Coming from today's Iwata Asks...

Takizawa: Now that the eyes had gotten much larger, we wanted to make their facial expressions richer by increasing the number of patterns for the eyes and mouth. Partway through, we even talked about having beams come out of those eyes! (laughs)

Iwata: Huh? Eye-beams?!

Takizawa: (Shigeru) Miyamoto-san and (Takashi) Tezuka-san said we needed to supply a reason for the eyes being so big. I don’t think beams were really an option, though.

Well there you go...an unused idea for the Zelda franchise that I'm sure will eventually return in some form!