Last month, Nintendo announced the previously rumored Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake with a very short teaser. We still basically know nothing about what the remake actually is or when it will release later this year. But a new ESRB rating for the game already has fans wondering if the classic Nintendo 64 game might be making an unexpected change to its Great Fairies.
On July 29, Nintendo quietly updated the official store page for the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake. The page now features an ESRB rating of E10+ and lists some of the content that earned the remake this rating. According to the store page, this Zelda remake includes “Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence.” Not surprising, considering the original game and the 3DS remaster both featured swords, combat, and killing.
But this remake’s ESRB rating is missing something. The 3DS remaster of Ocarina of Time is also rated E10, but mentions “Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, and Suggestive Themes.” The original Ocarina of Time was simply rated E, but that doesn’t mean much, as the E10 rating didn’t exist when the original game shipped on N64 back in 1998. This has some fans worried that Nintendo might be making changes to the remake. Many think the original game’s fairies might get redesigned. The original designs might look a bit too sexy for Nintendo’s liking in a more modern, realistic art style.
This isn’t too outlandish of a theory. If you look up the ESRB rating description for the Ocarina of Time 3DS remaster, you can find this section that seems to indicate the fairies are partially to blame for the added suggestive themes warning:
Link encounters a few female characters that are depicted from low camera angles and dressed in outfits that display moderate amounts of cleavage
Others have suggested certain areas or lines might get tweaked to make them a bit less dark or adult. However, something to keep in mind is that when Ocarina of Time was re-released via Virtual Console on the Wii, it was rated E by the ESRB, didn’t include a suggestive themes warning, and as far as I can tell, the fairies weren’t altered at all in that version of the classic game. And let’s not forget what the fairies looked like in Breath of the Wild. Those ladies were big, didn’t wear much, and have inspired plenty of raunchy fan art. So perhaps Ocarina’s fairies will look more like that, which I think a lot of fans would love.
Perhaps people are worried about nothing. Or maybe the fairies really will be more covered up or redesigned entirely. For now, we can only speculate until we see more of the game, which is set to arrive on Switch 2 sometime later this year.