The Ocarina of Time Remake

 I think there's probably a generational distinction among players of the Zelda series.

For Millennials, and perhaps those on the older side (though I'm, I'd say, more of a "middle" Millennial, born in the latter part of the 80s, though on the older side of that cohort) Ocarina of Time will always be "the greatest video game ever made," or at least certainly the best of the Zelda series.

I suspect that for younger players, Breath of the Wild holds that place, which is funny, because the appeals are somewhat different and even maybe opposite. I, personally, never finishing Breath of the Wild because I became so damned frustrated that the game punished me for using my coolest weapons by making them break before I could even defeat a single monster. But more broadly, the tightly-designed dungeons with their puzzles and unique items were thrown out in the name of open world freedom, which to me made it feel like no matter what environment I was in, I was dealing with the same sorts of enemies.

See, I actually like a more curated experience in a video game. And again, I think that's a generational distinction, even if I'm sure there plenty of exceptions of older folks preferring the looseness of your Breaths of the Wild and younger folks yearning for more structure.

But I also think that Breath of the Wild triggered a bit of a negative emotional response because it felt like this new wave that was going to sweep away the Zelda series I had loved growing up in favor of something new that bore a vague resemblance.

(I will say that I did enjoy and finish Tears of the Kingdom - a game I think some people felt was a bit too much of a Breath of the Wild clone, even using the same broad world map, but its gameplay systems solved some of the major issues I had with BotW.)

Anyway, for two decades, it was kind of undisputed that Ocarina of Time was a superlative game, and truly did top many "all time" lists.

When the game came out, I was 12, and I had not played a Zelda game before (I would later get A Link to the Past, though I think not until I was in college) and Ocarina of Time was the big event. I think I got it for Christmas, though I had to persuade my mother that the game wasn't too violent (the conventional wisdom that a Nintendo-branded game wasn't going to be a Mortal Kombat-style gorefest had not permeated my parents' understanding of the medium yet).

Obviously, N64 graphics haven't aged very well, but the game was stunning in 1998. And I also think we sometimes forget that this was (as far as I know) the first 3D game with a lock-on feature to keep your enemy target in sight. That's such a profoundly standard thing in so many kinds of game that we forget that someone had to invent it, and in true Nintendo fashion, they justified it in-game by having Navi the fairy aid us in aiming at our foes. (In a similar manner, I believe Super Mario 64 was the first 3D game to have a controllable camera, which they justified by having a Lakitu flying around filming you - another crucial part of gaming that someone needed to invent.)

So, 28 years later, Nintendo is releasing a remake, with modern graphics and controls, and I have to say, watching the preview got my nostalgia circuits buzzing.

The remake looks to be a very faithful one. While Kokiri Village, for example, looks far more natural with its streams and ponds and tree-houses and rocks, the layout looks to be the same. Similarly, when we get a look inside the Great Deku Tree, OoT's first true dungeon, it also looks to be the same map with the same flow of puzzles (that big spider web in the floor, for example).

As far as I can tell, the game itself should feel basically the same, but with a modern look.

I have heard some criticism about that look: while the visual fidelity truly reflects the nearly 30 years of development, some have said it looks a bit generic, like a fan update made in Unreal Engine. Now, plenty of real, professional games are made in Unreal. But I'll concede that it lacks the somewhat cel-shaded look of Breath of the Wild/Tear of the Kingdom, and you could argue that there's less of sense of deliberate choice of style here.

I'm not sure this is a problem, though. I think the intent seems to be to make Ocarina of Time look like what we thought it did when we were almost 30 years younger. I cannot stress to you how blown away I was by one of the game's original TV ads, which looked more impressive than anything I'd ever seen in a video game. I'm certain that watching that same ad today it would look like nothing special.

But to me, here is, I think, the bigger concern:

I love Ocarina of Time. But it is a game I have played already. I love the Zelda series. I'd love to see Nintendo move on from the formula it used in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom to develop something new, perhaps finding some happy medium between the open world freedom of the recent titles and a more structured adventure like the older games.

But remakes, as fun as they might be, inherently aren't going to be innovative (ok, I guess technically that's not true, but only if they're willing to make substantial changes, like Resident Evil 2's excellent remake).

I'm going to get a Switch 2 eventually - I've had every Nintendo home console since the Super Nintendo. And legitimately, this made me feel like I ought to get it sooner rather than later (I'm also pessimistic that the price will go down given how memory is getting eaten up by the LLM AI industry, and also our country's economy is being driven off a cliff by some of the most hateful and idiotic people in the world).

But a remake is a fine trip down memory lane if it's not the Zelda game we're getting for the next 5 years.