I'm sure it holds up if you played it back in the day, but to someone who came to it much later I couldn't really get into it.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ~ Is it Really Timeless?
- Thread starter Deleted member 4037
- Start date
Performance is garbage (~17fps in the PAL versions), and controls can be iffy as well for modern standards. But those are unfortunately products of their time, because in terms of literally everything else, Ocarina of Time is still a masterpiece and my personal all-time favourite, slightly beating Mario 64.
If only both of them could be remade for consoles, with updated and more fluid controls. Brush up the visuals while you're at it, but leave everything else exactly identical.
If only both of them could be remade for consoles, with updated and more fluid controls. Brush up the visuals while you're at it, but leave everything else exactly identical.
What a game, I remember just riding around Hyrule Field and just being at awe how big it all felt (even though now it's super tiny)
Yeah, it's not quite timeless to me. It's still a good game but I definitely need to put myself in a certain frame of mind to replay it. Like literally put my mind back in time and disregard the modern standards I'm used to.
I have exactly this feeling and I really wanted a new Zelda like this. The perfect spot of not being as dark/oppresive as Souls series nor as lighthearted as BOTW. That kind of setting really resonates with me.
OP
OP
Which part specifically, the world size? For the most part I think it holds up pretty well without having to drop what I consider to be good mechanics. There is some aged in say the graphics, but everything will have that eventually. For what it sets out to do I think it nails
World size is one. Like Hyrule Field is just not very good imo. It's big and empty and not even interesting to look at. It's one of those things that I just tell myself, "this is really one of the first times they ever did something like this. It's an older game" and look past it. If BotW came out with an overworld like that, I'd be like "what the hell is this?"
There are other things. Like the combat, while it works, I always felt it had a bit of that early 3D jank to it which just the way Link moved as well as enemies. Like it's not bad but I again remind myself that this is the first game to really do this kind of thing and in fact, it was a huge trendsetter for this type of design. I also feel the same way about the camera and some of the progression and dungeon designs. And I hate to say it but the graphics and sound. Like I know it's not fair to point out graphics and sound because, yeah, it's an old game but they have aged. I'm not saying OoT is bad. I think it's quite good. It's just aged.
I actually think the gaming community at large takes aging to be an inherently negative thing. Like OoT is a good game so it must be timeless. Nah, I don't think it's timeless. It has aged but that doesn't mean it's bad. Age can be a good thing. When I put my mind back in time to play games like OoT, it reminds me of what it was like in those times and I enjoy that. It's like driving an old classic car that doesn't meet the same standards modern cars have. So I don't really feel it matters much if OoT aged or not. We can still acknowledge it as the influential game it is and still enjoy it.
All I can say is that I've completed the game for the first time in 2017 and it was really fun once I got hooked. The mechanics worked well enough, the game was fun, the dungeons were great, especially the water temple by the way and the music was really nice. One of the thing that really stopped the "timeless" qualitative imo are the graphics. They really aged poorly. Mario 64 with its slick 30 fps and its mix of 2d sprite elements with 3d polys really was what every N64 game should have tried to hit since it was doing it so well imo. OoT went full 3D and as a result, we got lots of blurry textures, low poly models and a really subpar fps, though I have to admit it was still very playable and you eventually get over it.
Anyway, I didn't get what the fuss was all about back in 1998 sinc eI was a PS1 / PC gamer back then and having completed the game in 2017, I kind of understand now what made the game appealing back then, like halfway through. I still believe it's a bit overrated.
Anyway, I didn't get what the fuss was all about back in 1998 sinc eI was a PS1 / PC gamer back then and having completed the game in 2017, I kind of understand now what made the game appealing back then, like halfway through. I still believe it's a bit overrated.
It's hard to overstate just how much of a leap this game was. When I finally got a chance to play Panzer Dragoon Saga, which came out in the same year, it made this point very clear for me and I couldn't get it out of my mind. The game was excellent, but everything involving walking around on foot or exploring a town would remind me of how far ahead Ocarina really was. Even among the greatest classics of its age, it stands apart. And its contributions to game design still echo today.
I want to point out that this is a screenshot of bad emulation. It's supposed to look like this:
OP
OP
Thanks for the catch, youre correct. I had a picture of the end screen actually, so I probably should have double checked it first...
It will always be a contender for game of all time, it really is that good. I'll never forget getting this that christmas season and going to school everyday with my friends and we would all share where we were and how we got there. Today the open world seems lifeless and a bit pointless to the game as a hub world but back then it felt like a huge sense of wonder and places to explore. Really happy botw took that and made good on the promise, and appears to be the design for the series in the future as well.
