With BOTW 2 allegedly coming out this year, I realized that I have a pretty big Zelda backlog I need to get through beforehand. I mean, I haven't even played BOTW 1, and the only 3D Zelda I've played are Wind Waker and Majora's Mask 3D. So I'm going to be dedicating the next couple months to playing through several Zelda games, not because I need to know the lore, just because I really want to see the evolution of this series over the years, and why some games get the reputations they get.
The first thing that really pops out about Ocarina of Time is it's ambition and presentation. In my head, when you wanted to make a "cinematic experience" during this era, with big cutscenes that constantly change camera shots, a large cast of characters, and a story that feels mythological in its scope, you did that kind of stuff on the PS1. And yet they pull it off on the N64 to an impressive degree. I understand why people were head over heels in love with this game on release, it conveys the grandness of this world and story so well both in cutscenes and in the environment itself. It's funny, nowadays the word "feels like a movie" is used as an insult, but Ocarina of Time definitely borrows from film and anime in order to present its story and world, but in ways that never betray the gameplay and only enhance it. I mean, z-targeting literally adds letterboxes to the screen and it does usually make fights feel way cooler. You're doing backflips, blocking attacks, trading blows, and while the camera occasionally freaks and ruins the moment, a lot of times it really enhances the drama and scale of these fights, whether it be giant bosses or an enemy with their own sword and shield. The Dark Link fight would be raw as fuck if it were in a movie, but it's in a game and it's raw as fuck to play.
The cutscene direction really gives off this feeling of excitement the developers had over finally being able to tell a story like this, a whole new dimension for expression. There are some cutscenes where the camera just fucking swings all over the place, some that use first-person, some that cut rapidly between different shots and angles, it really has the energy of "look at what we fucking did!" I've gone on about the presentation too much already, but it can't be understated how good this game is at making this story and setting feel huge, like I said at the beginning, mytological. Ocarina of Time obviously borrows a lot from Link to the Past, but ends up feeling more like the sacred text that every other Zelda game has to respond to.
Despite this grand feeling, Hyrule Field itself kind of feels both big and small at the same time. Like, it does take a while to get from place to place on foot, but also it's very funny that Hyrule Castle is like a couple minutes away on foot from Kokiri Forest. Coming back to this feels like when you go back to your elementary school and feel like a giant, which is pretty fitting considering the whole premise of the game. It's kind of genius, the game is all about seeing the world in two different ages, the things that change and the things that stay the same despite everything, and interacting with the game at different points in the player's life changes how the player sees it. Part of me feels like I'll never really completely "get" this game the way its greatest fanatics do because I wasn't there when it came out and I didn't interact with it the way they did and still continue to.
But the thing about playing Ocarina of Time right now is that, well its kind of hard to get through its most obtuse moments knowing that later on there are games that fix them. Obviously its kind of foolish to hold an old game like this to modern standards, but throughout my playthrough there were little moments that just made me think "man, I really wanna move on to the next game". Part of it might be the fact that I know so much of what happens in this game already due to hearing about it from other people, whereas games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are mostly unknown to me outside of very basic parts of their premises. Especially in the beginning, when you don't have the conveniences of adulthood, the urge to drop the game was honestly something I had to fight. While the dungeons have some cool moments and real nail their atmosphere, I didn't find many of them mechanically interesting until you get to the future.
Another thing that bothered me was the lack of substantial side stuff. This is probably a selfish expectation to put on this game, but Wind Waker and Majora's Mask have a huge amount of side things to do, in Majora you could argue that the side objectives are just as important as the main ones. But I found myself constantly going "Okay what side stuff is there to do before the next dungeon...oh nothing I guess". I love WW and Majora for their side content, so this ended being one of my biggest turn-offs for this game. I was also surprised how there wasn't that much interaction between the past and future timelines, in terms of doing something in the past to affect the future, outside of the actual story of course. I mean, there were definitely moments that did that, the Spirit Temple being one of my favorite instances of that, but I don't know, I guess I thought it would be more like the Dark World in LTTP.
But the game does do a really good job of making Adult Link feel so much more empowering and in control than Child Link. You go from every adult talking down to you to basically every NPC falling in love with you, you actually have a ride instead of walking everywhere like a high schooler with no license, and you can wear red clothes instead of the clothes your tree dad told you to wear. Plenty of great writing has been done about how Ocarina of Time portrays growing up and having to leave the innocence of childhood, so I won't try to write a worse version of those reviews. I'll just say it's all really effective and smartly done, and it being done in an N64 game with, compared to other large game stories at the time, not a particularly long script, is kind of mind-blowing.
I'm glad I finally finished this game, but I understand why I put it down several times in the past. It's a fairly bumpy road but I understand why it has the status it does, and why someone could still find a lot of value in it even when more modernized takes on this game exist. Some stray thoughts that I couldn't fit in the review:
- No wonder so many kids had this game invade their nightmares, it's terrifying and isn't afraid to just show you some fucked up shit. Honestly huge respect for never holding back on the horror and grotesque aspects.
- Water Temple wasn't as bad as it could be, but that's unfortunately because I saw a video of someone analyzing it before playing this, and while I didn't remember everything in the video, a lot of the things they brought up helped me navigate it in a way most people were not able to. Still died to Dark Link and still had a "damn it I need to find a key" moment so I still had some of The Water Temple Experience.
