There are moments when some games just leave lasting marks on players, and for some reason, with their strange gravity or spectacular miracle or unforgettable plot twist, they just drag you into their world and make you love them. You want to give that game to your friends. You want your boss to play it. You just want everyone to play it. This is the kind of thing I find does not happen to me as an adult for video games. But it did happen for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the late ’90s. The moment I played that game, it felt like some kind of crazy force of good in its fight against evil. It was a feeling I could not explain.
As I switched on my Nintendo 64 and entered the brilliantly animated world of Hyrule, I was entranced. And although I’ve played through the story multiple times at this point, a few things always stick out while I’m on my return trip to the land of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Eiji Aonuma often speaks about making the game’s 3D environments feel like a big change in how the Zeldas were going to work from that point on, and I think what he means by a “big change” is exactly what you and I get from that game. Its dungeons feel much more intricate than ALTTP’s, despite the old ones mostly being a matter of pushing blocks or solving riddles with your sword. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to work my way through that particular dungeon, and even at the end of my first run, I wasn’t guaranteed to make it out alive. But there was something about being stuck there with Link that made for some absurdly cool gaming moments.
My childhood home, where I lived, is something I remember quite well. Within, there is one thing, one moment in fact, that is also easy to recall because of its unique and iconic composition: the opening scene of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Link, the young boy who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time, is seen napping in his relatively plain treehouse that sits high above the elven Kokiri Forest. As soon as the game starts, the camera—like the eye of a player seeing the world for the first time, moves through the forest to show that it is really a safe and magical place to live, to give the player a sense of just what is at stake when venturing out into the world.
The first time I played as Link left an indelible impression on single-game adventures. The opening salvo of the game was especially mind-boggling. It is the way the game starts that matters. The game opens with a born-in-the-wild atmosphere. The green foliage and the sun that hits it along the path that cub Link for the most part traverses breathe a kind of sun-dappled life into the kind of digital woods Link for the most part inhabits. Kokiri Forest feels natural and is a sunny, colorful place.
Being introduced to Navi, Link’s fairy companion, was a crucial moment. Even though she has gained some notoriety for her often “Hey! Listen!” interruptions, Navi was really an important part of your quest to play the game. I don’t think I could have beaten the Water Temple without the guidance of this infamous fairy.
My first dungeon, Inside the Deku Tree, served as a primer for the core gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The 3-D map that I directed my protagonist to didn’t need the side-scrolling shift that old 2-D Zeldas did when you transitioned to different gameplay environments. And as a result of that change, the dungeon contained new core gameplay elements that the old 2-D Zeldas didn’t: puzzles to solve, rooms of many enemies to fight, and one major boss enemy to bring down. Moreover, each of the dungeon’s series of rooms had a unifying core puzzle that I needed to solve, which required a combination of using items gained in the dungeons and combat.
In Ocarina of Time, one of the most memorable and transformative sequences is when Link draws forth the Master Sword at the Temple of Time. Until this ritual is performed, the appearance and form of Link, the main character, is that of a child, seen primarily from the child’s level of understanding and vision of a world teetering on the near side of darkness. Yet even from the perception of the childhood stage of the game, the Temple of Time feels like a place of momentous events, of destinies on the march.
The columnation of the Temple of Time is so exceedingly beautiful. Moreover, the song of the famous chapel organ is quite soothing. There’s a reason the game’s designers made particular use of this song as the frontispiece to their manual, I think; it perfectly embodies the fervor of the Stronghold Millennial and the curious mixture of magic and faux-medieval Catholicism that informs the spirit of the game. (The strongly Catholic world of The Legend of Zelda isn’t often mentioned, probably for fear of driving off its Protestant audience!)
