This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

I still remember getting OoT for Christmas one year, and being bummed that after only getting to play for an hour, I had to pack things up to go visit family for the remainder of the day. For whatever reason it is a memory that has stayed with me for so long and I have no idea why. I couldn't have gotten farther then 10 steps into the great Deku Tree, but it was there. I think it was the promise of adventure that so many probably experienced from the first Zelda that I was too young for, but it's weird that it never hit me while I played the SNES Zelda. However, lets unpack this magical game with a fresh set of eyes, shall we.

I don't know if this is really necessary, but in keeping with tradition, Zelda OoT is an action adventure game, where you play as the hero of time who is tasked with stopping evil. In order to do so you need to enter so many dungeons, beat the bosses and grow stronger, until you can tackle the big bad. Each dungeon is a mix of puzzle and combat which you will need to work through in order to advance. You know... Zelda shit.

I originally wanted to do a comparison report between this and The WindWaker (next episode), but ultimately I felt that each game deserved their own write-up, so instead I am going to break up both of these Zelda games into a few different categories; Beginning, Adventuring, Dungeons, Extras.

Lets start at the top and say that, while I have not played every Zelda game that has been created, OoT definitely has the best beginning of the game. Now I don't mean intro cutscene, but I mean how the game starts. In the OG Zelda, you get a sword and then you are off to the races, go exploring young one. In SNES Zelda, you go out in a rainstorm and tackle your first mini dungeon, but in OoT you get a little bit more. You start in a small enough town, where you learn controls, find a sword, buy a shield, talk to some friends, get the plot, and then move into your first real dungeon. And it is the perfect tutorial dungeon, without feeling too much like a tutorial. It has a great length to it, you solve some clever puzzles (burning spiderwebs, jumping from a super high up platform to bust through the floor, etc.) and you start really seeing what this game is going to be like. Your first head-boss sets the stage for how this process works (were you not familiar with the template). Get an item, use that item to beat head-boss, clear dungeon. I know I am giving it a little short shrift, but that is because there is a lot to cover, but I honestly love the start of this game. The pacing is just right that by the time you walk out of the dungeon on your very first playthrough, you are maybe on an hour or hour and a half into your game. When you finally walk out into the real world, and adventuring starts there is nothing like that feeling of seeing everything laid out in front of you. As a kid who has played other 3D games at that time, nothing captured that moment quite like the first time you go into the open world.

Now as I have played it more recently, I can tell you that the world isn't really THAT big, and Zelda, if nothing else, is about exploring. I'll be jumping around a bit, we aren't doing a chronological tale of my playthrough of OoT, but I will say that the non-dungeon adventuring of this game is real hit and miss with me. By adventuring, I essentially mean the tasks you do to find heart pieces, bottles, etc. Stuff that isn't necessary for beating the game, but can give you a leg up. Now, I know this is part of the thrill of Zelda, but your adventuring piece comes in waves. As you unlock more and more items, what you can do also opens up. Over here requires bow and arrows, over here is a hookshot, etc., places that you previously could not go, but now have opened up, and that adds to the sense of excitement when you stumble upon an item you can get, but also can lead to frustration when you either can't remember a locale you need to visit, or can't do what is being asked of you. At the start of every Zelda game, the player needs to have a notebook handy, because you are going to come across dozens of places that you need to re-visit and that can be hard to track in your mind alone as the game has no feature to mark your map for you. This isn't a critique of the game, I don't expect the level of BotW map control back on my N64, but it is something that if you are playing it after forgetting all the secrets or for the first time you will need to know. That was a long tangent to say that OoT is not my favorite game to explore in. Early on, when you are limited, I loved trying to corral all the chickens, or see where I could get young link into, but as the game starts to reveal its secrets, I found less of an interest in trying to get everything.

I don't think trying to sell Masks is interesting or worthwhile, I never do everything to get the Goron sword, despite how much it helps out later on, and I never could be bothered to find all the gold skulltulas. That's not to say that there isn't some good exploring getting heart pieces, or seeing how your magic beans change the world, but I felt that this Zelda had a lot of fluff. Even as a child, I was coming from this hot off the heels of the SNES game, where I did feel that compulsion to try and get everything, but that might have been helped by less back and forth. When I finally took on the final boss, I probably at best had an additional 3 full hearts (12 heart pieces) and that was enough for me.

