Gift: The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

There’s been so much already written about this game that I almost don’t want to get into it, but since I spent an entire Christmas break playing it, I can’t ignore it. To my shock and horror many of the people writing about and remembering Ocarina of Time these days were just children when the game came out eleven years ago. It’s hard for this seasoned video game nerd to believe that there are adults out there now whose first experience with Zelda was Ocarina of Time. I was no kid when it came out. I was sixteen, almost seventeen, with a host of problems I considered very adult, and yet the game still found its way to being one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time—one of the last games that was ever quite that much fun.

You might call Christmas of 1998 my first bad Christmas. I’m not sure what made me so unhappy that day. By that point Christmas had lost a lot of its luster, and I think I would have much rather been asleep on Christmas morning than downstairs opening presents. As a kid I’d forced my parents out of bed at 6 a.m. to open presents; by 1998 they had to practically drag me out of bed at 11:30. Despite all the problems I thought I had as a teenager, life was actually relatively simple: Bed good, not-bed bad.

So I wasn’t overflowing with Christmas cheer that year. I believe I spent the day on the sofa with my hands across my chest, grudgingly opening every present as it was handed to me without so much as a nod to the rest of the family. I don’t remember desperately wanting Zelda that year, at least not enough to justify my teenage surliness, but every time I opened a box that wasn’t Zelda I got angrier and angrier. Throughout my life I was always a very well behaved, jolly child who was happy with any gift as long as I was with friends and family—I guess all my childlike selfishness finally came out that Christmas after years of hibernation. For what seemed like hours I got nothing but socks upon socks upon socks, and I got moodier and moodier and moodier. Finally, only one present was left, from my 13 year old sister. I had no hopes for it, but this story wouldn't make much sense unless it turned out to be Zelda, which of course it did.
I wish I could say my mood didn’t suddenly elevate when I saw the familiar gold box. I wish I could say that my brooding teenager vibe came from something other than desire for a Nintendo game, but that would just be dishonest. The moment I got the game, I was on cloud nine. So maybe I was still a kid.

In my defense, it’s an incredible game. It probably seems dated now, but at the time it was the most expansive adventure I had ever seen on a console—it sure blew away anything else on the Nintendo 64. For the first time Hyrule felt like a real world, with real 3D towns and cities and characters and monsters. Every area had its own unique inhabitants, from the Gorons on Death Mountain to the Gerudo Thieves in the desert. Older Zelda games had been nothing more than flat 2D maps, and while the earlier games were great, Ocarina left them all in the dust. For the first time you could jump on a horse and run across a seamless world firing arrows and jumping fences. With few exceptions, console games before this had been confined to levels, stages, and areas. Coming from those games to Ocarina of Time was like discovering the world was round.
This game took everything that was great about older Zelda games and perfected it while adding a host of new stuff to the mix. The whole time travel gimmick was one of the game’s big selling points—it actually takes place in two different Hyrules, seven years apart. By traveling back and forth through time you can alter events in the different eras, and discovering what effect your actions can have is one of the game’s many highlights. It’s not used as often as it could have been, but it works. Mini-games also abound, from target practice to fishing to horseback riding; if anything, there’s too much to do.
Since there’s a musical instrument in the title (though I’m sure this game was the first time 99% of the audience heard of an ocarina, including me. Funny pronunciations were rampant) you’d expect music to play a huge role in the game, and you’d be right. Ocarina of Time has some of the most memorable themes from any game I’ve ever played, and it doesn’t even included the traditional Zelda theme! You have to actually play different songs on your ocarina during the game, so they worm their way into your brain by necessity. I haven’t played the game in many years, but I still catch myself humming “Zelda’s Lullaby” (actually from A Link to the Past) or “Saria’s Song” from time to time, not to mention the great incidental and location specific music. Later on, when I watched others play the game, I noticed that they simply just jammed on the buttons when playing the songs, like they were inputting a secret code, without any effort to match the tempo. If you play the game like that, you’ve never even played it. Making music is part of the fun.
One of my best friends also got the game that Christmas, and the thought that he might get to the end before me was just unbearable. When he first called me to talk about it a few days after Christmas, we were both at the same spot. That would not stand. From then on, I devoted myself entirely to playing Zelda: Up until 4am every night, up again at 9am to play some more. By New Year’s Eve I’d beaten the game and unlocked every conceivable item and area. When school started up again and I talked to my friend, I discovered he hadn’t had the chance to play the game for a while and was still in the 3rd dungeon. I suppose I overdid it.

I think I played through the game another four or five times that year, but like everything you do more than once it got less interesting each time. But that one playthrough alone gave me more enjoyment than hundreds of other games combined. I probably say this about every game I praise here, but when a game’s that good you don’t remember playing a game, you remember being there. Few games have given me the same sense of place as Ocarina of Time. The game has been out for eleven years now, and in all that time I’ve only met one person who had anything bad to say about it. It’s one of those rare games (or movies, or books) that gets every single thing right.
With a game that good, maybe my whiny emo-kid behavior was justified, right? Maybe all the emo-kids you see out there today just need a Nintendo 64 and Ocarina of Time to chase the blues away. It sure doesn’t hurt.