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My Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Remake Skepticism Vanished After Playing It
Did The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time need another remake? Ocarina is an all-time classic, but it's rooted in a particular time and place in gaming history. How would the new Ocarina of Time balance respect for its original design with modernization? Would it feel like old angular game geometry with an updated paintjob, or would it stray so far from its original design that it no longer feels like Ocarina at all? All of this was on my mind as I sat to play a lengthy portion at a demo event.
I'm pleased to report that Ocarina of Time is still a masterpiece, and more importantly, this remake appears to largely strike the right balance of reverence and renovation to make it feel modern without losing its original charm.
My demo consisted of three sections: young Link's start in Kokiri Forest and some adventuring inside the Deku Tree; young Link leaving the forest and exploring Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle Town; and adult Link from the start of the Forest Temple.
The most immediately striking change is to the presentation. The new look for Link was divisive based on early showings, but actually playing it, I quickly appreciated the bold choice of visual style. Link and the other Kokiri children have an angular, crafted look to them that resembles dolls or puppets, and gives modern character to their original zany designs.
The more impressive feature is the detail given to their clothing, which looked great in the reveal trailers and even better in motion when you're out exploring the world. Every stitch shows a gorgeous level of detail and care, and looks like it was crafted from plant fibers. It really helps illustrate that this village is innately tied to the forest, which itself is rendered in lush detail with irregular growths of vines, tree roots, fronds, mushrooms, and more. The Kokiri truly feel like they're part of this ecosystem, and it gives a new and meaningful twist to Link's iconic green cap. There were other striking graphical flourishes throughout--more on that later--but just from the start, I loved the new look.
Also new to the presentation is the addition of voice acting, which is largely done well. Through the demo session I heard the voices for the Great Deku Tree, Navi, Saria, and Gaebora, the horned owl who oversees your quest. The Great Deku Tree sounds stoic and ancient, and in many ways reminded me of the Ents from Lord of the Rings. Saria's tearful goodbye to Link when he leaves the forest was sweet and full of heart. Gaebora sounded wise and a little mischievous in a few brief snippets of dialogue. The only one that surprised me was Navi, whose voice sounded more like a young adult woman than I expected. The performance itself was well done, and maybe I'll adjust to it in the full game, but the original Navi's low-fi but unmistakably pitched-up "Hey! Listen!" made me imagine her younger and more childlike. Then again, maybe avoiding a young squeaky-voiced fairy is for the best.
Navi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The other somewhat controversial change is the addition of a jump button. The original Ocarina of Time had no dedicated jump function, as it tried to maximize controller real estate in a then-new 3D paradigm. Instead, Link would simply auto-jump when close to an edge, and any traversal challenges were designed with that in mind. At the same time, that meant getting your angle just so was extremely important, since aiming in the wrong direction could send Link careening down a cliff's edge. I was especially curious to see how the game would work with a jump button, since it is a very large change.
I will say unambiguously: The jump button is good. Great, even. By itself, this one change goes a long way towards making the game feel modern and control as you would expect. You can judge distances for yourself and traverse platforming challenges more easily, like the early quests to retrieve a sword and shield in Kokiri before proceeding to the Great Deku Tree. Once I was in dungeons, it proved even more useful, as I had the natural impulse to jump onto a climbable surface, like vines in the Deku Tree, and it accommodated that by saving me the half-second it would have taken to walk up to the vines and start climbing from the bottom. In short, it just feels intuitive and works the way you would expect.
(Speaking of intuitive, there is a control option to swap your jump input. By default it's set to X, but you can swap it with B, similar to Donkey Kong Bananza. This is a far cry from full button mapping, but Nintendo must have understood that some people more naturally think of the jump button as below the attack, set to Y, instead of above it. I switched early and it felt great.)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Venturing into the Great Deku Tree was, as always, an introductory dungeon. It's fairly linear with a spiraling ramp that leads you to different rooms that teach you some basics about how dungeons work. But adventuring is easier than ever, thanks to a modernized inventory system similar to that in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. You can quick-select your equipped item by scrolling across an item bar, and the most recently used items appear to be sorted to the left for easy access. The ZR trigger was also your quick access for aiming, which felt nicely modernized after a quick adjustment period. This portion of the demo ended when Link makes a leap into a spider web to descend further, so I didn't see the boss.
