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The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

Nintendo 64

1-player

Hello kiddies, its your pal ZeroTolerance here again with yet another N64 review. This time it is for the critically acclaimed Zelda The Ocarina of Time. In this review I shall lay to rest some of my opinions of the game and what I feel was great and what was not. Yes, this is probably the best game on the N64, but that ,in my opinion isnt saying a whole lot. I mean there are some great titles out there, but most fall short of even being renters! Enough with the small talk lets get down to business.

Ok, the game is absolutely huge, I say this because for being a cartridge Miyamato and the boys at the big "N" have done an amazing job of compression on this tiny cart. The areas in this game are marvelous and can seem to take days to actually explore them in full extent. The map is laid out similar to that of the original Zelda's where as there are several areas accesible by the outworld. Each of these vast areas is unique in its own special way, from the good old Kakariko Village to Zora's Lake its all intact. The game does change from night to day to add effect to the game, although it only takes a few seconds to change which becomes annoying as hell when trying to get into the Hyrule Castle and the draw bridge keeps going up right when you get there...ARGHH!

The gameplay was nicely ported into 3-D, the battle system is now based on the "lock on" style. This is a great new way to play 3-D games in my opinion. It adds some depth to the actual strategy of the way you handle yourself in combat. The enemies are quite intelligent, dodging your attacks and countering you with their attacks. This definitely adds to the overall gameplay elements and makes for an interesting time.

Now with all great games I must lay the reviewer smack down now so to speak. It is time for the quirks that ZT had with this dynamite game. First off I must digress, I am not happy with the "no jump button" idea. I mean come on, what 3-D game doesnt have a freakin jump button?!? This doesnt really affect the gameplay since there isnt a whole lot of jumping, but it does raise question of whether or not the game was entirely finished. Another complaint that I had was the total ease that was displayed in the game. It seems that if you stand around for a couple of minutes you are basically told where to go. This kinda takes away from the whole "exploration" aspect of Zelda.