This wasn’t just about an upgrade in graphics. The once bright and lush land of Hyrule had been replaced by the kind of dreadful world you find in The Lord of the Rings. The exuberance replaced by gloom; the sunny landscapes replaced by dark towers and dark figures. In the name of progress, Hyrule was treated to a dark spell under Master Ganon. The place that used to be so familiar was rendered unrecognizable. And what did those high stakes do to the princes you were supposed to be rescuing? Ocarina of Time lets you find out and decide for yourself.
Coming back to another Hyrule gave me the chills. We’d walked down this way before, in another time. But now, memory had taken a back seat. Firsthand feelings of a monster’s hand pushing up from under the earth to overturn the world we once knew were grounds for sweaty palms and the fresh breathlessness of dread. Life on familiar premises had become the life of a secret agent, kind of like James Bond. We were back—astoundingly, shamelessly back—under the shell of night, under private cover of a familiar star.
This stage of the game was profoundly affecting for its most salient reason: the vital friends of my youth within the game had now become friends of my imagined middle age or older. Their faces and bodies and voices were half again as dear to me for being so. Princess Zelda, ever my companion in one way or another, was now going incognito as Sheik, whom she imagined when she had imagined me; my imagined version of her was my favorite, and the fact that she had imagined Sheik was my favorite part about her.
The talk around Ocarina of Time can never be finished if one fails to address the beast: one must talk about the Water Temple. The temple, located beneath the spiderish Lake Hylia, is a state funeral in which it takes a great amount of courage not to move, a clip-on tie for introduction of Diploma in which the architect of the ceremony is clearly the kind of “high-Torture by the Inquisition” individual who would move into La Pilon. It is recalled by much of everyone involved that this was a very cold moment in this mission.
As I ventured into the Water Temple, its artistry and visual impact just floored me. The sheer, cavernous space of the central chamber hinted at how complex the navigation of the temple would turn out to be. The genius of the Water Temple’s design unfolds beautifully as you figure out how to get down and into its depths. In the Wind Waker, coming up after a dive typically leads to an alteration in the background leitmotif that frames the level, and this occurs multiple times over. Accessing the various parts of the temple for the first time was simply astounding; the visual component of exploring those parts for the first time and seeing their careful work was a really neat experience.
I recall devoting not just hours but what felt like days to the adventure within the infernally maddening Water Temple. I was the “dungeoneer” what could have been a simple task of giving the Master Sword a tune-up and making three stops for medallions had become a lengthy and overly complicated mission of its very own. I got one key, but then that key had to be used in a certain room that had already been visited. And then, if the water level was just right, which was only really possible in one certain state the temple could be in. Among the three different layered floors, there were two different states the water level could be in.
Battling Dark Link is one of the most memorable moments in the Water Temple. Dark Link, a shadowy, double version of Link, replicates all your in-game moves, which results in both an intense and weirdly existential duel that makes you feel as if you’re actually out-thinking and out-maneuvering yourself. The mirror image of your fight and pre-dawn indoor palette of the arena only intensify the oddness, and once you beat him, you’re halfway through the temple and free to go after the dungeon boss.
Although it was tough, I was able to finish the Water Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment mixed with relief were powerful when I defeated the boss of the Water Temple, Morpha, and emerged victoriously with the Water Medallion. Looking back, the experience holds some value because of the lessons it taught me: to persist, to think carefully, and to solve problems. I hate to admit it, but those three “virtues” were eventually very helpful, making the Water Temple one of my speed bumps of triumph.
Link’s final mission in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the confrontation with the sinister and powerful Ganondorf Dragmire. The game leads up to the dramatic climax with brilliance, tension, and a dramatic turn of events one could see only in this game. In our previous Popular Ships of Zelda article, we mentioned that the two most well-known enemies Ganondorf has had were once his right-hand men: Twinrova and Phantom Ganon. Twinrova is truly the penultimate boss in the Child Link arc of the game, and Phantom Ganon is a difficult boss in the Adult Link arc of the game.
