Why was Ocarina of Time so highly praised?

I'm not being a contrarian faggot on purpose, I'm just curious about what set it apart from the competition.

I finally bought it last week and I've been playing it, but I'm not seeing anything that makes it amazing. Compared to Super Mario 64 and especially Banjo Kazooie, it really feels kind of lackluster. I mean, it's good and kind of fun, but I don't understand how it got so much love.

I get that there's a lot of nostalgic hype for it now, moreso over at reddit, but I'm not understanding what made it so popular back in the day.

Can Holla Forums enlighten me?

Filename related came from Google Search - I'm currently a mobilefag as I don't have any other internet

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please
archive.is/t3gQv
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Because it was a good game.

Among many good games. What made it special?

This is a good topic of discussion, but your OP is written really fucking horribly

Ocarina of Time is STILL the highest rated video game of all time

To understand why I think we have to think more like a game critic, or at least the game critics that were around in 1998

-It has cleverly written melodies from Koji Kondo

-It has a unique gimmick no other game at the time had

-It was an early example of an open world game and included novel mechanics like mounts

-The controls are easy to pick up on

-The story is timeless

-It had a very deep look and feel for a game made back then

Is it the greatest game ever? Probably not. But I think its the perfect critics game, its simply impossible to pick this game apart without going full nitpick

Because if you were a normalfag or a kid whose gaming experience was limited to the snes and prior consoles it was like getting a blowjob from jesus, a lot of people on here make an excellent point that even for its time it wasn't as great of a gaming accomplishment as it gets credit for, and they are probably right.

Personally I don't think it's quite as good as link's awakening and link to the past, but for most people playing it at the time it was some crazy shit..

it is pretty good though and I wouldn't go so far as to shit on it

Nostalgia.

Well the game stood out during the era that it was released. But nowadays it is kind of lackluster. It was the first 3d zelda game, and of course the first zelda game of most of the current internet generation. Nostalgia factor aside, what made this game good was the countless hours my generation autistically clocked into it. Hell, I know the fucking game by memory at this point. I can beat the water temple without throwing a hissy fit because of how many times i have beaten it.

As for why it was so highly praised I assume is because Nintendo took a huge risk transitioning from 2d to 3d, core zelda fans were skeptical of this game, and nintendo exceeded their expectations.

1. Not-clunky 3D action movement. I credit the lockon for that.
2. Feel of exploration. Due to the way OoT works, it's easy to think that just under a certain rock, or just past a certain wall, or with an exact sequence you can get some really DEEP LORE bonus stuff, which is pretty fun. Specially so if you are a kid on the pre-internet era.

This. Also, it was the first 3D Zelda so everyone hype the fuck out of it, and being honest it did a good work transmitting the feeling of adventure of the 2D Zeldas to a 3D environment. Riding Epona still feels cool, it has some pretty good bosses, despite still being linear it has a great sense of "liberty" (specially after you go out of the Kokiri village), the characters are really charming and it has entertaining minigames.

But what is the best game ever made? i vote for bosconian

That's an easy one: Tetris, it is distilled game 100%, as well as globally recognized

The one that I like and you hate

Or the early-internet era

Obviously the best game ever is my favorite game

The worst game ever is your favorite game ;^)

*never be a kid again…

fallout 4 of course

is there a better 3rd person 3d game from that time or before?

I would argue mario 64.

I agree, but that is a little different, I should have specified 3rd person action/adventure with combat

You're comparing two completely different genres of game

The best game is the one easiest to program other games into. Warcraft 3 is a contender, but can be quite limited if you don't know Jass, and maps still have an 8mb limit. You can program shit in Minecraft, but it's more efficient to do it in Dwarf Fortress.

Honourable mention to Super Mario World.

Banjo kazooie/tooie were pretty good, and it had some simple combat. Glover is also a contender.

Gimmie video. Now. I demand spoonfeed autism.
or a google/duckduckgo search term to find it myself

please use archive.is.com (use archive.is)/2010/04/15/colossal-turing-mach.html

I don't think I've played one specifically like that but I remember anons going into such an autistic fuss about it in a thread like this that I'm just willing to cede them the point, I believe the argument originates from some pc stuff out at the time

I played and enjoyed a lot of games before that christmas but ocarina was the only one I beat twice in two days.

