It´s complicated to talk about a game like Zelda OOT, it´s acclaimed as the best videogame in history, if not, one of the best, to talk or review a game like that is hard, take into account that probably more talented people than you has reviewed a game like this so whatever you write will look like trash, oh well, still, there´s nothing wrong in sharing about your passions, even if you are not the most talented person in the world.
I´ll be honest with you, since a few weeks, I´ve had a weird urge to just play Zelda, I don´t know, I have tons of games on my list but still I decided to return to Zelda, I decided to begin with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time since it´s on the Nintendo Switch Online. I´ll be frank, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is probably my favorite game of everything I´ve played in my life sooo I´m kind of blinded by nostalgia, I´m not sure if you´ll be able to see negative things on this post.
Okay, I´ll get rid of this first and I´m talking about the side black bars you can see on the screen, I really dislike that the Nintendo Switch Online is not even able to show games at widescreen, it´s a little pathetic to be honest, I know nothing about developing a videogame but I don´t think it´d be hard to a company like Nintendo to give their games a widescreen, a good thing is that it´s not anooying once you get used to it, trust me, I felt akward at first, but in 5 minutes or less I kind of forgot they were there in the first place, I´m not justifying it, I´m just saying, it´s easy and fast to get used. Oh, the game runs at 720p, you know, it´s actually my first time playing this game at a higher resolution than 360p so good for me I think, but it should be at 1080p.
Releasing games for the Nintendo 64 was limiting for particular reasons, as everyone know, the Nintendo 64 used cartridges and that wasn´t the best option, for example, a cartridge doesn´t have that much of storage space, take into account that The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time weights 32 mb, a game that big into a little cartridge like that was a miracle, but it ended having many limitations such as not having cutscenes, voice acting was out of the question as well. What I just said can be applied to the visual design of the game.
When someone designs a videogame, there are things like concept arts and stuff, things like that let you have an idea of how the game will look, for example, if you look at the concept art from OOT, you´ll see there was an idea about making the game look colorful, this was achieved on the 3DS remake where everything in the game has a pronounced color palette, however, this is not the case on the Nintendo 64 game, I mean, colors are like more opaque, this is pretty noticeable once you get to be Adult Link, I don´t know how to explain it, the Nintendo 64 game tries to look ¨realistic¨ but maintaining the childish tale esthetic, while the 3DS remake looks way too colorful and more childish, not a bad thing tho.
Temples has always been an important characteristic in Zelda games, people at that time only had experience working on 2D dungeons so it´s normal to think they may flop a little bit because it´s not easy to translate a working formula from 2D to the 3D but I really don´t know how they managed to do, temples in this game are amazing, more if you take into account this was their first time making them in 3D, the game design on these temples are just flawless. If I had to mention just one temple, I´d say my favorite one is the Forest Temple, that temple is just peak gaming design, one of my favorite dungeons in the whole franchise to be honest, it still impress me that a place like that twisted corridor existed at that time, I know it doesn´t look like big ideal nowadays but designing a dungeon like at that time was just wow.
Alright, it´s hard for me to think bad things about this game at all but I´d say something like some items are kind of forgetful if you get what I mean, you use them like once or twice because of the dungeon/temple but once you get out of there, mostly you´ll never use many items from the game, but there are indeed many items that you´ll probably use through the whole game like bow and arrows or the hookshot which is pretty useful. I mean, this is something that happens in many Zelda games so I don´t know, still, an issue is an issue, take for example the hammer, it´s an item you get from the Fire Temple, it´s cool but I just used it for this temple, yeah, it´s stronger than a sword but also heavier so pretty slow to use, you end up forgetting about its existence.
Hyrule Field was amazing for its time but the more I play this game through the years, I can´t help but feeling that is somehow not that interesting to explore, I mean, I think this is due to the NPC´s, they are not interesting at all, none of them, no one is remarkable, everyone is so forgettable, for example, there is this mainquest that you do on the dessert and once you are free to talk to all the women in the dessert, they tell you the exact same thing, all of the NPC´s, this also applies to the side quests which are boring as well, you know, your classic getting to point B from point A.
The combat system is fun and not complicated to get into, it´s basically waiting your chance to attack once the enemy is vulnerable, this game uses a targeting system and as I understand, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the first game to include a good targeting system, there was already a game with a targeting system and that was a Megaman game if I recall right but it´s said that said targeting system was mediocre. It´s funny when you think about it because at that time, there wasn´t a way to target things or enemies in a good way, it´s something that we have so integrated these days, like, it´s impossible to play something without a targeting system, I can imagine the developers saying stuff like ¨How do we do to target this and not feeling unnatural¨, I don´t know, something as simple as that, was probably an inferno to develop at that time.
The Legend of Zelda doesn´t have the most elaborated stories and that´s a fact everyone knows and that´s okay, but one thing that The Legend of Zelda has is lore, a big quantity of lore, hell, the word big is not enough to describe the inmense lore that this franchise contains, a good and interesting lore actually. The thing is, Ocarina of Time does a lot of exposition, like ... a lot and that kills the pace for me, it doesn´t have once, twice, it happens a lot of times and it gets annoying. In case you don´t know, exposition is when nothing happens in the story but a bunch of details about lore or details are told by the reader, you could say is a literary device, have you ever watched a film where nothing interesting happens and there is one narrator who is telling you sort of details about the lore of the world? That´s exposition and I personally dislike that.
I forgot to mention that this version of the game is based on the latest updated release on the Nintendo 64, this version has many aesthetic changes from the base game, one of the most obvious is that in the final boss, Ganondorf vomits red blood but in this version it vomits a green liquid, and in its final form, instead of releasing red blood from its injuries made by the Master Sword, he just releases a green liquid as before. Also, in the base game, theare are many things, objects or just blocks that have like a stamp of the islamic religition, however, in this version, that was changes as well. As a side note, there was a change in the soundtrack of the Fire Temple, you can listen to actual arabic people singing, I´m not sure of the details but I think said singing was related to the islamic God, Allah or because of the copyright idk; of course, this was changed on the final version as well, it´s an interesting topic that you can investigate by yourself :).
When playing this game, I was at the Shadow Temple and I entered one door and when I noticed, this room is actually like a torture room, I mean, the whole Shadow Temple is somehow like a prison where people was tortured and you don´t have to be the smartest people in the world to see that in this room there is red blood on the floor and a weird X structure, my theory is that people were put on the structure and once there, they were tortured. You know, it´s a shame things like this won´t be seen in a Zelda game anymore, the franchise has become so mainstream that I doubt something like will be ever seen again.
There are people over the internet saying that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has aged badly but I´m not sure about that, I´m not gonna say that it looks beautiful to the eye nowadays but it still looks good more if you take into account this is a game from 1998, it have endured well the passage of time. However, it´d be cool if Nintendo actually had like a compatibility system and you had like the option to play it with better textures at 4k + 60fps and stuff but let´s be honest that´s not gonna happen, if ONLY there was a PC port which let you do that stuff, too bad it doesn´t exist, (wink wink).
All of the screenshots were taken by me