Ocarina of Time Review

[ambigiouslynamed]

its impossible to use the time travel thing 3 times unless you skip A LOT. why? the last two temples have sections that require child link alone and while it is possible its also unlikely unless you know the game very well.

[Durandro]

No old game holds a candle to anything we have nowadays, so that sort of claim of best game ever fails in every way. We can only really compare them with what existed at the time, or with the impact they had in future games.

I disagree with this statement. Not because there's no good recent games, but there's always going to be awful shit being churned out. And some games really are timeless, or have yet to be equalled/matched in story or playability.

Examples are:
Planescape: Torment.
Warcraft 2.
Super Mario Bros.
Rome: Total War.
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield.
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask.
World of Warcraft.
Street Fighter 2.
etc.

Most of these games even have sequels that people just don't give much of a damn about in comparison.

---------- Post added 2011-11-13 at 03:59 AM ----------

That game would've been a lot harder if you'd started off as a Goron.

To be picky, the game would be impossible if you did :P Not being able to jump over the bottomless pits or shoot down targets = stuck!

[Caiada]

I disagree with this statement. Not because there's no good recent games, but there's always going to be awful shit being churned out. And some games really are timeless, or have yet to be equalled/matched in story or playability.

Examples are:
Planescape: Torment.
Warcraft 2.
Super Mario Bros.
Rome: Total War.
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield.
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask.
World of Warcraft.
Street Fighter 2.
etc.

Most of these games even have sequels that people just don't give much of a damn about in comparison.

---------- Post added 2011-11-13 at 03:59 AM ----------



To be picky, the game would be impossible if you did :P Not being able to jump over the bottomless pits or shoot down targets = stuck!

I was a little broad in my statement, to be honest. However, the majority of older games are downright archaic in what they accomplish. That obviously says nothing of quality, but there's so much more we can do today that just wasn't possible a decade and a half ago.

---------- Post added 2011-11-12 at 11:19 PM ----------

OoT isn't especially hard. Its fun and lengthy, with a few tricky parts, a decent story and really excellent gameplay.

The LoZ difficulty is in other games. The original was very difficult for its time, and the sequel (which was a platformer style) is still brutal.

Majora's Mask is hard. And there's a lot more of the 'what the fuck do I do now?' aspect to it. There's a huge amount of time travel (infact, its impossible to beat without going back and forth quite a few times), the story is much more emotional and twisted, and without the mask that turns you into an adult the last boss is bloody hard and has three phases (and is freaky as hell). Not to mention the constant time constraints placed on you (you can only complete certain quests at certain times, you miss it and you have to go back to the first day again and try again). And you lose all your items whenever you time travel (bar weapons and essential items, and your diary).

Oh, and Link to the Past. That's hard as hell too.

I don't personally think ALttP was all that hard.... Maybe because of how thoroughly I played it, but I breeze through the game when I revisit it. Perhaps when I was younger and didn't know the puzzles as well as I do.

I should do a 3 heart run someday. Can already no-death it in my sleep.

[Solmyr13]

The issue with OoT is this : People who played it in 98 think its amazing (I am one of those) because it was something completely different. It was a type of game we'd NEVER seen before. Those of you playing it now? It's boring, repetitive and you've probably seen those mechanics before. Guess what? It's 13 years old. It's not "cutting edge" anymore, and though I love replaying it, it's for nostalgia, absolutely. Just because we enjoy this game doesn't make you a fanboy, if you played it back in 98 it was amazing; its like comparing Vanilla WoW to now. It's not that Vanilla wow was ever "better", it's just it was so new we had never seen anything like it before.

[Needalight]

I havnt played the new Ocarina of Time, but ill tell you that the water and shadow temple were not fun for anyone. Most reviews out there usually call these places out as one of the most "grindiest" places in the whole game.

Anyway...I showed this to my friends the other day, and they loved it.......I recommend all of you to watch this for some serious NOSTALGIA.

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/the...ospective/5269

[Caiada]

The issue with OoT is this : People who played it in 98 think its amazing (I am one of those) because it was something completely different. It was a type of game we'd NEVER seen before. Those of you playing it now? It's boring, repetitive and you've probably seen those mechanics before. Guess what? It's 13 years old. It's not "cutting edge" anymore, and though I love replaying it, it's for nostalgia, absolutely. Just because we enjoy this game doesn't make you a fanboy, if you played it back in 98 it was amazing; its like comparing Vanilla WoW to now. It's not that Vanilla wow was ever "better", it's just it was so new we had never seen anything like it before.

I actually didn't play through past the first dungeon in OoT until after I played Wind Waker, some time in 2005 or 6, I think. It's certainly not revolutionary now by any means, but it's got a quality about it regardless. The dungeons have that spark of creativity the series has been known for since Zelda 1, and the overworld (though pretty paltry in comparison to most now) still provides that sense of excitement a 'Zelda' world's always provided for me. It was harder for me to forgive quirks like the god-awful camera system and the finnicky l-targeting, but it was still enjoyable.