To me the draw of Oot was the Dungeons, and as stated I think this game starts of great. I have fond memories of the Deku Tree, Jabu-Jabu's belly, and fighting the giant lizard you get bombs with. I even think that the big bad in the Forest Temple is one of my favorite fights in the game, but if you notice a trend, these are all at the start of the game. Much like when I talked about Mario 64, I feel the back half of the game lets me down. In Mario 64 I felt I was let down by levels that just weren't interesting or boring to play. A much worse snow level, another wingcap in the sky level (with cannons), and Rainbow Ride is just spending minutes upon minutes waiting while your elevator reaches where you need it to go. In Zelda though we could all complain about the Water Temple (I played on N64 before the nerfed version), but I won't beat a dead horse, despite how truly awful that temple is. I like the idea of the Shadow temple, but felt the lens of truth and getting even more boots was a bit much, and I really dislike the Gerudo Valley stealth mission. Gannon's tower is maybe the highlight of the whole adult link section of the game, and it is the very end of the game. Now don't get me wrong, for the most part I think the dungeons in OoT are fine, but I have such a fondness for the first three dungeons that I get a little bored when I am doing the fire Temple or Water temple. I understand, that the dungeons get harder, require more skill and patience, and blah blah. I am fine with all that, I just find them mostly uninspired. The shadow temple is the most interesting, and I can't say that it was a joy pulling out my lens of truth every two seconds to make sure I don't fall off a cliff, but at least it was unique.

Of course I wouldn't be doing OoT justice, if I didn't talk about how much I hate that stupid owl. Possibly the worst character in any Zelda game. I understand his purpose, to slowly guide you, but why does he have to talk so slow, and heaven forbid you accidentally select the option to hear his story again.. oof. In reality though, this Zelda offers some of the best first time feels moments that other games can't match. I talked about the first time you hit the field, but even when you are just riding Epona through the field at night, or when you solve some puzzles for the first time, like getting the fire arrows, or even growing into adult link. When I think about OoT, i think of particular moments and not necessarily the play by play and I come away with a pretty favorable final thought on the game. Sure, on this pass through, I might not have enjoyed myself as much as I could have, but some of those factors are also my doing and not the games fault and I can admit that and not hold them to it. For instance, I played this game back when I had a INCREDIBLY SUCCESSFUL youtube channel (sarcasm), and I felt pressured to go faster through the game, because no one wants to watch you spend two hours looking for heart pieces. I also should have taken notes while I played, to prevent aimless backtracking, and hired someone on taskrabbit to play the Water dungeon for me, but those are all things I will take on my next time through. Yes despite some hiccups I will play this Zelda game again, maybe not in the next two years, but I will certainly dip back in when I get an itch to visit my old friend the Deku Tree again.

Now this will come up for both this game and next, but I played the game on original hardware with the warts that it originally came with. I know there is a better version, not on the N64 which has improvements not only visually but to some of my frustrations, just like I know Windwaker has improvements on the Wii-U. Those improvements are not factored into the final score, because I'm not playing those versions. Maybe the next time I play OoT I will play the better version, and add it to my list, and maybe it moves up another spot, but that is TBD.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: It does not quite make it.

Where does it rank: I may have sounded slightly more negative on the game, but I did enjoy it, and I still stand by the game has it faults. While it is only the 2nd Zelda game I have ranked, so far, it easily the better of the two, but I think nostalgia may have helped this game move up an extra place or two, because I have such strong memories tied to its beginning and where I was in my life. I have it ranked as the 12th greatest game of all time. It is above "Tetris Effect" at 13th and below "Thomas was Alone" at 11th (Yes, I think Thomas was alone is that good).

Up Next: The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker (GC)

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for Listening.

Thanks for the write-up. I have only ever played the N64 version of this game and still remember the first time playing this game and getting stuck trying to find the sword. But it didn't really matter much cuz it was just a joy to walk around and roll into stuff.

This series rules

@chamurai: thanks for the read, yeah exploring that first town for the first time and seeing everything link can do is a joy.. back when just being in 3D was exciting.

