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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D reviewGame: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DPlatform: 3DS Genre: Adventure (Fantasy) Developer: Grezzo AKA: Zelda no Densetsu: Toki no Ocarina 3D (JP) |
Staff review by
Jason Venter 
June 19, 2011
Like most gamers of a certain age, I knew precisely what to expect when I started playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. In the two or three years that followed the release of the original Nintendo 64 version of the game in 1998, I spent so much time with the title that I eventually became immune to its charms. I memorized the dungeons, the enemies, the puzzles and the secrets. As I sat down recently to try my hand at the 3DS update, I already knew that my return to Hyrule in 2011 on the occasion of the franchise’s 25th anniversary would wind up being a generally enjoyable but somewhat melancholy walk down memory lane, one that would likely prompt me to comment on how unkind the passage of time is to even the most beloved of the industry’s classics. As the opening theme song played through the 3DS speakers and the mare Epona galloped across Hyrule Field with Link on her back, I could see that I had kept my expectations reasonable. The title sequence was almost exactly as I remembered it. Someone had gone through and cleaned up the haunting ocarina music so that it sounded more like an instrument and less like noise from muffled television speakers, and there were richer colors to the textures with hills that weren’t so jagged and uneven. The depth of field was pleasant too, but none of the improvements stopped my review’s outline from forming in my head. “This is Ocarina of Time the way you remember it,” I would say, “and that’s just as good and bad as it ever was.”
When I started playing the actual game, though, my perspective changed almost immediately. Link’s prophetic nightmare, the shivering elven boy on the straw mattress, the dying monarch of the forest summoning a fairy and the awkward bump against the fence that looks too much like an open waffle iron all unfolded almost exactly the way I remembered them from previous trips through the game, but I realized with surprise that something unexpected was taking place: I was loving each moment again.
It’s perhaps an odd thing to say, but for the first time in years I was playing one of my favorite games and I was having a blast. Venturing through the tunnels to find my sword didn’t feel like a chore again. It felt like a task to prove my mettle. I peered around the edge of a rock wall and there was the boulder that I knew would be there, rolling toward me. I let it roll past and then I started after it, wound my way through a narrow opening and there I found the sword that I would “borrow” resting in a dingy treasure chest. I’ve often gone through those passages, but the trial was only exciting the first time… and this time.
From a technological standpoint, the effort that Ocarina of Time 3D goes through to make such moments matter again isn’t terribly impressive. Games have come a long way since the original game was developed, so of course a graphical overhaul is going to make a difference when compared to something originally available in the previous millennium. If anything, it’s a surprise that the visuals haven’t improved even more. When you shimmy up close to a wall, its surface doesn’t look as detailed as you might expect and every pixel is evident. Link is a great deal more expressive than ever before, but his hands still look a lot like mittens. The Lost Woods still feel like one screen repeated ten times, except now the moblins that guard the Forest Temple have well-defined abs of steel and menacing scowls that you couldn’t see in the past. So goes the presentation throughout the whole game.
Despite once blazing a trail for 3D graphics in a console adventure game, though, Ocarina of Time was never really something that people played just for its visual splendor. That’s why a modern update has to change so little to work so well. Underneath the aging graphics engine, there rests an otherwise polished design that time can’t render obsolete.
The 3DS just makes everything stand out more. The depth that glasses-free 3D affords Hyrule truly brings the land to life. Environments that time turned into set pieces once again feel like places. The first steps I took into the Temple of Time on the Nintendo 64 felt momentous because of the adventure that I had already had and the uncertainty that shrouded my future. On the 3DS, I instead felt a sense of wonder as I wandered the vacant halls and looked to ceilings now properly vaulted above me. The senses of time and mystery were joined by newer senses of space and perspective. I felt more like a hero who had earned the right to savor his walk through those halls and less like a gamer who sat around pressing buttons.
For all of its strengths, though, Ocarina of Time was never a perfect game. It remains imperfect in its newest iteration, perhaps because the team responsible for the update was afraid to mess with an experience that still lingered so close to perfection. If you’ve had a problem with orientation while exploring Hyrule Field in the past, that problem doesn’t vanish just because Lon Lon Ranch now towers more majestically over the region’s gentle slopes. If the central prairie always struck you as a level hub in transparent disguise, the best I can say now is that its expansiveness finally adds to the charm. Encounters with skeletons in the moonlight still suck, though.
Importantly, the developers were willing to tweak the source material when needed. Now you can find large stones placed throughout the world. If you’re not sure what to do next, you can consult the stones for hints and the game keeps track of which bits of assistance you finally were offered. Such a feature would have been welcome even in the pre-Xbox era. The control scheme has also changed. Thanks to the touch screen, it’s much easier to manage your inventory and to remain aware of what resources you have available. Combat also seems to go more smoothly. I’ve suddenly become very good at actually targeting the enemy I want to harm, circling around him and making mincemeat of him with my sword. Mechanisms that allow you to examine Link’s surroundings have been similarly improved. You simply tilt the handheld this way or that, though the tilting does lead to a blurry screen unless you ditch the 3D effect. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that.
The addition of an actual third dimension has no right to make Ocarina of Time a better game, but that’s precisely what it does. Factor in a challenging “master” quest that you unlock by completing the 20-hour main adventure and you have twice the value for what basically amounts to half the cost of the original release. These are Hyrule and the Zelda franchise at their best: utterly absorbing on a level that other games seldom even approach. Whatever your history with Hyrule, Nintendo’s update to one of its best-loved classics is one that you can’t afford to miss.
I thought I knew precisely what to expect from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I’m glad that I was mistaken.
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