Ocarina of Time

By -

Ocarina of Time is a very important game, not only to the Zelda franchise but also to gaming in general.  It was one of the first big 3D action/exploration/adventure games and it helped define the genres.  It's also obviously what all the later 3D Zelda games were based on.

First I should say that I loved this game as a kid.  I've beaten it many times and for years I would consider it a 10/10 game.  I still think it's a 10/10 game for the time when it came out.  It will always have a special place in my heart and my gaming nostalgia.

With that said, it honestly hasn't aged well.  I went back and played hours of it and found a lot of frustration.  The controls, camera, and some of the 3D spacial thinking are just old.  And I was even playing the remastered HD version on 3DS where they fixed a lot of things.  So, while this game is important and I still love it when looking at it via nostalgia I just don't want to play it again right now.  Maybe some day but not at the moment.

I actually kind of equate Ocarina of Time to Final Fantasy VII.  Both were amazing games when they released.  Both helped define genres.  Both are amazing when viewed with nostalgia.  Neither one has aged all that well.

It's surprising to me that 2D games seem to age better.  A Link to the Past was still amazing and that game came out almost 25 years ago.

I'm going to hop over to Majora's Mask next and see what I think.  Maybe it will be better since it breaks from the traditional Zelda storytelling with it's non-linearity.  But, it is built on the exact same engine as this game so I expect to find many of the same frustrations as well.

Even though it didn't hold up as well as I expected I still find it easy to slot into my current Zelda rankings.  I can't possibly diminish what the game was at the time and how much it matters to the series and gaming in general.

Here's what my rankings are looking like:
  1.  A Link to the Past (1991) 
  2.  Ocarina of Time (1998)
  3.  The Legend of Zelda (1987)
  4.  Link's Awakening (1993)
  5.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently have.
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing games way ahead
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a result. Ea
Read more