{"id":43036,"date":"2016-05-12T17:19:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T00:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/?p=43036"},"modified":"2019-03-06T10:38:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T18:38:28","slug":"does-it-hold-up-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/does-it-hold-up-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Does It Hold Up? The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nintendo’s\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/a>,<\/em><\/strong> considered the pinnacle amongst The<\/em> Legend of Zelda<\/em>\u00a0series, is also one\u00a0of the most highly regarded video games ever created. But seeing as how nearly 20 years have passed since the game came out on the N64, we’d like to take a moment to\u00a0give a critical review to\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em> and\u00a0see whether or not this beloved game can\u00a0hold a candle to current\u00a0AAA video game titles\u00a0released for consoles\u00a0like the Xbox One\u00a0or the PS4.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with the graphics: the most glaring deterrent that could keep\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em>\u00a0from being considered a contender with modern AAA games. While the 64-bit graphics of Nintendo’s N64 are passable for an indie game, there’s no doubt that a AAA game would be laughed at today for using such low-quality images,\u00a0and probably no one would even give the game a shot except maybe for nostalgia’s sake. But don’t let that be a deciding factor! The 64-bit graphics of the original release aren’t the only things that fans\u00a0have had to work with.\u00a0Through the years, Ocarina of Time<\/em> has been ported and released on\u00a0systems including the GameCube, 3DS, and Wii, updating the game’s graphics to be in line with other games available on those\u00a0consoles and bringing the game back to the forefront of gamers’ minds, so the graphics become\u00a0hardly an issue.<\/p>\n

Looking at gameplay, like the graphics, is another area where\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em> could be deemed as slightly lacking with the fact that game designers were just barely getting introduced to the budding convention of 3-D graphics\u00a0at the time. Surprisingly, though, one finds hardly a rough transition from\u00a0going back to play the game on the N64. Though it takes a small amount of time once again getting used to the single-joystick style of the N64 after\u00a0only\u00a0using dual joysticks for so many years, one finds that\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em>‘s game designers actually had quite a solid grasp over the ideas behind these new 3-D graphics capabilities. Despite only having the single joystick of the N64 controller for\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em>, the camera angles are managed very well in the game, and shifting the camera back to Link’s third person perspective is simple with just a click of the “Z” button.<\/p>\n

Lastly, let’s talk about story! Even though it’s\u00a0just yet another addition to The Legend of Zelda<\/em> series,\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em>\u00a0serves to advance the overall story of the series and distinguishes itself from the other games in the franchise by imbuing the player with an epic storyline that the other\u00a0Legend of Zelda<\/em> games just do not provide. I commend Nintendo in their attempts to replicate the feeling of\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em>‘s story by continuing the tradition of deep feelings and emotions in the games, but there’s something about\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em> that makes it an outlier in\u00a0the series.\u00a0Maybe it’s that amazing array of music that the game uses to tie everything together?<\/p>\n

Whatever the case, we see that time and again, the most popular games which\u00a0last the longest, and resonate the most with audiences, are the games that allow secondary and tertiary approaches to the graphics and gameplay, keeping the story as the centermost focus of the game and allowing the story to culminate\u00a0in a satisfying and cathartic way for everyone involved – both the character and\u00a0<\/em>the audience. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em>\u00a0satisfies the soul to such a high degree, thanks in part to the ability for video games to transcend traditional storytelling conventions regarding\u00a0an\u00a0audience’s interaction\u00a0with character, intertwining the two to a point where they cannot be untangled. Throughout Ocarina of Time’s<\/em>\u00a0story, the audience\u00a0becomes<\/em> Link. His successes become their own, and oh how prosperous we feel when we’ve traversed all throughout Hyrule’s past and present in order to finally deal Ganondorf his final blow.<\/p>\n

It’s just about the best thing ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nintendo’s\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, considered the pinnacle amongst The Legend of Zelda\u00a0series, is also one\u00a0of the most highly regarded video games ever created. But seeing as how nearly 20 years have passed since the game came out on the N64, we’d like to take a moment to\u00a0give a critical review to\u00a0Ocarina of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,3792,2741],"tags":[4196,3145,112,756,3857,3648,1968,4197,219],"yst_prominent_words":[32735,32733,6193,32734,6211,32730,9313,32725,32727,32729,32724,32728,23016,6276,5825,32736,6010,32731,32726,32732],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43036"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64262,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43036\/revisions\/64262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43036"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}