The feeling of dread was almost overwhelming as I climbed the castle’s dark, foreboding towers. The music grew louder and more strident with each step, as if it echoed not just the non-diegetic soundscape but my own sense of doom and destiny. I might as well have been scaling Bowser’s or Dracula’s castle, for as close to a trap as I was walking into, or so it felt. When I finally came face to face with Ganondorf in the throne room, which was something of a surprise, it was as if I had been right not to trust my instincts.
The fight takes place in several stages. It starts with a one-on-one encounter against Ganondorf in his human form. In this initial dual, armed with the Master Sword and many other potent weapons and attack items, Link has to battle skillfully, deflecting the wizard’s deadly energy blasts, waiting for the right moments to strike when openings appear. If he’s hit and momentarily stunned, then that’s just more time that Ganondorf has to be up front and personal, to close in for the kill.
Barely taking the opportunity to keep my last breath inside, I escaped the castle that very minute it started to shake and crumble because of my Grand Battle on the top floor. From the steps of the castle to the steps of the platform at the bottom of the valley, I ran down and out and in as many different directions as possible. I was always seconds away from being squashed or impaled. Only when you emerge safe and sound can you feel sufficiently clenched and frustrated to cry, “THAT WAS THE WORST!” Then there’s a counterweight to that, “I’m almost there at the last site of hearing the boss music in this game.”
My skills and strategy were truly tested in the final confrontation with Ganon. I was equipped solely with the Master Sword and had to evade his potent onslaughts, looking all the time for a chance to counter with a cut of my own. The duel was fierce and asked a lot of me—demanded really good twitch gaming from me. Elating as it was (to have saved all of Hyrule and have seen Link’s quest through to its end), the moment of beating the lumbering, porcine boss carried with it a sense of having won on behalf of those most desperate for a trouncing of that top echelon of evil.
The end credits ran, and I could only sit there in a semi-dazed state, thinking about what an incredible adventure this had been with Link. It had started in the deceptively peaceful Kokiri Forest. Disturbance in the underground lair of the ancient Dodongo brought us to the Death Mountain Crater. At long last, after we had conquered the evils in both places and in the cavern itself, Impa’s silhouette blended into the tableau of the rising sun, and we became the Hyrule field’s pioneers for a more expansive and visually enlightening dawn to dusk experience.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is really something more than just a game; it’s a classic that’s had a lasting influence on the medium of video games. Right from the start, you play as a character who propels forward a really innovative kind of gameplay that was then adapted by all else who wanted to be as good. Ocarina of Time set a new standard for game design, and if you ask me (and, I believe, if you ask most of my fellow game-crazed friends), you’re talking about a zenith game of all time.
When I look back on my time spent playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I remember just how powerful the game was in creating an immersive and emotionally tethered experience. This was my first adventure into the realm of 3D RPGs, and while the combat was fairly simple, I mostly loved the game for the moments that felt like pure exploration and puzzle-solving (another thing I’m quite fond of!). I spent the most time in the Water Temple just trying to manage the nightmare that was the necessary path to solving the puzzles as part of that dungeon’s way toward the story’s mini-boss, and I still count that as one of my top triumphs in gaming.
The game’s influence is apparent in many titles since its release. Countless other games, in the years and decades since, have tried and are still trying to re-create the incandescent lure that was Ocarina of Time. Its attractive formula blended open-world wandering and side quests with a main, linear storyline in a way that’s now familiar, commonplace even, to players who’ve followed the path of gaming during the past two decades. The game was and remains the lodestone of that appeal, and also of the creativity and passion of its designers.
If you’ve never played Ocarina of Time, I really must insist that you give it a go. Step into Hyrule and take up the mantle of the Hero of Time. This is a classic game in every sense of the word. And if you are only going to play one Nintendo 64 game, make it this one. In a world where we are routinely offered insipid, watered-down approximations that don’t come close to matching the experiences of yesteryear, Ocarina, released in 1998, still stands right next to the 1993 classic The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as one of the very best examples of the action-adventure genre.
