As mentioned, I'm working through Ocarina of Time, it's always been a gap in my gaming knowledge, so I'm playing through all the main Zeldas after BotW, and have moved onto Ocarina after clocking Link to the Past.

My question is this: How much do you think older games/Zelda games fall back on obtuse, "What are we thinking?"-type puzzles to progress? I can totally get on board with the notion that modern games have made us yearn for arrows, 'vision mode' highlights and markers telling us where to go, but there are many times in these older Zeldas where I can't fathom EVER figuring out what I was supposed to do.

Like right now, I'm post-Water Temple, and after the cutscene of Kakariko Village burning, I get a camera shot of the windmill and... nothing. The solution is to - and just imagine this for a relatively new Zelda player - play your Ocarina in front of a man in the windmill, learn a song, then travel back in time and play it back to him, thus opening an underground cavern. The nearest I can get to the game hinting at this is the camera shot towards the windmill, and then the guy talking about wanting to learn a song, but even then... what's the connection to the underground passage?

I remember reading an old interview with Miyamoto where he stated they made the first LoZ intentionally obscure and nigh-on impossible to complete alone, thereby forcing people to work together and build communities (embodying the "it's dangerous to go alone" mentality, which is genius). Though, how much do you think that mentality prevails in the sequels, and in Ocarina?

I've had many lengthy chats with one of my game designer chums about how the game DOES contain hints as to things like where the Hookshot is if you talk to the townsfolk, read a diary and look for flowers on a particular grave, but personally, I'd never in a MILLION years have even thought that way. In fact, every time the game just drops me back in Hyrule without specifics, it can be quite off-putting.

How did you guys find Ocarina first time through, and did you resort to walkthroughs/asking friends at key points?

It's funny you mention that part because, even though I've played through OoT a bunch of times when I was younger, during my most recent play through I hit that point and completely forgot what to do. That's mostly because I played the new version on my 3DS, walked away from it for a few months and forgot what my next mission was and the game, from what I could tell, didn't provide a big enough hint. So I went back to a guide to figure out what to do.

It's been so long since I first played OoT so I don't recall if I needed a guide or not, and now so much of if is engraved as memory it's hard to say if having one makes the experience better or not. I will say that I though, that part was by far the most obscure moment in OoT going back. To me the rest was more straight forward and there might be some small moments here and there, but that was by far the worst.

I'd say future games have less of those moments because they guide you so much. I'd say Majora's mask would require a guide to get all the masks and see every little thing because there's so much there that's meant to be replayed and stumbled upon. So if you don't want to find it naturally then a guide is pretty much needed there.

Having played through Windwaker again, there are a few moments where they kind of leave you guessing what to do next but provide some pretty big hints that are more obvious.

Post those two though they really hold your hand from what I remember. Personally I didn't have a single moment where I didn't know what my next mission was. Maybe other people hit some walls but I don't recall ever having a problem.

Oh, I hated that puzzle. Hands down the worst moment of the game, especially since the game itself makes it seem like the last thing you want to do. I only figured it out by dumb luck and taking out my Ocarina inside the room out of boredom and frustration.

As for the rest of it, I figured out what to do myself, though I remember getting some form of unwanted outside help related to the gauntlets and the very last dungeon. IIRC, I stumbled across the answer on the internet before I got there, which ticked me off since I hate using guides.

But 99% of Ocarina was totally fine for me. And I 100%ed Majora's Mask without any outside help. Loved every minute of that one.

I was 12ish when OoT came out and i had multiple schoolyard chats with friends about every layer of that game. I had a bunch of places where i was stuck but then so did everyone else. I honestly just remember asking friends for help and if they didn't know the answer it seemed like at some point we got together and brute forced the answer as a group at a birthday party sleepover or something.

That was a pretty common experience with many games for me until i was in high school. By then, the PS2/XBOX/GC gen was in full swing and the more obscure elements of game design were mostly left behind

I forget specifically where I got stuck in that game, though I imagine anywhere I got stuck I asked friends, and I think I had a friend who had the player's guide for it.

Aside from that, does Navi say anything specific about that part? Or Saria? It was a feature I remember never really using because I only got stuck a few times on my first playthrough and then on subsequent playthroughs I just knew everything already, but I know playing Saria's Song let's you talk to Saria who I seem to recall was a source of tips, or when you play the song you could say "No I didn't want to talk to Saria" and instead it basically autoforces the Navi "Hey listen" tip that normally just comes up at random.

It's the only guidance mechanic I remember being in the game. Or does Navi just tell you to head to Kakariko after finishing the Water Temple and not much else? I forget if Navi and Saria gave specific hints, or just give really broad hints about the next area you should head towards.

It definitely is a thing but Navi will usually outright tell you what to do a lot of the time. I also just got into a habit of whenever there's music be it written or played I whipped out my Ocarina as that's a common mechanic/theme they establish early in the game.

Have fun with Majoras Mask.

This is a difficult question, not just because I was like 9, but also because back then we'd play Ocarina of Time for years before ever finishing it. I think we just tried different stuff. I think the Fire Arrows was something I only knew about because of a gaming magazine.

For Majora's Mask, I printed a guide to get the different masks. Thank God for the internet.

As much flak as the Souls games get for being obtuse, I think one of the things that allow them to get away with obscure crap is the in-game messaging system. It doesn't matter how secret that door on the wall is if there are three messages in front of it saying "secret". Those player-driven hints are a nice addition to guides/communities.

