Rock_On's Full Review: The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time for Nintendo 6...
I remember the day, when I was in school, just staring at the clock, waiting, for the hand to strike at 2:40. I had ordered my copy of Ocarnia of Time, OoT from now on, at my local Electronics Boutique after seeing an add in “Nintendo Power” that said “Ye Snooze, Ye Looze.” The game looked awesome, “I’ve gotta have it!” I said to myself. My mom, whom was off work that day, told me before I ran out the door to catch my fleeing bus, that she might run up to the store to pick the game up.
But anyways, once the dismissal bell rang, I was first in the hallway, and made my way to my locker. I opened it up, grabbed my science book, my magazines, slammed my locker shut, and quickly made my way to my bus. I’ll tell ya what, that was the first time, and so far LAST time, I have EVER opened the combination lock without screwing up so fast. If I were to go back and clock myself, It’d probably had been about 5 or 10 seconds.
After the bus had loaded and picked up the High School students, I was finally on my way home. Once the bus driver pulled up to my stop, I got off the bus and sprinted the two blocks home. Once I got there, my mom was cleaning the house, as usual, and I went to my room to see if she got the gem. It wasn’t there. I went and asked my mom if she had gotten it, she said no. Of course I didn’t believe here because both my parents are smart (insert word here), and so I searched the house. I found the sparkling gold box sitting on her bed, waiting for me. I thanked my mom, ran into my room, and...
Read the instruction booklet before I started playing. I wanted to know about the various items and weapons I could get, so I read up on it first. once I felt like I knew a little bit about the game, and the fact that my adrenaline was running though me at lighting speed, I popped in the special Gold cartridge that was available only to customers who pre-ordered the masterpiece, started playing it, and here’s what I’ve got to say...
Plot/Story
A long time ago, while there was nothing but rocks and soil on Earth, three goddesses descended upon the Earth with each one having special powers. Din, with her strong flaming arms, cultivated the land to create the Earth, Nayru poured her wisdom on to the Earth to give the spirit of law to the world, and Farore, who’s rich soul created all life forms who would uphold the law.
These three goddesses returned to the heavens, leaving behind the golden sacred Triforce. Your character is Link, who lives in a fairy forest looked upon by the Great Deku Tree, is having a dream about a tall, dark and sinister man who was stealing the Triforce. When Link wakes up and is summoned by the Deku Tree, Link learns that the dark and sinister man from his dream has wrecked havoc in Hyrule. Link, who is actually a Hyrulian soldier who was orphaned when his mother was killed, and was brought into Kokiri Forest and looked over by the Great Deku Tree. Now Link is off on an adventure to bring Hyrule back to normal.
Spling! Sling! Ring!
Now that you’ve learned the story, you can head out on y our quest to protect the Triforce. By doing so, you must also have some weapons to help fight the evilness that has descended upon the land of Hyrule. your first initial weapon equipped is your fairy sword, a small sword for use by the Kokiri Kids. As you progress through the game, you find deku sticks, slingshot, boomerang, bombs, and Bombchus. When you travel through time, yes you heard me right, Link does grow old, you can get the Master Sword, and the Giant’s Knife, along with a Bow and Arrow that takes place of your slingshot.
You can also get different shields. As you first start out, you’re equipped with a little wooden shield that will burn up from fire, then you can get the Hyrulian Shield, and finally when you get to the last Temple as an adult, you can get the strongest shield, the Mirror Shield, which can reflect certain light off of it.
As a kid, you go from area to area to defeat certain dungeons by beating the boss possessed because of Ganondorf. Once you get the three stones, or jewels, you can go to the Temple of Time in Hyrule Castle to travel into the future 7 years. Once you’re grown-up Link, you go to six different temples, such as the Water Temple, Fire Temple, Forest Temple, Shadow Temple, and Spirit Temple, and make your way through different puzzles and sub-bosses until you finally find the boss. Beat the boss, and you get the medallion for that Temple and you can now move on to the next Temple.
