Nintendo showed a playable 2D Zelda prototype developers used to experiment and to test their ideas.
Look at the 2D prototype below:
Link burns down tress, use logs for transportation, just like in the final 3D version. You have to admit that this is an amazing way to test your project.
I thought that the quickest way to bring this idea to life and to present this to the rest of the team would be to create this in 2D. So I brought the character data to the technical director, Mr. [Takuhiro Dohta], who will be coming up after this, and asked him to make it.
Nintendo has also shared some other images, showing ideas that didn’t make it to the final version – aliens, bikes and more.