Shit. Sorry.
archive.is/t3gQv
Also on the forum.
bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=49641.0

Nostalgia for what? They're talking about when it first came out.

It was good for it's time.

LTTP was better.

HOLY

FUCKING

SHITBALLS

You're the first person in my six years of being on Holla Forums to mention Bosconian. I fucking love you, user!

I don't even care right now, because right now as far as I'm concerned, Bosconian IS the greatest game of all time!

FUCK.

YESSSSSSS

I guess because there wasn't much in the ways of 3D action/puzzle games at the time. Suppose it felt more realistic than things like you mention, didn't feel like you were just going around collecting coins even though that's pretty much what it was. It was just pretty novel for the time, the ocarina was pretty cool at the time.

The game is very remember-able and I'm not saying that it was a glorious game that everyone will remember but at how unique some of the parts of it were.
Take for example the Ocarina tunes, Each melody is distinct to the ear. Most of the Temple themes have a simple melody that's rather easy to remember and the gimmicks such as how to navigate the lost woods or the bullshit feeding Lord Jabu Jabu with a fish sticks in your mind because they're "complicated" puzzles with a simple solution.

I could probably give my brother who hasn't touched the game since the N64 Zelda OOT and he could probably play the game from memory alone (I know I sure as hell can).
OOT doesn't leave the players brain

It did a lot of things right to make it perfect for nastolgia. I mean considering it had to take a 2d game to a 3d platform and is still considered one of the best games of all time shows how good it must have been when it came out.

It's the ultimate jack-of-all-trades game. While it may not do any of those trades exceptionally well, it's designed in such a way that the game never feels repetitive. Think about it, you're never doing the same type of gameplay for more than 5 minutes tops. Sure, no one style of gameplay is developed or fleshed out very much, but that's not really a problem because all of the different styles blend together really well. No other 3D Zelda has been able to that quite as well as OoT did. They each improved upon it in certain areas, but at the cost neglecting others. The Zelda franchise is, at it's heart, a jack-of-all-trades adventure series that requires the player to become familiar with many styles of gameplay to succeed, and OoT does that better than any other 3D game in the series.

TL;DR: The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

Pic related. :^)

Its popularity is a product of its time, lots of extra little things to do on the side, and a simple style and characters that are easy to understand and appreciate.

So as someone who doesn't consider OoT the best LoZ game I think this puts my commentary in an interesting spot.

Basically, at the time OoT came out, it was a big fucking deal. It had a large, somewhat open 3D world, the controls were tight as fuck, the camera was actually decent (still see shitty cameras to this day), the music and sound effects were excellent… it was a solid, fun game.

Only reason people still think it's the best is because much of the internet is dominated by 20-somethings with nostalgia goggles who think Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy 7 are the best games ever made because they got their fee-fees touched for the first time.

I'm not saying OoT is bad, but a lot of advancements have been made since then and the game feels a little dated because of them. Imagine if someone tried to say that GTA3 was the best game in the series today? They would be laughed at. But somehow OoT or Majora's Mask are the best Zelda games? Makes no sense.

Only time older games end up being better is when newer games regress rather than progress the gameplay and world. Consider Morrowind -> Skyrim, or Star Wars Battlefront 2 -> Dice Battlefront for examples of regression of core components actually make the games worse. Thief -> Thief, Dawn of War -> Dawn of War 3 ("colossal" does not even begin to describe how fucking up this is)… so yeah, sometimes the older games really are the better ones.

But Ocarina of Time is not as good as Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword. Arguably better than Windwaker though, and not because I'm one of those faggots who hates cel shading: just less interesting of a game.


BOSCONION, STAR DESTROYER

You are a fucking gentleman of the highest degree. You belong here. Also how do you feel about Sinistar? That game was fun as hell.

Skyward sword was not good by any meaning of the word

it's the "best game of all time" to critics because critics are casuals and don't know games because they're in it for a paycheck.

At least most of them. Some aren't idiots, i'm sure.

Ocarina of time is good, but it's not the best in game in the game.

do your own research

what is the point of imageboards if not to discern the opinions of others

DANK MEMES SHITPOSTING AND REDTEXT

i think you are trying to start shit

I'm guessing you weren't around to experience games in 1998, but allow me to set the stage for you.

