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REVIEWS - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ::
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| Somewhat-old skool. |
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| Game Info. |
Genre
Adventure |
Publisher/Developer
Nintendo |
Release
11/27/98 |
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
7 years on, and still one of the greatest game in existence.
Reviewed by Rich - February 2005
NGEB readers, prepare yourself, 7 years after Shigsy’s lovechild’s first appearance on a home console, I have a review of (debatably) the greatest game to ever grace a Nintendo console. Move over Lara, Shigsy’s about to show you how to redefine an entire genre.
The year is 1998, the month is August, MP3 is still thought to be a type of rifle, Anne Robinson and Simon Cowell were about as famous as Sharon Osborne, and Nintendo are about to make an announcement that would change video gaming history forever. The game in question was Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the announcement, after 3 long years of rumor and speculation; it would hit the shelves that November.
And when it did on 27th November 1998, in Nintendo’s first ever Japanese-American simultaneous release, Playstation owners turned from their copies of Metal Gear Solid. Kids put down their Pokémon trading cards, Sega Saturn owners took their heads away from Christmas Nights…and the only sound that could be heard on the presses lips was the revelation that Nintendo had just made the biggest impact on videogames since Nintendo and Sony brainstormed the name “Playstation.”
Want to know why? Read on…
Gameplay
When you first start your game on Zelda, your treated to a somewhat childish scene that seems like it wouldn’t be out of place on “Nick JR” or Disney’s latest. In fact, you can’t help but feel slightly disappointed as you are treated to a cut scene that, although beautiful (and believe me, it is stunning, even today) seems somewhat underwhelming. The first time you are given control of your character you are in a lovely pre rendered backdrop of a wooden house, the camera sat in the middle and rotating 360 degrees to follow young links childishly enthusiastic stagger. Upon leaving the confines of your house you are greeted by a neat little cut scene where a green haired girl, who you learn is named Saria, tells you what you’ve already learnt from the cut scene moments earlier.
However pleased you are by the dynamic movement of the 3D camera, the beautiful foggy landscape of Kokiri village and it’s bewildering array of dwarfish looking characters, you feel somewhat bemused by the fact that what is known as the “greatest game ever” seems somewhat childish. You’re told that to continue you need to get a sword and shield to progress, frustrated you start to anger a little, but then something amazing happens, as you walk towards the village, you see a small lake with some platforms sitting just above the calm, glittering surface. You wonder how your going to get the money for a shield from the shop, or even find a sword in this restrictive, tiny environment, you instinctively run at the platform sitting on the center of this lake. About half a tiny step from the point where you would usually press the jump button, you wonder where it is, but before you have chance to breathe link lets out a yell and leaps wholeheartedly across the river and lands gracefully on the platform in the middle, which is accompanied by a jingle to signify that a rupee has been collected. Seconds later your brain catches up with you and you realize that not only did young link just intelligently respond to the situation he was presented with, he was rewarded. So you jump across the remaining divide to the opposing bank and again are rewarded with yet more rupees. This is about the time that you realize you are restricted for a reason. Miyamoto has logically allowed you to assess the situation, take an inevitable course of action, learn from it, and be rewarded. Throughout the next 20 or so minutes you explore every nook and cranny looking for more inventive little teachings like this, being taught the control system often without you realizing it, and so you eventually and naturally are led to the conclusion that, not only have you just been trained entirely without an intrusive training option, but what seemed a fiendishly pointless scavenger hunt 10 minutes ago has now easily and naturally allowed you access to a sword and the money for a shield.
Inevitably you reach your destination, the Great Deku Tree, and are introduced to your first dungeon. Much more is learnt throughout the dungeon and I could go into it in the same amount of detail as the previous section. But to be honest I feel I’ve already said too much about this section and shall move on, however, before I do, I will talk about the first true “defining” moment in the game, Ghoma, the Parasitic Arachnid Queen. You enter a room which you have been heading towards for the entirety of the dungeon, (which to new players will have taken roughly half an hour of head scratching) which you will have figured out is the inevitable boss battle.
The room you enter is silent, there is a bluish haze covering a large cavern that, apart from a strange brown substance liberally scattered across the floor, seems empty. You can already feel something huge is about to happen, and as you naturally switch to the first person perspective to view your surroundings more closely, you see something drip from the ceiling. You look up to see where it came from and realize that gazing at you through the darkness is a single red eye. The game seamlessly flows into a cut scene (all of which is rendered using the in game engine). The camera zooms in on the eye and as it does; an unearthly sound rumbles through the cavern, the eye rolling back and the camera swooping to reveal the biggest damn spider you’ve ever seen. In fact, the eye in question is bigger than your head. I’m not going to spoil any more of this part of the game for you, but the battle that ensues is an epic, with you being forced to utilize perfect timing and ingenuity to slowly decipher the beasts weakness.
With the beast slain the inevitable comes and, with some beautiful storytelling and some subtle nod’s to cinematic greats (theres a scene reminiscent to Return of The Jedi which will make you smile) you are allowed to leave what now feels like home, the forest village, and enter Hyrule itself and begin “proper”.
