Review by: Danielle Riendeau

Depending on your perspective, Nintendo’s decision to release Ocarina of Time is either very smart or very cynical. Smart, for re-releasing what is unquestionably one of the most critically and commercially successful games of all time, with a new sheen of 3D graphical polish, motion control, and dual-screen interface niceties. Cynical, if you feel like this is the big N just cashing in, or worse, giving up – “yeah, we can’t top this, so enjoy this old game with a few improvements”. I personally believe that this is one of the very few games good enough – and classic enough – to warrant this treatment, but many have (understandably) questioned the decision.

Creative and business decisions aside, this is undeniably the best game on the platform – as it would be on nearly any platform. Originally released in 1998, it is a real, honest-to-goodness masterpiece – the game that wrote the template for 3D adventure/action and married an incredible variety of rock solid mechanics to a meaty, perfectly paced quest.

If you’ve never played it, you are in for a treat. You play as Link (or whatever you’d like your name to be, Link is just the default), a small boy who lives in the forest with a big, honking destiny in front of him. Once you meet up with your fairy pal, Navi (hey, LISTEN!), and best the training dungeon, you’re off on an adventure that involves meeting up with Princess Zelda, curing the world of evil, and finally, facing off against the monstrous Gannondorf.

You’ll do so by alternating between dungeons and overworld/town sections, in the classic Zelda style. In towns and overworld sections, you’ll meet NPC’s, complete quests, try your hand at minigames (like shooting galleries and one very involved fishing game) and wrangle important items – all of which will help you in the business of besting dungeons. There are myriad secrets all around the world – many just out of reach your first time through, but all of them worthy of exploration.

Think of dungeons as the challenge portions of the game – you’ll spend most of your time in these increasingly complex puzzle boxes, complete with scores of enemies, environmental brain-benders, and a final boss at the head of each. In every dungeon, there is an essential quest item that you’ll need to move on – the slingshot, the bow and arrow, the infamous hookshot, etc. – each of which allows you to access areas previously out of reach (in your current predicament, as well as in other dungeons and overworld areas). You’ll almost always need your new toy to beat the dungeon boss as well, in fights that are pattern-based and totally satisfying. You’ll square off against everything from a giant dinosaur to a ghostly drum-beating monster to the big baddie himself.

The locales you’ll explore are as varied and beautiful as the terrain. You’ll discover, fight and solve puzzles in forests, gorgeous underwater castles, fiery volcanoes, ice caves, desert hideouts, haunted lairs and more, all with an impressive variety of rooms to figure out and battle across.

In fact, it’s astounding to look back and remember just how much content there is here. There are nine meaty “main” dungeons, with two smaller dungeons and a truly vast overworld with side quests, hidden areas, and minigames. In this addition, the “Boss Gauntlet Mode” (a sort of time attack for boss replays) and a mirrored “Master Quest” is included as well, which is a bit like a remixed version of the main game – the main flow of the game and progression of items is unchanged, and the bosses at the head of each dungeon are the same, but all of the rooms in each dungeon are different. There are new puzzles and enemies to face, as well as some seriously weirdo situations (there’s a really funny puzzle involving cows in Jabu Jabu’s belly, for example).

The 3DS improvements are subtle, but welcome. The most obvious is the 3D effect, of course, and the beautiful, revamped graphics, which create sharp lines where the N64 textures just sort of blurred together. The cosmetic improvements are nice, but it’s the improved interface that really impressed me. Your bottom screen displays your map and inventory interface, which is now touch enabled and far more intuitive than pausing and bumbling around a collection of screens ever was on a TV. You have access to view controls, Navi, and your “assigned” items at the quick touch of the button, and you can now assign four (instead of three) items “at the ready” at any time.