You've been riding high on a good prior year of games and into another great one– if not best holiday season yet. Even with such great games released on other platforms that were fantastic, you've been waiting for this new installment that hasn't had a new game in 5 years, and that last one was on a black and white portable. The hype's been building with this new title breaking into the 3D realm when many franchises were either doing the transition okay or terrible. Imagine if this wait was worth it, that the hype didn't disappoint, that the game made this transition into 3D well enough that others took pointers from it.

OoT was exactly the kind of sequel people wanted when it arrived. It reached expectations and is still solid enough to return to today.

You could argue there are other Zeldas out there that do things better than it, but OoT has the best overall composition of gameplay, dungeons, story, music, etc

People liked A Link to the Past. Ocarina of Time was A Link to the Past but in 3D. Nearly identical story beats, nearly identical sense of progression, similar weaponry but featuring a combat system that well utilizes movement in 3D space. This isn't mentioning the characters and minor details that give the game charm.

There are plenty of people who say San Andreas is the best GTA. That's pretty much the equivalent of saying Majora's Mask is the best Zelda.

Nigga what? Not as good as Twilight Princess is certainly a case that could be made, but Skyward Sword? Come on, dude. As someone who just replayed SS a couple of months ago, that's bullshit.

SS is an exercise in padding a game to an unbearable degree. It sends you to the same damn locations about two times too many, and the dungeons involve a shit ton a back tracking. It felt like they finished the game and said "Shit, this thing's only 15 hours long! Zelda needs to be a big 30 hour epic!" so they did everything they could to stretch what they had into that length.

All the backtracking and shit might have been more bearable if there was more exploration and and other diversions. That side stuff was all scaled down, which was inexcusable, especially after Twilight Princess.

Then there's the controls. I think I liked them more than most, but they're still not that great. There were points towards the end where you needed to be really precise and it was just frustrating to play. I thought they were good for flying, but that's about it.

There were some good things in it. I liked the story and the characters were great (I hope we see more of Groose at some point). I thought the crafting was a welcome addition. Ditto with destructible shields. It looks like we're getting more of that in the new game, which is boss.

I would honestly put SS in the same boat as the two DS games. There's some good stuff there, but it's gimmick just makes it a chore to play.

I never played sinistar. One of these days ill emulate it.

This motherfucker alone, makes SS one of the worst games in the series.

its the first people here played, so automatically the best for them.

same thing applies to final fantasy 6, its a piece of shit but since its the first the americucks got to play, they praise it as the second coming of jesus.

I think what it is, is that they hasn't been a worthy successor of the series. theres a split on if Twilight Princess is good, and no one can agree Skyward sword is good outside of characters. People like wind waker, but would of perferred if it was actually not rushed out.

I think Breath of the Wild, if it keeps going at the pace it is going, could be the game to topple OoT. If it continues to look promising

I'd argue that I think LttP edges it out, and one of the greatest games ever made. What it boils down to is timelessness.

A lot of the things that made OoT blow everyone away was that it was "the first" to do a lot of things. It was ground breaking in many ways. This isn't to say that it was not excellent in itself. It clearly is. It's just that thing which pushes it over the line from "great game" to "one of the greatest" I think won't age as well with time.

Conversely, the things that make LttP so cohesively good don't age. The puzzles, overall look, sounds and music, gameplay, all of it has no connection to the technology of the time. It is as good as it ever was. It's sprites are both very well made, easy to figure out what they are, and very appealing to look at. OoT looks rough with it's 3d models. Sometimes quite ugly. There are a lot of parts which were ugly even at the time.

But why does everyone remember it specifically? I think "the first"s that it brought are the reason it sticks out much harder. But also as put, it's the absolute ultimate critics game in that sense. Not only that, the SNES (and it's generation of consoles) was pretty much the barrier between gaming being niche and gaming becoming mainstream. The next gen would be the first time you started seeing mainstream appeal with things like the playstation. And then after that gaming was full on the norm. Which would make OoT was the first zelda game to be out when gaming was the socially acceptable hobby.

I also want to warn, I have a feeling some people are going to say "if it isn't the greatest game of all time, it's pure shit!" OoT is a phenomenal game by almost any standard or definition of quality in games. It has near universal appeal. It's a great game.