As you make your way through a dungeon or Temple, you have to fight different enemies. Sometimes locked doors will unlock or hidden treasure chests will appear after beating all the enemies in a certain area. Some chests may contain small keys, which you use to unlock doors throughout the level, some may have Rupees, which are the currency in OoT, a couple will have a dungeon map and compass so you can find your way through the different levels and winding tunnels. You also have to find the Boss Key, which is hidden in a Treasure Chest and it usually only appears after beating a sub-boss or completing a certain event.
You can find four bottles throughout the game that are very useful when you’re going to a big boss match or you’re ascending the tower to face Ganondorf. All across Hyrule, you can find different objects that can be saved in the bottles. Like certain color potions would restore our health, restore your magic meter, or restore your health and magic meter. You can find fairies in different places that fully revive Link when his life runs out, automatically. I suggest always having at least one fairy before going into a boss fight. There’s other stuff available to, but this isn’t an instruction booklet.
Let Me Live!
Unlike most other RPGs, you don’t earn experience points to gain levels in OoT. Instead, you have a variety of weapons with each one having its own strength. The bigger and more advance the weapon, the better power it’ll have.
Health is also different from a traditional RPG. Instead of having a certain amount out of whatever, you have a certain amount of Hearts, called your Heart Meter. Every time you take damage, you lose a certain amount of Hearts. When your health is depleted all the way, you die and you have to start over where you last saved. When you first start the game, you only have three hearts. But you can find a quarter of a heart piece that when you get four of them, your heart meter will go up one heart. You can also get a whole heart piece by defeating the boss in each dungeon or temple.
I am...the GENIE
You have a variety of different magic capabilities you can use on your adventure. You have a magic bar at the top of your screen and until you get more magic potions, you can’t use any magic when the bar’s depleted. The first three magic capabilities are three different special arrows that are Fire, Ice, and Light, which are for your bow and arrow.
You can also find the three Goddesses magical elements in little orbs called Din, Nayru, and Farore. Dins fire when used sends out a sphere of flames that singes anything in the radius. This is good for when you’re surrounded by a group of enemies. Nayru’s love is a shield like barrier for Link that disappears after a short time, and Farore’s wind is used to make warp points so you can get around a dungeon or Temple faster.
You aint gonna find this wardrobe at Goodwill
When you first start out in the game, you’ll only have the green tunic and your Kokiri Boots. When you progress through the game, you can get the Red Tunic, which protects you from heat, the Blue Tunic lets you stay underwater for an unlimited amount of time. The boots you can get are the Iron boots, which when you equip them, you can sink underwater without floating back up, and the Hover Boots, which allows you to walk short distances in the air or ever gaps.
Mini-Games
There are plenty of mini-games to quench your thirst for game play in OoT. You can go swimming, you can fish, and you can play a bunch of mini-games in Hyrule Castle which are pretty fun.
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Graphics 4/5
For the time that this game came out, and the system it’s on, the graphics are excellent. They may not be as good as PS2’s graphics or the upcoming Game Cube’s, but they are decent for the N64. In the graveyard scene, when it starts storming, I was in Awe when it started lightning and all the rain started pouring down. There are little graphic nitches throughout the game, but hey, what game doesn’t. No one game is perfect.
Control 5/5
The controls are fast and fluid like and the joystick movements are pretty smooth. The different menus are self-explanatory. When you're riding Epona, your horse, movements feel about the same as they would if you were controlling Link.
Sound 5/5
Extraordinary! The many different tunes for each Temple is awesome and you have your Ocarnia. With your Ocarnia you can play different serenades or songs to trigger different events.
Overall 14/15
This is right now the best game on the N64, and nothing else will probably bump it down from number one because of the Game Cube coming and there being no more games made for the N64. Get this while the price is low, speculation is starting to surface about certain N64 game prices that will sky rocket when Game Cube comes out.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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