Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Developer: Grezzo

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date (NA): June 19, 2011

Genre: Action / Adventure

Nerd Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Since completing the final route in Fire Emblem Fates, I’ve been spending a lot more time with my Nintendo 3DS than usual. In the meantime, I’ve been trying out some new games for the system like Moco Moco Friends and the new Hyrule Warriors Legends, the Japanese version of which is playable in English but lags like hell. Then I decided to try an older game that I’ve been meaning to get around to, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. 2011, wow, I was almost finished high school a sophomore back then!

While the game still retains button-based controls, the touchscreen is very well utilized.

To think the handheld remake of one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games is turning five years old soon, time sure does fly. But, to say that Ocarina of Time 3D is one of my favorite 3DS games would be…well, a lie. In fact, the first few hours of my first playthrough of this game were spent trying to figure out the new control setup. Even now though, I still wonder why the 3DS’ D-pad was never utilized….once.

Honestly though, Nintendo tends to be pretty great with their remakes, and Ocarina of Time 3D is no exception. There’s always going to be a challenge when it comes to taking a game, that’s had several ports already, and giving people a reason to want to buy a full-priced version again. Luckily Ocarina of Time 3D adds in enough content and changes to warrant more than just Zelda die-hards to purchase it.

Finding and remembering where each room to change the water level in the Water Temple is now easier with colored lines on the walls leading to each wall plate.

Obviously, the story of Ocarina of Time 3D is still the same, you play as Link, the child living in the Kokiri Forest without a fairy until he’s called to the Great Deku Tree to stop the “man from the desert” from reaching the Sacred Realm and destroying Hyrule. Bits of the in-game dialogue have been tweaked here and there, in some instances, giving the player more hints about how to proceed, and you can’t skip through Kaepora Gaebora’s long-winded speeches (mostly because they’ve been trimmed down), but anyone familiar with Ocarina of Time will generally feel at home.

The biggest change in Ocarina of Time 3D is of course, the graphics. The amount of change varies however, from the characters who generally receive a slight cosmetic adjustment, to entire dungeons re-textured! I would have to say that the Water Temple ended up receiving the most notable facelift of all the temples, with its color-coded water levels. Overall, I really liked the fact that while the graphics were much more detailed, the world and characters still retained the same general feel to them.

Aiming and even looking around are much more fluid now with the use of the Nintendo 3DS’s gyro sensors.

Ocarina of Time 3D also addresses one of the biggest gripes I usually have with DS and 3DS games extremely well, and that is the utilization of the touchscreen. While some games over-use the touchscreen to annoying lengths, and others forget it exists, Ocarina of Time 3D hits a nice happy-medium for it. Every menu, every command, mappable item, etc, sits on the touchscreen. Players are given four mappable quick slots for inventory items, two of which can quickly be used with X or Y, as well as buttons already mapped for the ocarina and the talk to Navi. The other two mappable buttons are touch-screen based only, but are perfect for quickly toggling on items such as the Iron Boots and Hover Boots, now that the two are Inventory items instead of Equipment.

With all of the menu and equipment on the lower screen, the upper-screen is almost completely devoid of any pieces of UI, something that is much more common in eighth generation titles. I honestly loved having all of that extra room on the top screen, because it made getting into the action of Ocarina of Time 3D that much easier. No more distractions or random UI blocking my view during important boss fights. In fact, players no longer need to pause the game and toggle through menus to find what they want or where they should go, now it’s all on the bottom screen! Even dungeon maps are prominently displayed in the center of the bottom screen, which makes navigating some of the larger dungeons much easier.

Still not sure why they didn’t just use the D-pad and A, for playing the ocarina.

While I came into Ocarina of Time 3D with doubts about whether I could enjoy Ocarina of Time on the 3DS, Grezzo really did an awesome job fitting the long time console title to a smaller system with this port. Once you get the hang of them, the controls feel just as natural as any regular controller-with the exception of the 3DS’s C-stick which, while still better than the PlayStation Portable’s, still feels pretty stiff compared to console C-sticks. My only real gripe with this game besides hating the 3DS’s C-stick is the fact that Grezzo decided to change up the 0carina’s notes. Instead of using the 3DS’s D-pad along with A to play songs, they mixed L, R, X, and Y with A in the weirdest fashion possible. If you look at the screenshot on the left, you’ll notice that Epona’s Song is now played “A-X-Y” instead of “Up-Left-Right” where A could have just continued to stand for A, they used the L bumper like in the song Bolero of Fire.

The Quest and Equipment screens from Ocarina of Time have now been merged into a single window. Notice the Boots are no longer present.

Luckily, players now have the option of having any learned song’s notes visible on the screen while playing ocarina by toggling it on in the Quest menu. A minor annoyance, but Grezzo does make up for it by including Master Quest, the “hard mode” of Ocarina of Time in the game after completing the game once (similar to A Link Between Worlds‘ Hero Mode) as well as a Boss Rush mode called Boss Challenge (similar to how the player can refight bosses in Majora’s Mask) which can be accessed by sleeping in Link’s house after completing the Forest Temple. I personally never bothered with the Boss Challenge mode or the new Sheikah Stones, which just provide in-game hints, until after I had already finished the game.

Boss Challenge and Master Quest Boss Challenge were pretty cool features, especially the unlockable Boss Gauntlet which provides a great challenge for players who’ve already seemingly mastered the boss fights, by having the player battle them one after the other. The Sheikah Stones, which is really just the Super Guide from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, was pretty pointless. I suppose having a guide on hand for new players who get stuck is great and all, but I can’t imagine anyone having so much trouble that they’d backtrack to one of the two locations the Sheikah Stones are to watch a short montage of clips featuring Link solving a single puzzle when they could just Google it.

Overall though, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D was a pretty fantastic port, and definitely recommended to not only fans of The Legend of Zelda, but to anyone who was worried this port wouldn’t be worth the cost. Speaking of costs, thanks to the Nintendo Selects re-release of Ocarina of Time 3D, anyone who missed out on purchasing a physical copy before due to scalpers can now enjoy this game for the reasonable price of around $20. Of course, if you’re looking to buy this game for the homebrew exploit, you’ll want to stick with the original release.