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November 25, 1998 - The new benchmark for interactive entertainment has arrived. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the fifth official installment in Nintendo's popular action-RPG series is finally here, and like its NES predecessor in 1987 it is a game so enjoyable, it has the power to pull videogame players into its imaginative worlds -- and refuse to let go for days. Call us crazy, but when the final version of Zelda 64 arrived in the IGN64 offices, we stopped working, locked ourselves into a room with a big-screen TV and a surround system and played 17 hours straight. After only a few hours of sleep, we were back for more and we couldn't stop until we finished the game. Then, we started over again to find all the secrets.
Rarely is there such a perfect mixture of graphics, sound, and gameplay that even the most cynical players will admit that Zelda 64 is poised to shape the action RPG genre for years to come.
Gameplay
Like all games in the Zelda series, Ocarina of Time follows the adventures of a young Kokiri named Link. After a nightmare involving a certain young princess and the evil thief Ganondorf (who eventually turns into the horned creature known as Ganon), the elven boy wakes up in his home village tucked away behind the mysterious Lost Woods. The only Kokiri without a fairy, Link soon meets up with his new traveling companion, the winged Navi, and sets out on the adventure of his life. The quest, which inevitably turns into a rescue mission for Princess Zelda, leads players through dark dungeons, picturesque villages, into the heart of a volcano, to the bottom of a lake, through a haunted desert, deep into a magical forest, into a giant tree, the belly of a beast, and even through time. To say that this game is huge is an understatement. Every time you discover a new corner of the Kingdom of Hyrule, you'll be amazed at the detail, the richness of scenery, the many things to do, and the amount of thought that went into designing it all. For example, players can spend hours just exploring a village, talking to the inhabitants, solving puzzles, and looking for hidden items.
As soon as you pick up the controls for the first time and start to explore the vast universe that makes up this latest creation from the hands of Shigeru Miyamoto and team, you know you're in for a treat. At first, the control is very reminiscent of Super Mario 64, the game that single-handedly invented 3D platformers as we know them. But Ocarina of Time is not a platformer, a fact that takes some getting used to when trying out Link's various actions. There is no jump button. You can still jump at certain points in the game, but it is not integral to the gameplay that players actually control the jump themselves. Instead, Ocarina of Time introduces an auto-jump feature where Link will jump the last possible moment when running toward a ledge. It sounds annoying in theory, but it works very well for this type of game.
The gameplay objectives will be instantly familiar to friends of the series. Push walls to find hidden rooms, use bombs to uncover secret passages, shoot arrows at certain objects to open doors, and so on. But Ocarina of Time doesn't only imitate its predecessors, it innovates at every corner. With the use of the ocarina (a clay flute), players need to play certain melodies to solve riddles or warp to new places, and even engage in numerous games of "Simon Says". When you bring out the ocarina, the controller's button layout actually mirrors a real ocarina, with the Z button acting as the bottom hole on the flute. To allow for a little more fun, the designers also added a pitch bend and modulation option via the analog stick. Compare Zelda 64 to other titles and you will find that even one single dungeon has more puzzles than all the levels in many other games combined.
Things really take off once Ocarina of Time introduces the ability to travel back and forth in time (very much like light world/dark world gameplay). Without giving too much away, consider this one: at one point in the game, you talk to a character as adolescent Link, who tells you that a young boy with an ocarina did something seven years ago. Then you go back in time and actually do it. Or how about a fully functional fishing game, with Rumble Pak support and realistic fish behavior? This mini-game is so good, any other company would have released it as a game of its own. Then there is the ability to ride a horse -- it's so addictive, you'll catch yourself just galloping around and jumping fences. Or how about involving sword fights with a multitude of enemies that block your attacks with their shields? A shooting gallery? A super-cool hookshot that lets you traverse deep ravines? Secrets involving the use of sunlight and mirrors? Want to light some torches? How about catching the spirit of a slain ghost in a bottle? Changing daylight and weather conditions that affect the gameplay? The ability to wear different masks? Rumble Pak vibrations that give away the locations of hidden caves? It's all there. Oh, and let's not forget about teasing chickens... No matter which way you look at it, Ocarina of Time is simply unmatched when it comes to the variety and diversity of actions and puzzles. Do yourself a favor and play this game without the use of a guide! It's a lot more rewarding when you finally get your hands on something that you've been looking for for days than to read about it in a guide.
The camera follows Link in a style similar to Mario 64. Like in Mario, the camera also zooms out to reveal Link's surroundings at times -- but that's where the similarities end. In order to give players more control over the viewpoint and enable better, more focused 3D fighting, Nintendo reached deep into its bag of tricks and came up with an innovative feature. First of all, tapping the Z button will force the camera behind Link, no matter where you are. Incredibly, clipping is kept to a minimum and the camera logic almost always guarantees a good view of the action. But there is more.
When you see a character or an object that interests you or you're being attacked by an enemy, press the Z trigger. This will bring up a rotating yellow cursor that locks onto your target. Now, as long as you don't press the Z button again (or turn away to break your lock), the camera will stay on your target, retaining its over the shoulder position. This allows you to circle your enemies and slash at them while side-stepping, back-flipping and shielding yourself from the onslaught. While you are locking on to a target, the screen will become slightly letterboxed to let you know that the target mode is active. To additionally help you keep track of your attackers, your fairy Navi will hover over the target's head. There is also an alternate camera setting that requires you to hold down the Z button to keep a lock, but your fingers will probably get tired after a while. Needless to say that the Z button feature works impressively well and is sure to find its way into future 3D games. Ingenious.
The upper C button will let you either switch to an alternate camera angle (inside houses or towns), or zooms in to let you look around.
The attack system is equally impressive. Pressing B will make Link draw his sword. Press it again to slash at your enemy once. Press it three times to swing the blade from the bottom to the top. Press forward and B to slash downward. Turn the 3D Stick in a circle to do a roundhouse slash. And once you found the proper "power-up", press and hold B to charge your sword and make it glow, then unleash a nice helicopter slash that's sure to turn any stinking skeleton into a heap of bones. Similar controls are available for the other items, which can be distributed over any of the lower three C buttons. Press the corresponding key once to draw the weapon or item, then press it again to attack. For the projectile weapons (such as the bow or the boomerang), the designers also added an optional first-person perspective, kind of like the sniper mode in GoldenEye.
But the crowning feature is the context sensitive A button. If you stand close to a ladder, the A button display at the top of the screen will change to climb or descend, if you run around freely, it will change to jump, stand next to a sign and it turns into read, and so on. Simply pressing the button will activate the function. Some of the available functions include open, pull, push, dive, check, talk and crawl. This A button feature is Nintendo's way to keep things simple and to deal with the limited selection of buttons on a standard console controller. Once in a while, the automatic selection will cause you to do something you weren't trying to, but 99% of the time it works perfectly fine.
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