"o fluxo do tempo é sempre cruel... sua velocidade parece diferente para cada pessoa, mas ninguém pode mudá-la..."

tive muitos pensamentos ao finalizar Ocarina of Time, a transição do jovem Link para o herói adulto é extremamente triste, pois ele é lançado em um futuro sombrio e sem esperança, onde Hyrule está em ruínas e as forças do mal dominam. não há espaço para a infância florescer. entendo isso como uma metáfora para a vida real onde muitas vezes somos privados da oportunidade de experimentar uma infância antes de sermos lançados ao mundo adulto, temos que ser nossos próprios heróis. meu primeiro contato com o jogo foi nesse ano e me arrependo de não ter tentado antes, é uma obra prima.

Maybe one day I will write a proper review of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. A lot has already been said about this game as well though so for now I’m just going to leave these ramblings.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of the most important games ever and is considered the best of all time by many for good reason. I think it might be one of the greatest hero’s journeys humans have ever created. It’s also a great coming of age/facing adulthood experience too. There’s a reason why, even if you have never played it before, if you play it today for the first time ever it will still feel nostalgic.

The gameplay and controls were an important breakthrough and a stand out for the time. It left an influence that can still be seen today, I think pretty much all 3D action/adventure games since owe this game. It still holds up too and is great to play now. It’s great game design and ridiculously impressive when you remember it was Nintendo’s first go at a 3D Zelda.

Visually it was breath taking at the time and surprisingly holds up really well for an earlier 3D game. It doesn’t matter how much graphics have improved since it has a great art style and so much charm and atmosphere.

The soundtrack is phenomenal and I would happily throw out entire, well known and liked game franchises to keep it. And those classic sounds, like opening a chest or finding a secret, god damn, so good.

It has one of the best beginnings to any game ever as well. The opening cinematic is great and the village and Deku tree work as a perfect tutorial. By the time you run out onto Hyrule Field the game has perfectly introduced you to the world, the story and gameplay and filled you with wonder and anticipation. The great pacing continues throughout as well.

There are some flaws though, I’m not completely blind. Navi can be annoying and the owl is way to chatty but nostalgia has rounded off this problem. It’s also too easy, although I didn’t think this as a kid. There is also some quality of life improvements needed, like being able to change items/equipment quicker. It has this weird issue too, were at times the game can feel too hand hold-y but then lean more obtuse at other times.

I think this game is pretty much as good as it could possibly be when you factor in the limitations of the time and the N64 hardware.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time blew me away as a kid when it was new and I played it a lot. I played it again as a teen and fell in love and developed a deeper appreciation for it. I played it again as an adult and it solidified its place as the best, even if there are other games I like more. I revisited it again more recently and I still love it. I will be playing this game at least every ten years until they bury me.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time was one of the key games that made me fall in love with this medium. I think it might be time to do another play through.

9.8/10

I think one of the reasons this game manages to stand the test of time so well, at least for me, is its message. It's one that constantly changes and evolves with you the older you get. So many people have talked about this already, so I won't parrot what they've said, but I can't think of any game or even piece of media has managed to share this specific message and pull it off nearly as well, with such rich subtext too. I'm the same age as this game and it's one I still think about often, especially as I get older.

Like most of my experiences with the Zelda franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time took me way longer to complete than I thought it would, as I've been playing this game on-&-off for almost two years now. Maybe it's the game's immeasurable influence on both the Zelda franchise and video games as a whole, or the impossibly high standard that the game has been held to by people online over the years, but for whatever reason, I rarely found myself committing to Ocarina of Time and would play other games instead, even if I did have fun pretty much every time I sat down to play this game. Because of this, I guess it must have been a good thing for me to get so sick of Tears of the Kingdom (which, by the way, I'll get to writing my thoughts on once I've beaten it), as that was what motivated me to finally wrap up my playthrough with this landmark title.

