Games I Played In 2024 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Console: Nintendo 64

Developer: Nintendo EAD

Release Date: November 23rd 1998

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a third-person action-adventure game with a focus on an open world, puzzles and simple combat. Ocarina of Time needs no introduction: it's widely considered one of the greatest games ever made, is very likely one of the most influential games ever made, and... it's a game I'd never played start to finish before this year. I'd always stop somewhere around the third dungeon of the game.

I've played my fair share of Zelda games, both 2D and 3D, but even though the N64 was my first console, I actually have never played through both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, though I have watched playthroughs and speedruns of both, and watched countless videos about them. As a result, while this was a first full playthrough, there were no real surprises, as I knew mostly what to expect in terms of story and gameplay. Still, I was curious to see just how I'd feel about the game, considering it's so universally beloved and still considered the best Zelda game by many. As a note, I played this on the Nintendo Switch, through the Nintendo Switch Online service.

A TALE AS OLD AS TIME

As far as I can tell, Ocarina of Time is essentially the first game of its kind; while there had been other massive 3D games, they were either first-person shooters, JRPGs, or had tank controls. As a result, Ocarina of Time is seen as the blueprint for modern action-adventure and action RPG games, even though it's over 25 years old by now. It really is a testament to Nintendo's talent at the time. From Demon's Souls to Final Fantasy XV, countless games, new and old, have taken  as inspiration, and I think the medium is better off for it.

Due to its modern status as a sort of progenitor of an entire genre, it's easy to assume that Ocarina of Time is a clunky, barebones game that was only good back in the day, and now pales in comparison to its contemporaries. While I think this is true to an extent, I do feel like this game has enough to keep it aloft.

Ocarina of Time's story is simple enough to follow even for a child, as it is really just a good vs evil story with two MacGuffin hunts. Actual cutscenes are rare, but effective enough to drive the point across. The worldbuilding is also solid, but not particularly effective or special unless you truly dive deep into the material given. Hyrule does not truly feel like a living, breathing world or even half of one, but that's okay for this era. It's worth noting, however, that a lot of Ocarina of Time's worldbuilding is expanded upon in multiple ways throughout the rest of the series: even the most recent entries at time of writing, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, follow up on it and pay homage to it. Ocarina of Time is the base of the series' narrative identity now.

Where the game falters the most narratively is in its character writing: most characters do not have a "voice" and instead read more like NPCs from a 2D JRPG with a single function. They are usually caricatures through and through, with one or two personality traits or backstory beats, and are also often purposefully designed to be ugly, off-putting, or just weird. Though it clashes dramatically with the tone of the story, I feel like it has to be at least partly on purpose to show how out-of-place and scary strangers are to Link... or I am reading too much into it. It's just so rare to see NPCs with these designs portrayed in a light-hearted manner. I will say, though, a handful of key characters do stand out as having a personality beyond a single basic trait, but they have little screen time overall.

In general, the dialogue is very weak, either the result of a limited script or a badly translated one. It's further compounded by how the dialogue system works: text scrolls slowly by without a sound, and a text box can be dismissed by pressing A once all the text is displayed. Otherwise, pressing B will skip to the last text box of the dialogue tree, potentially skipping unrepeatable dialogue. Or sometimes pressing B will do nothing. It's all a bit frustrating, especially as a fast reader.

CLUNKY, BUT INNOVATIVE

Ocarina of Time takes place in what I would consider an open world, as though it is segmented and story progress is linear, you can practically go anywhere in the world whenever you want, provided you have the necessary tools. The game is teeming with optional content: minigames, side quests, collectibles and easter eggs galore. A true 100% run of the game is daunting, but entirely possible even for a casual player without a guide. It just requires a lot of exploration, investigation, and awareness.

Movement is fully analog and generally feels good, though Link moves a little slowly for my liking. To counteract this, Link can roll forward in a small speed burst. The A button is used for actions such as grabbing and climbing, while B is exclusively for swordplay. In Ocarina of Time, up to three items can be equipped at the same time and are used with the left, down, and right C-buttons. A point of contention for me was that on the Switch, the right stick is used for the C-buttons, so it was a bit awkward to use; something to remember if playing it this way. I also think that there is some clunkiness to the way it all works: there's something very strange about pressing a C-button to nock an arrow and releasing it to fire, for example. Due to my experience with newer Zelda games, I always assumed that pressing a C-button would "equip" the item, and then A or B would be used to execute different actions.