The first thing that hits you is the sheer size of it. Rolling hills in the distance, a fenced off ranch in the middle, a castle, a castle so far away it’ll take you a game day and night to reach it. There’s a mountain in the distance surrounded by a cloud, and if you want you can go there, and when you do you’ll fight a dragon. And all of a sudden your not restricted, all of a sudden there’s a whole world out there, it’s huge, sprawling, and your just a boy who’s never left the forest, and the sheer magnitude of it all is truly breathtaking.
And then your watch beeps, has it been an hour already? Well, one hour, seventy nine to go, and there’s so much more I can’t possibly fit on this already colossal review. Over the next few days you will be immersed in a world, you will scale mountains, walk under water, cross deserts, sneak around fortresses desperately trying not to get caught, time travel, create paradoxes, enter friendships, feel agony for link as he struggles to cope, spend hours fishing for that legendary fish, battle bosses 5 times the size of Ghoma, chase ghosts, race horses, enter archery competitions, go grave digging, be eaten alive by a giant fish, fight zombies, get engaged and even have an child named after you.
I’d like to say I’ve spoiled it all for you but I haven’t even scratched the surface, because if you’ve already played this game you’ll be thinking “what about the battle at the end?” Or “what about the hearts and skulltulas” or even “what about those five frogs?” If you haven’t played this game already, you’ve missed a magical experience. This game still has the bar raised so high that very few have even attempted.
Miyamoto achieved a living, breathing masterpiece, and a world where you truly could do ANYTHING, Link was doing it when Tommy Vercetti was just a nameless sprite on a notepad.
10/10
Control
Link moves with grace and style, the controls come naturally with items being assignable to three different buttons to suit your preference. The analogue stick allows for smoother control than in Super Mario 64, and even (dare I say it?) Wind Waker. The “Z” targeting (another innovation from Shigsy himself) is in it’s most natural form, and no other game has managed to even match it, and the context sensitive A button is easy to use. You won’t have felt as at home with a control scheme since Tetris. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
10/10
Graphics
Watch transfixed as the 9 year old Nintendo 64 seamlessly blends night into day, as torchlight flickers to illuminate dark corridors, as pre rendered backdrops are seamlessly mixed with live rendered polygons a full five years before Capcom managed it. You’ll feel yourself shiver slightly when link enters a cold cavern and find it getting very hot very quickly when your running around a volcanic crater, ALL WITHOUT THE EXPANSION PAK. The graphics actually use a more advanced version of the engine used in Starfox64, so the polygons are chunky, the textures detailed and even the primitive XOR Blitter is used to startling effect. There is no fogging other than that used for atmosphere, and the draw distance is so far away that it could put a few of today’s games to shame. The only issue that pops up is compared to today’s games, playing on an N64 it seems somewhat blurry, and occasionally interiors seem to “switch” too late (temple of time is a prime example.) Still, even today it manages to impress. The only N64 game that ever betters it is Majora’s mask. Even Perfect Dark falls short.
9.5/10
Sound
The cart uses context sensitive midi triggers that allow the music to change when an enemy approaches or when you go near specific points of interest. The triggers are hooked to an advanced sample based sound module written into the cart (on the GameCube this was replaced by the onboard midi Synthesizer, although you won’t notice the difference.) The ambience it can add is awesome, the orchestral scores are performed perfectly and anyone who ever say’s midi should be replaced by recorded sound should hang their head in shame. Occasionally one or two samples do get annoying; Navi’s incessant nagging for instance, but overall the score is a testament to Nintendo’s composers.
9.6/10
Replay Value
I can safely say that the main quest offers you 40 hours on first play through. And if your one of those people who must get everything then I hate to break the news to you, it’ll almost definitely NEVER happen. I have had a copy of Zelda OoT for 7 years and even now I’ll get pulled in and end up playing it for entire days on end. I have a save where I’ve done EVERYTHING, and now I’m attempting to do it without collecting a single heart container, (leaving me with 3 hearts for energy) there’s always a higher level to reach. It’s that simple.
10/10
Overall
This is the greatest book you’ll never read, the greatest song you’ll never hear, the greatest film you’ll never see, all rolled onto a 256mbit cart and lovingly painted across your screen. If you haven’t already played it, you’ve never played a real videogame, end of story.
FINAL SCORE: 9.9/10
=Amazing=
Conversion
I decided to add this section due to what I must say is to me an important issue. I’m going to say, honestly, the GameCube port is shameful. Although the resolution has been pushed up it allows for gaps in the scenery that the N64’s hardware based Anti-Aliasing (something the Flipper won’t emulate) and lower screen resolution wouldn’t allow for. The textures, in their sharper state seem more blurry and garish than they ever did on the N64 version. Certain hardware based effects (such as the camera flare and the underwater ripple effect) are missing, and due to no XOR blitters being programmed into the hardware on the gamecube, the shadow beast, one of the coolest looking bosses on the N64 version, closely resembles an epidemic of diarrhea running rampant through Kakariko Village. Also the gamecube stick, being different in sensitivity, doesn’t suit the control system as well. And due to the MiniDVD medium, there is a slight delay when moving from room to room. If you already owned the N64 version, then you will have noticed these mild annoyances and probably won’t care so much. If however, your fresh to the game, then I recommend you pick up the original hardware and play it on that, having the bulky cartridge and ageing N64 in front of you will help you appreciate this game for the achievement it is, and that version is the best.
FORMAT OF CHOICE: Nintendo 64
Send feedback to: tenderageinbloom@hotmail.com
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