Unlike what a lot of people have asserted for the past 25 years, I don't see this game as a perfect one, but if there's one thing that Ocarina of Time knows how to do exceptionally well, it's creating a distinct and wholly engrossing atmosphere. Every village, dungeon, and temple feels distinct from the last, and the eccentric characters and charming, yet occasionally macabre art direction gave places like the Hyrule Castle marketplace and Kakariko village a ton of life and personality. Koji Kondo's score was especially effective in establishing the mood of each area, with the themes for the Great Deku Tree and the Forest Temple being some of my favorite pieces of video game music ever thanks to just how evocative and hypnotic they are. The temples themselves were already a lot of fun thanks to their solid puzzles, bosses, and utilization of the items that you unlock throughout your adventure, but their unique atmospheres were what really held my attention. Aside from the titular ocarina, one of the main mechanics that Ocarina of Time brought to the table was that of time travel, and while it's slightly annoying to have to go to the Temple of Time whenever you need to go from being an adult to a child or vice versa, I still thought that the concept was well-implemented, as the contrast between the cheery innocence of Hyrule during childhood and the decrepit nightmare that it became seven years later made me want to explore the entire map just to see what was different about each area.

Ocarina of Time is one of those games whose reputation feels impossible to live up to, but even then, I felt that my gripes with the game were big enough to affect my overall experience with it. One of my biggest hurdles with this game would definitely be its control scheme (although this issue can be seen in a majority of the N64's library due to its bizarre anomaly of a controller), as the clunky Z-targeting and stiff aiming made combat encounters not feel entirely responsive or reliable. I also found Navi to be irritating with her useless advice and constant utterances of "Hey! Listen!", although her presence never pushed me to the point of frustration. Talking about this next criticism is a bit of a dead horse by this point, but I still felt that the Water Temple hurt the overall pace of the game, because while I wouldn't consider it to be outright bad, the amount of times that I had to keep equipping and unequipping the same iron boots made it feel tedious and sluggish. Despite its open area, Ocarina of Time is actually quite linear in its progression for both the main story and the side content, and while that isn't a problem by itself, it made me wonder what the point of the empty hub world connecting the actually interesting areas was. Even after unlocking Epona, traversing Hyrule Field was just sort of dull, and unlike something like the open seas of The Wind Waker HD, I was never really compelled to explore this area and instead headed straight for the next temple, side quest, or minigame that I had lined up for me. Ocarina of Time was both highly influential from a design perspective and a fun game in its own right, and while I don't see it as the best Zelda game or even the best game of 1998, let alone of all time, it still managed to stick the landing for me 25 years after its release.

Ocarina of Time is the quintessential videogame. The influence of OoT over the medium is immeasurable and would grant it a place in history by itself. However, the game is also damn good, and holds up to today's standards.

OoT is a masterclass in both game design and storytelling and lays the foundation to the modern videogame. The item-dungeon loop, the quasi-open world, the hub areas integrated into the worldbuilding aspects and the time-related plot twists and implementation of quests and sidequests integrating the game's main gimmick in such a natural manner were basically the template for most major game created ever since.

The use of soundtrack in ambience and storytelling is also extremely inspired and helps the game in its longstanding legacy. The musical and audio motif introduced in OoT are, in fact, one of the more important factors in the series identity up to the most recent entries.

The Kingdom of Hyrule feels alive, which is a feat and a half considering the technical hurdles of the time. The clever use of hub locations contrasting with the ample Hyrule Fields makes the populated areas feel that more important and full of points of interest.

Locations are, in fact, the most important part of the storytelling in OoT. The dungeons all have some significance that is alluded to but explicitly told - a not pioneering, but definetly daring move at the time. And the identity of the locales merges with the level design, capabilities acquired and soundtrack of the dungeons in a manner seldom replicated from then to now.

The UI and UX factors of the game are harder to evaluate. The field has developed tremendously and OoT utilized dated conventions - which still work, as most average gamers even today can navigate without any issues - but the use of c-buttons to alleviate the clutter of so many tools was a functional and perfectly able solution. The menuing can get quite annoying, especially during areas where the boots are used frequently. The d-pad should-ve been better utilized - and this was one of the first QoL solutions implemented by current-day modders. Hindsight is 20-20, however. During its day, there were few 3D games which utilized solutions as effectively as OoT - the Z-targeting was one of the greatest legacies for gameplay UX, and is now ubiuitous because of the great implementation made by OoT.

