Hello r/NintendoSwitch**! We’re the team behind The Merlies! 🐦🌱**

We are Darjeeling, a small independent studio based in Paris, and today four of us are here to answer your questions:

• Thomas Sandmeier (Game Designer)
• Florence Rivières (Narrative designer) - https://bsky.app/profile/rivieresflo.bsky.social
• Xavier Thiry (Music composer – OST)
• Marc Lustigman, (Creative producer and co-founder of Darjeeling)

The Merlies is a “wholesomevania” where you help a tribe of tiny, fragile birds find each other after a great storm, in a cozy solarpunk world where humanity’s forgotten junk becomes their treasure. There are no enemies and almost no pressure: you progress through solidarity.

The project started to grow in 2022. Back Then Cosmografik was filing entire Moleskine notebooks with sketches of little birds (back then, they were called the ‘Tinies’ / xsee below). The concept was lovely: a tribe of anthropomorphic birds, adorable yet fragile, who emerge from the ground to build a community in a world where humanity is nothing more than a vanished civilization.

We literally fell in love with the characters, but also with the promise of their world. It just felt right: behind the softness of the drawings and their childlike charm, there was something tragic, something deeply melancholic. That paradox won us over straight away. In these tiny creatures living in a world far too big for them, we saw a metaphor for ourselves, a humanity being offered a second chance. What if we could live together differently? Live in greater harmony with nature? Put the joy of small things back at the heart of our lives?

Deep down, the Merlies spoke to us about solidarity, about the art of turning fragility into strength, and about the ability to find contentment in simple things, like marveling at the beauty of the world, something that feels so distant from our modern lives today.

The Merlies launched on Steam and Nintendo Switch on September 29.

Please ask us anything ! We’ll be happy to reply !

TRAILER : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfq6RPIYLi4
BUY IT ON SWITCH : https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-merlies-switch/
BUY IT ON STEAM : https://store.steampowered.com/app/2521160/The_Merlies

EDIT: Full N64 Nintendo Classics controller support has been confirmed according to emerging reports from several people with access to game previews who are posting reviews and content across social media and other outlets.

Before you rush to reply "Why not just play the original?" This post is about how the new game could simply incorporate three OPTIONS (at this point two, as classic N64 controller support is now confirmed) to allow players to enjoy the fidelity and detail of the remake while still having some classic aspects of the original experience's controls and atmosphere. It is NOT about mandating one experience, or considering one better than the other. It's only about how it would be nice to have some user selectable options for the experience similar to the Pro and Master HUD and control modes in BOTW and TOTK.

While the remake is gorgeous and will certainly stand on it's own there's a lot of changes shown that have been slightly controversial among the wider Zelda fan base to say the least. It seems like adding an optional "Classic Mode" or toggles to some of these updates could help a lot to bridge the gap for players who may want to explore the remake without certain aspects of these new additions. Or, to allow people to tailor the experience to their overall liking.

• Ability to disable or limit voice-overs: It's been clear since the reveal that the new voice overs have been incredibly polarizing. For the most part the sentiment online is you either love the new English voice-overs as a worthwhile improvement, or you hate them for ruining your immersion and perceived anime dub feel. There's little to no middle ground on it and people have been arguing for or against them since day one.

  • Giving players a choice to select a classic mode where voices are limited to grunts and snippets like the N64 original would be a simple way to let people play in the way that best suits them, much like the HUD-less Pro and Master modes the game is including.

• N64 Controller Support via the Nintendo Classics controller: (This is now confirmed as included thanks to emerging reports from reviews and preview sessions.) To many the N64 controller and Ocarina of Time are inseparable. Not having a classic control mode, with or without auto-jump, or some kind of ability to use the N64 Switch Online controller would be an incredible letdown and missed opportunity.

  • It would just be fun to mess around with the N64 controller and have an alternate control experience. Nintendo could easily map the camera controls to the N64 controller's unused D-Pad, allowing a player to shift their hand or thumb left and use that to rotate and tilt their camera as needed. Using it would be a compromise if someone so chose but a worthwhile one for many. It would allow players to keep the familiarity and iconography of the N64 controller and it's decades of significance to Zelda fans and Ocarina of Time as a whole too. Nintendo does the same for Super Smash Bros. players with Gamecube controllers, and it would be a nice olive branch extending the same courtesy to their Zelda fan base.

• Use Navi's Original Voice Actor who's all new, entirely English, performance is in the new Japanese Dialogue: Navi's voice is one of the single most iconic sound bites in gaming history. Everyone who's ever picked up a controller has heard "LISTEN!" at some point in their life. It's as iconic and important to Ocarina of Time and much of modern Zelda's legacy as the sound of Mario's coins and power-ups is to that entire franchise. While the Japanese remake uses new lines, entirely in English, from the original voice actor for Navi, the English dub uses a new and updated voice-over from a different voice actor that has attracted even more controversy among fans than all the other updated voice-overs as a whole.

  • Letting players choose between Navi's original Japanese and new English voice actors and allowing players to have their choice in the experience they prefer, regardless of if they have Japanese or English voice overs selected or disabled, would go a long way given how important this aspect of Ocarina of Time and gaming as a whole is to millions and millions of people the world over. Nintendo clearly understood how important this was in Japan. They chose not to recast such a significant role while allowing the original voice actor to give a new performance, yet they did not seem to care as much to keep that in foreign markets. Giving us a choice in the matter of which Navi we'd like to hear would be a very nice gesture that goes a long way.

There's plenty of other things people have had comments and thoughts on concerning the remake. Out of that it only really seems like Link's new tunic feeling a bit over designed or distracting, and the doll-like eyes of the characters entering the uncanny valley, appear to be the other most prevalent recurring topics. But Nintendo themselves clearly knew the latter would be distracting to some players and added little throwbacks in the form of the Amiibo that can let you wear N64 head models as a mask. So they understand the value of certain aspects of the original game, even if it's all just in good fun. If Nintendo simply added optional toggles to those three major aspects relating to the voice-over, controls, and Navi's voice it would be a very fair compromise that bridges the gap for many players old and new.

What do all of you think?