When this game was still new, I actually borrowed an N64 from a friend who went out of town for a weekend and made it to the Death Mountain before I had to give it back. If the SNES is permanently "That Next Level Shit," then the N64 lives in my brain as this strange and wonderful transitional phase, where franchises like Mario and Zelda had to both translate old ideas and habits for a polygonal 3D world, as well as create new norms and vocabularies for an evolving playing field of 3rd person action.
I was very fortunate to experience this game -- which is much, much weirder than people generally acknowledge -- with the help of stream chat and my friend Six31 (who knows the game inside and out and plays through the randomizer regularly) coaching me through via audio chat. There's no universe where I complete this game without that assistance, and I'm so glad we did it.
WHAT I LEARNED
The N64 wasn't just a turning point, it was a corner. A lot of the N64's contributions stayed with the system -- worn down by players who needed more streamlined control schemes, more ergonomic and functional interfaces. This is not a criticism, because it was anybody's ball game at the time, but camera control and toggling view and aiming modes, inventory menus and things of that nature were very difficult for me to un-learn and re-train. (I don't have the buried muscle memory, because I never owned an N64. See also: going back to Goldeneye after years of First Person Shooters on console.)
The game's importance to its own series and to gaming as a whole is immediately evident. It's an aesthetic powerhouse. What other game from this era makes use of music and sound as brilliantly as Ocarina of Time? From *any* era? While other games were trying to get the most and best polygons, Ocarina of Time was making use of an entire physical sense for many people, its songs burrowing into the cerebral cortices of kids at very formative ages. Think about that next time you have a critique of OoT, even a valid one; you're debating with brain matter. For many people my age, this game is understandably carved in stone. It earns every bit of that, and although I struggled with the controls, I enjoyed the hell out of it.
I didn't even mention things like the day/night cycle (which does a lot of the legwork convincing a brain that it is a world, not just a game level). It's endearing in almost every facet.
To even start enumerating the games that Ocarina of Time influenced, overtly and more subtly, would be futile. Many games are good *because* of what they explicitly owe to this game. (*Waves to Soulreaver and Darksiders.*)
I will end on this: If you really want to feel some emotions, complete four decades on this planet and really engage in a fantasy game where the main character jumps back and forth between his older and younger self. There's a relevance there beyond gaming, and I'm not nearly young and wise enough yet to verbalize that wisdom.
(Thanks again, Six31, for the coaching and infinite patience. Good times, good times.)
