The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess served, in many ways, as a love letter to Ocarina of Time. That's not just because of the grown-up Link and harder-edged fantasy – though both were notable after The Wind Waker – it's also the expansive Hyrule Field and emphasis on mounted exploration. As it turns out, it also offered Nintendo a chance to revisit something Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to see going back to the N64: Link fighting on horseback.
Horseback combat was one of the first things Nintendo showcased about Twilight Princess, even before that subtitle had been publicly announced. Scenes of Link battling atop Epona against hordes of enemies did, after all, figure prominently into the famous "blades will bleed" trailer that introduced the game at E3 2004.
"One of the things about the horseriding is that it's really Mr. Miyamoto's favourite," director Eiji Aonuma explained in an interview for Edge magazine #138 in the wake of that trailer's debut. "He always wanted to do that; he wanted to do that in Ocarina of Time but it didn't happen."
Clearly something was lost in translation here, since there's plenty of horse riding in Ocarina of Time, but the next few lines make clear that Aonuma is specifically talking about mounted combat: "This time I remembered that he mentioned it during Ocarina of Time, so I suggested using this element in the new game. And Mr. Miyamoto wanted to see Link fight on horseback, so I added that."
I've lost count of how many times I've played through Ocarina of Time, and even now I have to stop and think, "Wait, was there really no horseback combat?" But yes, Link was really barred from swinging his sword atop Epona's back in the N64 game. You could fire arrows while mounted, but there weren't many enemies to meet while riding around Hyrule Field.
It's funny that its inclusion felt so natural in Twilight Princess that it seemed like it had been there the whole time. And hey, maybe that rumored Ocarina of Time remake will be the opportunity the company's waited decades for, finally offering that version of Link the opportunity to flail with his sword from Epona's back.
"I have a lot of communication with Mr. Miyamoto and sometimes I can't tell if he is kidding," Aonuma added in that 2004 interview, "but sometimes he mentions things so many times that I think maybe he really wants to do it." Maybe somewhere in Nintendo headquarters, he's demanding Link get his mounted combat skills together all over again.
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