Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is EXTREMELY overrated

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I'll rate Zelda:OOT as the best N64 game, and possibly the best game ever for its time. But certainly not the best video game ever made. For example, I think that Zelda:Wind Waker is better, but that's not even the best Nintendo published game either.

I had a hard time getting into OoT. :\ I love the original, Adventure of Link, and Link to the Past. I still want to play Wind Waker. I did not like much when the classic side scroll/overhead games went to 3D. Did not like Mario 64 either.

Heh, my parents were dirt poor when I was a kid. They purchased a SNES for themselves when I was about 3 or 4, and LttP was among the many fun games they had, including the almost unknown platformer Lost Vikings 2: Norse by Norsewest, IMO the funniest and coolest platformer I have ever played, check it out if possible.

When they purchased a PS1 (again, for themselves. They were kinda backwards, seeing games as adult things, not for children, ironically), I got the hand-me-down SNES and fell in love with LttP. I played the sh*t out of that game, beating it at least a dozen times, and still play it to this day. Maybe nostalgia plays a part, I don't know.

Anyways, my parents skipped right over the N64, so I never got to play OoT, Majora's Mask, or even Mario. My next game system was when I was about 12, the Gamecube, IMO one of the best little systems I've played. The very next Zelda game I played, minus some Gameboy titles like Oracle of Seasons, was Twilight Princess, which I loved (Midna Fan).

It was only this year that I purchased the OoT/Master Quest re-release on the Gamecube to give it a shot. And, of course, the hype and access to later games first made it a HUGE let-down. Clunky controls, terrible graphics (I shudder to think of how the N64 looked), the way the enemies wait and wait, I was disgusted by it.

I can see how, at the time, it was praised. But, as a first-time player, I was willing to look past the aforementioned flaws and take into account the time. Instead, I focused on the story, and honestly, I find it a little bland. I'll admit, LttP is bland as well, even more so, and the original is, well, plotless. But it kinda feels like a modern game, all graphics and little to no enjoyable gameplay.

I realize I can't expect to feel the wonder that those who lived through the NES and N64 era did. I recently attempted to play Majora's Mask on the N64, but I literally cannot differentiate the ground from the wall, the graphics are so bad compared to what I'm used to.

Well, that's my two cents. Do I think its overrated? Yes, but then again, I like weird things. For instance, I found Sonic Adventure and Legend of Mana quite enjoyable, with the latter my favorite game of all time. Now, isn't that odd?

Hah, you arent the only one that enjoyed Legend of Mana, I loved the hell outta that game. That it was an extremely open-ended JRPG (as opposed to most others that were starting to get more and more linear around that time) that DIDNT try to shove story elements up the player's nose, and had a bazillion things to do and interesting gameplay really helped it. I remember so few JRPGs with any amount of fondness, but that's one of them. There's only one other game that ever gave me an experience that was anything like that one in terms of how it felt and played (though of course the game's actual mechanics are very different, though it was very open ended and did in fact have you rebuilding the world in a very similar manner), and that's the original Dark Cloud, on the PS2; I highly recommend that one if you havent played it before.

And you're right about Lost Vikings 2 as well, that was a great one. Made by Blizzard, who would go on to develop Starcraft, WoW, Diablo, and recently Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. AKA, they went from stuff like Lost Vikings, which was relatively unknown (despite being fantastic, as right from the start Blizzard was a VERY high quality developer), to making some of the most insanely popular and well known games that have ever existed. The Lost Vikings are actually being added as playable characters (you use all 3 at once, unlike with absolutely everyone else in the roster) to Heroes of the Storm (which is currently in beta). First time they've made an appearance in about 5 billion years.

It's nice to see someone else that actually knows about a few games like Legend of Mana or Lost Vikings, as opposed to only ever knowing the "classics" from back then.

And yeah, the graphics on the N64 really ARE pretty bad, arent they? At the time though, hoboy, they were the most bloody astonishing thing many gamers had seen, since consoles (and PC games) were always (well, almost always) 2D up to then... and then suddenly that and the PS1 came along, with games like Mario 64 and such, and the gaming industry shifted. ....despite the horrid graphics of the things. Like the N64's infamous fog. If you've spent any amount of time playing it, you probably know about the fog. It really, really doesnt help the look of the games. Still, I remember being absolutely hypnotized the first time I got my hands on the thing, with Mario 64.

What's kinda dumb is that in all honesty, looking back on it the SNES games typically looked MUCH better than the N64's games did... but because they werent in 3D, they were no longer awesome enough. Sigh.

Playing OoT on the 3DS currently...I forgot how easy it is to get completely stuck in this game =|

Navi tells me to go to Death Mountain...okay, shut up, I'll go...okay, I'm here, now what??