Something else that my lifelong experience with newer Zelda games hampered was the then-innovative Z-targeting, the series' lock-on feature. In newer games, it's a lock-on that you hold to activate and release to deactivate, but in Ocarina of Time it's a toggle that you deactivate by pressing Z and holding back. This tripped me up for my entire playthrough and I never felt comfortable doing it, especially since pressing Z again simply changes targets or does nothing. As a whole, though, the game would be a lot less fun without Z-targeting, so even with my muscle memory making it a pain, it's a life-saver in so many situations and makes the combat and using items palatable. It's why the game hasn't aged that badly, I'd argue.

Ocarina of Time's combat system is a bit more complex than one would think: while mashing B is usually good enough in any situation where damage needs to be inflicted, holding different directions while pressing B results in different kinds of swings, and Z-targeting also changes Link's moveset. It's honestly quite surprising how often a vertical slash will hit an enemy when a horizontal slash wouldn't, for example. My only issues with the combat was the passivity of enemies, where you need to wait for an opening instead of forcing one out, and Link's pitiful range, especially as a child. Compared to later games, I always felt like I was too close for comfort to enemies if I wanted to hit them, and it made dodging or blocking harder than it felt like it needed to me. Enemy variety is quite large, however, so that made it up for me, in a way.

Link has quite a few items at his disposal throughout the game, both optional and not, but I found that I was mainly using two of them as a child and two others as an adult: slingshot and boomerang for the former, and hookshot and bow for the latter. The rest, such as bombs, the hammer, and nuts all felt like items that were only useful for puzzles, rather than fun tools to use. Young Link also doesn't really feel different from Adult Link, he's just smaller, has worse range, and can't use the same items for the most part.

The game's namesake, the Ocarina, is a neat item that lets you play songs to solve puzzles and do sidequests, as well as help with enemies in rare cases. There are thirteen songs to learn (including one you create yourself) and they can always be found in the menu. Six of them are for general use, and six of them are for fast travel. Though they're not complicated, remembering all twelve at all times is a bit of an ordeal for someone playing casually, requiring players to constantly pause, look at the menu, memorise the song they want to play, unpause, and then play them. I'd say it's a fun mechanic that isn't used to its full potential. Bonus points for being able to just take out the Ocarina and play it for fun.

Another big selling point has always been horseriding, as Link can ride his horse, Epona, for the first time. Though fun enough and acquired through a solid side quest, it feels like little more than a novelty: Epona controls a bit too clunkily to feel good, she's not fast enough to feel like a massive upgrade to walking/rolling, and you actually don't spend much time in Hyrule Field, where you can ride her. Especially as the game progresses, you get access to the Ocarina songs that let you fast travel.

A LOOK IN THE DUNGEONS

Dungeons are key to a good pre-Breath of the Wild Zelda game, and I'd say the ones in Ocarina of Time are very good overall. Though simple, they're still fun to figure out for the most part, and I'd say they're carried by their interesting settings. I do feel like there are some hiccups along the way, though: some puzzles or setpieces feel forced rather than natural. The bosses are weak across the board, however: they are overly simple, all follow a similar pattern, and tend to end dungeons with a whimper rather than a bang. I think a lot of is due to the bosses not having multiple phases, they just repeat the same thing until defeated.

Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly, the third Child dungeon, is my least favorite dungeon in the game, and the reason I would stop playing. Despite its incredible setting, I found it poorly designed multiple times, with off-screen elevators and an annoying structure that forces you to go all the way around whenever you want to progress. The final puzzle before the boss also requires two arbitrarily placed wooden boxes that don't suit the rest of the dungeon. The boss is quite good, at least, and the dungeon centers around Ruto, who is one of the few characters that feel like they have a defined personality.

The Forest Temple is technically impressive, with twisting hallways, rooms that shift with the push of a button, and clever puzzles. It's a great introduction to the Adult Link portion of the game, and how much bigger the Temples will be to the first three dungeons. The boss is also one of the best in the game.

The Water Temple is notorious for its difficulty, but I actually thought it was one of the best designed dungeon, outside of needing to go all the way to the top when wanting to raise or lower the water level in an unnatural order. This was the only temple where I found the Map and Compass actually useful, and I thought it was great fun to traverse overall. It's a dungeon that's universally hated, but I feel like it's hated because it's hated, if that makes sense.

