Two eras intertwine in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Nintendo skillfully commands them both. Link’s journey through the ages melds the world and dungeon design of classic Zeldas with the movement and presentation of its more recent games. This is not an exact one-to-one remake of the Nintendo 64 original, nor is it a complete reimagining. It’s a modern interpretation that adds depth to what was already there through its rich art style and expanded dialogue. Whether you’re a returning fan approaching this as a remake of a longtime favorite or a newcomer viewing it with fresh eyes as a standalone adventure, Ocarina of Time is exceptional. I spent 30 hours obsessing over every inch of this beautiful realization of Hyrule – and when I reached the credits, I started over again to find even more of its best-kept secrets.
Link’s quest to stop the evil Ganondorf and save Hyrule proves how much value there still is in the traditional Zelda formula. That means exploring the world to find the next dungeon, unlocking a key item within that helps you solve puzzles and defeat its boss, and then using that tool to uncover new areas. There are also tons of secrets, side quests, and gold spiders to find off the main path. This more linear structure offers a different type of satisfaction than modern Zelda’s open-world adventures, and its signature time travel mechanic – which has you swap back and forth between child and adult versions of Link to progress, complete with a familiar but radically changed world for each – remains interesting to this day.
As soon as I stepped into Kokiri Forest, I was certain that this is the best Zelda has ever looked and sounded. From quaint towns to creepy dungeons to warmly-lit fields, this Hyrule has carved a permanent place in my mind. It’s rich with details that paint a full, practical picture of this fantasy world: Link takes a breath and moves his fingers when playing the ocarina, his scurrying Bombchu explosives are depicted as wind-up toys, and the grass he cuts blends naturally into the surroundings. It stays at a solid 60 fps practically the entire time, either docked or handheld, and it sounds fantastic, too. Gold Skulltulas fall out of trees with a loud thump, enemy swords sharply clang off Link’s shield, and Koji Kondo’s beautiful original soundtrack is perfectly performed by a talented small group of musicians.
Link’s animations are packed with endearing detail as well: he watches his step when running down stairs and covers his face when walking through tall grass. He also has some charming reactions pulled straight from Breath of the Wild: you can see him overheating in the volcanic Death Mountain Crater without the right gear, and his tunic will actually catch on fire. This is a small tweak from the original, where a timer warned you of how long he could survive the heat. Elements of modern Zelda’s reactive, systems-based design enrich this old-school adventure in small ways.
The way it’s presented has brought me even closer to this story than I was before – which is saying something for a game I play once per year. Important story moments are often beautifully framed, like how the opening seamlessly transitions from Link sleeping to his nightmare in Hyrule Field. Link remains a silent protagonist, but his adorable facial expressions tell me everything he’s thinking, like when he excitedly looks at his fairy sidekick Navi after being accepted by a new ally. Navi and the rest of the cast fill each scene with enjoyable, over-the-top voice acting that fits this fantasy world.
The controls feel immediately familiar to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. While you can’t climb any wall – only ones clearly marked to allow it – Link can now freely dash and jump at the press of a button. You no longer have to line yourself up perfectly and perform a running auto jump, which transforms careful tightrope sequences into snappy platforming. He responds with precision, and the joy of moving through the world makes completing even the simplest tasks feel great.
Link wields his items from a third-person perspective, with optional motion aiming that turned me into a sniper. Freely aiming and moving at the same time makes weapons like the slingshot or bow far more viable parts of your arsenal. I’ve probably fired more slingshot pellets across my two playthroughs of the remake than in every run of the original combined. There was one moment where I was thinking about how much I liked using the slingshot now that I completely forgot to jump – thinking Link would do it on his own – and nearly fell off a high bridge. (Thank goodness Link bailed me out by clinging onto the ledge.)
Your main weapon is still your sword, and combat feels great; Link is quick on his feet, and his slashes land with crunchy, bright impact. You need to learn each enemy’s behaviors and swiftly sidestep or backflip away until it’s the right time to strike back. Wolfos swing their claws so hard they twirl around, while Stalfos grant a window of opportunity while they’re recovering from a jump attack. Each enemy is a light puzzle of its own.