The story is an apt retelling of the Chosen One trope. While not groundbreaking as a general motif, the time-travelling twist is extremely effective in its implementation. Link is a blank slate and does not impede the player immersion into the story being told. That is very much a good thing, and contributes to the longevity of the game's enjoyability and it's perpetuity in history.

While being prey to the curse of the early 3D graphics, it is one of the least offensive polygons of the era. The artstyle is fantastical enough to make the graphics not too dated for today's standards - there is a kind of charm in them. Of course, in it's heyday OoT was considered an impressive technical feat. There were few games of it's scope back then and the graphical fidelity was amongst the top of its class, especially considering the N64 library - and not using pre-rendered graphics as much and as overtly as the jRPGs of the era. It's use of pre-rendered graphics was, in fact, subtle and melded well with the real-time polygonal graphics. The camera is generally acceptable, but it's finnicky sometimes - a problem that was much more felt in Majora's Mask -, an issue of the times. The ability to move the camera in the way OoT did, however, was extremely innovative.

All in all, OoT is one of those rare games that can be considered a true masterpiece. It is the template for all current open-world action-adventure games and is the starting point to videogames being taken seriously as a medium. It holds up well as an entertainment piece and is legendary as turning point in videogame history.

Probably the comfiest game I've ever played, I find myself coming back to it on an almost yearly basis despite not being much of a gamer compared to most others on this site. I think it's easy to not have that experience due to its overly simple combat when compared to more ambitious games, especially if you're coming to it for the first time in more recent years. It's also hard to remove all its hype when jumping into it. Ultimately it's aged well but the options it offers are very limited compared to games that followed it. Ask only for a comfy adventure, not for a critically acclaimed masterpiece cause no game beheld to that status is going to be a masterpiece for everyone.

The music, cutscenes, graphics and atmosphere represent a purity that comes only from the late 90's and very early 2000's like in games such as Grandia and Skies of Arcadia. It's something that's long since been lost in AAA games and personifies a large part of Zelda's longevity. There's only a very select few amount of games that allow me to get totally immersed and relaxed in its world, whether I'm fighting Twinrova, playing the fishing minigame or running across Hyrule Fields. Any fan of adventure video games or anime need to at least give it a try.

It's hard to talk and summarize the experience of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (OOT) without restating the perennial praises and influences already discussed and passed down by gamers since the game released in 1998. For one, it still holds the #1 ranking as the best-reviewed video game of all time, decades after its release. It also happens to be my favorite game of all time. My choice has never been influenced by the historical hype that this game has carried over generations: it's simply based on personal experience. For those of us who had the privilege to experience this game upon release in 1998 it's easy to see why this game was the best, why it remains the best, and why it will likely remain as one of the best and most influential games of all time.

Starting with the obvious, this game pushed the boundaries on just about every category at the time of its release. Graphically, it was the first 3D Zelda game and the first time we had a chance to explore and experience the confines of Hyrule all while witnessing dynamic weather and time-of-day effects. From a soundtrack perspective, the game features an unsurprisingly number of epic tunes featuring Gerudo Valley, an updated version of Kakariko's Village theme, Intro song, among other timeless masterpieces. Gameplay-wise, there were a number of very important and influential features introduced by Nintendo including quick button mapping for items in a console game, Z-targeting system, advanced use of the Rumble Pak, etc. The game's progression was entertaining paired with the intriguing story and the time traveling featuring the switching of young and adult Link. I feel like this was the first Zelda game that also featured a more involved story and characters versus previous games and perhaps started the trend of fans over-analyzing the lore of the series and different timelines that were later made official by Nintendo making OOT a pivotal game and creating a break/diverging path in the timeline depending on the "fate" of Link.

As time passes, it's becoming more of a challenge to keep OOT's legacy alive since modern games have, are, and will improve on just about every facet. However, for those of us who experienced this game "back in the day", we can keep the legacy alive with our reviews, thoughts, and sharing our experience with younger gamers for as long as we are able to. Cheers for the memories.

𝐻𝑒𝓎, 𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓃!...
Isso aqui é uma obra-prima. Um dos pilares dos jogos modernos e um dos maiores jogos de todos os tempos. Além de ter revolucionado os jogos 3D e popularizado vários elementos utilizados até hoje, é também um modelo dos gêneros de Aventura, Ação e RPG.

