I can tell you that Sheik (spoiler-texted just in case; highlight to read) speaks in a much more masculine voice than Zelda, whose manner of speech also more clearly indicates her societal position. It makes the distinction between the two characters more pronounced and the twist more of a surprise, at least in my opinion.

as a side note, am i being REALLY stupid, as i could only find all but one of the chickens ...sorry, cucoos, around kakariko...that included getting over the fence and checking around the back of the windmill....i dont recall it being this difficult last time i played!

Thanks

P.S. Has everyone with the 3DS version made sure to go up the observation tower, as I think the 3D makes views like this all the more impactful!

A few differences I noticed (I think!) in the 3DS version, in case anybody is interested: first, with more defined features the guy playing the hurdy-gurdy in the windmill is nowhere near as terrifying as in the original game, which is actually kind of disappointing. Second, I mentioned above that I always thought the carpenters' "talking sound" was oddly effeminate; well, here, they don't appear to talk at all! The only reason I can come up with for this omission is the already-established stereotypical "gay" undertones; but they still skip around with their arms outstretched, so I'm not sure what the developers thought they were accomplishing. I'm a little torn about this particular change. On the one hand, yeah, the humor is surprisingly sophomoric for a Nintendo game; on the other, it just seems sort of harmless to me, and I thought the goofy voices added character (at least the foreman still screams at you). I'm not really the person who would have taken offense in the first place though, so I can't judge too harshly.

Anyway, this is a long post, but I think part of that is because I spent a pretty long time in Kakariko Village last night...mostly trying to round up those damn chickens. This was the first time in playing this game that I had trouble with the controls: specifically, the part where you need to toss a cucco up two individual steps, then grab it and float over to the scaffolding (avoiding the carpenter who prances back and forth across it), and finally jump from the scaffolding to the back entrance of the cow's pen. I must have tried that part 20 times; I'd roll when I meant to grab the chicken and end up clinging to the side of the platform when I wanted to jump off. Really reminded me that, quite frankly, the only time the Zelda series has had truly perfect controls was in 2D. I remember when the DS games came out there was a lot of grumbling about how the stylus was "imprecise"; well, I've had similar input problems with a plain old stick and buttons, so clearly the old controls weren't the masterpiece of precision we were remembering!