[LocNess]

A lot of hatred and rage going on in this thread. Going to agree, I played OoT as a tiny kid back in '98. Got it for xmas, it was amazing. Water Temple took me 2 years to beat too (I was like 5, gimme a break D. Yeah you can't compare it to modern games, but it still holds a place as one of the most video game changing games that came out for its time, and that earns it a permanent spot in the best of the ages list.

[Donkeypuncher]

So OP, you half assed played the game(seems from what your wrote you only stuck to the story and nothing else) and you bash on everyone for calling it the greatest game ever?

K, you have fun with that.

For it's time, yes...it was the greatest game ever. But your argument is as silly as me comparing wtf ever the best car was in 1985 with the greatest cars of today. Apples and oranges my friend, apples and oranges.

Anyway, considering that to this day it's the highest rated video game of all time...maybe you should consider going back and playing again. Maybe take in the story, do everything, and imagine your playing in 1998...a time when you wouldn't be sitting around comparing a game to everything that has come out since it.

Kthxhugsbye

[Deleted]

first of all the bosses were cool and all of them were pretty unique... nothing like I've seen in other games, BUT they were pretty simplistic. I never died to a single boss throughout the entire game, except for phase 2 Ganon where I had to use a fairy jar (I was just being reckless). The bosses didn't really have any phases... they just had a couple abilities that they repeated until you killed them (with the exception of Twinrova, but that wasn't the best fight in the world either). Maybe this has been rectified in the newer LoZ games, but I just encounter the famous Legend of Zelda difficulty that I've heard so much about. Secondly, I feel like they should've utilized time travel better. After I became an adult I went back to the past maybe 3 times? And only 1 of those was mandatory. Overall, great game especially for its time, I'm gonna have to give in a 8.5/10.

The bosses were simplistic when you learned the way to kill them. Otherwise, please remain the combat in water temple against mirrored link. That wasn't especially easy for a kid back then. The "legend of zelda difficulty" is more about nintendo than zelda itself. A lot of zelda games were actually a bit hard, a link to the past or link's awakening had a lot of hard parts, from today's standards. And about time travel, if you wanted to get everything in the game, and I mean everything, you had to use it a lot.

This game deserved a 11/10 13 years ago and it still does, imho.

[Yoggtimus Prime]

Anyone who shares a different opinion than you is a fanboy, right?

Reviewers give it a good score for a reason sir.

Because it's almost a carbon copy of Link to the Past, save it being in 3D. People enjoyed LttP (top game for a lot of people, actually), so why give OoT a lower score when it's almost the same game?

You can't use the debate that someone who disagrees is a fanboy. Well not nowadays. Even the reviewers who should have a good rep, are now losing to a little think you'd call "fanboyism". IGN and Gametrailers, for example. Why this happens is because even those guys get so use to playing these game franchises whenever, that they try to pull out more positives to avoid giving it a bad score. This doesn't happen all the time, but on several occasions they get a reviewer who is a die hard fan to this franchise, and they'll have him review it. Almost a secondary to marketing, if used correctly. That or the person really has no clue as to what's going on. This example would be TotalBiscuit when he released a WTF is Journey? vid. He continually blasted the game for it's negatives, rarely spoke of the positives, and seemed to know not one thing what the game was about. It's probably one of his worst videos for the lack of info he has. Sure you can say "But it's titled WTF is...", but at the time when he released this, he basically did WTF's over games he knew info about.

---------- Post added 2011-11-13 at 12:38 AM ----------

The issue with OoT is this : People who played it in 98 think its amazing (I am one of those) because it was something completely different. It was a type of game we'd NEVER seen before. Those of you playing it now? It's boring, repetitive and you've probably seen those mechanics before. Guess what? It's 13 years old. It's not "cutting edge" anymore, and though I love replaying it, it's for nostalgia, absolutely. Just because we enjoy this game doesn't make you a fanboy, if you played it back in 98 it was amazing; its like comparing Vanilla WoW to now. It's not that Vanilla wow was ever "better", it's just it was so new we had never seen anything like it before.

Meh, I wouldn't go that far. WoW basically took minor ideas from other MMOs out on the market and made it work together. The only reason it did so well was because it had so much good lore behind it.

[PizzaSHARK]

Ocarina of Time is a good game, but it wouldn't rate Game of the Year from me, not even when I first played it back in '98. I felt there were better games on the N64 back then and there sure as hell were better games on the PC.

I'd say 8/10 is a very fair score for OoT, even counting in a little boost due to nostalgia. I am considerably less friendly to more contemporary Zelda games, because they've all basically been living off of scraps from OoT's table (lol, Twilight Princess.)