Ocarina of Time review: Does Nintendo's Zelda remake match its original?
By Google News Technology ·
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was finally released on Thursday, after years of rumours that Nintendo would remake the game - considered one of the best ever made.
IGN called it "the biggest game of the decade" in their review when it launched in 1998 on the N64, and it set the standard for 3D games.
A lot of the things we take for granted in modern games - such as riding a horse, fighting with a sword and shield, or locking on to enemies with the tap of a button - were pioneered or perfected in Ocarina of Time.
It received an almost perfect score from critics and, decades on, remains the highest-rated game in history on Metacritic, which aggregates reviews.
So how do you remake what many consider a masterpiece?
Those like me who grew up playing the original will feel right at home here.
Nintendo has decided against reinventing the wheel, instead producing something which plays very similarly to the N64 classic.
As I've said before, video game remakes are a bit different to film or TV - gaming fans often clamour for a new take on their favourites, hoping developers harness evolution in tech to make them fresh.
And games have come a long way in the almost 30 years since the original Ocarina of Time came out.
"When you compare the games in the past and the games in modern times, so to speak, the norms of what people expect from a game have evolved naturally," Nintendo producer Hidemaro Fujibayashi told me.
"In the past, games where the users may have needed more imagination to fill the blanks or the gaps are now clearly expressed through the graphics that they see on the screen."
But fancy graphics have come at a price - a pivot away from realism into something a bit more cartoonish. Some might even be disappointed by this, given the N64 game had quite horrifying elements in places.
One was the Skulltula House, a room where people had been morphed into human-spider hybrids.
"Back when we created the original Ocarina of Time, the means to convey or express ideas was limited compared with what we have now," series producer Eiji Aonuma - who worked on the original game - said.
"With regard to even the so-called scary elements, we strove to add a touch of the comical."
But he told the BBC that enhanced graphics and lighting capabilities unintentionally exaggerated the already-spooky Skulltula House and its potential to strike fear into players.
"When we carried out the test play, the testers were telling us, 'Oh, this is too scary'," he said. "So of course, in the end product, we've made the necessary adjustments so that we can retain the same balance that we had achieved in the original."
I spoke to a few YouTubers about the upcoming game to get their thoughts - and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Mike Channell, co-editor of the YouTube channel Outside Xbox, said he believed the remake had been made "very meticulously" in the hopes of living up to fan expectations.
"Having played the game, it's clear that serious thought has gone into every decision, to the point where I'm not convinced this remake has taken any less time and effort than an all-new Zelda game," he said.
"Ocarina of Time is obviously one of the great video game experiences in the history of the medium, but I have no doubt this new version will be the best way to experience this story.
"It's fleshed out as a world, sumptuously detailed, and the controls match 21st-Century expectations."
Ed King, known as Zeltik to his 893,000 followers on…
Originally published by Google News Technology
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