Como siempre, la historia en los juegos de Zelda no es una trama complejísima de entender o llena de pretensión, la historia de esta saga es una historia de la eterna pelea del bien contra el mal y esta entrega no es la excepción.

El relato comienza con el Gran Árbol Deku decide darle un hada acompañante a Link, nuestro protagonista. Link vive en el bosque Kokiri, habitado por los Kokiri, que son como unos duendecitos que se quedan como unos niños por siempre. Todos los Kokiri tienen un hada acompañante, pero por alguna razón, Link no la tiene. Cuándo Navi (el hada que nos da el Gran Árbol Deku) llega a nosotros, esta nos dice que tenemos que acudir cuánto antes a la presencia del gran árbol, este le explica a Link que dentro de el hay criaturas malignas qué deberá destruir.

Hecho esto, Link deja el bosque para encontrarse con la princesa Zelda, quien le explica que el malvado hechicero Ganondorf tiene planeado apoderarse del mundo, y, para detenerlo, Link deberá ser capaz de abrir las puertas del Templo del Tiempo, lugar donde descansa la Espada Maestra.

Como dato curioso es este juego el que divide en tres la línea temporal de la saga completa.

No es nada exagerado cuándo se dice que The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time es el mejor juego de la historia, su impacto en el medio dejó un antes y un después, marcó las pautas para todos los juegos posteriores a él y ha sido un referente a la hora de hablar y hacer videojuegos. Este fue el juego que convirtió a Zelda en una leyenda y lo consagró como una de las franquicias más queridas en los videojuegos. Creo que es la séptima u octava vez que termino este juego y simplemente no envejece. Marcó a toda una generación (o a varias) y fue mi inspiración para decidir ser músico. Ocarina of Time es LA leyenda de Zelda y si no lo has jugado por favor, anda a hacerte ese favor, después me agradeces.

Greetings, Hive! This post is the second one in my series of reviews/retro-reviews about the main titles of The Legend of Zelda franchise, last time I talked about the mythical A Link to the Past for the SNES (review you can by clicking here) and this time it's turn to none other than the one considered by many as the best videogame ever created: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the videogame that marked forever the industry and many people’s life.

So without any further ado, let's start!

Ocarina of Time was released on November 21, 1998 in Japan for the Nintendo 64 console. For North America the game was released two days later, on November 23, 1998, while in Europe it was released in 1999. It was developed by a subsidiary studio called Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo. This game has had numerous re-releases in later Nintendo consoles, as was the case of the Master Quest edition for the Nintendo Game Cube, Nintendo Wii’s virtual console inclusion, and a remake for the Nintendo 3DS called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time 3D, which significantly improved the game’s visuals.

But, why is this videogame considered the best one in gaming history? Prior to Ocarina of Time, we had Super Mario 64, who was the first video game to make the leap from two dimensions to three dimensions, thanks to the power of the new Nintendo 64 console. However, Super Mario 64 was a platform game; our main goal was to complete the levels without much else to do apart from that. The Legend of Zelda is an action-adventure franchise, and this genre had to adapt to the three-dimensional environment, it had to adapt not only the gameplay but also the interaction with the world so that the sense of adventure wasn’t lost, something that was masterfully achieved. Ocarina of Time defined how 3D games would work from that moment on.

The interactions with the NPCs (non-playable characters) were no longer limited to a dialogue or a single reward. Now, every NPC we encounter has a role in the vast Hyrule, and, apart from this, they are connected to the world itself, by this I mean that the NPCs had interactions with each other and not only with Link, for example: you met someone Villa Kakariko who had a problem, you help him solve his problem and you are rewarded with an item, and that item is something that someone in Kokiri Forest needs, and so on. Add to this the fact that thanks to the power of the new Nintendo 64 you could see and hear the characters' reactions to situations, further increasing the immersion. Perhaps this is something that today seems the most normal thing in the world, but in 1998 it was a revolution, demonstrating that video games could offer much more than just a casual distraction; we could venture into their world, explore it and feel part of it.

