Ep. 006: The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
Playing a Memory
There is no objective way to review Ocarina of Time in 2021, and Alex and Luke don't really try. This is a game both of them grew up with, beat as children, quoted to each other at recess, and thought about unprompted for two decades. What the episode actually becomes is something richer: two people returning to a place that shaped them and finding out it mostly still holds up, discovering what doesn't in interesting ways, and getting genuinely emotional about the parts that do.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64, originally released November 21, 1998. It is the fifth entry in the Zelda series and the first in 3D — an achievement that still registers. It is the highest-rated game in Metacritic history at a 99. The game recently landed on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack on October 25, 2021, which is what brought this playthrough on. Luke revisited Hyrule via the NSO version. Alex played the 3DS remake — released June 16, 2011 — for the first time, experiencing its upscaled visuals, motion-sensor aiming, and Sheikah Stone hint system. The game was a landmark production by the standards of its era: roughly 200 developers, a $12 million budget with $10 million dedicated to marketing alone, and a 32-megabyte cartridge that started as a planned 16. Both hosts completed it in roughly 25 to 30 hours, which lines up precisely with HowLongToBeat's estimates.
What actually holds up is almost everything. The music, composed primarily by Koji Kondo, is the centerpiece: the Gerudo Valley theme with its acoustic guitars, Saria's Song, the Song of Time, the Song of Storms — all of it wired directly into childhood memory in a way that apparently does not diminish with age. Luke blasted the Gerudo Valley music when he got there. The sound design broadly, every hookshot clank and boomerang arc and sword thrust, triggers something in the back of the brain that is hard to articulate but unmistakable to anyone who grew up on this game. The dungeons hold up just as well: thematic, creative, each with its own atmosphere, art, and puzzle logic that the 3D Zelda format has never fully eclipsed. Forest Temple gets top billing, Spirit Temple earns significant praise for its dual-timeline mechanic (half completed as child Link, half as adult), and even the water temple — gaming's most notorious punching bag — comes off mostly fine, especially on the 3DS version, which added some quality-of-life signposting. The day/night cycle, the way NPCs live different lives after dark, the items that carry between your child and adult playthrough and change what you can access — all of it still reads as genuinely inspired for 1998.
The criticisms are light and mostly contextual. Hyrule Field is sparse by modern standards, a point illustrated by a Gen Zer who told Luke plainly that it was "kind of empty" — which both hosts acknowledge is technically true while also being exactly like complaining that Mario 64 doesn't have enough content. The rupee economy is essentially meaningless: both hosts filled their wallets constantly and found almost nothing worth buying. The Big Quiver upgrade from the horseback archery range cost Luke over an hour of fury and he then discovered he never ran out of arrows anyway. The fishing minigame demanded a 10-pound catch for the gold scale; neither host could land anything over six pounds and both eventually walked away. These are the textures of the game — the stuff that irritated them as kids too, now reassuringly familiar.
Boss highlights: Phantom Ganon emerging from the paintings in the Forest Temple, which both hosts point to as proof the creativity in this game runs at a ten. Dark Link in the Water Temple, which is possibly the hardest enemy in the entire game and required Luke to look up strategies. Bongo Bongo playing drums while you stand on his instrument. The two witches in Ganon's Tower requiring mirror shield beam deflections. And Ganon himself, who defeated Alex five times while Luke watched from across the table, in a situation complicated by Alex entering the final fight without silver hearts or fairies in bottles after accidentally saving over his progress mid-defeat. He beat him anyway. He would like the record to reflect this.
Side Quests for this episode: Luke is at 50 hours in Skyrim on PC, playing a high elf named Elfo and spending entire sessions smithing iron daggers to raise his crafting skill. He strongly recommends Death's Door, an indie Zelda-like that he calls gorgeous and gratifying, and Slay the Spire, a roguelike deckbuilder ideal for background play. Alex has started Metroid Fusion on his Analog Pocket while working toward a loop in Loop Hero, an Epic Games holiday giveaway that earned its critical reception and is exactly what it sounds like.
This episode is unofficially brought to you by fish tacos and the need for more lamb in the American diet. The Lamb Growers Association Union is welcome to reach out.
Both hosts put Ocarina of Time in their top five games of all time. No formal score is offered. Some games don't need one. Majora's Mask is next on the list when it lands on NSO, and the conversation closes the way it started — somewhere between nostalgia and genuine appreciation for something that turned out to be as good as they remembered.
Ocarina of Time is available on Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, on Nintendo 3DS, and in your memory whether you want it there or not. Full episode wherever you listen. Come argue about the water temple in the Low Five Discord.
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