Back when I was a kid my older brother got this game after seeing me struggle so much trying to play BoF IV. He didn't really like it that much, we were big JRPG heads and anything that didn't look or play like Final Fantasy was discarded as a waste of time. I thought it looked pretty cool tho so it always hovered somewhere in the back of my mind.

Over the years i've only heard this game mentioned as the "bad one", "the one that's plays badly", etc etc.

After my BoF IV replay I was willing to give it a shot cause I was always fascinated by the concept of "you're stuck underground and your journey is to make it to the outside world." Turns out I shouldn't ever trust other people's opinion on video games because it was one of the most enjoyable game I've played in the recent years. The combat system is phenomenal, and the constant anxiety of trying to outrun the constantly ticking time limit is something I've never seen in a game before, nor since.

I'm a big sucker for metanarratives, and I get what they were shooting for here. Stumbling through these longs dungeons that have no checkpoints, that constant doomsday clock ticking over your head, the lack of safe area where you can just relax and heal up. You get none of that, you have to spend every little ressources trying to move forward and get no chance to catch your breath. Why would you anyway? The air is disgustingly polluted so there is no reason to stop until the end of your journey.

But by far the best part about this game is those extremely hard and unfair boss fights at the end of each dungeons. I was annoyed at first, but then Bosch said "Protect your friends or save yourself, you can't do both !" and suddenly I understood. They are meant to be unfair because the game gives you a choice every single time: will you start over from a previous save so you can be stronger and more efficient (saving your friends by hurting yourself), or will your be selfish and summon the Dragon to make the boss easy? (Saving yourself by hurting Nina). After struggling for so long I decided Nina shouldn't be the one to suffer for my dumb mistakes, and I replayed the entire game without using the Dragon form until the very end, and I'm so glad I did.

I want to save Nina. TO THE SKY!

As someone who's very averse to horror games (sic: pussy), I don't really seek too many out of my own volition. This one caught my eye, however. It being multiplayer eases alot of the initial tensions I have, as well as the heavy teamwork aspect. I actually really like the gameplay loop as well: Get inside, get as much as you can, get the fuck out before anything tries to kill you. There's so many different enemy types and locations to keep you on your toes, with more presumably to come. Definitely a really fun one to play with friends.

When you go into a piece of media that's regarded as a masterpiece, influential, and the greatest of all time, it sets a very high expectation for your experience. Of course, I try to go into anything with an open mind despite preconceived notions or reputation. When I started Ocarina of Time, I could definitely understand why a lot of people enjoyed this game, but going deeper into it my feelings started to shift. I’m going to go into this assuming people are already familiar with the larger content but I can’t imagine people reading this are worried about spoilers.

I'll start by talking about the gameplay. Regarding controls, I don't enjoy how Link moves. I think his movement speed and sword swinging are slow, JUST slow enough to where it's noticeable and an issue traversing terrain and fighting enemies. The combat isn't super great, and while I understand Z-targeting was a novel concept, it's strange how a lot of enemies travel in groups thus rendering single enemy lock-on somewhat null. The Hyrule Field is WAY too large for its own good, and it takes so long to get from one point to another. Getting the horse Epona somewhat alleviates this issue but A: You have to go out of your way to get her involving some back and forth time shenanigans and B: You get her fairly late into the actual game, at that point it feels like it doesn't even matter and you might as well just deal the way you've been dealing. I don't even like how Epona controls either, and you can only use her on the Field and Gerudo Valley making it seem even less necessary to get her. The weapons you get are mostly enjoyable, with the hookshot being my favorite one, but bear with me as I go into one of the most major problems: the camera.

First thing's first: I KNOW it's one of the first 3D action games of its time, the camera isn't going to be perfect. The fact of the matter stands though, the camera is absolutely terrible and makes the game even more frustrating as-is. Visualizing the N64 controller, you control Link with the joystick, your C-buttons are tied to your items, and with the Z button you can go into camera mode or if you're near an object/enemy you go into Z-targeting. What does the D-pad do, you might ask? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING. So why didn't they apply some sort of camera based actions to the D-pad? Or better yet, apply the items to the D-pad and the camera to the C-buttons like Super Mario 64, which came out BEFORE this game.And yes, Mario 64’s also isn’t great, but I’ll take that over this one any day. Aiming is absolutely terrible with an N64’s analog controller (which, fun fact, isn’t truly analog, they’re digital) and I find myself having to fiddle around just to get a good place to shoot a Hookshot. Also, here’s a major question: If the hookshot is able to have a red dot reticle letting you know where to properly shoot your shot, why doesn’t the Bow and Arrow or the Boomerang have that? I don’t think there’s any excuse to not have a reticle in a game with anything you need to aim.

I had to make this its own section because it’s another issue to me: I don’t enjoy the bosses. Fundamentally, I understand that they’re supposed to be a culmination of what you’ve learned in the dungeon, but I don’t think they do a great job at that. That, and they’re often more frustrating than engaging to me. The enemies I enjoyed fighting the most are Dark Link and the Iron Knuckle, especially the Iron Knuckle. The WORST boss, however, has to be Bongo Bongo. It coincides with both my camera and combat issues. They decided the best thing to do in a game where you can’t aim the camera upwards is to make a boss suspended in the air while it slams down on a platform that bounces you. You need to use the Lens of Truth to see it which runs on magic, and you don’t want your magic to run out. You have to move fast enough to hit both of his hands, then use the lens of truth to see him, and hit him in his eye before he charges forward at you and you miss your opportunity to hit him and repeat the whole process. That tedious and irritating attack cycle combined with the slowness of Link’s movement encapsulates my problems with the game.

