During the recent Nintendo Direct, a trailer for the remake of ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ was released. The game is being remade for the Switch 2. The graphics looked amazing, and the music was beautiful. Granted, no game play was shared, so for all we know what was shown could be nothing of what will actually be released. However, with today’s hardware, I’d be surprised if it’s not close representation. It has definitely hyped me for a game that I’ve never played.
It did inspire me, though, to replay the Zelda game that I did play way back in the day. The original ‘The Legend of Zelda’ on the NES. I’m trying to recall how I bought it. I’m pretty sure it was with my saved up birthday and Christmas money. I’m also sure that I bought it against my parents wishes. They (or Santa) had given us the console, but they didn’t really want us buying games for it. It was a waste of money to them. I knew nothing of the game when I bought it, just that it was gold and I thought that was cool.
I remember feeling like I would never beat it because I didn’t really understand it, and back then you didn’t have the internet to be able to look anything up (not that we would have had that either). I would play, and die, a lot. I slowly worked through everything up until Level 7, and then I really became stuck. It wasn’t until a trip to the mall one time that I happened to find a book, or magazine, with some tips in it, that I saw how to continue forward. I’m pretty sure at some point I had a printed overworld map. I can’t remember if it came with the game or not, and it didn’t have anything labeled… Finally, though, I managed to beat it. I don’t know how, or when, but I did it… and what a relief and sense of accomplishment that was! Though, by that point I was over it, so I didn’t even bother with the second quest.
So anyway, this weekend I replayed it on my Switch 2. I really enjoyed it, even if I did use maps for some of the dungeons. It’s wild to me, though, what I do remember from my childhood… “Go North, West, South, West to the forest of maze” has stuck with me for almost 40 years. I remember thinking I thought the character for Link was cute. Unfortunately due to my frustrations with the original, I never got into the franchise and played any of the others. But, with the excitement around the Ocarina of Time remake, I’m thinking I may have to pick it up and play it when it’s released.
Be good to each other!