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The story
The Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been perceived as going for a “photorealistic” look, thanks to its detailed fields and townscapes. But on 5ch, users have noted that it’s drawing far less criticism than other titles that get bashed for chasing realism, and that contrast has become a talking point. At the recent Zelda Direct, the development team said, “Rather than simply making it realistic, we aimed to recreate the essence of Ocarina of Time in a way that feels nostalgic,” while another director revealed that the design drew inspiration from Japanese puppet theater. On the thread, opinions split over the more basic question of whether this game can even be called “photorealistic” in the first place.
What people said
June 20, 2026
Re: #2
Are we talking visuals or the systems/gameplay side…
Wait, you can't tell that Link isn't real-life footage? 😂
I hear Dragon Quest XI counts as photorealistic too
Your eyes are probably still fried from GTA6's 30fps…
It doesn't look human at all, but it does look like real footage of a puppet
Still, Young Zelda's face looks exactly like a puppet,
and Ganon's movements feel puppet-theater-ish too,
so the puppet theater motif actually seems on point
This is what "photorealistic" actually looks like, right
That's live-action footage
If we're talking live-action, I saw it in Air Rider
Well, now I know that going full live-action just makes it boring
the forests, towns, and fields are clearly more detailed and beautiful than in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom.
I want a Breath of the Wild remake with this level of graphics — next year's its 10th anniversary, after all
Wait, is it actually shiny/glossy?
Isn't that only when things get wet?
"Rather than simply going for realistic expression, we were particular about reinventing it
so players could feel the nostalgic essence of Ocarina of Time."
In other words, that's a different thing from photorealism
How is that any different from people insisting Breath of the Wild isn't an open-world game?
Oh yeah, now that you mention it, there was something like that
Aiming for that live-action look IS what photorealism means though
Aiming for it and actually achieving it are different things
Yeah, in Pikmin the surrounding objects are rendered fully photorealistic to sell the sense of scale for the hero and the Pikmin
People with no eye for this
still go on about the graphics being 60fps,
and then don't even buy the game.
No wonder the devs can't win lol
Like that game that dropped to 30fps, lol ^ ^
The remake's Young Link is creepy on another level
someone should tell Game Freak so Pokémon can do the same
If they're going to obsess over graphics that much,
people would probably say to put that effort somewhere else instead
Doing the same thing for everything isn't necessarily the answer
It's just a handful of people bashing it, regardless of whether they're foreign or Japanese
That's gotta mean they went overboard on the visuals, right?
Well, the price is higher to match, I guess
With all the puzzles, it probably has more object data packed in than Breath of the Wild anyway
Drew inspiration from Ningyogeki (traditional Japanese puppet theater)
https://x.com/PlaneteZelda/status/2097970025634095551
🐷💢<It's NOT photorealistic, damn iiiiit!!
So what was all that about?
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The term “photorealistic” is technically an evaluation axis referring to a texture and rendering quality indistinguishable from live-action footage. On the thread, however, it often gets conflated with the developers’ stated design philosophy of “recreating a sense of nostalgia,” leading to a lot of talking past each other. Aonuma’s comment didn’t deny realism itself — the point was that the team prioritized the original’s atmosphere over sheer realism. Likewise, the “puppet theater” motif Imamura mentioned is a separate axis from visual realism. Meanwhile, precedents like FF7 Remake and GTA6, both criticized for frame-rate drops and overly heavy visual presentation, are being brought up for comparison. What’s easy for readers to misunderstand is that the new game was never officially declared “not photorealistic” — only that the developers described where they chose to place their emphasis. That gap in interpretation is at the root of the thread’s disagreement.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “The fact that Ocarina of Time is clearly going for a photorealistic look yet isn’t getting bashed at all“.
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