Short Form:

I Don’t Like Ocarina of Time

Author’s note: Ok, this was actually supposed to go with the last Weekly Nuke topic, but I really wanted to get it posted, so I’m doing it now anyway. Plus, I was half of this week’s posts, so who cares if I’m a day late?

I’ve never really been a fan of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Not when it came out, not today.

I remember how hyped my friends were for this game. Not having an N64 myself, I was excited by proxy. Piggybacking off of someone else’s console does that. Someone got a copy a little while after it came out, and a slumber party was in order. Well, we told our parents we were sleeping over anyway. I don’t think anyone actually went to bed before 6:00 a.m.

Anyway, the game fires up, with all the standard Zelda fare. Within a few minutes I find the first thing I hate about the game: you can’t jump. Yes, the game auto-jumps for you, but it shouldn’t. It’s just a poor design choice, especially given that the game has several jumping puzzles.

Link’s Awakening for the Game Boy lets you jump. They make you equip an item to do so, but still, jumping all over the place. It’s just lazy that a Game Boy game does something that an N64 game (and even later games in the series) can’t.

And of corse there’s Navi. I really don’t need to elaborate here, do I?

Plus, everyone holds the game in such high regard, even calling it one of the best of all time. But that night in the late 90s we spent more time making dick jokes about everything in the first few hours of the game than admiring it. Seriously, the game is hours of wood and nuts and a giant phallic tree. We were 12. What did they expect?

Do I think it’s a bad game? No. But I’m not even sure I’d put it in my top 10 N64 games, let alone a best of all time list.

Oh, and that slumber party? We spent the last few hours playing Super Smash Bros. instead.