TEH. BEST. GAMES. EVAR.
By Andr'e Swartley

Issue #24
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo 64, Wii Virtual Console
Rating: E for Everyone

The Legend of Zelda lit up TV screens for the first time in 1987, appearing on shiny gold-colored Nintendo cartridges. The game starred a young boy named Link-Zelda was the princess whom Link was adventuring to rescue-and featured a gigantic open world called Hyrule. Indeed, the game was so large that it allowed players to save their games so they could leave Hyrule to eat, sleep, attend school, etc. and come back where they had left off. Considering that most Nintendo games could easily be beaten in an hour or two, Hyrule seemed practically endless.

Zelda fell so far outside the normal gaming experience that it failed to fit into any genre. Was it an action game? RPG? Platformer? Puzzle game? It was all of these and more. The Legend of Zelda was, for lack of a better term, a Zelda game. More recent "Zelda games" of note would be Okami, Darksiders, and 3D Dot Game Heroes, the latter skirting the line between homage and loving plagiarism.

For persistent players who could handle both the size and difficulty of the game, the final obstacle between Link and Zelda was a large green pig-sorcerer called Ganon. But finding Ganon wasn't simply a matter of wandering into the correct dungeon. Link would need a sword, shield, bombs, bow and arrow, boomerang, and a couple dozen other items to access Ganon's lair.

Find all the gear, defeat the pig, rescue the princess. The formula was so successful that basically every Zelda game since the first has obeyed those three rules. Eleven years and a few sequels after the original Zelda, the first 3D Zelda game arrived on the Nintendo 64 to blow the socks off its predecessors.

The Ocarina of Time starts you off in the green tights of a new Link who is younger than he was in previous games (to my knowledge, none of the Zelda games feature the same Link or the same Zelda). After the opening credits, Link awakes in a tree house with a little blue fairy yelling in his ear. Apparently this is a big deal; outside the tree house, a friend of Link's compliments him on finally getting a fairy of his own. She says he must now visit the Great Deku Tree. The tree serves as the game's tutorial but also suggests to players that, unlike previous installments, Ocarina of Time may direct players where to go and when, unlike previous titles in the series.

As Link, you run around the well-established world of Hyrule gathering new items, meeting new characters, and bashing plenty of monsters on the way. Considering the enormous amount of items Link can carry and use, the game's controls are simple to the point of genius. Link himself can only run, slash with his sword, and perform a little roll. And yet Ocarina is packed with entertaining and mostly intuitive puzzles, the absurdly complicated Water Temple being a famous exception.

The most useful item in the game is the Ocarina, a flute Link uses to perform magic to travel to different locations, summon rain storms, declare his political alliances, make frogs dance, etc. But Link also earns a bow with upgradable arrows, a boomerang, suits that let him withstand fire and breathe underwater, and a trove of other gear. By far the most entertaining item is the Hookshot, a grappling hook straight from Batman's utility belt. Most items are located in dungeons and must be used to defeat that particular dungeon's final boss.

The plot of Ocarina, though meager compared to the likes of Final Fantasy VII, which came out a year earlier, is still as entertaining as its armory. After a few dungeons Link meets Princess Zelda, who tells him of a plot by King Ganondorf to take over the world with a mystical triangle called the Triforce. Once again, none of these ideas would be terribly new to Zelda fans.

Unsurprisingly, Ganondorf kidnaps Zelda, but not before she tells Link he must visit the Temple of Time and travel seven years into the future. There he will battle through six elemental temples to gain enough skills to fight Ganondorf. Perhaps slightly more complicated than the original Zelda's story, but straightforward nonetheless.

No Japanese game would be complete without sidequests, and Ocarina does not disappoint. There are 100 golden spiders to kill, 30-odd heart containers that will increase your hitpoints, hidden (and hideously ugly) fairies who will grant you new magical powers. And since Ocarina lets you travel between past and future, as well as a dynamic day and night cycle, you can visit most sections of Hyrule in four different states. Complicated? You bet. Annoying? Maybe a couple times. Fun? Nonstop.

The fact that Nintendo re-released The Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console means that the first 3D Zelda is now accessible to millions of new gamers who may not have been hip to the gaming scene (or even born yet) in 1998. And with an expected announcement of a brand new Zelda game for the Wii later this summer, now is the perfect time to learn some gaming history. Ocarina is arguably the best game in a classic franchise, and still well worth your time.

Final Grade: A-