never actually had a copy of this to play from start to finish until the wii years but the official strategy guide my brother got with a nintendo power subscription was a formative literary work of my childhood

in first grade for a writing assignment i just started retelling the opening sequence of ocarina of time based on how often i had read it and my teacher was so impressed she had me come talk to her one on one to tell me how good of a story it was and how i should keep working on it. i never had the heart to break it to her

also continue to appreciate the guide's intro section where it laid out a (real-world) timeline of the preceding zelda games that treats them as a series of retellings & reinterpretations of myths and oral histories that are inherently not going to resolve into a cohesive whole rather than the ensuing years of "zelda timeline EXPLAINED" shit