O jogo se passa em mundo fantasioso fantástico e tem uma história misteriosa e intrigante, você controla apenas um guri quieto, corajoso e heroico. O mapa do jogo é gigante e seus locais são únicos e incríveis, do mesmo modo que a trilha sonora, mecânicas e itens são muito bem encaixados na trama. Os NPC e Bosses são caricatos, possuem ótimo timing, deixando o jogo satisfatório. Pra mim foi uma experiência simples mas diferenciada, foi única, o jogo me impressionou, entrou pros favoritos.

Zelda Ocarina dá um banho de storytelling e level design (ápice no Shadow Temple) nos triple A de hoje em dia, não é apenas superior como também envelheceu melhor que vinho.
Esse é um jogo atemporal, lançado em 1998 e leva em média 28 horas para zerar, certamente uma joia indispensável para quem curte videogame, obrigatório para quem quer conhecer o topo dos jogos.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀△
nota △⠀ △/10

The water temple is good, actually.

This is it. The high they’ll chase for decades to come. The Zelda Formula, perfected. The quintessential 3D Zelda, on the first try.

There was a time where I was of the opinion that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was just Okay. It was Fine. It was Overrated. Just A Link to the Past with 3D models. That was also a time in my life when I was a moron. Ocarina of Time deserves every bit of praise it ever has or ever will get.

My thoughts on Ocarina of Time was originally a novel’s worth of paragraphs. I went on about how hyrule field’s connectivity to its surrounding towns and locales with only a loading screen separating them pushed the sense of adventure. I rambled about the appealing and memorable characters that lived in those towns and locales. I talked about just how much of a home run Ganondorf’s first on-screen appearance was. I spoke on the coolness of Sheik, and just how much of a character princess Zelda became because of that. There’s so much to like about Ocarina of Time. Too much for a “””review””” like this.

I have played this game at least 10 times, and I've 100%ed it two or three of those times. Those Big Poes can be a real pain in the ass.

You don’t need me to tell you how good it is, it speaks for itself and its voice is loud and clear.

It's got the best Hyrule Field theme too. it brings a tear to my eye every time.

This game is nothing short of legendary.

Everything from the varied locales' atmosphere, to the simple but engaging combat and clever boss fights, to its timeless and iconic soundtrack, to the characters, etc. are all so well done. There's only a handful of games that stood the test of time and this one's no exception. Play it in 1998, you'll be blown away. Play it in 2022 like I did for the very first time on my N64, I was blown away. The devs definitely cooked when they were working on this game.

Após meu não-quase primeiro contato com Zelda: ocarina of time, vim aqui falar um pouco sobre esse jogo cujo me prendeu na narrativa e um cachorro perseguidor, mas depois falo mais sobre isso

Digo não-primeiro contato porque tenho ~vagas~ memórias com o jogo de 1986. Quando eu era criança frequentava uma lan-house e de la, tenho vários flashs de diferentes jogos, mas nada muito marcante, inclusive lembro das costas do kratos de qualquer jogo por aí hehe
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Lembro de só circular e circular pelo mapa sem ao menos entender absolutamente nada, não sabia inglês e o tempo por la era limitado, além de super cheio e com muita informação. Várias crianças brincando, gritando, comendo e chorando.
E talvez tenham até desconectado meu controle várias e várias vezes pra fingir que eu to jogando e eu nem percebi, a famosa síndrome de irmão mais velho com o mais novo kkkkkkkk
meu contato com a franquia sempre foi meio presente, mas nada fundo. Conhecia também por super smash mas no máximo jogava alguns jogos de flashs e nada de mais. Super smash bros era o único baixado no computador na época junto com Mario 64.
Lembro de mandar mensagens para amigos com a mensagem
"vou te mandar um link perai"
e mandava a seguinte foto:
ninguém NUNCA entendia, tinham menos acesso a jogos do que eu e talvez uma criança de 8/9 anos não saiba o que seja um link
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essa mensagem específica me fazia sentir muito sozinha, não tinha muitas pessoas pra comentar sobre jogos ou algo parecido além do meu irmão, nem sequer pokemon assistiam e lembro que isso me incomodava bastante
~ACHO~ que perdi o foco da thread, mas não tem como falar de zelda sem lembrar dessas particularidades e sentimentos da minha infância que me trazem até aqui.

