The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D remake analysis

Ocarina Of Time 3D, simply put, is much more than just a standard remake or re-release. Yet this is how it’s been brushed aside by naysayers looking to criticise Nintendo’s decision to put a thirteen-year-old game at the forefront of the 3DS’s initial wave of first party software. It’s easy to see how the uninformed would jump to such a conclusion, of course. In recent months the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have been flooded with ‘HD Collections’ that are little more than slightly upscaled PlayStation 2 games with Trophy or Achievement support, while Nintendo itself has already re-released Ocarina Of Time twice before, on GameCube and Virtual Console, without bothering to make any changes to the ageing, blurry, Nintendo 64 title.

If there’s any single videogame that deserves a better re-release than an un-ceremonial ROM dump, it’s Ocarina Of Time. An undisputedly important title in the evolution of the medium, it established many of the rules of 3D action games, which continue to be used to this day. Those who played it back in 1998 were blown away by the goliath strides it made ahead of its contemporaries and were rewarded with an unforgettable experience that defined both the time in which it was released as well as the Zelda series as a whole. For many, the series has remained of a consistently high quality ever since but has simultaneously failed to recapture the same sense of occasion that the original N64 breakthrough achieved. For those people, there is an unbreakable bond of nostalgia for Ocarina Of Time, but one that hasn’t truly been catered to until now. Returning to the original cartridge presents the fifth Zelda game exactly as it was in reality, but not as it exists in the memories of its fans, as an idealised experience. It’s the way those people felt when they played the game, not necessarily what they did, that needs to be re-captured.

Ocarina Of Time 3D therefore needed to serve three purposes all at once. It needed to update the visuals to modern standards in a way that simultaneously stays true to the original vision, it needed to appeal to contemporary gamers who have never played Ocarina Of Time before, and it needed to present a package that adds value for those who have already committed every corner of Hyrule to memory. And we’re happy to say that it does all of these things, though with varying degrees of success.

In redrawing the visuals, Nintendo and co-developer Grezzo have demonstrated a lightness of touch that many other developers involved with remakes would do well to study. At first glance this is the Ocarina Of Time we all remember, but it’s only when you compare the new and the old side by side that you see just how much work has been put in. Every texture has been redrawn with much more detail and colour, while character models have been fleshed out. These new visuals perfectly walk the thin line that was necessary of such an important remake, achieving a look that’s as attractive as possible without throwing away the personality of the original game in the process. You only need look at the way other modern overhauls of old games, (like the XBLA edition of Guardian Heroes, for example) have spoiled what was good about the original game’s visuals to appreciate how brilliant a feat this is.

All of this visual splendour and that’s before the 3D slider has been touched. Push it all the way to the top and Link’s world springs to life in extraordinary ways. Putting every other 3DS game yet released to shame, Ocarina Of Time is the first to really show off what 3D without glasses can really do to improve videogames. Even on just an aesthetic level, it is an undeniable triumph. Link himself has been meticulously modelled in three dimensions, every detail occupying its own position in 3D space to the point where it really looks as though there’s a little elf boy running around in a world that exists just behind the window of the 3DS screen.

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