Retro Review: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

Introduction, or the Problems with a 3D Zelda Game

Regarded on release and for years afterward as a masterpiece, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time was the first of its kind in many ways. It was the first Zelda game to release on the Nintendo 64 and the first 3D Zelda game. On top of these firsts, it’s pretty notable that Ocarina of Time is arguably one of the first few truly 3D games ever. Many of the game’s lead designers were coming straight from working on Super Mario 64, which was arguably the first true 3D game Nintendo released.

Struggling with the (still brand new) process of designing for 3D the designers of SM64 noticed that a lot of players (for example) would run circles around a sign that they wanted to read, struggling to line up in front of it. This is a product of lots of things, perhaps players’ experience in 3D games, the designers’ experience developing control systems for 3D games, or the controller technology available at the time.

But facing these problems, how were the developers supposed to implement a sword combat system that would require a player to walk precisely walk up to (but not into!) an enemy, slash their sword, and then escape before it strikes back?

But for a 3D Zelda game, this is but one of many problems. Much of the Zelda gameplay focuses on different unlockable items, and the game clearly needs a bow and arrow item. But if we can’t even walk around precisely, how is anyone supposed to be able to aim an arrow around a full 3D range of motion in time to hit a moving enemy?

The rise of Z-Targeting

Pondering these questions, a couple of the lead designers took a day off to visit Toei Kyoto Studio Park to do some thematic research. The designers wanted to create chanbara-style (“sword-fighting” movies or samurai cinema) action for their game, so they went to see a show to get some ideas. Toru Osawa, a general director for Ocarina of Time told this story in an interview with Satoru Iwata, former president of Nintendo:

As we went along looking at everything, it was so hot that we ducked into a playhouse to cool off. They were doing a ninja show. A number of ninja were surrounding the main samurai and one lashed out with a kusarigama (sickle-and-chain). The lead samurai caught it with his left arm, the chain stretched tight, and the ninja moved in a circle around him.

…

When you use Z-targeting, I would make it so something like a kusarigama you can’t see exists between Link and the opponent. If you push the analog stick forward, you can close in slowly, and if you move it to the side, you can move to the side in a circular motion, getting around behind your opponent, seeking for an opening.

Toru Osawa, from an interview with Satoru Iwata: Iwata Asks: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Amazingly, this chance trip to a ninja show led to the development of perhaps Ocarina of Time’s greatest innovation for 3D games: Z-Targeting. Instead of fighting the control system to perfectly line yourself up, you can “lock on” to one enemy so you’re always facing them, and it changes the camera view and control schema so you can walk towards and away from them or jump side to side. Z-Targeting an enemy also means it will auto-aim your ranged items like the Slingshot, Hookshot, or Fairy Bow, making aiming and firing as easy as it was in the 2D games.

Comparing design and effect of Z-Targeting

With the theory of Z-Targeting in place, all we need now is to design a full-length game that can teach the player how to Z-Target, convince them that it’s worth it, but keep the combat engaging and difficult while using Z-Targeting. As impossible a task as this may seem (recall that there were no similar 3D games to compare to), the designers made it look easy.

The very first dungeon requires the Fairy Slingshot to solve several puzzles, and all of these are accompanied by a visual aid to remind you to Z-Target to auto-aim those projectiles. That first boss fight also rewards Z-Targeting. As the game progresses, you’re continually using Z-Targeting. When fighting multiple enemies, you can target one and the rest will back off while you hold that target lock. Only while Z-targeting can you use Link’s most flashy moves – the jump attacks, side hops, and backflips, and these moves are very useful in combat (beyond just looking incredibly cool).

And Z-Targeting is useful in more ways than just in combat. It definitively solves the SM64 issue of running around a sign trying to get in front of it – you can just target a sign and walk forward. There aren’t many ways to manipulate the camera in OoT, unlike SM64 which provided the C-Left and C-Right buttons to rotate Lakitu around Mario. Instead, you quickly learn to tap Z and then release it to re-center the camera right behind Link, which is exactly what you usually need.