Next I ventured into Hyrule Field, which is where I encountered the great horned owl. Like the Kokiri character models, he looked like a carved figurine, with exaggerated features to modernize the design. The eyebrows, if owls have eyebrows, were particularly elongated to give the design more character. This is also where I first noticed that Navi's wings shimmer with iridescent colors in the sunlight, which was a lovely touch.
Hyrule Field itself is largely unchanged: an expanse of mostly empty land that is smaller than you likely remember it. When Ocarina of Time first released in 1998, the ability to roam freely around Hyrule Field as a hub for the individual spokes of dungeons and towns felt expansive, but it's tiny by today's standards, and that hasn't really changed for this version.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
This is understandable on one level, as you really wouldn't want to criss-cross a massive open world repeatedly. However, it also feels rather empty compared to the maps of the two most-recent Zelda games, which retained the feeling of untamed nature while still being densely packed with activities. The terrain has been given a few more hills and divots to feel more organic, but this is one area where the design feels consciously old-fashioned.
I stopped by Lon Lon Ranch to take a quick look around at the horses and talk with the farmhand Ingo, but there wasn't much to do there at this point in the game. Like Hyrule Field, the ranch feels fairly sparse and empty, but the redesign for Ingo was a nice touch-up for one of the more bizarre character designs in the original Ocarina.
Hyrule Castle Town is the polar opposite of Hyrule Field. The city feels bursting with activity and movement everywhere you look, and the decorations on the buildings and walkways add pops of color and texture. This was another opportunity to see the modern updates to these wild and marionette-like character designs, which at this point had grown on me to the point where they all looked like a matching set. Some of the routines were a little static, like the two friends laughing endlessly, but to me that carried an old-fashioned charm from this period in gaming history.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Finally, I explored the Forest Dungeon, the first major dungeon with adult Link. Again, the textures of Link's clothing was a standout, as they had changed in various ways from his child outfit to accommodate flourishes like his belt and gloves. The model looks great, especially from behind when you can really take in all the details of his clothes, the Master Sword scabbard, and Hylian shield.
In fact, visually, the Forest Dungeon was the most impressive piece of the entire demo, due largely to an element I hadn't expected. The real-time lighting effects make a major difference in how a dungeon looks and feels, from the colored lights of the Poes to the way Navi's own glowing light shifts the shadows in dark corridors as you move through them. It just looks fantastic and helps create a sense of mood and place to the dungeon that makes it feel dank and decrepit. The increased fidelity also means that elements that rely on noticing textures, like the oil brush texture on the paintings of Poes, really pop.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Combat as adult Link was more complex than anything in the Great Deku Tree, so it was a good place to get a feel for the fluidity of Link's sword slashes and dodges. This felt largely unchanged to me, though it's possible it's just been subtly tweaked to feel the way I remember rather than the way it actually played. The Z-targeting made it easy to track enemies, and it was intuitive to make Link make graceful moves around the room while fighting enemies like Stalfos and Wolfos. The addition of your ranged attack on the trigger also made a real difference in battles feeling fast and fluid, both as child Link spinning Skulltulas to damage their vulnerable backside and as adult Link using arrows as part of his arsenal.
Since adult Link had access to the ocarina, I tried out the humming feature to play a song. It didn't work perfectly, as it recognized the wrong song in my attempt to hum a song from memory, but the issue likely was just that I was in a demo space with ambient noise from other players. A Nintendo rep explained beforehand that we could feel free to try it, but to keep in mind this feature is meant to be played in the comfort of a living room. To the extent that it recognized a song prompt at all, it was impressively seamless.
Like many gamers, I fell under Ocarina of Time's spell when it first released in 1998. I still respect its place in gaming history. But it hasn't aged particularly well, and going back nowadays, it's not as fun as it should be to actually play. This Ocarina of Time remake appears to remedy that. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a classic for a reason. With smart modern touches, this version should let it shine brightly again.
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