The Legend of Ocarina of Time
The history of video games has been an incredible one, especially in recent years. Unlike the mediums of film and television, the leaders, frontrunners, and innovators constantly changes, there are constant shifts as to which companies are reigning supreme and which ones are falling towards the end. Most of your gaming developers and publishers of the 80s and 90s have actually ceased to exist or no longer carry the power they used to yield. Sega used to flirt with being on top of the console world, now they make games for the companies that eliminated them. Nintendo used to own nearly 90% market share in all of gaming, and nowadays they are hardly directly competing (nonetheless making fantastic money with the Nintendo Switch). Konami used to be king, now it’s considered a bad word amongst gamers. Square Soft used to be the go-to company for expecting a great game every time you see the logo attached to the box. Nowadays that title belongs to Rockstar (Red Dead Redemption 2 is doing quite well by the way).
Part of the reason why the industry shifts and weaves and moves like a violent ocean is because the software can make or break an entire console, and sometimes a failed hardware can evaporate the company that built it. There are some games that halts the entire world of gaming and shifts the tide immediately. A movie can’t break a large studio. A failed television show won’t kill Fox. But a major flop can indeed severely damage a company. Sega’s Saturn would drown the company, even if the Dreamcast was a good follow-up. Decisions made around the Nintendo 64 would set Nintendo back a decade. Of course, we can’t forget the disaster of the Atari Jaguar which effectively permanently stripped Atari of any chance of a gaming comeback.
Now, like I said before, a video game can transcend gaming, can save a company, can alter everything we know about games. Up until 1998, we’ve had a few examples, and the gaming industry has been forever improved because of them. Super Mario Bros. would save gaming back in 1984. The Legend of Zelda would be the first massive adventure in any console and even include a save feature. 1991’s Sonic the Hedgehog would become the first game to directly challenge the mighty giant known as Nintendo. Donkey Kong Country would shatter expectations and launch Nintendo back into the dominant #1 spot.Sony’s Playstation was making strong waves, was selling plenty, and was stripping away market share from everyone else, but it wasn’t until Final Fantasy 7 when competitors really started fearing the power of the console. A former Nintendo ally is now killing Nintendo? Sony is definitely here to stay.
Nintendo desperately needed a win. They had a strong launch back in 1996 thanks to the legendary Super Mario 64, but the Nintendo 64 was in severe software drought. For every game, it felt like the Playstation had 5 counters. For every Mario 64, we saw Spyro, Rayman, and Crash Bandicoot. For every Mario Kart 64, we saw Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed. Nintendo had no answer to the plethora of RPGs and sports games they were witnessing on the other side. Nintendo needed one of their more reliable franchises to bring them back in the race.
They needed Zelda.
The Legend of Zelda is the Oscar-winner in the line of Nintendo franchises; this one may not sell to the likes of a Super Mario and may not have the cultural marketing appeal of a Kirby or a Pokemon, but when one of these babies comes out, the world best recognize and pay attention. The original Legend of Zelda was a trend-setter, while the sequel Zelda 2 was similar to Super Mario Bros. 2—-different, daring, willing to experiment, had plenty of good ideas, but we still definitely preferred the original. With Link to the Past, Nintendo had the largest adventure on the market until the mid-90s. With Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy, this was the software that helped eliminate the Game Gear. A growing feverish fanbase was evolving around the story about the silent hero and the magical princess always in danger by an incredible evil. Zelda 64 had to arrive, and fast, and re-enter Nintendo’s place on top of the gaming universe.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was rapidly catching hype from the very beginning during its Zelda 64 days. With the leaked pictures, details, and rumors flying from all the gaming magazines the general consensus was that we weren’t just getting a game, we might be getting the greatest game of all-time. The delays hurt immensely (R.I.P. Nintendo 64 DD), but the patience remained because we just wanted the final product to show up. Nintendo Power, Nintendo’s official magazine, was helping the cause by beefing up the Best of All Time narrative. No way was Nintendo Power going to give this game anything less than a 9. Three years of updates, bad news concerning delays, anticipation, and subtle assurance that something special was going to arrive on the Nintendo 64.