I think so as well. I remember at E3 about ten minutes in, I had this strange sensation that BoW was going to absolutely blow the doors off the series. I wasn't entirely sure why. I stopped paying attention because I realized I was getting hype and didn't want anything spoiled. It would be later when I heard "you can beat the game without completing the story" which made me realize this was going to be something special. And then the webm of just this giant flying spaceship/platform floating through the sky made me go "I really want to head that direction and see what's going on". This game might be the first zelda to bring back the feelings of the original zelda (the desire to roam and explore).

i always felt like the music was one of the weakest aspects of link to the past. the dungeon music was very repetitive and there were all of 2 songs.

You deserved to have your goony ass mopped, faggot.

It was mentioned before in one of the Open Source Gaming threads just to be compared to the superior game Kobo Deluxe.

How does that make it a good game?
It was new, but in fights with multiple enemies it was about as reliable as a heroin addict, so all fights in the game had to be limited to, at most, 3 enemies.
It's still mostly empty, like all "open world" games today are. Hyrule field is just padding to make the game world seem big. The actual areas where things happen are quite limited.
There are a lot of redundant and illogical parts to the story/lore. Like how does a male Gerudo only appear evey 100 years? What's the point of having a 5 minute cutscene about the goddesses when it adds nothing to the story? What's the point of the fucking Owl?
It mostly took elements that already existed in LttP and put them in 3D.

Ive never played OOT or MM, what would be the best way to play them?

I know that the native 64 versions have horrible framerate issues, so i guess its just emulate or 3ds.

Or the hylian loach

Guys, have you forgotten that OoT 3D was remastered for the 3DS?
If you give it a play now, it's still timeless.

Ive never played OOT or MM, what would be the best way to play them?

I know that the native 64 versions have horrible framerate issues, so i guess its just emulate or 3ds.

the fuck?

WHAT?

Opening Demo
Overworld
Forest Theme
Turned into a Rabbit!
Guessing-Game House
Dark Overworld
Dark Mountain Forest
Sanctuary Dungeon
Cave
Fortune-Telling House
Princess Zelda's Rescue
Crystal
The Goddess Appears
Priest
Triforce Chamber
Ending

This is the Remastered version of ALBW.

This is the Beautiful Sound & Drama version.

there are definitely tracks i like, the dark/overworld and castle themes are fantastic. but where am i going to spend the most time? in dark world dungeons.

Because the Waifu content is better than any other game out there.
Malon a best

3DS version was pretty fun if only for the FPS view. The N64 version doesn't have "horrible" framerate issues, it just runs at 20 FPS and sometimes bogs down during particularly fancy fights. The biggest issue that springs to mind is the constant iron boot switching during water temple.

MM on the 3DS does change some things around from the N64 gameplay wise, the bombers notebook has been reworked and now all the bosses have a eye you have to hit to kill them.

I talked about it before. Not really big on the game itself but for how fucking awesome the X68000 soundtrack is.

i respect it. she did things to my 9 year old heart.

...

old soundtracks tend to have a lot more heart put in to them. is it because they had less to work with so they had to try harder find something that turned out unique and good?
or is it that modern standards are lower?

Even now you still get some god tier music in video games.

And to no ones surprise most of it is from Japan and always has been

That image made the penis in my penis erect

Nostalgia. Nintendo fans are the Apple fans of videogames.

Have another

I will never understand the appeal of Banjo Kazooie, that game was a slog to get through and I was relieved when it was over.

Nostalgia might have something to do with it, the amazing and very memorable music which has a gorillion remixes too. It's still a good game in my opinion and SM64 just gives me a headache.

The core gameplay is quite good, and most people didn't beat it. There's also a huge element of exploration and the ability to swap between drastically different environments. It's in the same boat as DK64 but without the immediate backtracking caused by character specific items. People remember the good bits and forget that they quit because of the slog

I can say that my autistic and/or ADD tendencies drove me to actually complete Banjo-Kazooie.

I had the nintendo power guide for it though

My nigga. Why is this rare? Why is the Zelda fanbase so obsessed with Ocarina of Time? I really don't get it. Even people who claim to have played all the games say they prefer Ocarina to the earlier games. It's bizarre to me. It's like a fanbase dedicated to newfaggotry even though they know better.