SOBRE OCARINA:

Comecei a jornada crua, sem melhorias ou versões diferentes da original, queria jogar no mesmo modo que ele foi feito pra isso. Bom, isso durou umas..... 2 horas?
Graças a grande e velha amiga pirataria que preservam e ainda adicionam ferramentas
capazes de melhorar a jogatina.
Como aumentar a velocidade do personagem, considerando que você adquire a Epona no meio do jogo e até la você ja andou milhares de quilômetros.
Você também pode melhorar seu cárdio adquirindo uma máscara na loja!
no início, confesso que demorou um pouco pra me prender, mas já no dia seguinte já estava curtindo bastante, mas jogar ocarina teve muitas controvérsias e vários problemas no meio
Faltou tempo pra me dedicar ao jogo, e isso afetou totalmente, algo que supostamente era pra ser prazeiroso se tornou um -trabalho-, já que não aguentava estar há meses empacada no mesmo jogo por falta de tempo, sinto até que era um descaso com a obra.
E o segundo foi, meu controle que simplesmente do NADA apareceu com drift, não conseguia jogar sem trocar os itens ou movimentar a câmera, e mesmo ajeitando(obg mo), tive que configurar todos os botões e deixar o analógico em desuso pra conseguir jogar

ou seja, além de mudar tudo no meio do caminho ficou muito ruim.
E foram nessas condições que zerei uma obra incrível e de tantas inovações diferentes. Sinto que faltei com respeito.
Mas enfim, essa foi um pouco da minha jogatina de modo passional, amanhã sigo falando mais sobre o jogo.

Ocarina of Time nunca esteve num pedestal pra mim. Posso com segurança dizer que nunca o superestimei. Tem jogo melhor, tem até Zelda melhor. Mesmo em seu lançamento, apesar de sua excelência artística e técnica, isso já era verdade.

Por outro lado, não creio que sou similarmente culpado do pecado de subestimar Ocarina of Time. Se é contestável dizer que ele é o "melhor jogo de todos os tempos", é inegável que ele é um dos melhores. Mesmo 26 anos depois, isso permanece verdade.

OoT é uma aula de como se fazer uma aventura 3D, aula que até hoje muitos desenvolvedores não absorveram plenamente. Seja em ritmo, controles, world design, dungeons, variedade, atmosfera, temas... Cada um de seus elementos é feito com uma excelência tão profunda que é até compreensível alguns fãs mais animados o conclamarem como perfeito. Isso, é claro, é exagero. Mas bem menos do que se imagina...

P.S.: Joguei a versão decompilada, Ship of Harkinian. Ter a oportunidade de jogar OoT em 1080p, 120fps, com loadings praticamente inexistentes e vários QoL é prova de que pirataria, principalmente de games da Nintendo, é belo e moral.

(pelamor, eu sei que decompilação não é pirataria, me deixa em paz)

Tal vez no es el mejor videojuego de la historia y mucho menos el mejor dentro de su saga pero es innegable ver el carisma que posee y como se volvió un clásico atemporal dentro del medio, es interesante ver como pese a tener la historia mas arquetípica de todas esta se dispone a ser cínica en ocasiones con el relato de un Niño desdichado de su infancia para salvaguardar a un reino bajo la excusa típica del viaje del héroe, como se les arrebata la vida terrenal a personajes que conocimos durante el viaje para que estos mismos se vuelvan un aporte al lore de la leyenda de los títulos venideros, un clásico de clásicos sin duda alguna.

growing up i loved ocarina of time, first big game i dedicated my time to. i first bought it on gamecube, got stuck on jabu jabu, then decided to finish it on 3ds back when it was the new hot thing. so ofc its my favorite game of all time, that was until i was exposed to the internet. i didnt outright hear awful things about it but gradually i understood the notion that this game shouldnt be #1 and that it was a bit overrated, and i was starting to dislike that i couldnt shake the fact that its my #1 game on the throne hell i even thought my brothers fav game FF7 was a cooler choice. but lately ive been realizing like ''hey, this game did shape me. it gave me a sense of adventure, atmosphere and wonder. this game is epic awesome sauce and i will learn to appreciate through my own lens

That sure was... a video game I guess?

Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, and in some aspects it's not hard to see how much influence it would have in the years going forward. It planted the seeds for multiple new genres of the medium, from the Character Action Game to Open World. It's still visually impressive even today, and it has an incredible atmosphere.

But by golly, the flaws of this game are just so many that it almost overshadows the rest of the experience, and what was once impressive in 1998 is not so in 2023.

Hyrule Field. It's big, it's open, and it is almost absolutely barren aside from the few flying pineapples and Stalfos at night time. Sure, it's visually impressive but for the first half of this game it is utterly miserable to go through.

Playing as Young Link is quite the struggle just because moving through that field with him to go anywhere takes forever. You spend most of your time sidehopping which is nowhere near as cool as say, Alucard's Backdashing in Symphony, and just results in the first half of this game having a very sluggish pace.

Compared to other Zelda titles, even Zelda 1, it's just way too fucking slow. Now getting Epona and the Fast Travel Songs does mitigate the issue somewhat but you can only get those in the second half of the game, which means until that point you are stuck with the utterly snail-like Young Link.

Dungeons... god. I can count with maybe 2 fingers the amount of dungeons in this game that I sort of liked, those being Dodongo's Cavern and the Spirit Temple. Everything else ranged from either being kind of dull and uninteresting (Forest Temple, Water Temple), to actively annoying and unpleasant (Fire Temple, Jabu Jabu, Ice Cavern).

As an aside, how the hell is the Water Temple considered the worst dungeon in a game where both Jabu Jabu and the Ice Cavern exist? Jabu Jabu is a aesthetic nightmare with many places that just look the same and enemies you can't hit without the boomerang, as well as being an escort mission, and Ice Cavern... fucking christ, Ice physics with a Link who has some of the most awkward movement in the series... no thanks. Water Dungeon was at most just boring to go through, the switching of the boots was not nearly as bad as I was told. (Even then I liked the Iron Boots because they make funny noises, I guess I'm just easy to please)

Onto the unpleasant dungeons, Fire Dungeon was ass less because of the actual Fire and more because of how terrible Link controls. Link will sometimes just jump if you're even remotely near an edge, and in Fire Dungeon's case that can result in you falling several floors down and having to redo a fuck ton of things to get back to where you were. I genuinely hate having to platform with Link in this game simply because of this. There will be points where Link is landing directly on top of a box and yet he'll still careen to his death. It's fucking irritating.

Spirit Temple was cool at least, since it was one of the few times where the game actually asks the player to use everything in their toolset, and not just as Adult Link but also as Child Link. I wish we had more dungeons that actually incorporated the time travel aspect this game has, but alas we don't get that.

Combat, is mediocre. This isn't really too much of a sticking point since arguably combat isn't that important for Zelda but it was still a little disappointing, especially with the bosses.

There is not a single boss in this game that was genuinely compelling. Just like with the dungeons we have two camps, bosses that were a snoozefest and bosses that were irritating, as well as the additional third group that has both.

Twinrova, god I hate Twinrova. In concept it's a super cool fight, you reflect the magic from the one sister to the sister weak to their magic. The problem is that sometimes you just flat out can't hit the other sister because they are on the other side of the screen. Then the second phase happens and is worse because it just becomes a fucking waiting game of hoping she'll launch three of the same spell so you can absorb it with your shield and hit her with it.

On the opposite camp we have Volvagia... what a nothing fight. There was a point during it where I just stood still for 30 seconds and took no damage, and then I was able to completely body the damn thing.

Even Dark Link was a joke, with me just doing thrust attacks utterly annihilating the poor guy.

Really the only boss I even sort of liked besides King Dodongo was Bongo Bongo, simply because it asked me to use more than one tool which was cool.

The Ganon fight was cool from a visual and thematic standpoint but was also way too easy for a final boss. Maybe that was the point but it just didn't feel satisfying to me.