- Music is firing on all cylinders in this game, Kondo shows an insane range here between the Ocarina songs, the overworld themes, and the dungeon themes. Love in general how otherworldly and intimidating the dungeons present themselves as. Also being able to pitch bend on the Ocarina is so cool, it really feels like an instrument, which is something Wind Waker honestly missed out on.
The first thing that really pops out about Ocarina of Time is it's ambition and presentation. In my head, when you wanted to make a "cinematic experience" during this era, with big cutscenes that constantly change camera shots, a large cast of characters, and a story that feels mythological in its scope, you did that kind of stuff on the PS1. And yet they pull it off on the N64 to an impressive degree. I understand why people were head over heels in love with this game on release, it conveys the grandness of this world and story so well both in cutscenes and in the environment itself. It's funny, nowadays the word "feels like a movie" is used as an insult, but Ocarina of Time definitely borrows from film and anime in order to present its story and world, but in ways that never betray the gameplay and only enhance it. I mean, z-targeting literally adds letterboxes to the screen and it does usually make fights feel way cooler. You're doing backflips, blocking attacks, trading blows, and while the camera occasionally freaks and ruins the moment, a lot of times it really enhances the drama and scale of these fights, whether it be giant bosses or an enemy with their own sword and shield. The Dark Link fight would be raw as fuck if it were in a movie, but it's in a game and it's raw as fuck to play.
The cutscene direction really gives off this feeling of excitement the developers had over finally being able to tell a story like this, a whole new dimension for expression. There are some cutscenes where the camera just fucking swings all over the place, some that use first-person, some that cut rapidly between different shots and angles, it really has the energy of "look at what we fucking did!" I've gone on about the presentation too much already, but it can't be understated how good this game is at making this story and setting feel huge, like I said at the beginning, mytological. Ocarina of Time obviously borrows a lot from Link to the Past, but ends up feeling more like the sacred text that every other Zelda game has to respond to.
Despite this grand feeling, Hyrule Field itself kind of feels both big and small at the same time. Like, it does take a while to get from place to place on foot, but also it's very funny that Hyrule Castle is like a couple minutes away on foot from Kokiri Forest. Coming back to this feels like when you go back to your elementary school and feel like a giant, which is pretty fitting considering the whole premise of the game. It's kind of genius, the game is all about seeing the world in two different ages, the things that change and the things that stay the same despite everything, and interacting with the game at different points in the player's life changes how the player sees it. Part of me feels like I'll never really completely "get" this game the way its greatest fanatics do because I wasn't there when it came out and I didn't interact with it the way they did and still continue to.
But the thing about playing Ocarina of Time right now is that, well its kind of hard to get through its most obtuse moments knowing that later on there are games that fix them. Obviously its kind of foolish to hold an old game like this to modern standards, but throughout my playthrough there were little moments that just made me think "man, I really wanna move on to the next game". Part of it might be the fact that I know so much of what happens in this game already due to hearing about it from other people, whereas games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are mostly unknown to me outside of very basic parts of their premises. Especially in the beginning, when you don't have the conveniences of adulthood, the urge to drop the game was honestly something I had to fight. While the dungeons have some cool moments and real nail their atmosphere, I didn't find many of them mechanically interesting until you get to the future.
Another thing that bothered me was the lack of substantial side stuff. This is probably a selfish expectation to put on this game, but Wind Waker and Majora's Mask have a huge amount of side things to do, in Majora you could argue that the side objectives are just as important as the main ones. But I found myself constantly going "Okay what side stuff is there to do before the next dungeon...oh nothing I guess". I love WW and Majora for their side content, so this ended being one of my biggest turn-offs for this game. I was also surprised how there wasn't that much interaction between the past and future timelines, in terms of doing something in the past to affect the future, outside of the actual story of course. I mean, there were definitely moments that did that, the Spirit Temple being one of my favorite instances of that, but I don't know, I guess I thought it would be more like the Dark World in LTTP.
But the game does do a really good job of making Adult Link feel so much more empowering and in control than Child Link. You go from every adult talking down to you to basically every NPC falling in love with you, you actually have a ride instead of walking everywhere like a high schooler with no license, and you can wear red clothes instead of the clothes your tree dad told you to wear. Plenty of great writing has been done about how Ocarina of Time portrays growing up and having to leave the innocence of childhood, so I won't try to write a worse version of those reviews. I'll just say it's all really effective and smartly done, and it being done in an N64 game with, compared to other large game stories at the time, not a particularly long script, is kind of mind-blowing.
I'm glad I finally finished this game, but I understand why I put it down several times in the past. It's a fairly bumpy road but I understand why it has the status it does, and why someone could still find a lot of value in it even when more modernized takes on this game exist. Some stray thoughts that I couldn't fit in the review:
- No wonder so many kids had this game invade their nightmares, it's terrifying and isn't afraid to just show you some fucked up shit. Honestly huge respect for never holding back on the horror and grotesque aspects.
- Water Temple wasn't as bad as it could be, but that's unfortunately because I saw a video of someone analyzing it before playing this, and while I didn't remember everything in the video, a lot of the things they brought up helped me navigate it in a way most people were not able to. Still died to Dark Link and still had a "damn it I need to find a key" moment so I still had some of The Water Temple Experience.
- Music is firing on all cylinders in this game, Kondo shows an insane range here between the Ocarina songs, the overworld themes, and the dungeon themes. Love in general how otherworldly and intimidating the dungeons present themselves as. Also being able to pitch bend on the Ocarina is so cool, it really feels like an instrument, which is something Wind Waker honestly missed out on.
mariowithagun
2 years ago