There was a long stretch of time where I really looked down on Ocarina. I think I wanted to seem like I was above one of the most acclaimed games of all time, as if this meant I had impeccable taste for being dismissive of a classic. Maybe I was trying to separate nostalgia from the way I thought about old games and was over-compensating, too. As I've gotten older I've realized it's fine to like whatever I like and dislike whatever I dislike, without any need for pretension. Life is too shot for that crap, so I'm perfectly comfortable saying that Ocarina of Time is pretty damn good and I like playing it a whole lot, warts and all.
I also have to cop to having some pretty strong sentimentality for it. It's one of those games I played with my grandpa, and while I never did get around to asking what his favorite game was, the fact that he 100%'d this, often had it already sitting in his N64, and owned two totally different player's guides for it makes me think this might be the one. It is very difficult for me to separate him from this game, and much like my willingness to embrace whatever I like, I have no issues admitting I simply don't want to.
When it came time to play this again, I refrained from doing so on the cart I inherited. In order to start from the beginning I'd have to delete one of his saves, and I just couldn't do that. Instead, I played this on the Gamecube, which for some reason isn't listed in the drop down here. That's been my go-to way to play for quite some time, and I haven't played this game on a cart since at least '99, so I don't think I could really point out any specific version differences off the top of my head. For what it's worth, I think it's a pretty solid port, and while Ocarina was no doubt designed with the N64's bizarre controller in mind (as is the case with all N64 first party games), it translates pretty well to the Gamecube's controller. Maybe it helps that it's also a god damn mess. Buttons looking like a damn Bop-It.
Zelda's gameplay made the transition to 3D about as well as Mario. Link feels great to control, the Z-targeting system makes combat a breeze and provides you with just as much control and awareness as you would have from a top-down perspective. The added dimension allowed Nintendo to do more with puzzles and dungeon layouts, and you can tell they put a lot of thought into each one. Everything feels like a step up from A Link to the Past, and nothing about the charm, design, or strengths of Zelda to that point were lost in translation. For those of us who were able to play it at the time, it's hard to overstate how big of a deal it was. It was the game in 1998, and that year was stacked.
The sound design of this game is also burned into my brain. The little sound effect that plays when rotating the 3D menu around (which I swear was designed less with functionality in mind and more to show off) plays pitch perfect in my head, the noise Link's sword makes when cutting through the meat of an enemy... Everything is colored by that echoy N64 compression, which is just as characteristic as the washed out and blurry graphics the N64 was so well known for. Perhaps it's not technically "good", but I'm fond of it nonetheless. I like Majora's Mask's aesthetics more, I think, but it's so easy for me to get sucked back in to Ocarina on sight and sound alone.
I think today the general consensus is that Ocarina of Time's legacy is over-inflated and that the game itself cannot live up to the image that's been projected over the years, but is still fun to play and is certainly a classic even if it may not be the best. I think that's ultimately the correct assessment, but I have blinders on that let me look past things like the water temple, bad minigames, and janky bow aiming, and I'm perfectly fine not taking them off.
I also have to cop to having some pretty strong sentimentality for it. It's one of those games I played with my grandpa, and while I never did get around to asking what his favorite game was, the fact that he 100%'d this, often had it already sitting in his N64, and owned two totally different player's guides for it makes me think this might be the one. It is very difficult for me to separate him from this game, and much like my willingness to embrace whatever I like, I have no issues admitting I simply don't want to.
When it came time to play this again, I refrained from doing so on the cart I inherited. In order to start from the beginning I'd have to delete one of his saves, and I just couldn't do that. Instead, I played this on the Gamecube, which for some reason isn't listed in the drop down here. That's been my go-to way to play for quite some time, and I haven't played this game on a cart since at least '99, so I don't think I could really point out any specific version differences off the top of my head. For what it's worth, I think it's a pretty solid port, and while Ocarina was no doubt designed with the N64's bizarre controller in mind (as is the case with all N64 first party games), it translates pretty well to the Gamecube's controller. Maybe it helps that it's also a god damn mess. Buttons looking like a damn Bop-It.
Zelda's gameplay made the transition to 3D about as well as Mario. Link feels great to control, the Z-targeting system makes combat a breeze and provides you with just as much control and awareness as you would have from a top-down perspective. The added dimension allowed Nintendo to do more with puzzles and dungeon layouts, and you can tell they put a lot of thought into each one. Everything feels like a step up from A Link to the Past, and nothing about the charm, design, or strengths of Zelda to that point were lost in translation. For those of us who were able to play it at the time, it's hard to overstate how big of a deal it was. It was the game in 1998, and that year was stacked.
The sound design of this game is also burned into my brain. The little sound effect that plays when rotating the 3D menu around (which I swear was designed less with functionality in mind and more to show off) plays pitch perfect in my head, the noise Link's sword makes when cutting through the meat of an enemy... Everything is colored by that echoy N64 compression, which is just as characteristic as the washed out and blurry graphics the N64 was so well known for. Perhaps it's not technically "good", but I'm fond of it nonetheless. I like Majora's Mask's aesthetics more, I think, but it's so easy for me to get sucked back in to Ocarina on sight and sound alone.
I think today the general consensus is that Ocarina of Time's legacy is over-inflated and that the game itself cannot live up to the image that's been projected over the years, but is still fun to play and is certainly a classic even if it may not be the best. I think that's ultimately the correct assessment, but I have blinders on that let me look past things like the water temple, bad minigames, and janky bow aiming, and I'm perfectly fine not taking them off.
letshugbro
1 year ago