The ‘Zelda: Ocarina Of Time’ Remake Is Definitely One Of The Best Games In The Series

Now that the game is finally out and people are playing through it, I feel I can talk a bit more about how special this remake of Ocarina of Time really is.

Obviously, before a game's release, you don't want to spoil anything. While I don't personally mind spoilers, I do get that they can be annoying for other people.

While I spoke in detail in my review of the game , there's a lot more I feel that needs to be said about this Ocarina of Time remake.

For instance, I've never regarded the original Ocarina of Time that highly, even so far as to omit it from my top five favorite Zelda games of all time .

There were many reasons for this, with the original Nintendo 64 game being more of a tech demo in places, with a pretty terrible framerate to match. Not to mention lots of functional flaws, too.

This is not to say that the original Ocarina of Time was groundbreaking, because in a few solid instances it really was, but it was definitely incomplete in terms of the overall execution.

It's this completeness that the new remake handles very well and fixes many of the functional technical shortcomings of the original.

That said, one omission here which I didn't cover in my review is the absence of the Master Quest version of the game in this new remake. This is quite noticeable, considering that the 3DS remake included it.

My guess is that this will likely be a DLC pack at some point, but for now, this remake is currently sans Master Quest .

As for why I didn't mention it, it felt like a spoiler, but now that the game is out, I feel like I can at least raise the point. It doesn't diminish the game for me though, as I always viewed Master Quest as a separate game.

The other big thing I really wanted to cover but held off on was the changes this remake has regarding the secrets and other unlockables.

The big ones are the heart pieces, where quite a few have moved around or been changed entirely. While I initially found this a little irritating, I did enjoy having to rethink where the heart pieces may be and how to find them.

One particular one in Hylian Field completely stumped me until after release, but as the above screenshot attests, I managed to figure that out and acquire all the heart pieces as well as all the other game's secrets.

This kind of thing also happened with the additional Secret Seashells in the Link's Awakening remake , and I think these changes actually work well here as well.

It's also worth highlighting the Zelda Notes setup for this remake, which adds a lot of clarity and granularity on progression and various unlocks, which I obviously appreciate.

In any case, the big thing for me is that I can finally enjoy Ocarina of Time as one of the best Zelda games ever made, and that gives me a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.

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This article was originally published on Forbes.com