Or trying to get through the Lost Woods. The whole "follow the sound" thing only works the first time you go through. I guess they expected you to just memorize it and remember the way the next time. The 3DS remake doesn't even have it when you enter that hint stone (whatever it's called).

I mean, I don't want the game to hold my hand, but some of it just feels like they rushed it with minimal playtesting.

It could be worse. It could be like trying to find dungeon #7 in the very first game. The dungeon that's found under a bush, which you have to burn with an item that can only be used once per screen, in a forest with 5 bazillion bushes on each screen, taking up many screens total, in a game that overall just has alot of the blasted things. This is of course provided that you know it's a bush, specifically, that the dungeon is found under, as opposed to a rock or a hidden hole in some wall or stuff like that. There's a couple of things like that in the first game, where I never had the foggiest clue how anyone was ever supposed to figure it out without a guide.

Buy a blue candle



I read somewhere that Miyamoto wanted that to be a social aspect of the game, where people would spread hints and tips via word-of-mouth (which was a thing we used to do back in the day; even though, as kids, a lot of it was BS). I always liked that about the old Nintendo games...there were so many hidden secrets, and not all of them had clues, so it always felt like a huge accomplishment when you stumbled upon something...there was something really magical about that to me.

Heck, there are secrets in Super Metroid that are clearly visible that I still haven't figured out (haven't looked up a FAQ yet).

Truth be told, though, my dad finally gave up trying to find dungeon 8 (or maybe it was 7?) and broke down and bought the NES Game Atlas. I didn't use it much for Zelda, but it came in real handy for Zelda II's later palaces.

The blue candle is the one that is only usable once per screen. The red one can be used endlessly, but where is the red one? .....it's in stage 7. The one that you need to burn a million bushes to find. I figure someone working on that game thought that was just so damn funny....



Yeah, that sounds like Miyamoto, I could see him coming up with that one.

Zelda definitely had alot of that, as did the very first Metroid. Super Metroid I never had any problems with, in terms of finding everything, but the original... ALOT of things that cant really be just "figured out". Like the hidden energy tank in Kraid's room, or the method to get past a particular super high wall in Ridley's hideout.

I had to use the guides mostly myself, since I knew like, hardly anyone as a kid. I had a couple of friends, one of which was a gamer (and I still know him today), and that was it. So it was either guides or utter confusion! I love those old guides though, they just dont make 'em like that anymore, do they... ahhh, nostalgia...

Whoops...yeah, I had a feeling that that was the case, but I was too lazy to look it up before hitting "submit" >_<

It's a really hard game too if you don't have a guide. At age 20 I still haven't finished it.

What I don't get is how people became so obsessed with Majora's Mask all of a sudden, to the point where Nintendo decided to re-release it for the 3DS. Now, I'm not saying it was a bad game, but I personally wasn't really a fan of it when I was a kid. If I were to replay it now, who knows, I might enjoy it.

I should really continue my save file on A Link Between Worlds. I bought that game over a year ago and I still haven't beaten it. Figures, as I've never beaten a Zelda game in my life; despite my liking of the games, my attention span is way too short for them.



Which one? If you're talking about the original Legend of Zelda, then I agree; that game is cryptic as hell. I never really got into it the same way I got into the later Zeldas, but I do remember messing around with a fanmade PC port on my old 486 called Zelda Classic. It was basically a recreation of the Zelda 1 engine, with versions of the original maps as well as support for new maps and sprites. I'm amazed the people who made it never got a C&D from Nintendo, since it contained so much blatantly copyrighted content.

I might link this video of someone who was stressed out and did not like MM when they originally played it, but played the 3DS game and found it a good experience.


I recently played and beat the original LoZ game, I was kind of surprised with how many major parts of the franchise were in the original game, it was hard at places and required to look at a map for some things. Kind of interesting as I took to also playing more of Hyrule Warriors and took note of how the secrets locations were similar. Hyrule Warriors also had some cool DLC with Majora's Mask introducing Young Link and Tingle, and another that lets you play as Ganon.

I wouldn't say "all of a sudden", it's always had a pretty big cult following, and the creators have said it was one of their favorite titles. Ever since Ocarina of Time 3D was announced, people have been asking about a MM remake, and they've been giving us a wink and a nudge.

When it came out, I didn't get to play it long enough to really get into it, but I bought the remake (and I have it on Wii VC), so I'm planning on changing that...I just want to finish OoT3D first... >_<

Because of the backwards way your parents thought about gaming you played the same games I did when I was young, and I'm 10 years older. Link to the Past and Lost Vikings were great games, I played those a lot. The Lost Vikings games were also pretty humorous.

Ocarina of Time was an amazing achievement and step forward for 3d games. Its pretty awesome but to me Link to the Past is still the best Zelda ever.

I'm surprised my thread is still on the front page of the games forum. Never expected this much attention.