Preview by: Justin Amirkhani

Holding the Nintendo 3DS and watching Link traipse around The Great Deku Tree once again, there’s a strange mélange of nostalgia and reiteration. We’ve all played this before – some of us more than a dozen times – but there’s a reason for that; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is as close to faultlessness as the medium has ever seen.

Being universally adored by critics and fans, Ocarina of Time has endured as over a decade of more advanced games that have tried to muscle it out of our collective consciousness. However, despite all this there was an uncomfortable familiarity with a game set to be the hottest showpiece for Nintendo’s newest system; effortlessly completing the game’s challenges – as if on auto-pilot – made the experience feel a little more than hollow.

There’s no mistake that this is an improved version of the Ocarina of Time we’ve all come to know. A visual comparison to the Virtual Console port at the media preview last Thursday showed just that. Retouched textures and a completely remodeled Link strike a dramatic comparison to their original forms. The increased fidelity further compliments the game’s already commanding aesthetic.

The 3D does what it can to pull you in to the experience but even within the fleeting confines of a preview environment it’s easy to get used to the effect. Chalk it up to immersion or pointlessness, but without a special 3D gimmick it quickly becomes indecipherable from the 2D setting. However, Ocarina has never been about gimmicks or graphics; its treasure is gameplay. Naturally, Nintendo hasn’t changed much with the experience. Of the three levels shown, all of them were identical in structure to the original. On the table next to the demo units sat a dog-eared copy of the original Nintendo 64 Prima Strategy Guide, which could have been used had the levels been less familiar. Starting at The Great Deku Tree it’s easy to understand just how easily a Nintendo 64 game fits on the 3DS. With both systems using a single analog stick, it felt no different than the original.

Where things do shake up a little is with the addition of motion control, which can help or hinder targeting modes depending on your perspective. The first inclination may be to outright reject the gyroscope as a means of aiming your bow or slingshot, but even in the compressed demo time it quickly became more fluent than the slower analog aiming. It lacks an obvious snap-to feature, but the game’s core aiming system has always erred on the forgiving side anyway. However, Nintendo still hasn’t figured out a way to avoid losing the 3D effect while physically moving the console out of the intended focal point.

Like the motion controls the new touch-screen interface adds a modicum of ease to the overall experience. Items are laid out simply and can be visually manipulated without the need for multiple menu screens. This came in particularly useful during The Water Temple, which requires frequent access to your boots. With the touch-screen it’s as simple as tapping them on and off, which may not sound like much but compared to the classic experience it’s much smoother.