Time Extend: The Legend Of Zelda - Ocarina Of Time

Over a decade after release, The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time has achieved a distinction reserved for a true classic. It’s been forgotten. Writing about it garners nothing but grandiose adverbs and scattered memories of Hyrule Field. It’s ‘unquestionably’ and (even better) ‘indefinably’ great.

Deserved or not, opaque hyperbole doesn’t help explain why Ocarina works so well now, particularly in terms of it being a big-budget adventure in a technology-driven industry. 
To be blunt, if you want sunsets look at Far 
Cry 2; if you want advanced animations then play with Assassin’s Creed. Visually and procedurally, Ocarina can’t compete.

They’re not small considerations – the drop in resolution alone from current standards to an N64 is huge. There’s a difference between dazzle and brilliance. Sophistication – it’s the most important concept in videogame design, the balance 
and blending of function, fun and feedback into a coherent environment.

Ocarina understands how people play games, the curiosity that weighs up cause and effect, the importance of the player’s own impulses in creating entertainment. Link’s inventory is made for experimentation, almost every item having subtleties to be discovered. The hookshot has a simple function: to be shot at targets and used to pull Link towards them. But it can also be used in combat, its effect surprisingly variable. Hit a bat and it dies; hit 
a lizard and it freezes; hit the glutinous body of a Yum-Yum and the hook sinks, freezing the enemy as Link is pulled in. Link can’t swing his sword or hammer underwater, but the hookshot’s spring-loaded action means it can still be fired as a makeshift harpoon.

Implicit in the latter example is another of Ocarina’s rare qualities, one that dovetails with the inventory. It’s a type of logic that’s recherché, but utterly resonant: the hookshot finds purchase in wood, but bounces off stone; hitting hollow walls with your sword produces a wobblier thwack; when Link is on fire, swinging or rolling puts out the flames more quickly; Link can’t wield the adult shield as a child, but he can hide under it like a turtle; iron boots increase your weight but slow you down; cutting a Deku Baba at the stalk gets you a Deku stick (a tool to light fires and hit enemies with), while cutting it in the bud gets you Deku nuts (ammo for your slingshot and basic flashbangs). In some cases you could say there’s no logic, simply superficial association, such as with the tunics: blue allows Link to breathe underwater, red to survive extreme temperatures. That’s fair in isolation, but in the context of Ocarina’s internal logic of palettes and themed properties there’s no dissonance. Ocarina plays with appearance and effect like this: placing a bomb under one of the many Gossip Stones around Hyrule makes it prepare for lift off, then blast into the sky like a rocket. It may not be realistic, but as visual association and as play it’s a delight to discover.

This inventory is the core of Ocarina, 
and the world and challenges are the fruit. The narrative is linear but the structure is branching, beginning with few choices as to where to go and what to do, eventually allowing you free access to the many diversions and sidequests in its world, and then narrowing your focus as the final battle draws nearer. This is combined with the fact that there are two worlds – you’re a child to begin with, then an adult in a nightmare future, and soon have the capability to 
change between the two at will.

They rub off on each other. One of the challenges you face as a child is destroying the dodongo dragons infesting a cave on Death Mountain, the home of the Gorons. After 
your success you return as an adult, but 
find the Goron Village desolate. A single Goron remains, rolling endlessly around the abandoned village. Trying to stop him with your hands or projectiles doesn’t work, but laying a cunning trap with a bomb does. Startled by your approach, he shouts: “Hear my name and tremble! I am Link! Hero of 
the Gorons!” You have to laugh.