I started playing the Japanese version of Ocarina of time and noticed that navi is spelled as ナビィ instead of just ナビ. I know that you can combine e.g. フ and イ for フィ, but the one in ナビィ seems redundant.
Answer
I'm not 100% sure if I'm right, but my guess with this is that it just makes the name seem more unique. The Zelda universe is full of unusual names, and this might be a shortcut in Japanese to indicate a slightly more exotic name given the limitations of the syllabic writing system. If I see ナビィ instead of ナビ it makes me think that the "i" sound should be inflected in some non-standard way, even if the characters themselves don't specify exactly which way. In Okinawa, for example, ナビィ is the word for 鍋{なべ}. I can't find a pronunciation guide for it, but the fact that it's used for Okinawa-ben alone should be enough of an indication of what the effect is, I hope.
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