I played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Nintendo's first dive into 3D Zelda Games.

I'm going to start with an opinion that could get me some heat: I don't think it's that great.

But I still believe it's good. I had a lot of fun playing it, but I had much more fun with Link to the Past. And without Ocarina we don't get to the other 3D Zelda games. It's raised by its legacy, but on it's own does it stand?

Yes, I'd say that it does. There would be no legacy if it didn't stand on it's own.

Comparing it to Link to the Past, it takes the young (child in OoT's case) hero and makes them the hero even though they're facing odds they cannot reasonably overcome. But there are some elements that give it a twist. In LttP Link is faced with the Dark World where he's transformed into a Rabbit in OoT there's places Link just cannot go as a child, or places that he cannot go as an adult. And item restrictions based on Link's age.

In LttP the game starts with Zelda missing, but in OoT nothing has happened at the beginning. In both, however, Link's motive is prescribed to him, by his uncle in LttP and the Great Deku Tree in OoT.

But I'll not compare the two this whole time.

As far as the story goes: It's certainly interesting. One thing always comes to mind when I think of this game. And that's everything would have been just fine if Zelda had done nothing. Gannondorf would never have gotten close to the Triforce if Link hadn't opened the door, and he wouldn't have done that if Zelda hadn't had him do it. Though if the Deku Tree hadn't sent Link out, Zelda couldn't have done anything.

It's a story where everything would have been fine without the heros.

I'm not going to wade into the Zelda time line, but I do know this is the game where it splits.

I do kind of like the time travel aspect of this game. (Big shock coming from the Chrono Trigger fan, I know.) And how the game splits the Spirit temple into two sections, Adult and Child. There's a few times you have to travel back and forth in time to accomplish, and I'd say they're implemented fairly well.

There's also the characters introduced in this game, and frankly, I like them. Characters and Races both.

The friendly Zora was an interesting change from the Zora I knew from earlier games that just popped in and out of water to shoot you. And Ruto was certainly an interesting character. I don't generally like tsundere, but since she drops it once she's been saved it's actually not a bad thing here.

The Gorons, large rock eating creatures that call everyone brother and while generally kind they don't exactly pay attention to what's in their way when rolling. Darunia is one of the best characters in the game, if not the best. It's all in his personality, he reminds me of Brian Blessed, or Prince Phillionel.

And the Gerudo, the all female desert bandits and fantasy society of young teens. They weren't anything too special when introduced, but when expanded into Breath of the Wild they really came into their own. And it was by expanding on what was introduced in OoT that they became so much more interesting. A slow start, but certainly a welcome addition to the series.

It's not all good though. The puzzles felt like they were lacking, but they were still learning what they could do in the 3D environment (Master Quest may be the answer to this.) Many of the puzzles that couldn't be done on a 2D plane seemed like they were made that way just because it was 3D. The Eye of Truth was interesting, but I felt it could have been better utilized. And need I really mention the Water Temple?

The character models and textures … I'm actually not going to harp on (though the Great Fairy was creepy.) They were pretty good for the time and had to do what they could with the limited space of a cartridge. In reality I find that most of the problems I have with this game came from the hardware used rather than anything with the game itself.

The controls were straight forward and easy to get used to (Not as easy on the Game Cube, but I got used to them.) Though jumping and getting jumps right was an issue. And the camera wasn't your enemy like it was in Mario 64 (though it had problems too.)

In general I like this game. It's not the strongest in the series, but well worth taking the time to play.