On the C&G Monthly podcast, I mentioned my continuing frustration with some of the anachronistic tendencies of Nintendo’s latest big release for its struggling 3DS format. I also mentioned that I found the little 3D world the game presents be a pretty magical achievement that shouldn’t be dismissed. I stand by both of those statements, and here I’ll explore just why Ocarina of Time 3D is such an odd relic in this day and age.

A Little World
Most players who remember Ocarina of Time fondly do so because when they first encountered that three-dimensional version of Hyrule, it was like stepping into a vast, breathing world. Never is this more true than on the 3DS, where the stereoscopic effect actually enhances this notion far beyond what the game, in truth, achieves. In fact, as I will explain, Ocarina of Time loses its sense of scale and wonder by virtue of being a 13-old game, but gains the impression of being something different—a working diorama in miniature—on the 3DS’s smaller screens. On a large TV, even in 3D, this would not have the same effect. 

Curling up with the 3DS and attacking a dungeon or trekking across Hyrule field feels like you’ve escaped to another, more exciting place—the way we all imagined and dreamed about as children. In a way, this new version of the game recaptures the magic of its forebear in a completely different way, but to the same effect.

Pretty, Hollow
The main issue I had time and time again with Ocarina certainly wasn’t its looks, but its construction. I remember clearly in 1998 being wowed by the N64 original, but as I plunged deeper and deeper into the game’s dungeon scenarios, I felt less and less attached and entranced as when I started.

The epiphany came then as I was making my way through the ice dungeon—a concept so typical of Nintendo games that it has long passed into cliché. Here I was in the supposedly most epic, gripping Zelda game ever produced, and I was pushing abstract blocks into abstract holes in a room that didn’t make sense so I could unlock a door for no reason at all, other than the fact that I had paid good money to play a videogame.

As the game progressed, I lost my ability to see past its mechanics and live within that world; in 1998, Ocarina of Time was a game with modern production values and the mechanics and systems of a game from 1986. Suddenly I didn’t feel I was heroically besting a series of organic and visceral challenges in a living, breathing universe—I was an avatar, dodging abstract enemies clearly set with simple routines and patterns, pushing blocks and solving rote, abstract challenges.

Who built this underground temple consisting of rooms containing hidden keys and treasure chests, respawning bats and torch puzzles? What madness was this? More and more, Hyrule revealed itself not to be a kingdom in distress, but a carefully constructed board game.

Verisimilitude
This idea, of painting layers on top of aging, binary videogame tropes, was to become Nintendo’s biggest failing as a creative company, and still is today. The magic and connection its games provided started to peel away once you realized that no matter how many polygons Link consisted of, he was still going to be pushing square blocks into random holes in the floor of some nonsensical structure that exists only to give players something to do.

Once you see that, you can’t un-see it.

I mentioned in the C&G Monthly podcast that I consider Shadow of the Colossus to secretly be the real and proper evolution of The Legend of Zelda. In that game, you are tasked with killing sixteen gargantuan beasts for reasons both emotionally unsettling and tragic; your only direction is a cryptic clue as to the location of your next foe, and the use of your sword as a light-reflecting compass.

In Shadow, when you discover, say, the ruins that contain your huge quarry, you do so organically. You use the clue you have, and the light from your sword, and with some luck you pick your way through what feels like an impossibly large landscape, until you come across an archway tucked into a sheer rock face, and feeling adventurous, you head inside. It is only after you plunge deeper and deeper into these ruins that you come across the colossus you’ve been hunting, and you realize you were on the right track. Did you notice that as you got closer to the correct location, you’d see an increasing number of birds fly overhead, pointing you in the right direction? 

Probably not, at least consciously, and because of this it all feels organic, natural and utterly satisfying. When players discuss their earliest memories of the original Legend of Zelda, this is the exact feeling, the exact sequence of events, that they’re describing.

None of this, really, ever happens in Ocarina of Time. In that game, either your ever-present faerie guide Navi, or the strangely omniscient owl you occasionally encounter, generally poke and prod and backseat-drive you to your next destination. Everything highlights all the time with yellow, or blue, and constant audio cues of Navi’s incessant “Hey!,” or camera-swooping notes, or lock-on confirmation blurps, all add layers and noise. 

The somber pre-dawn ride you take on your horse Epona during the game’s opening titles quickly give way to all of these UI elements, plus several on-screen item slots, maps, and at least four differently sub-screen menus.

It becomes quite clear when playing Ocarina of Time that this is not a world you’ve entered anymore, it’s a videogame. It certainly contains quite a lot of appropriately-videogamey things to do; there are boxes to check, item slots to fill, items to collect, progress to be made. The reason players feel the game is so “epic” isn’t because the world within the game is large and rich, it’s because there are a lot of boxes to check off, and if you’re keeping count, that should keep you busy for quite some time.

To be fair, Ocarina of Time contains exactly one moment that transcends its inherently static nature; when you visit Lon Lon Ranch as an adult and challenge its owner to a race, you get to keep the horse, Epona, you used to win. Being a poor sport, your competitor locks you in the ranch, and you quickly coax Epona into action and— unbelievably—you simply leap out of your imprisonment and off to freedom, and from that point on, Epona is yours.

At this moment, you feel like you’ve cheated the game, and that you’ve broken the rules—not by manipulating code or “sequence-breaking” an abstract series of events, but by thinking your way out of a situation and winning. It is the only seemingly-organic moment in the entire game, and it feels wonderful. Once you make your way to the next dungeon, however, that magic is gone, and it’s back to business as usual. There’s a compass to find, a map to read, a boss key to collect.

Narrative Separation
The purpose of this discussion is not to accuse Ocarina of Time of being a mechanical failure; as a videogame in which you do things, it holds up very well. I have two specific complaints here, though: one, the camera is as troublesome as ever; and two, the series’ lauded auto-jump feature is almost always problematic. Within the space of a few steps, the game can choose automatically to make the same button jump, grab, climb or put away your sword, which is maddening.

Since the core of the game is solving these abstract puzzles in the various dungeons, and fighting enemies and bosses, it ages well enough as a game. You do feel satisfaction for figuring out how to get out of a room, or by being especially observant and clever. When you check the next box on your list (“Find dungeon map”), you feel a ping of success.

The main issue is one of narrative—the game doesn’t really want to present a world, despite its gorgeous visuals and, it should be said, fantastic use of audio. It wants you to fall in love with it, but it doesn’t want to trust you enough to live in it. It wants you to get from A to B and check that list, doing videogame things. It’s worried you might miss some of that if it wasn’t there, goading you along at every step.

No, the issue is that Ocarina of Time will tell you, over and over again in colour-coded text, that there is a world in peril and you are the wondrous hero who is saving it. But it never, ever, for a moment, will let you believe it.