Community Member Review: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

By grey walrus — June 22, 2011
Tags: legend-of-zelda nintendo nintendo-3ds nintendo-64 review

The story that became a legend now in 3D. And it truly is legendary.

If you haven't played the original Ocarina of time on the N64 then now is as good a time as any to check out this fantastic game, and how you can do it with upgraded graphics, and in 3D.

Graphics: The overly polygonal graphics of the 64 are gone, and replaced by some of the best graphics you could hope for (while remaining true to the original art style/feel of the game) Everything is beautiful. Couldn't figure out what something was supposed to be/look like back in the day? That's not a problem anymore. The colors are vibrant and beautiful, and you never wanna stop playing. Also the 3D aspect of the game when or if you decide to turn it on is FANTASTIC easily the best use of 3D on the 3DS so far. It looks good. It's subtle and adds a great sense of depth to the game. It's not necessary at all though and the game feels just as good as it always has when in 2D.

As far as the 3D goes though there are some points where you can definitely notice that they haven't perfected the technology yet. Namely when you're in the chamber of sages, and right outside the temple of time as an adult. You get some double images that won't go away unless the 3D is all the way off, but it only happens in a few places, and you can always turn the 3D off temporarily.

Sound: As far as I can tell the sound of the game has remained the same, but all of those noises are so nostalgic. You'll hear the skulltola's scuttling around, and the familiar screams of link as he swings his sword. Playing music on the Ocarina is still beautiful and fun, and all of the music in the game sounds as good as ever. Every sound you remember from playing back on the n64 is here, and if you haven't played it on the n64 you can experience it in all of its beauty for the first time.

Story: In this installment of Zelda you wake up in the Kokiri forest as the only child without a fairy when the Deku Tree sends you your faithful, and quite annoying, companion Navi. She tells you to meet with the Deku tree and he tells you that he's going to die because an evil man named ganondorf has poisoned him. You start your first dungeon inside of him and get the first spiritual stone. You must get all three of these to unlock the secret room in the temple of time where the master sword lies, and that is where the real adventure begins. You Pull the master sword out of the stone and are transported seven years into the future. Where everything has been destroyed. From there you continue on your quest to destroy Ganondorfs evil, and restore peace to the land. You are the hero of time, and you're the only one that can save Hyrule from its terrible fate.

New features: There are quite a few new features to the 3D version of the game, and though a few might not seem that big if you've never played the game before they truly make it more enjoyable than you'll ever know. The first is that your ocarina is always equipped and doesn't take up one of your precious item slots. You activate it by simply tapping the bottom left hand corner of the touch screen. You also have one additional item slot compared to the first game. You can map items to either X, Y, I, or II. I, and II are simply touch buttons on the top right and bottom right of the touch screen. all of your boots can now be set as items rather than having to go all the way into the gear menu and equipping/de selecting the EVER TIME. It makes the water temple SO much faster and easier. That's about it as far as new item features go, but there's a couple more miscellaneous ones to mention.

There's the new gyroscopic view you can use. It's completely optional, and cool at times, but can also get annoying. whenever L-targeting or in first person view you can look around the map simply by moving your 3DS in the direction you wanna look. It doesn't work well when in the car because if the person driving turns your camera moves. I learned that the hard way.

Boss challenge mode and master quest mode have both been added to the game as well although you don't unlock them until you finish the game for the first time. Boss battle mode is pretty self-explanitory, but if you don't know about master quest mode it's quite cool. It makes some of the platforming harder, and changes/adds more enemies to make everything more challenging. And if that's not hard enough for you the entire map is mirrored. If you're as used to the map and know every nook and cranny as most of us do, this is REALLY going to throw you off your game.

FINAL VERDICT!: This game is fantastic. In every way. If you haven't played OoT before or are already a huge fan of it then you owe it to yourself to buy this game. It's one of the many to come that make a 3DS worth buying if you don't already have one. When I got the game on release day I spent the entire day playing it. I kid you not I logged 13 hours in the game the first day, and got about half-way through it. It's so good.

BUY IT! BUY IT! BUY IT!!!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D