Link Almost was the Protagonist in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker?

Before Toad came to Super Mario 3d World, Hiratake wanted Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker to be a game where jumping wasn't allowed. But since Mario characters are particularly good at jumping, a small team of developers created a tech demo in which Link was the main character. Then they presented it to Miyamoto.

“We must have done too good of a job with our demo,” said Hiratake, “because during our presentation, Mr. Miyamoto asked us how we were planning on bringing these dioramas into production. He thought we were pitching him an actual physical product design.”

“We like to think that Mr. Miyamoto finally realized the vision we had for a diorama those many years ago.”

Smash on!

Kevin the Game Dragon