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Is it time for Nintendo to let go of Ocarina of Time?

Those folks at Nintendo are ridiculously proud of Ocarina of Time – and rightly so. When it was first released it garnered many a perfect review score along with all the squeals and the excitement. Thirteen years later and it regularly tops “Ultimate games of all time” lists and features in God knows how many nostalgic game-based pub conversations.

It has also become Nintendo’s license to print money.

Ocarina of Time screenshot
You'd look this grumpy if you had to relive the same adventure over and over…

I played the original when it was first released back in the days when I didn’t have my own N64 and had to rent time on my brother’s console at the rate of 20p an hour. It was the most beautiful and most in-depth game I’d ever played. And then re-played. Several times. At great cost.

Around five years later Ocarina reappeared as part of a collectors edition bundle on the GameCube. It also cropped up as a pre-order bonus for Wind Waker in the form of the Master Quest – basically the same thing but with the dungeon difficulty set to ‘veteran’. Then when the current generation of consoles rolled around it was the turn of the Wii Virtual Console (even though the GameCube discs actually play on the Wii).

More recently, someone in the company woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night shrieking “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HANDHELD MARKET?” and we are now poised to welcome the spruced-up 3D version into our lives.

No doubt when the Wii U launches we will be invited to part with more cash to play the game from the point of view of a Skulltula. Perhaps some motion peripheral will force us to whittle our own ocarina. Maybe Nintendo will figure out some kind of augmented reality arrangement whereby we spend our days fielding unwanted phonecalls from Navi telling us what we should be doing.

Navi from Ocarina of Time
SHUT. UP. NAVI.

Now, I know no-one is forcing me to buy any of these things (and while my brother’s trusty N64 still draws breath I have no need to do so) but the fact is Nintendo is spending time and money reworking a game that was already hailed as nigh on perfect when it came out.

I remember exactly how much pleasure I got from discovering in Ocarina of Time a world I could never have imagined. What I want is for Nintendo to always be seeking to provide that freshness and wonder and NOT trying to revamp the boot-swapping mechanics on a game that’s older than Big Brother.

Instead of dining out on the past, why not try to give us something new and amazing?

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Philippa W

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Comments

5 responses to “Is it time for Nintendo to let go of Ocarina of Time?”

  1. Barry avatar
    Barry

    I haven’t played Ocarina of Time yet so I’m grateful to Nintendo for giving me the opportunity to do so 🙂

  2. Mark P avatar
    Mark P

    Of what I’ve played of the 3DS one, it looks like the graphics have been totally redone – which isn’t breathtaking by any means. However, when you consider I bought a N64 from a guy on the RU forums a few months back, played it for about half an hour and decided it looked like a triangle had shat on my screen and haven’t played it again since, that’s quite good for me. It means I can play this “classic masterpiece” in a way that doesn’t melt my eyes with how bad it looks – but then maybe the 3D effect will still do that.

    But personally, this is just another reason why Link to the Past is probably better than Ocarina of Time. 10 years on, and it still looks just as great now as it did back then.

  3. W Bishop avatar
    W Bishop

    You have got to be a fool to buy this…

    Same game, smaller screen!

    Cheaper to buy an N64 and the game online at many, many site scattered all over the net!

    P.s. 3d effect… Bah the best “3d” anyone has ever invented is called eye sight! It’s so realistic, i can move my head back and forward and real life things look so realistic! XD

  4. Barry avatar
    Barry

    The N64 with its deliberately blurred polygons always gave me a headache, playing the game on the 3DS doesn’t, even with the 3D illusion turned onto megabrainfuck.

    The free aim is a nice touch too, though I would refrain from playing this during my daily commute, I would look like a mental! 🙂

  5. Joanne avatar
    Joanne

    I had it on N64 and on the Wii. I think buying the same game twice is more than enough. That said, it is true that this presents people with an opportunity to play it if they haven’t before, and I will always endorse that.

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