The question was why was it highly praised, not what makes it good. A lot of other franchises at the time handled the transition poorly, but OoT stood out among them

I disagree, all it took was re-adjusting who you were targeting

It offered a plethora of hidden areas and things to find, be it mini-games, hidden caves with pieces of heart/items, and a few other oddball areas like the Deku Scrub Theater

Magic, probably. They explained that they go and kidnap men every so often so they can have sex with them when a male hasn't been born yet
The goddesses cutscene is to help the world-building and emphasize how important the Triforce is, as well as explain what each goddess represents. Up until then, the Triforce didn't really have an explanation other than it was capable of granting wishes and was an important artifact, so it helped to get a bit of backstory for it
He's supposed to make sure you understand the basics of the game before you set out into the open by yourself, and also occasionally pop in to give a bit of advice you wouldn't know otherwise

It expanded on ideas presented in that game as well as created new ones. Many of the games in the series borrow from OoT's additions and usually reference/acknowledge it in some way, like the sage emblems or certain races used in OoT

well, theres going to be less and less such people as time goes on. might as well hang yourself

...

Which styles of gameplay are you speaking of?

I can't tell if you're baiting or if you're just trying to give everyone a laugh, but either way you're only here for (You)s and you need to get out.


I'll admit that collectathons aren't everybody's cup of tea, but if you can accept that some people enjoy that style of gameplay, it's really hard to deny that it's amazing at what it does. The movement is fun, varied, and intuitive, which is an absolute necessity for a game in which traversing the environment and hunting for secrets forms the core gameplay. The act of collecting items is inherently satisfying in a "you can't eat just one pringle" kind of way, and the sense of satisfaction from 100% a level is fucking prime. The music is sublime and sets the mood for the game perfectly, the environments are creative, varied, and enticing in a way that makes you want to explore them and dive into every nook and cranny looking for collectables. The constant acquisition of new moves gives the game a sense of progression that would normally be absent from a game as open-ended as this one is, and the gameplay is spiced up all the time with the inclusion of minigames, Mumbo transformations, and various unique environmental puzzles (Bubblegloop Swamp has some great examples of this, like the giant egg which is simple but effective, and the boggy maze that you need the wading boots to traverse). Rounding it all off is a cutesy-yet-cheeky art style, a crude and silly yet tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and an overall aesthetic that gives the game an undeniable sense of charm. Unlike OoT which, like some other anons in this thread have accurately stated is a jack-of-all-trades game, Banjo-Kazooie does one thing exceptionally well, and wraps it in a package that makes it an extremely fun and overall fantastically pleasant experience.

The game was okay.
Nothing ground breaking,
nothing spectacular,
nothing even worth going back to in all honesty.

It is a great game that can be broken to complete abusrd levels. Just look at the speedrunning community.


Few games are just that good and have that amount of hours logged into it, especially for a single player game.

Marketing and Big Noses.

For example, look at how the bow and arrow is used. When you equip it the game functions almost like a rail-shooter, but instead of spending an entire level shooting targets as you move along, you just use it for the few seconds it takes to hit your target(whether it be an enemy or a switch) then move onto the next room where you could be doing anything from solving a block puzzle to fighting one of those lizard or skeleton enemies, both of which require you to do something completely unlike the rail-shooter-esque gameplay you were doing a moment before.

Another example is the way enter the third dungeon. The goal is enter Jabu-Jabu, the giant fish. To do this you have to drop a smaller fish in front of him to cause him to open his mouth and suck you inside of him, which is a type of solution ripped straight out of an old Lucas Arts adventure game. Once you're inside of him however, the immediate goal(or rather the way you achieve it) switches from using an item on something to progress to fighting the enemies in the entrance of the dungeon, which again is completely different from the point-and-click adventure style gameplay you were doing a few seconds before.

I know this seems really basic and thousands of other games do this, the point I'm trying to make is that Ocarina of Time juggles the different styles of play better than any other 3D entry in the series. I'd agree with that A Link to the Past edges it out overall, though.

Speaking of Jabu-Jabu, it just now hit me how much potential vore material there is in the game. A lot of the praise OoT gets probably comes from vore fetishists alone.

>uses the hookshot at every opportunity except when it's recommended

Yes, I'm mad.

you're right he sucks ass at games but that doesn't invalidate how linear it is for an adventure game, or how unbalanced and useless most items are, or how you're basically punished if you play the game more than once, or how fucking long it takes for everything to happen