I just mentioned it for the boss, but yes there is a magic system tied to a meter. It does cool things like let you do a big charged swing attack, and other cool spells. What ISN’T cool is you can’t use two magical items at the same time, so you can’t do Din’s Fire while you’re using the Lens of Truth. Also, magic is not easy to come by in the grass like hearts or rupees (especially rupees but I’ll get to that later). If there’s an instance like, say, the face off against Ganondorf where you need to use charged swings and light arrows that use magic, you’re kind of fucked if you run out of it. A better system would be gaining magic every time you physically attack an enemy, so you don’t get put in a position where you just never have any and can’t get any without restarting.

The temples and dungeons themselves are honestly kind of whatever, some of them are cool like the Forest Temple and the Deku Tree, but I don’t enjoy a lot of the puzzles. I feel like I don’t have to write a paragraph on why the Water Temple sucks, but I can agree it is as bad as everyone says it is. Honestly though, every temple has the back-and-forth meandery that I don’t enjoy. Unlocking different parts of the map as you progress is fine, but why does the minimap have a location marker and the pause screen doesn’t? That would make alot of the areas less confusing to navigate.

Here’s something I don’t think anyone really mentions about this game though, how useless rupees truly are. First of all, the cap is super small by default at 99. Sure, you can get bigger wallet upgrades later, but what’s the point? Everything you can get with rupees is something you can get on the field other than a Deku Shield. You’ll find yourself hitting the rupee cap insanely quickly, but searching for anything else in grass and pots like hearts, arrows and magic, you’ll just get more rupees that you can’t even collect. Why didn’t they make it so you get other items instead of rupees if you’ve reached your rupee cap? I don’t even see the purpose of there being a cap anyway.

I think that’s enough about the gameplay, so let’s go into the story. I think it’s actually pretty good. It’s honestly nothing too crazy, it’s your typical chosen one story. Though, they do some interesting things with it. I like the aspect of Link having to travel through time, and Ganondorf having already somewhat taken over the world in Link’s absence. I think seeing the villages and people you met as a child and how much they’ve changed after Ganondorf changed everything is really cool as well. There’s lot of really good cinematic moments like the setup for the bosses, the Deku Tree dying, and meeting Ganondorf for the first time formally. I think Ganondorf is probably my favorite character in this whole game, he’s a great villain that does a good job of being intimidating and setting the stakes, he had a good and well executed plan and he’s got a pretty sick design. Talking about Link as a character is a little difficult in that same regard, though. Yes, I’m aware he’s called “Link” because he’s meant to be just that, a link to the player. Someone to project onto and experience the adventure vicariously through. I don’t mind that inherently, but I guess I’d prefer an actual character to get attached to instead. That being said, the game is less about Link as a character and more how what he does affects everyone for the better. Zelda as a character I don’t have any real opinion on, but she did her thing at the end of the game. Sheik is a character I enjoy thematically and based off of vibes and design, but it’s kind of screwed up how he doesn’t really…do anything? Like he just shows up, teaches Link a song, spouts some expositions and then leaves. It’s kind of funny being introduced to the character through Smash Bros and how cool he is in that, and seeing how downplayed he is in his game of origin. I can’t really say too much about other characters other than “they’re cool” because I don’t think any of them left that much of an impression on me. I kind of wish Link had more personality so the relationships could be explored in a more fun way. One character I do want to speak on though, Is Navi. Now look, I like alot of characters people would consider “annoying.” I like Omochao and I like Paimon, characters who are meant to be helpers but people find naggy. So with Navi being the posterchild of such characters I thought people over exaggerated how annoying she is. Unfortunately, I have to agree with those people. She’s annoying. It’s not even the fact that she’s a helper, it’s the fact that she’s very SELDOM helpful. She stops you dead in your tracks to tell you shit you already know, and on the off chance you actually ask her for help like on a boss, she’ll say something like “I don’t know its weakness!” What the hell is she useful for then? I’d like her a whole lot better if when I don’t know what to do next I could just talk to her and she’d say, “Let’s go to this village!” or “We need to talk to so-and-so!” Instead she’s just an unnecessary irritant.

Despite the N64’s low poly crust, the visuals of the game are great, mostly because of the strong art direction. The character and enemy designs are iconic, the locations have amazing atmospheres from serene to macabre, and the music? You’ve got some all-time classics here like the Forest Temple, Gerudo Valley, Lost Woods, The Main Theme, and the list goes on. There’s no doubt this game introduced people to what an ocarina even was, and it gave the best example of its sound.

So how do I feel overall? While the game is insanely frustrating, it also has a lot of fun moments. For every moment I wanted to tear my hair out, I still wanted to get to the end. It’s definitely a game that shows its age, and games you play now will not have the same problems. That’s the thing though, I still respect this game because it DID inspire a lot of the games we have now. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say we wouldn’t have stuff like Dark Souls, Kingdom Hearts, Hollow Knight, Skyrim, and countless others without Ocarina of Time. Of course, just because I respect it and what it did doesn’t mean I have to like everything about it, and there’s ALOT to dislike about it. It’s hard for me to really recommend because again, there’s way less frustrating games you can play with a similar style, but I didn’t regret playing Ocarina of Time at all. I’ve heard people say the 3DS remake alleviates a lot of the issues I’ve said, so maybe play that one. I do believe this is a game everyone should play at least once, so you can form your own opinion about it. One thing I do believe though: Without having played it yet, Majora’s Mask gotta be better.