am not taking that back.
I love both, but I prefer OOT being what it was in the end anyways lol
I thought you would say a couple of words about that creepypasta girl Aria. Yeah, there are a lot of creepypastas about her👻
Yeah I already did that two Zelda videos ago lol She just represented Castletown here
That would feel extremely creatively lazy as it would just be copying mario 64. Very glad it didn't go that route.
Don't think laziness was an issue. Just that they didn't think they could make it within the N64's power
SWAG
I really wish somebody made a mod that restored all the cut content in to a playable version of what oot couldhave been,but nobody will ever succeed at recreating such a concept ever and nintendo its too dumb to realize how much people want this.
If you follow Zel on Twitter, he is trying to make a completely playable 1997 version of OOT. He's very very deep into it.
@@TheObsessiveGamer I will check it out for sure,but will keep my hopes to a minimum,my heart has been broken too many times already 😅
Lies, the open world actually happened also in twilight princess when it was fully realized.
That's not open world. It's literally just stitching a bunch of big maps like Hyrule Field together to make a connected world. Open World is more a modern thing due to how the hardware allows it, where the whole map is just one big map all loaded at once and you can go anywhere on it without any loading screens to another map. Breath of the Wild is an example of it in this case.
It would have been basically like battlespire. Most definitely done better though
ooh good comparison, but yeah I imagine better indeed
Skyloft in SS is pretty much a boring hubworld.
As many have expressed. Might have been better received I imagine if this was the direction they had went since?
Yeah I feel the way you do where the game would have been almost just as good with Ganon's Castle as a hub world, but I'm glad they didn't do that because the game sure does feel a lot more adventurous as is
Definitely would NOT have liked Gannon's castle as the hub world. Way less immersive.
Yeah i'm glad they made the decision to make Hyrule Field hub world for that immersion
Idk why I feel like it makes no sense for a Zelda game but is totally fine for a Mario game.. hmm
Zelda is an adventure game so having a field places it feel like an adventure rather than what is a level selector that is more appropriate for a Mario game
im glad this didnt make it like this
in some way this reminds me of silent hill 4
I'm glad they never did this, I don't think I would of enjoyed it as much if it was just a glorified level select stage. Zelda is meant to be open world!
Yeah I am glad too. That immersion of Hyrule Field is so much better
I like the concept, but there’s no way something like that would be made now.
(Curse you, Breath of the Wild! I want a proper Zelda game, not Skyrim!)
100% agreed
I do hope BOTW2 has more classic style dungeons.
i feel the story would have been less epic if you were just in a hub opposed to actually adventuring
Under 69420 👇
7th
Ocarina of Time is the worst Zelda game. It uses the Mario 64 engine, but in a worse way. It cribs ALttP's story, but is told in a worse way. The only reason why most people love it is it was babby's first Zeldy game.
When it comes to Zelda game, there are worse. Phantom Hourglass says hello. Especially with the notorious Ocean King Temple.
Soooo why watch this video then? Unless you still like it but just think its the weakest.
given how important The Master Sword is in modern zelda and the final version of OoT, I wonder if originally you needed to find the silver or light arrows in this build of the game in order to defeat ganon.
it isn't exactly clear as far as I know if the paintings are just self-contained worlds or maybe Ganon trapped hyrule in his tower, so I doubt there would be a way to implement the master sword in this build. maybe instead you find a magical sword at the midway point of this concept, and the silver/light arrows later? or maybe you even start with the master sword, and defeating the boss monsters in the paintings would weaken 'Dorf's power and put him in a state where the sword could harm him. since in a Link To The Past the master sword was just a powerful sword that could fight off dark magic and you needed the silver arrows to even finish off the king of evil at the end. maybe they never even thought that far ahead unfortunately. I hope one day a book about Ocarina of Time's long development is released since it could shed a lot of light on these mysteries