The Shadow Temple and the Spirit Temple are two of the best dungeons in the game, having the best atmosphere and settings out of all the dungeons. Using the Lens of Truth to reveal hidden passages is great fun, while the Spirit Temple being split into a Child portion and an Adult portion makes it feel like the appropriate penultimate dungeon. In fact, I found myself wishing this dynamic was used more in the game: having to complete part of a Dungeon as Young Link to then come back as Adult Link to finish it has such great potential.

There are also two mini-dungeons that are more annoying than fun, as one requires you to constantly backtrack to carry a blue flame to certain spots, and the other is focused around stealth, which isn't fun in classic Zelda gameplay. Still, I like that they were included, and they provide a nice little change of pace.

The big issue with these dungeons, however, is that there is no real narrative hook pulling you towards any of them outside of the first dungeon. Unless you happen upon them by chance, you need to wander around a little until Navi talks to you, telling you where to go. It's a bit of a shame, because the setting for basically all of them is anything but basic (except perhaps Dodongo's Cavern). There's just something missing to make Ocarina of Time actually enthralling, rather than fun in a vacuum. If I wasn't playing games with the intention of finishing them this year, I could easily have seen myself stop playing Ocarina of Time for the day and just never coming back to it for no particular reason.

MASTERCLASS IN AMBIENCE

Ocarina of Time's soundtrack was composed by the legendary Koji Kondo. To put it simply, Koji Kondo rules. Responsible for countless iconic Nintendo soundtracks, including the original Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, there's nothing to say about Kondo's work that hasn't been said before: he's a legendary video game composer that absolutely deserves his fame.

Everyone knows the iconic tracks of Ocarina of Time, such as Gerudo Valley, Kokiri Forest, and Hyrule Field. While it's easy to focus on these, I think where Ocarina of Time shines musically is in its ambient tracks, most notably the dungeons. Kondo's ambient work in Ocarina of Time is unparalleled as far as I'm concerned, creating such a dense, palpable atmosphere in all of the dungeons that it's actually somewhat immersive. Coupled with everything else, Kondo's ambient tracks make Ocarina of Time feel more like a horror game than an adventure game. It's what sticks out the most for me about the game, and it's not hard to see how it inspired games such as Dark Souls. It's really something special, even if almost all the tracks are very short loops.

Of additional note are the small Ocarina songs, which are all distinct and pretty memorable. Some have grown to be iconic, especially Saria's Song, Epona's Song, the Song of Storms, and the Song of Time. Of course, all of those are used in different locations as full songs, but all the fast travel songs aren't. I've always really liked the Bolero of Fire, for example, and these are songs that have never really been expanded upon, which I think is a minor shame.

PROS AND CONS

PROS

• Lots of varied and fun content

• Difficulty is mostly just right

• Iconic soundtrack

• Incredible atmosphere, especially for the time

CONS

• Story and characters are minimal, and what's there isn't that great

• Oddly designed puzzles in some dungeons that aren't foreshadowed correctly

• Bosses aren't very interesting to fight and tend to be more about waiting for openings

• Dialogue system is infuriating if you're a fast reader

• Lack of direction means you progress by chance or by waiting for Navi to tell you where to go

WORTH PLAYING?

Just for its historical significance, I think Ocarina of Time is worth playing. It hasn't aged perfectly, but I think it's still playable once you adapt to its slight clunkiness. I thought it was fascinating to see how 3D Zelda games have all come from this, and how even Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have kept parts of this game. The game's influence on other games is also very noticeable; I saw Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus in Ocarina of Time, and I just think that's neat. As I've said, my biggest takeaway from the game is its masterful atmosphere and ambience, and I think it's worth experiencing just for that.

I don't think Ocarina of Time is the best Zelda game ever released; I don't think it makes my top 5, even. There's just too many negatives to the overall package, even if it's fun to play. As far as I'm concerned, such claims are due to nostalgia, which is fine. But no matter what I think, it's undoubtedly the most influential Zelda, and action-adventure (and action RPG) games might not be what they are today without Ocarina of Time.

The game is easily accessible nowadays with Nintendo Switch Online, otherwise seeking out the N64 version or the Gamecube version, the latter of which includes the higher difficulty version Master Quest, is your best bet. Should you want a more modern remake, however, Ocarina of Time 3D for the 3DS is your only option.