This pattern recognition could get old – once you’ve seen one Dodongo do a spin attack, you know how to beat them all – but Hyrule has a wide lineup of colorful enemies that only appear in a few places each. Baby Dodongos chase you and explode like fireworks, Armos statues come to life and jump scare me every time, while fully armored Moblins charge at you with sharp spears. Well… they’re fully armored in the front. In the back, all you can really see is a thong. It hits the amiibo collecting part of my brain to beat each enemy type and install its statue at the new Hall of Fallen Foes, a museum that lets you admire the detailed character designs and rematch powerful enemies.
I’ve never viewed the Zelda series as combat games first: they are action-adventure games with equal parts combat, exploration, and puzzle solving, so the relative simplicity of the action here works well. That said, this remake isn’t very challenging, and part of that actually ties into how well it controls. The small number of enemies in each fight and the way they act are still largely grounded in 1998 game design that was perfectly tuned for teaching people how to move and fight in an early 3D space. Now, Link feels better to control than he ever has, but the enemies haven’t risen to meet him. I always enjoyed the fights – especially tense two-on-one encounters in claustrophobic spaces – but I rarely felt at risk of failing. This applies to minigames and side objectives as well: it was routine for me to get the top prize at the shooting range, race track, or bowling alley on my first attempt when motion aiming, free camera control, and better movement were all on my side.
It feels like a missed opportunity to not have the harder Hero Mode that Skyward Sword HD, Echoes of Wisdom, and the Link’s Awakening remake all had at launch. Aside from upping the difficulty, it would also give value to a new item the remake introduces. Business Scrub Seeds let you summon a shopkeeper at a moment’s notice to restock on health or items. Their description reads that they “emit the overpowering scent of business,” which is a great line. But resources are so plentiful that I never had to use one, and opening a secret treasure chest only to find one of these seeds always led to a brief feeling of disappointment. That would probably change in a Hero Mode where hearts came at a premium. Instead, Ocarina of Time’s one-size-fits-all approach to difficulty left me wanting a bit more.
Link’s capabilities feel modern, but the world he lives in is delightfully old-school. On my way to the dungeon where you unlock bombs, I must have passed 10 cracked walls begging to be blown up. Once I cleared the dungeon and had 20 bombs in my pocket, it was rewarding to return to each one and reveal its secrets.
This style works especially well in Ocarina of Time because of Hyrule’s dense, compact layout. It never feels like a chore to return somewhere once you have new abilities because everything is so close together. Once you figure out how to ride your horse, Epona, Hyrule Field becomes a playground that’s fun to zip across. Plus, you may stumble into smart shortcuts that tie distant areas together, and you’ll learn songs that let you warp to specific spots.
My curiosity guided the adventure: Navi rarely interrupts the action with unsolicited advice, and the newly-added quest log only gives broad descriptions of your next objective, like “Find out what’s going on in Zora Domain.” So while you may not be able to get endlessly sidetracked with self-driven quests like in newer Zeldas, it’s great that it still falls on you to discover the path forward. Exploration has always been at the heart of this series – it just takes different forms.
You often find out what’s going on the old-fashioned way: talking to people. Hyrule is full of secrets, and its townsfolk love to gossip. A helpful Zora heard the king is worried about his daughter, which leads me to the next dungeon. A woman in Kakariko Village is looking for her lost Cuccos, and reuniting them nets me a nice prize. A Goron admits he licked his tribe’s sacred ruby, and that it was saltier than he thought it’d be. Conversations led to main quests, side quests, and funny moments I won’t forget.
Characters say new things based on the latest story beat, and they even have more fleshed out daily routines since time now passes when you’re in towns. They basically just walk between where they stand during the day and where they are at night, but I guess the gossipy culture got to me, too, and I obsessed over knowing everybody’s business. I watched from the rooftops as time passed by below.
These characters send you toward side activities where you play games, investigate things that look out of place, and draw connections across the world and its eras. Their wonderful variety plays into the excellent pace, where it always felt like I was doing something different. But no matter where I was, I kept an eye (and ear) out for well-hidden Gold Skulltulas. Side quests help fatten your wallet, and you’ll need as much cash as you can get, because Great Fairies charge a pretty hefty price for worthwhile magic upgrades.
