Zelda is one of the few franchises where Nintendo actually cared about lore.

Not to the same consistency and detail that it does today. There was a lot more randomness and inconsistencies between entries.

Like with Breath of the Wild: the Rito went from looking like Hylians with beaks for noses and five-digit hands in Wind Waker, to now being full-on anthropomorphic bird people covered in feathers, wings instead of hands and actual bird heads, complete with beaks taking the place of mouths and noses.

Also, I never said Nintendo didn't care about lore. I said that it didn't care about the timeline. Fans came up with the timeline well before Miyamoto and Nintendo ever thought about it.

Not to the same consistency and detail that it does today. There was a lot more randomness and inconsistencies between entries.

Like with Breath of the Wild: the Rito went from looking like Hylians with beaks for noses and five-digit hands in Wind Waker, to now being full-on anthropomorphic bird people covered in feathers, wings instead of hands and actual bird heads, complete with beaks taking the place of mouths and noses.

Also, I never said Nintendo didn't care about lore. I said that it didn't care about the timeline. Fans came up with the timeline well before Miyamoto and Nintendo ever thought about it.

I agree that they didn't pay as much attention to the lore in the past but I don't think visual design of any of the species or characters is amongst those inconsistencies. The franchise intentionally reinvents the way it presents its world. Similar to FF and I think that's quite exciting. One of my biggest fears with OOT was that they were going to start shoehorning everything into BOTWs aesthetic, thankfully not.