Ocarina of Time Reboot Op Ed

I am really coming around on this OoT reboot. When I first heard that there was a plan to remake Ocarina of Time, I hated it. That was my first Legend of Zelda game. It is like a holy relic for me. I really think it is one of the best games that has ever been made. I know I’m not alone there. That is not a hot take. I have opinions about Nintendo. I have opinions about big video game companies in general. Anyway, the idea of rebooting OoT felt lazy and unnecessary. It felt like a cash grab. I guess it still feels like a cash grab. But I am starting to really like it as a device for story telling.

I think the biggest difference in the franchise between the original game and now is the mythology and timeline that exists through all of the games. Ocarina was pivotal in starting to create that. It stands confidently on it’s own as a singular game. The story in the game itself is flawless. I loved it then and I still love it now. But even then, there were pieces that felt like they weren’t fully fleshed out. But it was also a world unto itself. It didn’t have anything to be accountable to. But now we have Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, etc. All of these games have really contributed to the mythology of the series. There is more cohesion. It’s fantastic and I love it. But it all makes Ocarina of Time feel less considered in retrospect.

But there is something fascinating about that to me now because OoT is the reason that this sort of common thread exists. It is the game that made the Zelda universe in concept. I feel like all of the games before this were just Zelda games without any real common thread other than the characters being familiar. Video games didn’t really have that.

Or maybe I’m a dolt and you shouldn’t listen to me. But what I like about the reboot is that it doesn’t feel like it’s seeking to dethrone the original N64 game. That’s what it felt like at first. Make a new game that is better than the original so we don’t have to play that version anymore. I see this as a version 2 though. Like a revisiting of a familiar story to tell it in greater detail now that there is an expanded vocabulary. It feels like a more detailed version of the same story. But it also feels like a new story given all of the new context and how it fits into the rest of the contextual details of all of the other games that have come out in the last 30 years.

It feels like a cyclical experience. It feels like the original game started a whole new type of story and now the reboot is using the mechanism that the original created to weave a richer tapestry. The device is so intriguing to me as a tool for story telling. Anyway, I like Zelda a lot and I don’t really have an agenda here other than communicating that I think this franchise is doing something really cool and unique that not many games get the opportunity to do. I hated it at first but now I’m starting to really enjoy the concept of the reboot as an additional piece of the story as opposed to a sort of replacement to the original installment.

Maybe this should have been a seed. Oh well. I’m probably the only one that is ever gonna read this anyway. But thank you for reading it if you did!