Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake : one-hour-in impressions
So, I’m a little over an hour in to Zelda: OoT Remake on Switch 2 and I wanted to share some thoughts:
The Controls: the great, good, and the just OK
First, as one would expect, the controls are tight, if not wholly intuitive; during the training session in Link’s home village I found myself all but nailing the straif and backflip commands of my combat instructor with the exception of the z targeting lock not catching once or twice when I was too far away (it wasn’t obvious to me in real time that I was out of range). Moving on, the slingshot, once obtained, was airtight using the Switch 2’s motion aim capabilities; In terms of non-combat, moving, jumping, and rolling all came easily to me as someone who played the original quite a bit and is no Zelda novice, however my brain didn’t like the placement of the jump button up top (X by default anyway) for whatever reason and I found myself falling into bodies of water quite a bit for no reason other than deciding that the jump button wasn’t the jump button. Navi, and the Navi Button (my terminology) feels familiar with subtle improvements.
A world built for more than one game?
The world we discover playing the beginning of this game is very much like the trailer would leave one to expect, but it’s perhaps the first time I played a Zelda game thinking “this was created with some sort of synergy with other media and products in mind”; while not necessarily a bad thing in my view, the world of Kokiri Forest leading up to Link’s first encounter with The Great Deku Tree felt a bit sanitized, tidy and spherical for a Zelda game to me. Which leads me to my next point:
Closed world, but will it close off newer fans?
I sometimes wonder what players/gamers who basically view Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom as what Zelda is — namely, based on those games, open world, hang gliding, and shrines — will think of this game and Zelda games that came before if they haven’t tried them. Because “back in the day,” Ocarina of Time was viewed as the culmination of everything that made a Zelda game a Zelda game. Well, not anymore, so it seems a balance has been at least attempted here between the old and new(er) Legends of Zelda: The game still felt open-world-ish to me, despite clearly being ushered into the first dungeon without my even realizing it until I was a room or two in, which brings me to my last point:
The game’s pacing is masterful, and seamless
Playing it so far, I felt both like I could explore when and where I wanted, but also like I was being pushed forward aong a path that had been chosen for me to navigate through. And honestly, as someone who played the original when I did, that’s actually to my liking. I still (and I assume, will) miss the glider, but I think this game seems very worthy of the Zelda name so far. Based on the Great Deku Tree’s voice acting and animation, as well as that of the cast of characters I’ve met, I’m very interested to see what surprises and welcome call-backs to the original Zelda: Ocarina of Time this remake might have in store.