Yeah same. Probably looked it up in some form. But I think like @ivdamke says I would try the Ocarina a lot.

For me it's one of those old obtuse game things that have gotten smoothed out of most games, sometimes to some detriment perhaps. Back then the philosophy was so different. Adventure games had very specific solutions to puzzles that could be insanely up their own designers ass in a way I could never figure out as a kid. The kind of stuff we are talking about here, lets talk about something like Quest for Glory or Kings Quests and the obtuse things of this nature where you also get murdered and game over.

Like @redhotchilimist hits on here back then there really was a designer idea of "lets make this take a while for them to figure out". I think it's real kind of crazy to imagine now but at the time they were coming off many times designing arcade games and they would be thinking about this idea that kids would play one game a lot and how they could get that kid to buy vs rent and these things. From what I've heard Castlevania II was designed with some of these ideas in mind (in a way that make it quite hated today, in addition to translation and dishonest NPCs and other factors). They also wanted kids to call the tip line or buy strategy guides.

Even if a lot of us grew up in those days of games I think we are so out of it that you have to remind yourself of all this stuff and see how it can be a factor.

Might want to steer clear of ALttP. Having to cut open the right random bush in the right place in the overworld to find the next magical portal to the dark world has to have been one of the most unreasonable experiences I've had in recent gaming memory, and I don't think they hint at it at all. I also got stuck in the castle at the start because to get out of the castle you have to push a specific block in a specific direction, when it's among three other immovable blocks. The game is also littered with "puzzles" that amount to overturning the right skull-shaped rock to find a key. OoT has a few obscure "guess what the devs were thinking" puzzles (back in the day I got stuck in Goron City as adult Link, because it seemed impossible to stop the goron kid from rolling with a bomb, so I assumed it wasn't meant to be possible), but they seem to predominate in ALttP.

@fnrslvr: OP literally said he checked out ALttP in his first sentence fam.

I had to borrow my friends official guide to learn Din's fire as a kid. I had made it all the way to the shadow temple by myself, and I could not figure out how to open the entrance. I tried spinning, I tried speed shooting fire arrows, I tried eeeeverything. And after finally giving up and checking the guide I saw that I needed a spell I should've gotten at the beginning of the game and somehow missed, not realising it even existed.....

So yeah. Aside from that event, and a friend teaching me how to get the big goron sword for fun after I beat the game. I think Ocarina is pretty managable. You definitely have to be creative in some obscure instances, but I think that's part of the charm.

I played through Ocarina when I was 9 and I don't recall getting stuck anywhere, but then again, I think the way you play games as a kid is very different from how you play them as an adult. At least for me, as a kid I was just into exploring and poking at everything, and wasn't likely to forget even the smallest of curiosities. I remember being very invested in figuring out "what's up with this windmill guy," so that was something I very near instantly solved once able. The game might not have directed me to him, but my youthful aspiration to check in on Windmill Guy did.

As an adult I think it's easier to get caught up in tackling a game by trying to glean its 'critical path' or follow its very direct cues, as if I'm consciously deciding whether to 'progress' or 'check out side stuff', and determining what's important and what's not based on experience with other games. Where as a kid it was ALL important, regardless of context, and I didn't need the game specifically steering me in a direction to wanna check out some weird place or talk to all the NPC's.

All that said, I don't think you can get too too lost in Ocarina anyway, as that was also the dawn of the video game adviser who TELLS YOU WHERE TO GO ALWAYS. Hilariously I remember being very frustrated with Navi, who I felt was cramping my style. "Just let me figure it out for myself, gosh!"

@superkenon said:

This was my recollection also, but that's because as a kid, this was like my one new video game that was all I was playing, and I think it still took my several months to eventually get through it. I do know that there were a few things I only found out about because of a friend with the player's guide (the method you get the fire arrows with is pretty obtuse, and they're not even a necessary item to complete the game).

In my recollection, the exact sequencing you have to do everything in the Water Temple is much tougher than any of the overworld things you have to do to progress. Granted, someone mentioned Din's Fire, and that's a weird case; for me, I remember earmarking that boulder by Hyrule Castle as a thing I should investigate later when I can deal with boulders, so I got Din's Fire relatively early. If you just progressed through the game and promptly forgot about that odd sidepath and boulder, I don't think there's any reason by the time you get to the entrance of the Shadow Temple that you would randomly think to revisit Hyrule Castle as a child to get Din's Fire. Maybe Navi tells you when you reach the Shadow Temple, but it also seems like the kind of thing where she might just say "hey how about you light these torches."

I thought OoT was easy back in the day. Died maybe once, got lost basically never. actyally was slightly annoyed by what I viewed as excessive handholding in kakariko village (thought why do we need a tutorial when we have a manual?) and navi. Didn't even know about gamefaqs at that point. You just gotta pay close attention. The game usually tells you in some way what you need to know. Most jrpgs of the day usually buried clues in Npc comments and such. Heck ocarina even highlighted relevant words in conversation. Seemed like easy mode after the original, adventure of link and alttp.

I'm sure I'd find harder today since my observational skills have surely atrophied from years of handholding in games but it wasnt considered in its day.

There's an odd thing happening in my brain right now. I've played this game so many times and have it so thoroughly memorized, that I can't even imagine playing it and not knowing exactly what to do to proceed. It's like a blind spot. There was never a first time playing Ocarina of Time for me. I've always been playing it infinitely into the past and into the future.