N +

"The game opens with Link dreaming about standing in front of a castle on a stormy night. Link immediately notices a young girl getting away on horseback from a dark person. While Link sleeps, the Great Deku Tree reveals to the fairy Navi that he has been cursed and is dying, and gives Navi the task to guide Link on a quest to save Hyrule. Navi summons Link to see the Deku Tree (wiki)" Link is known as the "boy without a fairy" to all the other children in Kokiri Forest. Link seems to find courage after the fairy requests his help, and he begins his quest!

With more than seven main areas to conquer or play-through, the game has a very massive size in relation to Mario 64. The effects givin to the areas are brillinace and show off the Nintendo creative efforts very well, from the "sparkly whisp things" that float around Kokiri Forest to the changing of day to night while you play through the Hyrule Field, you know that Nintendo loved OoT from inception till even now, trying to outdo the game as hard as they could with Twilight Princess.

This game is such a natural progression in 3D games set by Mario 64, While M64 helped us realized we could go around things, over things, under things, and through things, OoT showed us that we could do all things things with amazing fashion. The N64 controller was probably more realized in Ocarina of Time as well. The player could lock onto enemy targets and "straffe" left and right while rolling if desired. This game was much deeper than Mario64 in terms of length and abilities, and not just character abilities, but player abilities. Sure Link could roll, climb, swim, shoot arrows, throw bombs, swing his sword, and throw chickens, but he would not be able to do these things if it wasnt for the skill of the player to decide what item was to be used and when. OoT let the player switch costumes and weapons to fit the puzzles and surroundings of Hyrule. This is the biggest part of what makes Zelda games, Zelda games in my opinion, the puzzles coupled with the players options. - That and chickens you can slash at.

OoT was the first N64 Zelda game, and is rated by many "hardcore" Zelda fans as being the best in the series, as it was in all aspects a perfect game on it's own, it was the high-point in the series, much as Mario 64 was. Link was no longer confined to 2D so his evolution was fantastic, and no game since then has been able to gie you the same feeling of "forward moving" in video games... although Twilight Princess comes VERY close. The music may not be as intensly memorable as Mario 64, or Streets of Rage, but some songs in the game can stick with you, note for note forever - The Lost Woods (playing) will never EVER be forgotten, and it's such a delightful tune why would anyone want to?

The game broke the standard the Mario 64 put on developing 3D games and set a new bar. One that to this day is very difficult to break. It didn't rely on how many coins. rings, or music notes you collected, but on how well you could master playing the character, as well as figuring out what needed to be done to complete an objective. As argueably the best game in the series, and even one of the best games of all time, Zelda OoT gets a perfect score - N+ 10/10 - I know what you are all thinking, why not 11 out of 10? you've done it before Cap'n! - Well because the difficulty of this game makes it a little harder to just enjoy right out of the box for players who have never played before. But rest assured! the "learning curve" is easily tackled because the game does not over-whelm you at first, it trains you as you go!

Cost: 1,000 Wii points
Rating: E for Everyone

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Full European Virtual Console List