The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (2011)

As rumors have picked up about a potential new OoT remake for this year, some have called for this 3DS version to just be ported to Switch. I just replayed a chunk of it and personally I think despite any technical graphical improvements it just looks “off” to me, the art style and atmosphere changes here in a way I don’t really love. The slight QoL improvements are nice, but I think OoT should get a proper remake that preserves the general idea of its levels and progression but reimagines its scale and shows what a more traditional 3D Zelda can look like today, and the fact that they already very lightly “remade” it here doesn’t mean that should be off the table 15+ years later IMO. There’s cool stuff you can do I think to make the towns and open areas bigger and more detailed, and help guide people a bit more who struggle to play the original, while still having similar setpieces and atmosphere and such that made this a classic.

Okay it has been 3.5 years since I stopped Zelda marathon-ing. I did not make it far. I got distracted by life. But time marches on and three years of working in the games industry as it falls further into the hands of people who hate games and creativity has exhausted me and stripped my love for the medium and I WILL RECLAIM THAT LOVE IF IT KILLS ME (that's dramatic it certainly will just be me playing the game the changed my 11 year old brain forever). But I'm jumping back in the marathon of the 3 of you that were following it back then are still here :)

I was debating if was going to revisit the 3DS remakes of OOT and MM, but I found a good reason to play them. I've been doing WaniKani since January in an attempt to improve my Japanese vocabulary with the goal of getting better at reading Japanese. I read that these versions have furigana, so I want to play these in Japanese to test myself and learn some fantasy vocab along the way. That'll probably make it take longer to complete as I look up words, but I figure it'll be a fun project.

I've played Ocarina of Time for many years but just now getting around to play the 3DS version. I actually really like seeing it in 3D despite the feature being an old novelty for many people at this point. The graphics are beautiful too. I wish to see Nintendo redo the graphics again someday so it looks like the unreal engine videos on YouTube. Look up RwanLink to see what I mean. Maybe whatever comes after the Switch could handle something like that in game form. Ocarina of Time 3D had some missed opportunities for improvements they could have easily added. Like why do masks still unequip when loading a new zone? Why does Link sometimes spin around like a top when a puzzle is solved in dungeons? Why do healing fairies clip through walls (happens in water temple)? All of that should have been caught and fixed. I also would have liked to ride Epona as child Link but maybe that's asking too much. Majora's Mask could do it though, just saying. I'm still giving this game five stars of course. When I'm not nitpicking it's a nearly perfect remake. Can't forget the boots being made into more easily usable items. That alone is such a great improvement Nintendo should have modded it into the N64 virtual console.

Started this up again a few days ago. I cleared the Fire Temple and just finished the Water Temple. Can say I beat the Water Temple without any guides which feels pretty damn good. It just took roughly 4-5 hours and a lot of backtracking. Don't know if I could have managed it without the in-game compass which is a God-send.

I plan on getting back to this in the coming weeks. Animal Crossing New Horizons has me pretty distracted but I really want to put some more time into Ocarina. I've forgotten what bit I'm up to but I'm quite sure I am up to the lava mountain for the second time. I think it had seemed like a good spot to park on when I saved.

Whew. Took me about half an hour to finally finish off the three Stalfos in the Forest Temple. Each hit took 2 hearts which only gave me the potential to take three hits before dying. Finding a fairy and bottling that bad boy helped me out when the last Stalfos took me out. Each death was hilarious heart-breaking and frustrating. In particular when it looked like their swords were getting me through my shield. Onwards now, I got just that little bit further. The game's controls are probably my biggest problem, also travelling is so slow when traversing the terrain. It's so tedious I can't be bothered to explore or backtrack which I'm sure is what the game wants me to do.