Take a trip through time and relive one of the greatest adventures Nintendo's ever made.
A young boy raised by the forest-dwelling Kokiri, Link was special as he was the only one in his village who grew up without a fairy. The day came where that was no longer the case, and he was soon joined with a fairy of his very own named Navi. A sickness was afflicting the great Deku Tree, and Link would soon realize he had a very special destiny ahead of him as set out to help the tree. He would become the Hero of Legend, traversing time and eventually combating Ganondorf, the King of Evil. He would need two very important tools to accomplish this: the Ocarina of Time and the Master Sword. With those two in hand, it's now time for Link to save Hyrule.
The game starts off as most adventure and role-playing games started off back in those days, with the hero getting out of bed. As a young forest boy, you wandered around your village talking to people who obviously were a little different from you. Your first task was to gather a sword and shield, and then off you went to the Deku Tree, the game's first of many dungeons. As is true to Zelda's form, Ocarina of Time slowly introduced you to the game's mechanics and gradually increased the difficulty of each of their dungeons.
The dungeons of Zelda games always stuck to a formula. You entered, having no map to see where to go and no compass to help you with your bearings. You'd have to figure out puzzles or kill all the enemies in a room to reveal chests with keys to progress through the dungeons. Eventually, you'd find a tool such as bow and arrows or hook shoots that let you overcome specific obstacles, and you'd also need to use your newfound abilities to defeat the dungeon bosses. Ocarina of Time, as old as it is, still finds itself holding up very well in regards to dungeon design, but that all depends on just how fresh your memories are.
If you just played it not too long ago on the Game Cube or via the Virtual Console, you'll end up breezing through them. If this is your first time in a very long time, it'll be like playing it again for the first time. If you never played it at all, then you're about to experience Zelda at its arguable best. Now, if you remember how hard the dreaded Water Temple is, it may not be that hard for you this go around, because the part that many people got hung up at now has a camera cue that shows you were to go. You may not have appreciated the added hint but then again, you may not want to tear anymore hair out of your head like you did 14 years ago.
Ocarina of Time of course contains all the gear that we remembered. There's the sling shot, the boomerang, three different shields, the hookshot, the bow and arrow and many more. The one thing that we wish we didn't remember is how touch and go the combat was. This is one area of the game that really doesn't hold up. Back then, it was called Z Targeting, but on the 3DS it's called L Targeting and it's a mechanic that lets you lock on to your character while being able to move freely. The only problem is, it doesn't work as intended as well as it should. You need to have the camera centered and be within a certain distance for your L Targeting to stick and by the time you finally get it where you want, the enemy might get a potshot or two. Also, even slow-moving enemies can somehow manage to be missed by Link's ranged attacks with the lock-on. It's far from terrible, but it happens enough to remind you that it's there. Plus, with some bad camera angles that still exist to this day, Ocarina of Time's a reminder that we should be thankful gameplay mechanics have evolved over time.
Questing is still fun, but since almost a decade and a half has passed, we've seen questing done so much better in current adventure games. When you relive Ocarina of Time, Hyrule will suddenly appear smaller and less populated than it did before. Still, it's fun to try to remember where you went when you got that Piece of Heart and trying over and over to finally beat Ingo and claim Epona the horse as your own to cruise around the fields of Hyrule. Then there's the ocarina itself, the magical instrument that played all those wonderful chimes you learned as a kid. Discovering hidden grottoes with the Song of Storms is still as rewarding as it once was.
3DS-specific controls do exist in Ocarina of Time 3D. When you enter first-person mode to shoot any one of Link's many ranged weapons, you can move the 3DS around to aim. If, however, you have the 3D turned on, than moving the 3DS even slightly is going to disrupt the 3D effect. The game makes excellent use of the touch screen for map displaying and touch button mapping, but the problem with resistive screens is there will always be that one time where you tap on a button and nothing happens. You can also play the ocarina with touch buttons, but the physical face buttons provides far more reliability. Also, if you play the game on a 3DS XL, you're more than likely to experience more cross-talk (ghosting of images) than you would on a regular 3DS.
Nintendo took their time restoring Ocarina of Time for the 3DS, and it shows. Although far from the best rendered game on the system, every aspect of the game looks far better than it originally did. Environments now have more detail and better texturing. Character models contain more polygons and more facial details means they're more expressive. Special effects have been given more luster and appear livelier and colors are more vivid. The 3D effect also adds a good deal of depth to the game and helps give boldness to the game's many forms.
There's one aspect of Ocarina of Time that has always been celebrated, and that is of course its music. It is rarely argued that Ocarina of Time is the franchise's greatest soundtrack. If you've never heard it before, you'll quickly understand and if this is your first time revisiting the game, you'll be awash with so many memories, it just may bring tears to your eyes. The sound effects are all so memorable from the chime when Link discovers a dungeon secret to the rock shattering explosions of his bombs. Of course, there's that tell-tale sign of a hollow wall when Link strikes it with his sword. So many wonderful audible memories.
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is a game that's worth playing at least once. It's also a game that's worth revisiting at least once. If you haven't played the game before, it's about time you do and Ocarina of Time 3D is the definitive version to play with its improved visuals and inclusion of the harder Master Quest. It would have been nice for Nintendo to tweak the actual controls and camera, but then again, there's something to be said about purity. Whether you're in it for the nostalgia or wanting to see all the fuss about it, The Ocarina of Time 3D is a title worth owning on your 3DS.