The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has always been a massive fan favorite, to say the least. Before its release in 1998, people were worried how Zelda might fair in 3D. They thought the combat would be awful, the exploration lost, and they feared for the series reputation. However, all their complaints and fears were put to rest shortly after they finally had the game in their hands. While somewhat different from previous titles in the series, Ocarina of Time still retained most of the classic Zelda game-play and masterfully brought the series into a three-dimensional world, the likes of which no Nintendo fan had seen yet.
It’s been 13 years since Ocarina of Time originally released. Back then, it was praised as a masterpiece of its time. Does it still deserve this praise? Let’s take a look.
First off, the story. Pretty simple in concept, yet it manages to suck you into it anyway. Everyone knows the typical Zelda story – Save a Princess from the bad man named Ganon. However, you’ll meet many memorable characters along the way, and the way the story is told and unravels itself is pretty cool. Once you become an adult, the story does mostly stay calm for a little while as you travel around the world beating temple after temple, and then towards the end, the plot starts back up again where it left off. However, you never forget your mission no matter how long it was since the last plot twist occurred. The game does a great job at keeping you interested in your goal until the end, and the result is satisfying and epic. Perhaps one of the most interesting simple stories in all of gaming.
The graphics are excellent, however do not totally use the 3DS to its full potential, perhaps because this is supposed to be a remake and they wanted to keep it as faithful as possible. Still, the game looks far better than the original N64. Even the character models, which still look largely the same in style, are updated to about an average Gamecube-level of detail, while character models such as Link, Zelda, Ganondorf and other main characters look quite a bit different in certain ways and much better overall.
The world looks a lot better, although the landscape has not changed any of its N64-limited ideas such as large rock-walls that connect down a path. It’s understandable because changing these things would potentially affect the gameplay in some cases. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, but it’s understandable that they would leave it the same if they weren’t planning on a total overhaul of this game. Perhaps this is why they didn’t over do it with the graphics, as too strong of graphics would make these areas look too out of place and unrealistic. Solid overall and amazing for old Ocarina of Time fans, but not nearly the best you’ll find on the 3DS. It’s important to note that this game is a remaster and not a remake.
It’s been 13 years, but this game still manages to pull me in to almost every sound and song available in it. The sound is almost exactly the same as it was way back then, but it doesn’t feel very aged. Most songs and tunes are very memorable and will stick with you long after you’ve played this game even once. While they could have and maybe should have included more remixes to some of the sounds and music, I can’t help but feel that I wouldn’t want any of the originals to be left behind in exchange. Perhaps it would feel fresher, but it just wouldn’t feel the same. Is that nostalgia? I really don’t think so. Most of the games audio is memorable because it works and is of high quality, not because we grew up with it as kids. I wouldn’t want them to break something that worked so well already by itself.
Orchestrated songs are a different story, however. There is only one in the entire game, and there could have been many more. While this could potentially ruin the mood if used in the wrong places, there are many areas in the game where they would have obviously fit perfectly and only enhance the mood, such as boss fights (which could also use more varied themes, as well). The one single orchestrated track in the game is pretty amazing, and while I’m glad we got anything at all, it just makes me wish all the more that they would have done this in a few other places as well.
Let’s talk about the gameplay. What more can be said that hasn’t been said already? Whatever, I’ll say it anyway. Ocarina of Time is an action-adventure dungeon crawler with some very slight RPG qualities. You explore a vast world with dungeons, heart pieces (health), items, upgrades, skulltula tokens and more. You fight enemies and solve puzzles in dungeons which eventually leads you to a boss while following a story, and beating said dungeon results in a new item which you can, as I said, use against the bosses, but also in future dungeons/areas that will let you progress the game or do some sort of exploration elsewhere. The first portion of the game is mostly linear progression wise, but there are many sidequests for heart pieces and skulltula’s to collect, among a couple other things. Once you reach the next portion of the game (when you become an adult), the game becomes mostly open-world where you can go to most areas right away and choose what order you want to complete your objectives (however, there are a few limitations to this).
The child dungeons are fun for an opening to the game, but the real meat of the game is with the adult dungeons/temples. These temples are decently challenging for anyone who hasn’t replayed this game a million times, and are overall satisfying and brilliantly designed. You’ll collect maps, compasses, small keys, boss keys and a certain item within each dungeon/temple (although the first 3 child dungeons have no keys whatsoever).
