Written by: Alex

 

 

 

I suspect that nearly everyone who will play "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D" falls into one of two distinct groups; those who have played and loved it, and those who are too young to know what it is. True, there are probably a few outliers, the odd player who for some reason didn’t have access to an N64... or the rerelease on GameCube... or Wii... but the point is that so far reaching was the impact of Nintendo's 3D action adventure that there are few gamers over a certain age who have not played it.

 

So I am faced with a dilemma, do I review this for those who have played it before? Who know the magic of the story and are interested only in the updates made to the game, or do I review it as a new product, trying to educate as to why the game was so significant? 

 

 

Really I wanted to do both, but then I realised that it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I could play this devoid of my memories. So, allow me to preface this for newcomers to the game with a quick history lesson. The Ocarina of Time took the format established in Zelda A Link to the Past, and made it 3D. It is a story telling format that has stayed true to this day, but it was the success in how effectively it added the third dimension that captured people’s imagination, including my own. It had an aesthetic that made it magical and filled me awe, and more importantly no game had really done it before, at least not with such tight game mechanics and controls.

 

 

Jump to today and a lot of games have aped, innovated and improved upon many of the foundations that Ocarina of time established. But much of what the game did out of the gate remains strong to this day. What this new release does is ensure that for new gamers issues of technology that may have made it feel dated have been removed, or improved, to ensure it remains as magical for new players as it did for me when I first played it fifteen years ago.

 

 

Like all gamers of a certain age Zelda The Ocarina of Time's impact on my view of gaming is undeniable. To be fair, it was not my favourite Zelda story, but the magic of the third dimensions and a story structure that was not yet predictable, made it an experience that could not be forgotten. For most who played it, and there is no hyperbole here, it was quite simply magical.

 

 

Years have passed of course. The games structure, controls and even story, have been mimicked so many times (including by Nintendo themselves) that coming back to this 3DS remake was a prospect that made me nervous. After all this was my childhood I was risking. Like going to see Michael Bay's Transformers, or playing Double Dragon again, I was likely to feel cheated or (worse still) that the defining early loves of my life were actually little more than fleeting crushes.

 

 

 

Luckily Zelda The Ocarina of Time defied all my expectations. What would have been the most dated aspect of the original, the graphics, have had beautiful new life breathed in to them. Small facial animations display emotion, the world is as vibrant as the imagination of my memory paints it, and the enchanting world feels new once again.