Ocarina of Time Remake: Switch Audio to Hear Original Navi

Navi is the most repeated voice in Zelda history, and the Ocarina of Time remake’s Japanese trailer just made the case that it might be the same voice from 1998. Fans comparing the original N64 footage against the 2026 remake’s Japanese direct have landed on Kaori Mizuhashi — the actor who voiced the fairy 28 years ago and is still working steadily across games and anime. Kotaku’s Rebekah Valentine says the resemblance is strong enough that she’s asked Nintendo to confirm, and if it pans out, the only way to hear it is to switch your audio language to Japanese.

That toggle sits in the same options menu you already dig through on a Switch 2, which is where this trivia becomes a portable-play decision. Voice language is a per-profile setting most handheld players set once and forget — until a remake with far more dialogue than the N64 original puts the choice in front of you. On a device you play in bed, on a train, or with one earbud in, the fairy’s voice isn’t background noise. It’s the whole soundtrack.

Navi Never Shuts Up. On a Handheld, That’s the Point

Navi’s entire job is to interrupt you, and the Ocarina remake gives her a lot more to say than the “Hey!” and “Listen!” of 1998. That makes whichever audio language you pick load-bearing. The English performance is a new actor doing strong work, per Kotaku; the Japanese track may be Mizuhashi reprising a role she originated and still voices with uncanny consistency. If you have muscle memory for the N64 fairy, the Japanese audio is the closest thing to a time machine the remake offers — and it’s a two-minute menu change, not a mod or a patch.

Worth flagging the uncertainty: Nintendo has not confirmed the casting, and Kotaku is clear this is fan detective work plus a request for comment. Don’t rebuild your expectations around a voice credit that isn’t official yet. But if you’re the type who already runs Japanese audio on anime adaptations, this is the rare case where the older performance is the one you can actually reach.

More Voice Acting Means a Bigger Switch 2 Install

Buried in the source is the detail that matters for portable storage: the remake “has a lot more voice acting than the original.” Full-voice localization across multiple languages is a well-documented driver of ballooning file sizes — studios ship separate audio packages per region, and Navi alone now has hours of lines instead of a handful of barks. Nintendo hasn’t published the remake’s download size, so treat any number you see online as rumor. But the direction is obvious: this installs bigger than a N64-era soundtrack would suggest, and Switch 2’s onboard storage disappears fast once first-party remakes start stacking up.

For handheld players, that turns the audio-language choice into a logistics question too. If your card is nearly full, keep warm the track you’ll actually play. And if you plan to bounce between English and Japanese to compare, settle it before you start — mid-playthrough swaps force you to re-listen to every companion line you’ve already cleared, which is a lot of Navi for one commute.