Eventually, all that adventuring will lead you to a dungeon. I’ve really missed traditional 3D Zelda dungeons, which often feel like puzzle boxes that are designed to be solved in a specific way. There is beauty in the freedom of modern Nintendo design, where any answer that works is a correct one. But there is also beauty in limitation, where figuring out the only solution can be just as rewarding as inventing one yourself.
When Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma was in college, he made mechanical wooden dolls that could dance and play musical instruments – he said he loved when people would see them and wonder what kind of tricks were inside, and how all of their parts functioned together. One of Aonuma’s first projects at Nintendo was to lay out Ocarina of Time’s original dungeons, and I can easily see the parallels between his two types of creations. The best dungeons act as one big contraption, forcing you to think of the room you’re in as part of a larger whole, where decisions and discoveries in one area impact another.
28 years later, these dungeons are still a delight to unravel. They carry an excellent blend of puzzles within individual rooms, battles with enemies and minibosses, and clever moments where you need to zoom out and think about the whole space. Each one feels unique: Navigating twisted hallways in the Forest Temple leads to different wings of a haunted mansion, while the Fire Temple’s eerie chants wonderfully complement its intense linear climb to the top of a scorching tower.
I never get tired of entering a new room, taking out the enemies within, and then figuring out what it’s asking of me, like which block I need to push where or what switch I need to hit next. However, there are a number of small changes that add up to make a big difference in how these dungeons feel to work through, not always for the better. For example, a few locks are now placed on doors closer to their respective keys. This effectively shrinks the explorable space in these moments – if you run into a locked door and don’t have the key, there aren’t that many rooms it could realistically be in. It doesn’t ask you to think about the broader layout quite as much as a result.
I understand taking the opportunity to tone down pain points that people have been getting stuck on for nearly 30 years. But this remake tends to overcorrect: a few rooms that used to have admittedly obscure solutions now contain really obvious ones. In some cases, literal guard rails make sure you don’t miss the only possible answer in front of you. Puzzles that require a specific item are oftentimes overly telegraphed. For example, even though the hookshot will latch onto lots of surfaces, several places where you used to have to figure out you needed it have been replaced with the unmistakable hookshot target. This removes some of the required thought: you recognize the symbol, and equip the proper item. This has always been part of Zelda, but it’s exaggerated here.
The Water Temple – which is easily the original’s most infamous dungeon – has fewer small keys altogether. An easy-to-miss room that used to hold a key is now only required for completionists, which takes a huge moment of discovery off of the critical path. It’s not like every room has been changed in this way, but there are enough instances that they amount to a noticeable trend, which makes the big Zelda “aha!” moments when you overcome something less frequent and less special.
This is why I played the entire game twice before writing this review. I wanted to see how the dungeons felt when I wasn’t so closely scrutinizing their differences. Even with fewer keys, the Water Temple does still successfully test your logic skills as you shift the water level to manipulate its accessible areas. Some individual puzzles have even been improved over their original forms. So I don’t want to cause panic: the dungeons are still largely fantastic. I just wish they trusted me more.
I also played on Pro Mode the second time around, which removes almost all UI elements, including the minimap. It’s easy to watch the really detailed minimap like a GPS to see exactly where the chests and locked doors are in the current room. If you’re a Zelda expert, I recommend turning it off from the start – you can still pause and see the map if you need to.
The dungeon bosses are giant, threatening puzzles to be solved, usually with a specific item. They go down fairly quickly once you know their tricks, but I don’t mind when part of the fun is racing to improve my time in the boss rush mode. These fights are filled with epic moments, like knocking an enormous spider off the ceiling. Or, you can find goofy ways to fight them instead, like deflecting Phantom Ganon’s volleys with an empty bottle instead of a sword, a wonderful detail I’m so happy to see return.
That is just one of dozens of little surprises that make Ocarina of Time so special. Hyrule is filled with secrets that exist just to be secrets. Certain ocarina songs trigger interactions that have no purpose other than playfulness. Link can wear masks that change what people say, sometimes revealing shockingly dark secrets. You dive into underground caves to find hidden treasure, but sometimes there’s just a cow down there! You’ll hear rumors of alternative ways to kill enemies you’ll wonder how you ever lived without. There are conversations you can only hear at very specific points that feel really special when you manage to catch them. Ocarina of Time does not care if you miss some of its secrets, which makes stumbling into them all the more impactful. I’m sure it’s hiding some things that are still a secret to everybody.
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