It is truly difficult to ever describe the hype surrounding Ocarina of Time, for some of these elements get lost with the times, nostalgia can be difficult to duplicate. Ghostbusters back in 1984 wasn’t just a hit because it was a good movie, it was a smash hit because of the timing, the current culture, and other elements mixed in for it to strike gold at the right perfect time. This is why 2016 Ghostbusters struggled so badly, it didn’t hit that right cultural mark. Ocarina of Time arriving in November 1998, just as the N64/PSX gaming wars was reaching its peak, just as magazines and newspapers were still highly relevant and the ONLY sources for any details concerning the game, right as the internet was beginning to catch its first wave, this was going to be huge. It felt huge, this was our Phantom Menace. This was our Infinity War. The gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster was ready to arrive. We waited for years for this. The commercials, the marketing, and a company-backed newspaper was creating a level of hype that nearly felt impossible to match.
Yet, it did.
Very few blockbusters match the hype of a strong marketing campaign, this applies to video games and movies. Ocarina of Time is one of the few and best examples of a game truly being everything you wanted, and more. This wasn’t a game, this was a revolution. The first Zelda game in 3-D introduced elements that are still felt and enjoyed today. This Zelda features a soundtrack that is one of the strongest across any medium. Ocarina of Time delivered a storyline that felt in place with your strongest of role-playing games, while giving you a scope that is better than any adventure in the business, and finally enough action to keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat until the final moments and that beautiful and franchise-altering ending.
The surprises, the twists, the turns, and the fact that days turned into nights and the other way around, the ability to manipulate time, watching Hyrule fall, and a final boss battle that includes a crumbling castle, Ocarina of Time has it all. There are few moments in gaming as dramatic and as goosebump-inducing as when you explored Hyrule Field for the first time—-and nothing was as terrifying as the first time you roamed Hyrule Field at night.
Sidequests included, the game is literally about 50 hours long, which is an astronomically incredible amount even on today’s standards of 2-hour campaigns (Suck it, Call of Duty). And back in 1998, you couldn’t imagine how much the game contained because there was no strong internet to rely on to find out all the secrets, to get a list of the sidequests, to know what the actual limits of the game was. Heresay and rumors would spot the game for years, it felt like a game bigger than life. Once your adventure leaves the forest, it felt like there was no limits. This was everything we had anticipated, except so much more, probably more than what most of us could handle.
Time may not always be very kind to the early 3-D games of the 90s, but Ocarina of Time pushed the bar so high for production value and scale of exploration that nothing in a Playstation system would even come close until Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002 four years and a far stronger hardware later. And within Nintendo, they also couldn’t match the magic of Ocarina of Time until 2002 as well with Metroid Prime (which has also got its article of admiration from me). Side-Note, Majora’s Mask, if it was a Gamecube launch title, would have been an extremely close adversary with its superior tone and spectacular end-of-the-world niche. Even though the Playstation would win the war, the winter of 1998/1999 belonged to Nintendo, if for a short period of time before the continued success of the competition and the sixth generation of gaming looming around the corner.
There are albums, movies, television shows, and video games that mark their place in history, that represent an entire era, and will consistently and forever be revered for what it accomplished and introduced to the medium. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the first video game considered perfect by critics as well as gamers across the entire board, gaming wars and gaming preferences be damned. It would be the first major video game in the early lifecycles of these now-powerhouse publications like IGN and Gamespot to garnish the seemingly-impossible 10/10. Ocarina of Time was the Return of the King of gaming, big to a point of nearly being over-saturated, and too amazing to be nitpicky about any flaws it might have (is it safe to say Return of the King wasn’t perfect? Or should I go into hiding now?)(As for Ocarina of Time, that water temple consumed many souls).
Ocarina of Time would usher a new generation of gamers and developers to push the boundaries as to what is possible in gaming from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint. Without Ocarina of Time, Grand Theft Auto would not have evolved into what it is today. Without Ocarina of Time, Nintendo probably could have faced the same fate as Sega. But after the resounding success, after all the awards, accolades, and assurance that Nintendo is needed in the world of gaming, Nintendo would stick around and eventually gain back that crown two generations later—and then fail, and then rise again with Breath of the Wild, arguably the most impressive Zelda game to date.
Without Ocarina of Time arriving and transforming Nintendo video games from niche form of entertainment into a powerhouse, moneymaking art form to be reckoned with, we’d see a wildly different landscape of gaming today. The funny thing about the Zelda franchise is that all the fans have their own personal favorite title, not everyone today recognizes Ocarina of Time as the best (some claim Link to the Past, some claim the original game, and recently some are calling Breath of the Wild the best). But none of the other Zeldas carried the impact and importance of Ocarina of Time as 20 years later, the presence of the legendary game can still be felt today. So happy 20th to one of the brightest moments in the entire history of gaming.
Because another trip to Hyrule Castle is never, ever a bad idea.