Zelda: Ocarina of Time

It is frequently listed as one of the greatest video games of all time and I can't say that I disagree with that notion at all. This epic game was Nintendo's first foray into changing the world of Zelda into a 3D environment. It was a 5 year hiatus between releases and at the time was one of the most anticipated games ever. Nintendo didn't let us down with this epic release.

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I read an article once that Zelda-OOT is the only game to ever get a 99 on Metacritic, I just checked and this is still true today. I wonder if people have become more fickle over the years with their ratings because the past couple of years have seen a TON of great games released but none received a weighted score of 99. Who knows.

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There was some concern that gameplay might be negatively affected by the introduction of 3D or that the story would suffer as so much time and effort would obviously be going into developing a game type that was relatively new for Nintendo and the rest of the gaming world. However, they completely nailed it with one of the best stories the franchise has ever known.

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The game was "kinda" open world in that you could wander wherever you wanted to, as is tradition in Zelda games from the start, but you were limited in what you could accomplish in certain areas by virtue of not having the correct item or song necessary to progress. This could at times result in lots of senseless running around but once you have the horse that changes things.

One of the best aspects of the game is that it is necessary for Link to travel through time in order to do certain parts of the game. There are segments that only young Link can fit through, and certain items that only adult Link can use.

The "Adult" temples were all relatively difficult, but fans of the game probably have not-so-fond memories of the infamously frustrating Water Temple, where locating all of the necessary keys can be a real pain in the butt.

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Nearly every publication in 1998 rated this as game of the year and later it was almost unanimously determined that Ocarina of Time is the greatest game of all time. Almost no one has changed this opinion because it truly was a monumentally great game.

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Obviously that is the 3DS trailer but the game is essentially the same in both version as far as I can tell

you can download and play the ROM for free here.

Were you alive when this game was released? Were you as impressed with it as I, and the rest of the world was?