The bosses, for the most part, are easy overall for anyone who’s played the game once or twice. Newcomers might have a challenge at first with a few of them, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Still, the bosses in the adult segment of the game are, for the most part, fun and satisfying to defeat, and a new boss rush mode has been added to the game which allows you to re-fight each of these bosses either one at a time, or one after the other with little or no recovery. These modes also time how long you take to beat the bosses, so you can have fun trying to get records between you and your friends, or even as simply a personal goal. Great for anyone who knows the bosses inside and out and wants some kind of other challenge. Sadly, there are no online leader boards for this, which would have been appreciated.
In comparison to games such as The Wind Waker or Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time can be more challenging with its enemies and sometimes puzzles (mostly in figuring out where to go). Enemies have certain patterns that you need to adjust to in order to have an easier time, while the newer games are mostly just “hit everything in sight”. Once you master Ocarina of Time, it will be an easy game, but you will have fun getting better as you play the game, or even replay the game.
There is also another game mode called Master Quest, which is unlocked after beating the regular game once. This is a harder version of the same game with a mirrored world, altered dungeons with harder puzzles, and more enemies (usually), and double the damage from anything you could normally get hurt by, even angry chickens. For players who are so good that they no longer even get hit very much, this still might not be much more challenging, except perhaps on a 3 heart, shield-less, 1 bottle and broken-sword run. However, most gamers will sometimes get hit, and the extra damage definitely keeps you on your toes a bit more. Even aside from the extra damage, most of the dungeons are harder, with a few exceptions such as the Water Temple and Fire Temple, but even those are at least different to give you a different experience, and maybe confuse you for that reason alone.
The mirrored nature and double damage may also make them more challenging than the previous Master Quest as well. Also, Master Quest has its own Boss Rush mode which still applies the double damage, and you’ll be given absolutely no recovery and only 3 hearts if you want to fight each boss in a row. Overall, the Master Quest with its extra features is a welcome addition for long time Zelda fans.
Visions are yet another addition which give you short clips from specific camera angles to show you certain hints or clues on how to progress the game, how to solve a certain puzzle, how to beat a boss and so on without actually giving it away entirely. Ocarina of Time can be somewhat vague from time to time as it doesn’t hold your hand nearly as much as more recent installments, such as Twilight Princess. This is a very useful feature for newcomers who’ve never played, and older players who never finished. These visions can be accessed by talking to something called a “Sheikah Stone”, and there are two in the game: one by your house and one inside the Temple of Time.
Finally, the controls are extremely well done. You can use the touch screen to access your items, gear and map-menu, and you have 4 buttons which items can be equipped to cut down on time spent pausing the game to pick choose different items/weapons. The Ocarina itself also gets its own button, so you don’t have to waste any of your buttons on it anymore.
The face buttons work great (although a little small), the shoulder buttons will take maybe 5 minutes of getting used to, and the analog slider feels as smooth as any analog stick. In addition to this, whenever in first person mode either to look around or aim an item, you can move the 3DS around to move in real time in-game as Link. It works extremely smooth and is also faster and more accurate than aiming with the analog slider, but that also works just fine as well. You shouldn’t have many problems at all with the controls of this game, however, the lack of a c-stick or a second analog means you can’t control the camera around you as you would in games such as The Wind Waker or the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess. However, in most situations, simply readjusting the camera with the L button works almost as fine, but it can get annoying if you’re fighting an enemy and accidentally lock on something stupid like an unlit torch, but simply adjusting your position can fix this.
Ocarina of Time 3D is not entirely a full-on remake. The gameplay is largely untouched aside from controls and a few added features, but the graphics have been mostly redone and the game plays differently than any of its console counter-parts. Enhanced port would probably be the best description for this game, which is essentially the same as a remaster. While Nintendo advertised the game as a remake sometimes, they mostly referred to it as a remaster, which even the back of the box states.
However, even with mostly untouched gameplay, Ocarina of Time didn’t really need any of it. New content would have been very nice, and it upsets me that there practically is none unless you’ve never played Master Quest on Gamecube, but in terms of Ocarina of Time’s core gameplay, its temples, story, puzzles and just overall content and size, it still feels like a new game to this very day, and in many ways surpasses most of the Zelda games that came out afterwards.
While games such as the Elder Scrolls series have become a lot bigger than Zelda in terms of size, Ocarina of Time is still large for a handheld game and is quite an open-world game (after 1/3 of the way through) that you can replay in different ways and explore places at your whim (especially if you abuse glitches). It was the start of the vast 3D worlds, and while time may have passed, Ocarina of Time has kept up with it very well. If you have never played this gem and you have a 3DS, it is pretty much your duty as a gamer to pick this game up. Even if you have played it before, you should still pick this up. Everything they did to this game helps it just enough to make it feel like a new experience even for advanced Zelda players (like me).
