This is a game I've beaten before, but it's been a LONG time. The last time I played through OoT was back when the 3DS port came out a decade ago. It's never been a super favorite of mine among 3D Zeldas, but a friend of mine who really really likes it was talking about it recently, and I got the itch to play through it again. I picked it up for really cheap, and it took me about 25 or so hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on original hardware while getting about half of the heart pieces.
Ocarina of Time (at least at the time) positioned itself as the earliest point in the Zelda timeline: a game that would shed light on exactly who this Ganon fellow is and just why he cares so much about Zelda, the Triforce, and this Link fella. Our hero Link is sent on a quest by the Great Deku Tree to meet up with Princess Zelda and stop this darkness he feels creeping over the land, and this is a quest that brings you to every corner of Hyrule and even seven years in the future. It brings the story to life in a really spectacular way (in the most literal meaning of the word) that still holds up well today. While it may not have the deepest story in the world (and at times feels like it may've originally been meant to have one), it does have some nice themes around not giving up in the face of despair. The characters are overall fairly shallow, and it's much more a game around Link's adventure than anything else. That said, they really aren't trying to be, and they do the job of supporting Link's adventure well. It may not have the appeal of deeper writing or characters that some other games in the series have, but the brisk pace of the adventure and the solid use of the characters it does have more than makes up for that. The main meat of the game is overworld questing, find new dungeon, get item in dungeon, complete dungeon, rinse and repeat. It's more or less the same as Zelda games had been before this too, but this does it in an excellent fashion that's still super impressive to this day. Nintendo REALLY wanted Zelda's jump to 3D to hit as hard as Mario's had a few years prior, and damn if they didn't hit the nail on the head. Dungeon and boss design is all around really solid. There is some clunkyness in just how maze-like some dungeons are, however. Wandering from room to room hoping to find that place you passed a key by or can now use a key can be a real pain in some of them. Though there is at times some confusion on exactly where to go or what to do next on the overworld as well, Navi's hints do a pretty good job of kicking you in the right direction when you need it. She's just not quite as helpful in the more complicated dungeons. This is far from the truth for all dungeons, but enough of them had me wandering around for a good while just trying to bump into the next thing to do that I couldn't not mention it here. The only other thing I'd say is worth mentioning in the complaints department is that I really wish you could tap L to swap between C-button loadouts. You assign the myriad of items you have to three of the C buttons, but even then you're constantly going in and out of your inventory to change stuff. That goes double for going into your inventory to take your iron or hover boots on and off, or changing which tunic you're wearing. It's not a game breaking problem by any means, but just how clunky the inventory management can be at times is one of the biggest areas where this game shows its age (and is why they significantly improved upon the inventory management in the 3DS version). Presentation is excellent, with tons of super varied environments, beautiful character designs, and creepy looking enemies all with a timeless artistic style. I like polygonal graphics as a given, sure, but OoT really does hold up as a game that uses the polygons it has to give the game an art style that still really stands up all these years later (even though the resolution can be pretty cramped at times). The music is just as timeless too, with tons of super memorable tracks spawning from this game, even for a Zelda game. Verdict: Highly Recommended. It's likely no surprise that this is a game I recommend highly, but it was definitely a surprise to me that I enjoyed the game quite as much as I did. I tend to be pretty hot and cold when it comes to games in the OoT style, and my playthroughs of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (not to mention even the 3DS version of this all those years ago) had really convinced me this just wasn't a style of game I could gel with anymore. I was very happy to have been proven wrong, and this is absolutely still a game worth checking out.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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