The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is an Action/Adventure game developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64, and it's the fifth instalment in the Zelda series. Ocarina Of Time is widely regarded as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest videogame ever made. It's universally adored and its legacy still lives on strongly even to this day. It revolutionised the Zelda franchise and forever changed the way Zelda games were made and played.

Ocarina Of Time didn't just forever change the Zelda franchise thought; it completely changed the way all 3rd person Action/Adventure games where made and played. This was achieved with the simple addition of the 'Z' targeting system. This allowed the player to lock on to close up enemies, and doing this allowed you to jump, strafe, side-step and back flip to evade the enemies attacks. And also been locked on made it easier to raise your shield to block enemy attacks and allowed you to attack with greater precision. Ocarina Of Time might not have been the first 3D Action/Adventure game available to buy, but it was the first to master the art of combat in a 3 dimensional world.
Another technique that Ocarina of Time introduced to the world of gaming was context-sensitive button play. This handy tool allowed Nintendo to let one button (mainly 'A') to do numerous actions such as, roll, grab, climb, pick-up, drop and talk. Having all these actions mapped to a single button didn't just make simple actions easier to pull off, it was also revolutionary.

The story in Ocarina Of Time is similar to that of A Link to the Past, with the main objective been to stop the evil Ganondorf Dragmire from taking over the beautiful land of Hyrule. Also like A Link to the Past, the story is clearly divided into 2 halves.
The first half of the game sees you playing as Child Link, and your objective is to find all 3 of the Spiritual Stones that certain tribes of creatures in Hyrule have in their possession. You actually visit about 80% of Hyrule as Child Link, meeting many lovable, weird and wonderfully animated characters along the way, and battle through 3 brilliantly designed dungeons. After getting the 3 stones, you go to the Temple of Time and draw the Master Sword, unaware that your actions have enabled Ganondorf to enter the Scared Realm and acquire the Triforce of Power.
The second half of the game sees Link been taken seven years into the future, in which time he becomes an adult. Because Link was only nine years old when he drew the Master Sword from its pedestal, he was too young to wield it; resulting in the Master Sword holding his spirit for seven years until he was at the age of which he was worthy. But in those seven years, because Link wasn't there to protect it, Ganondorf had taken control of Hyrule, turning it into a world of monsters. As Link returns to the real world, he meets a boy called Sheik, who tells Link that Ganondorf's monsters have infested the five temples of Hyrule, making the Sages of Hyrule unable to hear the distress call of the Sacred Realm. So Link has to go to all the temples in Hyrule and rid them of the creatures and their menacing guardian bosses so the Sages can be awakened. When you're an adult, you can no longer use the weapons you acquired as Young Link. So projectile weapons like the Boomerang and the Slingshot get replaced by more adult weapons you eventually find such as the Hookshot and the Fairy Bow. But some weapons, like the Bombs for example, come in handy no matter how old you are.
The story in Ocarina Of Time is magnificent and engrossing. But apart from the story, there are so much mini games and side-quests to do in Ocarina that your eyes might pop out. So if you're stuck in the adventure, why not take a break to go for a spot of fishing, or why don't you go and find some extra heart pieces while you figure out what you have to do next.

Shigeru Miyamoto's love for music really shows in Ocarina, as music plays a massive role in your adventure. Your Ocarina is the most important and most used item in the entire game. There are 12 Ocarina melodies for you to learn throughout the game, and they can range from, teleporting you to certain places, calling your horse, or changing day to night and vice versa. The Ocarina is extremely easy to use. You assign it to one of the 'C' buttons (not up) and play it using the 4 'C' buttons and the 'A' button. And pressing the 'Z' and 'R' buttons makes the tunes sound higher or lower. It's simple, but very, very effective. There are plenty of occasions in Ocarina Of Time's adventure when playing you Ocarina is essential, as playing it may make a key appear or may cause something blocking your way to be moved.
The first Ocarina you get is the standard Fairy Ocarina, but this inevitably gets replaced by the Ocarina of Time, the flagship for the game. There aren't any significant differences between the two except that they both look different and the Ocarina of Time is needed to open the Door of Time.

No videogame is perfect or flawless, but Ocarina Of Time is as close to both as a videogame can be. The gameplay is magnificent, in 1998 the graphics where un-matched, and in the brilliantly difficult Water Temple that you do as Adult Link, you get to play through one of the most difficult things to ever appear in a videogame.
As well as this, the games music and Ocarina Melodies sound fantastic. They are all composed by the legendary Koji Kondo, and he has done a magnificent job because all the music fits in perfectly with what Link is doing and with his current situation, weather hurt, happy or sad. There is no voice acting in Ocarina, all the talking is done in text boxes, but you do hear the occasional noises from the characters. For instance Navi, Link's guardian fairy, shouts either 'hey', 'hello', 'listen' or 'watch out' when she wants to talk to you or when she sees something of danger. And even though Link doesn't talk once throughout the game, he does do the occasional 'heya' or 'yeargh' when he swings his sword and this actually all sounds fantastic. And if you mix this all with the games brilliant environment noises, it results in Ocarina of Time been one of the best sounding videogames you'll ever play.
From what I could work out, the main quest could take you up to 30 hours to finish, but if you attempt to complete all the games side-quests and attempt to get all the heart pieces (oh yeah, there are 100 hidden Gold spiders for you to kill too) then the games play time could surpass the 70 hour mark. In 1998 Ocarina Of Time was actually the biggest game Nintendo had ever created.

This game is absolutely fantastic and definitely deserves the title of the greatest videogame ever. It's certainly the best Zelda game ever, and only A Link to the Past comes close to it. If I have to be extremely picky, the only problem with this game is a few pacing problems, which occur in Market Town and the Water Temple, but they are extremely minimal and the only reason I found them is because I was looking specifically for any flaw in the game. Anyway forget its minimal bad points, I think The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is the greatest videogame ever, and I won't change my mind about that. I still get that feeling inside, even now, when I complete the game hoping that it would last just a little bit longer, and still get upset at the fact that the game has come to an end.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time will never be beaten, and those of you who have never played it before, you can count yourself extra lucky, because those who have will never again experience the feeling of playing it for the very first time.

Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 10/10

Achievements: Ocarina Of Time is a landmark title in videogaming history. Worldwide back in 1998 it was only on sale for a total of 39 days, selling a staggering 2.5 million copies; resulting in it beating other brilliant games such as Banjo-Kazooie and Half Life, both games that had been released earlier that year, in the race for the highest selling game of the year. It went on to sell 7.6 million copies worldwide, sales figures which saw it become the highest selling Zelda game in the series. It also claimed numerous 'Videogame Of The Year' awards from numerous gaming websites and magazines (it was actually the first game to ever receive a perfect 10 score from GameSpot and it got a perfect 40/40 score from the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, the first perfect score they had ever given out), as well as awards for outstanding sound, visuals and plot. And it's year was topped off perfectly when at the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the biggie if you want to call it that, it was given the out and out 'Game Of The Year' award. As well as that it was also won awards for, 'Outstanding Achievement In Interactive Design', 'Outstanding Achievement In Software Engineering', 'Console Game Of The Year', 'Console Adventure Game Of The Year', and 'Console RPG Of The Year'. A clean sweep and a testament to Nintendo's brilliant Zelda team developers.