@sombre: don't know if you are talking about zelda or this blog series, but I'll pretend it's the blog series.. in which case: Thank you very much, it means a lot to me.

Nostalgia plays a big part but for me, Ocarina of time is my favourite game of all time. I’ll be honest it does change from time to time but my first experience of playing it was mind blowing! Nothing has ever quite came close to that feeling. Really enjoyed reading your experience with it. Wind Waker is a really good game as well, so I hope you enjoy it!

@ste89: thanks for the read.. yeah the first time through is a treat.

This will always be my favorite video game

@jordanarama: wow, really? Favorite game of all time.. may I ask if the n64 was your first system or if this was your first zelda game? Don't get me wrong, I think this is a really good game, but I'm surprised to hear it's your favorite game of all time.

Good stuff! I look forward to your Wind Waker write up as well (which is the better game, IMO).

I played the 3DS version of this...I skipped the N64 in general, and I'd say to date it's a toss up for me between A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, and Breath of the Wild for my favorite Zelda. My friends in HS RAVED about this game at the time, and still consider it one of all-time favorites, if not their outright favorite. And coming to it as an adult for the first time I...just don't get it. Personally, I thought it was very clever at times, but mostly just fine? It seems to be one of those games that leans VERY heavily on nostalgia. I get how revolutionary it was in a lot of ways (and Z targeting in some capacity is STILL used today in games) but it was perhaps the most famously beloved games I've ever played where when I finished I simply felt like "Huh, that was it?" Perhaps it was overhype, perhaps it was that there just isn't as much to it in 2013 when I played it, I dunno. I respect it in many ways, but didn't really enjoy that much.

I've actually never played this game, but i remember being an avid game-magazine reader when this released. Everything i read and saw of the game made me feel like this game was the best game that i'd had to miss out on as a PC kid with some light Playstation access. I think a lot of that was because this sounded like such a colorful epic adventure only to be rivaled by 2D JRPGs.

You tell me this game has horseriding, solving puzzles, real-time sword combat, grand adventuring throughout a land? And it's all direct combat and fully 3d to boot? Sign me up! There's just so much stuff in there compared to that fat plumber that mostly jumps around!

It's interesting that you thought the later parts of the game weren't as strong. I have the opposite feeling. The early dungeons aren't as interesting to me. Jabu-Jabu is my least favorite due to the annoyingness of having to remember which sphincter to jump through, losing Ruto over and over, and the general ugliness. Dodongo's Cavern is a bit colorless, with the only theme being "big cave". None of them have any memorable music. That said, they are still great. After all, this is one of the best games ever made.

All of the five temples are amazing to me. They each have a very unique feel and theme. Even the Water Temple - it was never frustrating to me and it has one of the most beautiful and unique locations in the game (the chamber where you encounter Dark Link.) I even love the Gerudo stealth parts. And the Forest Temple might be my favorite dungeon of all time.

But I can't be unbiased about this game. The nostalgia hits pretty hard. I can't not smile when I hear this. It's so damn hopeful.

ooo boy, lots of people to respond to.. First of all thanks everyone for reading, or at least skimming the article. It means a lot to me.

@sethmode: I agree with you on a lot of what you said. I think this game is good to great, but I don't actually think it is even the best Zelda game, far be it the best game ever. Now I'm older (probably) so my N64 nostalgia is around the tail end of that sweet spot for me. I can't deny that I still get enjoyment from starting this game up now and again, but I also can't deny that I think it is far from perfect.

@onemanarmyy: I was around during that time, but I honestly can't remember reading about it.. I'm sure I did, I was subscribed to Nintendo Power, and I have to imagine they were hyping the game up quite a bit, but my memory with this game starts after unwrapping it on Christmas morning. I would be curious if you ever get around to playing it, what you think. If it is anything like @sethmode, I wonder if you would be less then impressed because you wont have the nostalgia tied to it.

@wollywoo: If I had to guess about my love for the beginning and less for the end of the game, it is probably because I have started this game way more then I finish it, so my nostalgia ends halfway through or so. Like I said, I think that the temples are... fine, I like some bosses, and I think the shadow temple is unique, but they don't make me want to re-visit it so I can play the Water Temple or Fire Temple for funzies.