In a recent interview with Game Informer, A Link to the Past director Takashi Tezuka discussed one of the more bizarre moments in the classic SNES title.
Game Informer asked Tezuka why Link turns into a rabbit when he enters the Dark World. “I really wanted to create a striking distinction between what Link normally looks like, so I wanted to create that severe distinction in his looks,” he responded.
“If I think of sort of a fantastic dream world, one of the first things I think about are rabbits.”
It’s an amusing answer, but the connection makes sense if you know a bit of Japanese folklore. Based on the shape of markings on the moon, there are ancient tales of a rabbit living on it. This is all merely conjecture, of course, but it could explain why Tezuka may have associated rabbits with something otherworldly!
Elsewhere in the interview, Zelda Producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed that all of the Mario character cameos from the original Link’s Awakening will return in the remake.