One of the best things about this game is that it's here where we get to know the diverse races that inhabit Hyrule. Each race has its own culture, its own folklore, its own way of expressing itself, and of course, its own problems that our silent protagonist will have help them to solve

We have the Gorons, creatures that inhabit the Mountain of Death; strong, imposing, extremely friendly and perhaps not very smart.

The Zora, the water race, inhabitant of Lake Hylia and the Zora's Domain, a graceful and elegant race.

The Kokiri, the children of the forest. The Hylians (which would be the humans in this universe)

And finally the Gerudo, proud people from a desert village in which all its inhabitants are women, and also the best warriors of all Hyrule.

Why "Ocarina of Time"? Time plays a fundamental role in this game, and all the things mentioned above are directly affected when we travel in time. Yes, time travel.

During the first section of the game (which basically works as a macro-tutorial) we control a child Link, with whom we get to know the world and become familiar to it, when this section ends, we travel 7 years into the future; here Link is an adult, but not only he has grown and changed: Time has passed for the whole world, and we can see this impact both geographically and also on the characters themselves.

With a new way of seeing the world also came a new way of traversing it. Link's movement was no longer only up, down, left or right, but through the joystick of the Nintendo 64 controller we can move naturally in the direction we want. The items are still present and of course adapted to the new environment, now the bombs can also be thrown (and not just placed as it was previously), the bow and arrow, the slingshot, the boomerang and the hookshot work through a first-person view that allows us to aim accurately. Everything feels possible; the arsenal of objects is very varied (which changes whether you’re child Link or adult Link. In general, adult Link can use many more objects) and is perfectly integrated into the world, nothing seems forced and all the objects that we gather throughout our adventure will have an important role in it. Now we can have up to three items equipped at the same time which increases the dynamism of the game. A button dedicated exclusively to the use of the shield was added (before the shield was used "automatically") and thanks to this we can defend ourselves from many more things than in previous installments.

Something that was implemented for the first time in this game and that revolutionized the industry as whole was the handling of its camera and the introduction of a mechanic that would be known as "Z-Targeting". At the time, controlling the camera was not easy, so Nintendo opted to place the camera in a fixed third-person view so that the player would always have the view focused on what was ahead. Z-Targeting was implemented for combat, this made Link change his natural position to a combat stance, and this allowed him to move around the focused enemy without losing sight of him, as well as attack more easily. Later this system was applied to practically the rest of the games of the franchise and many other games.

As is tradition in the franchise, to advance our adventure's plot we have to complete a series of dungeons. Each dungeon has a completely different theme; the forest temple is very different visually and playable from the water temple, for example. Each dungeon has different mechanics and puzzle solving, although there are common elements that apply to all of them. The dungeons are among the best in the franchise, each with its own theme and final bosses, proposing a challenge just enough to not fall to the point of frustration. With regards to the infamous water temple, what makes it feel so tedious is that in the original version of the game, to equip the iron boots you had to enter the pause menu, this made the process slow and having to be needed so many times during the temple made it feel frustrating. This was improved in the 3DS version by adding the iron boots to the equippable items.

The most important object in our adventure, apart from the legendary sword destroyer of evil; the Master Sword, is the Ocarina of Time. With the Ocarina we will learn various songs that will serve us to solve puzzles, call Epona, teleport, interact with NPCs, or simply allow the plot’s development.

A very important element was also added, which was horse riding; Epona became a fundamental part of the adventure and our vehicle to explore Hyrule.

The sound in this game is another of its strengths. Each sound effect is very well achieved and excellently accompany the atmosphere; the sound of the steps always changes depending on the surface in question that we are stepping on, the sounds of the blows are satisfactory, each enemy has its own sound or voice, we can hear from the clucking of a chicken to the roar of a fierce dragon. This was the first Zelda to include voices, we have male and female voices quite simple to differentiate and very well achieved for the time.

Talking about the soundtrack... What can I say that hasn't already been said? The soundtrack is a marvel and a delight to listen to from the moment we turn on the console. I'll let it speak for itself in the following video.