Looking back, 1998 was a particularly eventful year for gaming. Just scrolling through the list of games released in that year, one can recognize many franchises that have persisted into the modern era: Half Life, Metal Gear, Fallout, Starcraft, Resident Evil, and so on. I wouldn’t dare claim that any one game from this year is more worthy of discussion than the rest (despite my personal bias towards Half Life), but I will nonetheless be focusing on one title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Ocarina of Time is the 5th game in the Zelda franchise, which—as of writing—boasts anywhere from 18 to 45 games, depending on how you count them. Ocarina of Time is notable for being the franchise’s first foray into the third dimension.
Important Disclaimer: I played Ocarina of Time on an emulator running in Firefox. In other words, I used a keyboard to play a game designed specifically for the Nintendo 64’s controller—a controller with a button layout resembling an ocarina. Even worse, I will be judging Ocarina of Time with the standards of someone who exclusively plays modern games on a completely different platform.
So, how well does a first-of-its-kind game from over 2 decades ago hold up to my heavily-biased opinion? Surprisingly well, but not well enough for me to enjoy it. The music was great, and I found myself sitting on the file select screen for a while just to listen. The story definitely piqued my curiosity. The dialogue was silly and a bit meta, though I imagine it would’ve gotten more immersive as the game progressed beyond the teaching phase. The graphics were perfectly serviceable, and the character animations were impressively smooth. The level design was frustrating at times, but for the most part it was fine.
What really soured my experience was the controls. Primarily, the camera controls. Ocarina of Time uses a third-person camera that lazily follows the player as they move. As Nintendo learned from Super Mario 64, this form of floating camera is really clumsy: In order to look at a sign, painting, etc., players had to awkwardly walk in tight circles until the camera oriented into place. This limitation I assume was a result of the Nintendo 64’s controllers only having 1 joystick. Unfortunately, being able to look at things is pretty important. Learning from Super Mario 64, Nintendo elected to add more camera controls in Ocarina of Time.
Firstly, the player can press a button to activate a first-person view. I didn’t find any real use for this view, as it disables the movement controls when active. Secondly, the player can hold a button to rotate the camera around themselves—also preventing locomotion. Thirdly, and most relevantly, the player can enable a mode that locks the camera rotation and allows the player to “target” an object, NPC, or enemy. This targeting system was no doubt implemented as a solution to the difficulties of orienting the camera towards a specific thing, which is crucial for aiming or blocking attacks. Unfortunately, this solution felt clunky to me. Toggling between two or three completely different modes of movement in the middle of combat takes a lot of getting used to, and I never reached the point where it felt seamless.
Additionally, the game is full of platforming segments that require fairly precise & often timed movements, which the targeting system doesn’t help with because there is nothing to target. The level design is also fairly punishing for small missteps, with slow backtracking and mini cutscenes whenever a button is pressed. These slowdowns were especially frustrating because the clunky controls made these missteps feel more like the game’s fault than my own fault.
I understand that these controls were probably as good as the developers could get with the controllers they were working with, but—again, this is not a fair review; This is a review of how Ocarina of Time feels to play with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight and on a platform it wasn’t designed for, and the answer is that it does not feel very good. In fact I’d argue that this is barely a review of the game itself at all.
If there’s any knowledge or lesson to be gleaned from my experience, it’s the importance of polishing fundamental game mechanics. No amount of narrative, graphics, or music can make a game enjoyable if the player is frustrated the entire time.
