ShareThis
Remember the Nintendo gigaleak back in July of 2020? That breach continues to yield some interesting things, including this: a recreation of the Space World 1997 build of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Curious? Watch the reveal trailer first and then meet below for a little more insight:
The Ocarina of Time Space World ’97 BETA Experience was put together by a community of fan developers and modders to recreate as closely as possible the playable build of the game that fans in Japan got to experience at that time. Space World was essentially Nintendo’s own version of E3 that the company would hold exclusively in Japan each year. Prior to the launch of Ocarina of Time, fans were able to play this prototype, offering for many their first hands-on experience with what would go on to become one of the most important video games ever made.
Sadly, the actual Space World ’97 build of Ocarina of Time remains lost to time. Part of it has been recovered from a developer cartridge of F-Zero X, while the rest was cobbled together from assets pulled from the gigaleak. The end result is a very cool approximation of the real build—for now, it’s likely the closest fans will ever get to experiencing it. A Twitter and YouTube user named zel. posted the above footage—here’s a bit about the project directly from the people who worked on it:
This project aims to be a mostly accurate representation of the Nintendo Spaceworld 1997 demo of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Since this project aims to restore an experience that was originally a demo, it cannot be completed from start-to-finish like the final game. Instead, three gameplay “tours” featured in the original Spaceworld 1997 demo are available to choose from, each showcasing various unique flavors of gameplay.
You can check out this build for yourself by following the links under the trailer on YouTube. What do you think of seeing fans come together to recreate this long-lost build of Ocarina of Time? Sound off in the comments!
Source: zel YouTube Page
I’m quite glad we have the fan-built Beta Experience; even my preservationist side would choose it over “the real thing”, given its extra features and all the community love and care that’s gone into it. It’s an exemplar work of preservation (and restoration, often overlooked!), even if it’s not an exact 1:1 snapshot of something which was built in a hurry for a trade show in 1997.
As for “rage” being the default mood of modern online conversations, and people speaking and acting as though their personal priorities are the only ones that matter… I suppose that’s why it’s so nice to have oases like Nintendojo. :^) The lack of flame wars and the breadth of thoughtful articles here is also a case of preservation in a sense — how the internet and fandom used to be, and how things can still be, if we all breathe a bit.