Game developers have an advantage over filmmakers when it comes to remakes. Games’ actors never age, and their sets are never torn down. Whereas a remake of “Citizen Kane” would be a pointless technical exercise, like Gus Van Sant’s 1998 “Psycho,” the “Citizen Kane” of video games can be improved upon without betraying the source material. Where to begin discussing “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” the agreed-upon Greatest Game of All Time? One could start with the masterful job Nintendo did of translating the series’ trademark combat and puzzles into 3-D. Or the fascinating main gimmick, the ability to travel between childhood and adulthood, righting wrongs in both time periods.
Or the music. If it turns out that video games are indeed classical music’s salvation, this movement will be traced back to Koji Kondo’s pieces from this game, named for the instrument our hero plays to aid him on his quest. For millions, there are few compositions with such immediate emotional effect as “Epona’s Song,” the pastoral tune that calls your horse, the timeless innocence of “Zelda’s Lullaby,” or “Sheik’s Theme,” whose melody is more beautiful than humans deserve.
Despite all these accomplishments, 13 years after its release, it’s easy to write off “Ocarina of Time” as just a necessary step, a reiteration of the “Zelda” mythos to accommodate changing gaming standards. As someone who prefers the “Zelda” games that bracketed “Ocarina of Time” — the halcyon “A Link to the Past” and the utterly unique “Majora’s Mask” — I was surprised to find my eyes welling with tears as I succumbed to this game’s story, an exploration of the dual nature of childhood, and the betrayals inherent in growing up.
| ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D’ |
| » System: 3DS |
| » Price: $39.99 |
| » Ratng: 5 out of 5 stars |
What’s even more surprising is that this remake is not just a cash-in on Nintendo’s part, but a labor of love. The graphics have been “remastered” with surprisingly little interference, smoothing out the triangles that once made up, among other things, the knees of our hero, Link, and the nose of bad guy Ganondorf. (Don’t worry, purists; Ganondorf’s nose job is the closest the game comes to the fixing-what-ain’t-broke territory of the “Special Edition” of the original “Star Wars” trilogy.)
But the graphics are just the beginning. The coolest update is the use of the 3DS hand-held’s internal motion sensors for looking around and aiming your bow. Your view of the gaming world perfectly corresponds to the 3DS’ movements: If you stand up and turn all the way around, your displayed point of view will also have completed a full turn. This feature makes aiming feel way more natural than using a joystick, and gives you the sense that you have a window into an actual physical space. It also makes “Ocarina of Time 3D” the rare hand-held game that gives you a reason other than portability to play it on a portable system.
The other marquee change is the addition of hint stations, of which there are only two in the game. These are presumably meant as an alternative to online walkthroughs, a cancer upon the medium that enable gamers to rob themselves of the satisfaction of figuring things out on their own, while enabling game developers to make their games more arbitrary, because, hey, everyone’s gonna just look everything up online anyway, right? Sadly, gamers have indeed become a less patient lot than they were even 13 years ago, and these hint stations, which provide four-second videos obliquely showing you how to, say, solve a puzzle in a dungeon, are a good middle ground. The one big missed opportunity here is that there is no in-game guide to finding the Heart Containers or Gold Skulltulas, so those Easter egg hunts will remain a pain.
And last but far from least for anyone who has played the game before, the weighted boots can be toggled on and off via the touch screen, making the Water Temple immeasurably less awful.
In short, here we have what is almost universally considered the high point of the medium, updated with great care. Whether or not this is your first time pulling the Master Sword from the stone, gamers could ask for little more.
