From our other sites
The story
A thread about the control scheme of the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time went up on 5ch’s “Hardware/Industry” (Geha) board. The thread starter argued that it’s hard to dash while also controlling the camera, and that dashing should have been assigned to the index-finger-friendly L/R buttons or back buttons instead. This drew a string of rebuttals pointing out that you can remap it yourself via the console’s button config or the Pro Controller’s back buttons — countered in turn by complaints that this doesn’t help in handheld mode or for anyone without a Pro Controller. The discussion then expanded to cover how awkward it is to turn Epona around and the placement of the jump button.
What people said
Something you use as often as the dash button really needs to be
on the LB/RB or a back button — something you can hit with your index or middle finger.
You mean Roadie Run? That's gone now —
in E-Day it got changed to clicking the left stick.
Lol why are you bringing up a game that only sold
400k copies worldwide and bombed that hard.
This.
Leave it to OoT-sama to serve up a puzzle even on the meta level, huh.
The Switch 2 doesn't come bundled with a Pro Controller — are you the one who hasn't played?
Since jump is on X, A actually feels easier to use.
There's a B option too, but the default hasn't caused me any trouble.
Just assign it to L/R.
If you put dash on A/B/X/Y you can't work the camera at the same time —
this solves the jump issue too.
The fact that the rebuttals are just "other games do it too" and "use a back button" kind of proves the point…
Whatever other games do, Zelda itself is still awkward to play.
Back buttons only exist on the Pro Controller 2 —
don't you ever play in handheld mode?
You run around behind enemies like Dai Octa (an enemy) though —
have you not actually played?
I just remapped dash to R in the system-level button config though.
Isn't it probably just consideration for total beginners? Some of those people stop moving entirely before even turning the camera.
And if you're an actual gamer, remapping buttons on a Pro Controller is the kind of thing you'd just do without thinking.
Unless you're doing a speedrun, there's almost no situation where a tenth of a second matters.
So basically you gave up because A-dash makes it too hard to run properly, right?
Ah yeah, I feel that one too.
I keep getting stuck on stuff whenever I leave Kakariko Village and try to cross the bridge.
Also, even after completing the mask collection you can still only carry one at a time — true to the original, sure, but it's a genuinely real complaint for me.
Re: #32
Nah, that one's fine.
Epona's already fast, so a little clunkiness like that is acceptable —
besides, if a horse turned on a dime it'd actually feel weird.
Those are the two things I'd call flaws.
And both of them, especially the second, could be fixed in an instant…
I don't even remember ever manually turning the camera.
Things like the Scarecrow only show up if you stand in a specific spot —
how are you supposed to find that without moving the camera?
You really haven't played, have you.
If you're unhappy with the button layout and buying an official controller fixes it, isn't that fine?
PlayStation and Xbox both sell premium controllers with back buttons/paddles too — it's the same situation.
But I want to play in handheld mode.
There's just no situation where you're turning the camera while running.
Not just the Scarecrow — when you're searching for anything, don't you move the camera while dashing?
And if we're talking enemies, there's stuff like Dai Octa that you have to chase.
How would you know dash is hard to use if you haven't even played it?
I have played it, and the dash is hard to use.
Oh, you did play it after all——
Base movement speed is already quick, so when you need to turn the camera you just stop dashing first and then turn it.
Since "the original OoT never had a dash to begin with," the game just isn't designed around needing one.
It's at least somewhat faster, so of course there are moments you'd want to dash.
Bottom line, since A makes dashing awkward, you're just holding back on dashing out of necessity too, aren't you.
why is jump defaulted to the X button?
Good thing you can swap it with B in the options —
if you couldn't, I'd have been furious.
BotW and TotK both had jump on X too.
The fact that there are two kinds of jump-slash is probably for the same reason.
The two kinds of jump-slash are just [producer Eiji] Aonuma indulging himself.
Separately, I will not forgive them for removing the diving animation and the wall hit detection.
The diving animation is still there —
it's just only when you press the jump button yourself during the scale minigame.
Never thought I'd see that come up for Zelda lol (a controller-hold style, popularized by that series, where the index finger rests on the face buttons)
Even with the Monster Hunter grip, the index finger is only used for supplementary inputs — it's not meant for something you hold down.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
As pointed out in the thread (post 35), the original Ocarina of Time (1998, N64) had neither right-stick camera control nor a dedicated dash button. The debate centers on the new A/B dash option added for this remaster: one camp argues it can simply be fixed by remapping it to L/R or a back button, while another counters that this doesn’t help in handheld mode or without a Pro Controller. Since the Switch 2 console doesn’t come bundled with a Pro Controller, this mismatch — a docked-play solution being pitted against handheld usability — is part of what keeps the argument talking past itself. It was also noted that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom use the same A-dash/X-jump layout, suggesting this may be a series-wide control convention rather than an issue unique to this title.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry) thread “Ocarina of Time’s biggest flaw: dash is mapped to the A button.”
Leave a Reply