It’s hard to believe that a video game that came out way back in 1998 is still, to this day, often called “the greatest game ever made.” What’s even harder to believe is that Nintendo decided to remake it from the ground up without changing it dramatically. It’s got a beautiful fresh coat of paint, some QOL changes to make it more modern, as well as voice acting to enhance the storytelling. However, the adventure remains entirely the same. No new temples, no new enemies, no multiplayer or added single-player content, just the same old The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time from way back in 1998.
While it wasn’t the first 3D game ever made, it was definitely the one that perfected the formula. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time introduced what might be the single most important mechanic ever released in a video game – Z-targeting. We take things like this for granted because the concept of locking onto an enemy has been done millions of times over, but The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 was the blueprint. Its influence is still felt to this day – so remaking it seemed like either a genius idea or a completely foolish mistake. To say Nintendo took a big swing on this one is an understatement – but goodness gracious, they knocked it out of the park.
Explaining the story of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time feels so silly to me, so I’ll go over it briefly. You are Link, a small Hylian child who is living amongst the Kokiri – a race of never-aging children who live in the forest alongside their fairy companions. Link is seen as a bit of an outsider since he doesn’t have a fairy, until the Great Deku Tree sends him one (Navi) to save him from an evil curse. The man who placed that evil curse is Ganondorf, the man Link has been seeing in his dreams. The Great Deku Tree sends Link off to cleanse the world of the evil Ganondorf sent and to fulfill the prophecy of the Hero of Time. One of the first major story beats is meeting Princess Zelda face-to-face as she watches Ganondorf kneel to her father in the royal chambers. Zelda believes Ganondorf is pursuing the Triforce, a holy relic with unspeakable power, and she tasks you with getting to it before he does to save the kingdom.
The story is the same, but how the story is told is a completely different story (pun intended). Following in the footsteps of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo felt it best to include voice acting, which means that the characters have new dialogue. The emotion is so palpable in this version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Even though I played the vast majority of my game in Japanese, I still felt deeply emotional in a way I hadn’t experienced with this game before. I’ve played the original The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the 3DS remake dozens of times. I never felt a deep emotional connection to the story being told until this specific release. I also think that, because the animations are much more fluid and expressive, the overall tone of the game is just heightened in a way that wasn’t possible on previous hardware.
Let’s talk about something completely and entirely new: the overall aesthetic and graphical choices. This remake had some people a little bit scared when it was first shown off. Its graphics seemed too detailed, and its characters had too many striking features. I didn’t think the game looked bad at all, but it was definitely something I knew I’d have to acclimate to. It’s so different from how it used to look, but I also think it’s, without a doubt, the most visually compelling game Nintendo has ever released, full stop.
Eiji Aonuma, the producer of the series since Majora’s Mask (he also directed Majora’s Mask), explained that this time around they used the phrase “puppet-show-feel” to describe the look they were going for. Each character has very angular facial features that would only exist on a wooden doll or somebody who has had immense work done. It’s a very gorgeous and unique style that I haven’t really seen before, and it almost looks as though they could be stop-motion figures, and yet, they’re not. While the game definitely didn’t look like this when I was a child, it completely lines up with how I felt when I played the original game. It’s clear to me that this is what they wanted the game to look like 28 years ago, but they’ve only been able to achieve it now.
Not only do the characters look amazing, but the world itself is just so beautiful. Kokiri Forest still has the weird little fairy bugs flying around. It’s littered with immensely detailed foliage and tree-houses that look like something out of a fairytale. There is an uncountable number of shades of green that just explode on my HDR TV. The colour work in this game is something to be studied for future generations. Every single location is just filled to the brim with personality and a rainbow of colours, just brilliant, shining hues of every possible shade of every possible colour you could imagine. Seeing places like Hyrule Field, Lon Lon Ranch, the iconic Castle Town, Zora’s Domain, Death Mountain – it’s enough to bring a tear to my eye. Seeing these places that are so burned into my memory fully realized in 2026 is just such an incredible feeling, and one that is very hard to nail in a remake. Playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on my Nintendo Switch 2 really does feel like coming home.
Remaking the iconic locales found in the game on its own is a daunting task, but recreating the legendary temples and boss fights that fans have loved for decades is even more daunting, I imagine. But the second I saw how huge Gohma looks standing above Child Link, who is barely three apples tall, I knew I was in for something incredible. The bosses just tower over you in such a freakish way that you just didn’t feel in the original release. Gohma, King Dodongo, and Barinade all feel like gargantuan, impossibly large beings for such a small boy to take down. I really feel like it enhances the power fantasy, because you are just such a small child who can overcome these tasks. I never felt this way about Link in the original game because going from child to adult never felt like that big of a change to me. But seeing his cherubic stature just laying these monsters out is so cathartic and makes me so proud of him. I think this particular version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will resonate with children who want to see themselves in media. Kids out there will play this game and feel like they can do anything, and I think that is beautiful.
The bosses and mini-bosses you fight as Adult Link are also reimagined in a spectacular fashion. I already thought the Adult Link fights in the OG game were fantastic, but the new behaviours and aesthetics take them to heights we haven’t seen before in this series. The fight against Dark Link, one of the most beloved fights in all of video games, is infinitely better in this game. Dark Link is challenging you to both a one-on-one duel and an aura battle. If you try to get him with a stabbing motion, sometimes he’ll jump on your sword and kick you in the face just because he can. In order to get to that fight, you have to make it through the Water Temple, which has been made so much less frustrating in this release. Link is controlled so much better in this game, and you’re given so much freedom with the new jump button and quick-switching items that BOTW and TOTK brought to the franchise. So if you thought that this would be where I had something negative to say about the Water Temple, you’d be wrong.
The incredible score is back with brand-new orchestrations that sound true to the original while adding new flourishes that seriously took my breath away when I heard them. Hearing the original MIDI guitar play alongside the gorgeous new live flamenco guitar in Gerudo Valley is just one of the hundreds of ways the new orchestrations respect the originals. The towns now have nighttime variations that are brand new to this release, and hearing them for the first time should be jarring, but they fit in perfectly. Knowing that Koji Kondo’s perfect soundtrack is reaching many people for the first time in 2026 is amazing. His music has had a profound impact on millions of people, and knowing he can still make music that is being heard today is further proof that this remake is warranted. Strangely, the iconic “Inside a House” theme only plays at the very beginning of the game inside Link’s home. It doesn’t play in any other household in the game, which is a major bummer. I hope they can patch that in down the line, because it genuinely might be my only gripe with this game.
What is there to say about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that hasn’t been said over the last 28 years? It has been and always will be one of the most important pieces of media that has ever been released. It’s the Citizen Kane of video games. Seldom does a piece of art stand out among its contemporaries the way this game has. Nearly 30 years after its original release, we still look at it as the pinnacle of what a video game can be, and as long as interactive art exists, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will hold that spot. So why remake something that is so beloved and perfect? Well, you remake it to prove you can do it again. Nintendo loves to remind us just how great they are at making contenders for the greatest game ever made, so it should come as no surprise – Nintendo took one of the greatest games ever made and remade it into one of the greatest games ever made.