Minigames. I will now completely break the rational character I've been writing as up to this point to rant about this. I HATE every minigame in this game, and I HATE that Heart Pieces and Ammo Upgrades are locked behind them. Now I'm sure you'll probably say "oh but those are optional" and sure you're not wrong, but I just like having more health you dig? I like to be more capable, and having more health and ammo is a way to doing that. I would complain less if a single minigame in this game wasn't some of the worst shit imaginable.

The bow/slingshot games are easily the worst of the bunch, you have no reticle. In regular combat this isn't so bad since A. Lock-on is available, and B. You are way less limited in your ammo capacity, so you have many opportunities to adjust your aim. Not so with these. Limited ammo, no lock on, and you have to get it PERFECT, which is just the Gonorrhea Icing on this AIDS Cake.

The others aren't much better, Bombchu Bowling can be utter hell until you find a consistent strategy, the Treasure Chest minigame is just pure guess work (unless you've done a dungeon you can only unlock in the second half of the game). The Dampe Racing is a pain in the ass, and isn't optional the first time since you need the Hookshot to progress. The Horseback racing to get Epona just feels tacked on and makes the process of getting her feel slow and repetitive.

Really the only ones that I didn't outright hate were the jam sessions with the Skull Kids and the Frogs.

The least offensive was surprisingly the fishing minigame, was really easy to figure out. (And very obvious that Sonic Adventure stole from it wholesale).

In general I am just a person who hates minigames locking upgrades, as someone who grew up with Sonic and having things locked behind Special Stages I have just always hated the concept. Maybe these won't bug you, but for me they were easily the lowest point of the game, not helped at all by their genuine lack of quality.

So that brings me to my final issue, which is more an issue that encapsulates problems this franchise has more so than anything: Zelda herself.

I think it is kind of ridiculous how whenever Zelda does anything in this game, it backfires horribly. She sends Link to get the Pendants so he can get the Master Sword and stop Ganondorf from getting to the Sacred Realm... only for doing so to result in him getting there anyway, making her entire plan fall apart.

Then there's her as Shiek, who in my opinion is just... such wasted potential. Shiek only exposits to Link and teaches him the Fast Travel Songs. Outside of that, the only thing of note is that Shiek gets her ass beaten by a fucking ghost and then proceeds to do nothing about it. Would it not have been cool to at least have a dungeon where you and Shiek work together? I mean, Jabu Jabu had a similar premise with Ruto and while I think it didn't work there, the potential for a good dungeon using teamwork between you and Shiek would be cool. Unfortunately we didn't get that.

And of course, the moment she removes the Shiek disguise, she is almost immediately captured by Ganondorf. It's just really upsetting.

I won't lie, this criticism is also amplified by things that happen in Tears of the Kingdom, but I can't help but feel like that stuff really started being set in stone with Ocarina.

Zelda is never allowed to have genuine agency, and whenever she is she or the world is always summarily punished for it. Her entire thing ends in three timelines where the world gets fucked over by Ganondorf in some capacity. I can't help but feel like this series reeks of misogyny when the main female lead isn't allowed to be anything but a damsel and can't genuinely do anything without being punished for doing so. It's just a little fucking uncomfortable to me.

This applies to the entire series too, and while talking in Tokyo Millennium I basically came to the conclusion that Zelda is only allowed true agency when:
A. She's in Super Smash Bros.
B. She's not even in the game
C. The Fucking CDI Games
D. Spirit Tracks, where she spends most of the game dead

I just can't help but see these underlying signals Nintendo is trying to send to me which in big bold letters spell out the word "MISOGYNY".

To conclude, I don't hate Ocarina of Time but it sure just is ok. It's so ok, it's average, and arguably that's far worse than just being bad.

I left this game feeling filled but disappointed at the same time. Maybe it's my fault for playing this as a break game from Tears of the Kingdom, which has been an utterly phenomenal time that I genuinely could not put down, and I'm measuring OoT against it but at the same time I feel like I would always be disappointed.

Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, but to me it's just another game to checkmark off the list. A game that doesn't impress, but doesn't fill me with pure animosity.

It's just ok.