Also best collection of temples and bosses. With a fantastic ending too.
Also best collection of temples and bosses. With a fantastic ending too.
They already remade it once. I just wish they'd port that to the Switch. I don't own and never will own a 3DS. There needs to be an influx of 3DS ports on the Switch now that it's the new thing. Give me Ocarina, Majora and Star Fox 64.
Better games have come out and improved upon OoT in every way (I'd go as far as to say Majora's Mask did that not two years later), but the fact that you can go back and play OoT exactly as is with no real hampers to that enjoyment shows that, whatever you want to say about it, the core product has aged like wine.
Majora's Mask is a better game to me but I think it's telling that there was less to "fix" in the 3DS version compared to OoT really just mapping Iron Boots to an item.
Majora's Mask is a better game to me but I think it's telling that there was less to "fix" in the 3DS version compared to OoT really just mapping Iron Boots to an item.
Storywise I agree. But the atmosphere around the world was lighhearted for me.
PC games like Quake were/are much smoother than most N64 games. Part of it is the engine, and part because basic FPS controls became established in that era and are still used today. It's not as much of a shock going back to controls that are already familiar.
That said, while stuff like Ocarina is clunkier than many PC games of the time, its design is way different than what most PC developers were doing back then anyway. There were some similar games like Twinsen's Odyssey (1997), which is an excellent game in its own right, but its semi-fixed camera makes it feel a half generation behind by comparison. Outcast (1999) ventured into more fully 3d large world design but I don't think it's quite as polished and still a bit too different to compare as it's a more open-ended game. Aside from the frame rate in the original version, I think Ocarina holds up fine. It drags on a bit long but the dungeons, atmosphere, and joy of exploration are still impressive.
Last edited:
I understand all of that, but given the sheer number of games from that era that feel better to play today (to me, anyway) than OoT I just have a hard time personally seeing it exalted as holding up particularly well. It doesn't really matter why OoT feels so outdated compared to ALTTP, Final Fantasy VI, Quake, etc., it just does feel more dated. Even its predecessor from Nintendo, Mario 64, feels much less dated to me.
Remember that this is a game that released not only after Quake, but Quake II, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, and shockingly a couple of days after Half-Life. Not only does it feel dated to me today, it felt strangely backward to me at the time.
None of that makes OoT any less great of a game. I just can't not find it dated.
It already had an HD remake on 3DS. I suppose a '4K remake' would be next. I would play that.
I absolutely love the sword duels in this game. I'm not sure, but it seems like the camera is zoomed in more than in the post N64 games, which really gives it a visceral feel. That's back up by the excellent sound design that comes from the clashing of swords on shields. Leaping and dodging feels perfect, and the fact that the enemies sometimes are reluctant to get hit just adds to the sense of being in a serious fight against an enemy unwilling to give up an advantage. It doesn't necessarily translate on a pure difficulty level, but I love the feeling they were able to convey.
Even beyond the one on one sword fights, the game has a ton of variety in its enemies. You can kind of place them in general categories. You've got enemies which require you to chase them down, like the deku scrub, flare dancer, and the floormaster. Then you've got the opposite, with armos knights suddenly crashing into you as you desperately try to get clear of their impending detonation. The wallmaster is pretty much a combination of both, and the sword fighting enemies are their own category, with each having their own twists. The determination to mine so many possible enemy behaviors and attributes and to present them with such clarity and variety creates a really rich gameplay experience, before you even get to the amazing items.
I've been mulling over experimenting with more of the items for combat next time I play, just to see how it works (the 2D games are great at this)...definitely cool to hear you had fun that way.
I played it at the time on 64 (played for sooo long but never beat it) and eventually finished it on 3DS.
It's held up a lot better than most games from that generation, especially in the action/adventure space. There's a lot of room for improvement that you can see looking at it with a modern eye, though.
It's held up a lot better than most games from that generation, especially in the action/adventure space. There's a lot of room for improvement that you can see looking at it with a modern eye, though.
My favorite part in the entire game is the sequence that starts when you first step into Hyrule Field and ends with Impa pointing you towards Death Mountain. Look at all the little things that you experience in that time. You fight your way past strange and inexplicable monsters while travelling across a huge landscape. You encounter a bustling town full of wacky characters. You help a girl find her irresponsible father in the most bizarre and charming way. Then you traipse across the hills of Hyrule Castle in order to meet up with a princess. That's some first trip to Hyrule! The dungeons in Zelda games are always my favorite part, but this little tiny bit of adventure where you hardly swing a sword is such a wonderfully endearing and perfect introduction to the wider game world. And it ends with the promise that the adventure is really only getting started.