Even with all these affordances, Z-Targeting by no means trivializes the combat of the game. In the Forest Temple, Link faces off against two Stalfos. Even with the targeting, facing down a Stalfos is a tricky dance of shield, dodging, and jumping in at any opening. On top of that, if you don’t defeat the second one quickly enough after the first, the first will come back to life and you’ll have to fight them all over again. The benefits of Z-Targeting keep this difficult fight engaging and fantastic to watch, but still with intuitive controls and fun-to-use actions. This was exactly what the game was looking for from its combat system, and Z-Targeting couldn’t have succeeded more.

Of course, I don’t want to pretend that Z-Targeting solved all the design questions that the advent of 3D Zelda games (or 3D games in general) raised. At times, OoT still struggles with its own world, but I think that struggle comes more from a lack of targeting, not its presence.

For example, there’s a moment in Dodongo’s Cavern where Link needs to throw a bomb up onto a small ledge so that it either lands exactly on the ledge to blow up the door or ends up passing close enough to the door as it explodes midair. I always struggle to land that bomb. You can’t just Z-Target to aim the throw, and the camera and player controller are just too clunky to line up the right angle. Similar struggles pop up throughout the game, often with bomb or Bomb-Chu puzzles, or occasionally moments when you need to quickly aim an arrow shot without targeting. Nonetheless, Z-Targeting is an essential inclusion in the game, and I can’t imagine designing (or trying to play) the game without it.

Has society evolved beyond the need for Z-Targeting?

With the massive success of Z-Targeting in Ocarina of Time, it’s not surprising that it stuck around for future games. Majora’s Mask, using the same core engine as Ocarina of Time does, unsurprisingly has a very similar combat system. Wind Waker brought an identical version of Z-Targeting (now called L-targeting) to the GameCube, with only a slightly different move set for Link. I’m less familiar with Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, but both do include Z-Targeting (or L-Targeting) in their combat systems to varying degrees of importance.

But to investigate the importance of Z-Targeting today more fully, I’d like to compare playing Ocarina of Time today (I was playing on an emulator with a GameCube controller and an Xbox One controller) with the experience of playing Breath of the Wild.

Replaying Ocarina of Time recently, the only thing that’s different from playing on release in 1998 is my experience in 3D games. I’m very used to navigating in 3D games, but I still definitely found Z-Targeting necessary to make my way through Hyrule again. The flaws that Ocarina of Time needed to cover up aren’t just in the player but lie more in the platform and 3D game design immaturity. This isn’t something that the game did poorly per se, it is simply a product of when it was built and what role the game needed to play as a pioneer of 3D Zelda design. Even with Wind Waker, released just four years later, we can see drastic improvements to the movement controls compared to Ocarina of Time.

Flashing forward almost 20 years, playing Breath of the Wild is a completely different experience altogether. Z-Targeting is now called ZL-Targeting, and it takes a much smaller role. When I’m just fighting basic enemies, I almost never use it – instead opting for bow snipes and charge attacks to make use of the generous staggering system. I use it more frequently in larger single-target fights like Lynels or Guardians, but that’s mostly because it’s the only way to make use of powerful moves like the Flurry Rush or reflecting the Guardian beam.

As for camera manipulation or precise movement? ZL-Targeting is simply no longer necessary. There’s so much more camera control with the right stick, and features like bullet-time aiming are far more effective tools than the crutch Z-Targeting offers. Just take a look at the crazy-precise Statsis launches that speedrunners can pull off in the game – that should be more than enough to convince you that both players and system designers have reached nearly full mastery over the 3D space of the game.

In all, it’s not really surprising that Z-Targeting wasn’t meant to last. Some reflection reveals that it was mostly there to cover up for the inadequacies of controller technology, hardware capability, and 3D design of its time. It does a wonderful job at providing the affordances that it was meant to, and the designers of the game masterfully built the gameplay of Ocarina of Time around the Z-Targeting mechanic. But was it meant to last? Not really. Future Zelda games moved farther and farther away from this paradigm as 3D design matured, and I think the games are better for that. Perhaps Z-Targeting will stay as a 3D Zelda staple, but if it goes, I don’t think we’ll really miss it all that much.