Belated, anyways.
“Zelda 64” turned TEN FUCKING YEARS OLD last friday, on November 21st.
We’re old now.
Happy birthday, OoT. May you grow big and strong and order younger games to vacate your lawn.
I’m not old, suckers.
And where were you when Final Fantasy turned twenty? Huh? Huh?
Three long years away from playing it.
(Hey, had to give my fingers time to get some response.)
Hmm…seen this in a magazine not too long ago. Perhaps I need to sit down and play through this again on my N64 (GC collection inverts bow targeting…sucks much for me). Give it the old 3-day playthrough and enjoy myself.
A twinkle in my father’s eye.
Ahh, maybe I should finally finish this game. I’m currently in the Shadow Temple(completed all the others), and I haven’t picked it up again.
Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY OoT!!!
This day should not be celebrated. It should be mourned.
Perhaps his invitation got lost in the post?
… ten years old? god you’re right about us being old. now that I look at some of my favorite games, I really feel old.
The whole Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest series are 22 years old.
Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star are all 21. (both these numbers are according to Japanese releases)
Man… I’ve wasted a lot of time playing these games.
Why? It isn’t a masterpeice like many people claim, but it was probably one of the better titles for the N64.
I was a freshmen in high school when this came out. How depressing 
What a coincidence, it’s good that this thread is still alive. I finally got the necessary equipment and started playing Majora’s Mask (Nintendo will probably put it off till the last years of the VC).
The graphics are worse than what I remembered (the more advanced TV doesn’t help there) and the resolution seems too low, but the gameplay is still fun and actually consulting the Bombers’ Notebook makes managing the people quests easier. So far I seem to like the time reset/save more even if you still have to wait at times. I’m off to play some more.
I hate the game virulently. The only good non-2D zelda game that’ve come out were the Celdas and even then Wind Waker’s boat triforce fishing was enough to have me never play the game out of sheer disgust. OoT was the beginning of dark times for the Zelda series.
Really? O_o I loved OoT immensely, and I only played it on an N64 simulator (so a) it was well past when it first came out, and b) it was with a PSX-style controller, so nowhere near as intuitive to control). I was amazed by the immersive quality of it. Majora’s Mask wasn’t quite as great to me, but OoT was a really good game IMO.
What didn’t you like, Sin (compared to the 2D or 3D Zeldas)?
I think what was really detrimental the first time I played Majora’s Mask was how much my expectations clashed with what the game set out to do. As the successor of Zelda 64 (heh), the permanent downgrade from adult Link, the lower stakes (trying to get a mask back? collecting masks?) and the segmented overworld disappointed me. And then, not only do you begin as a knee-high Deku, but when your curse is lifted you need to use this form to go through the first areas of the game.In retrospect, that was genius.
The different direction of the game was reinforced by the time-related features. To keep up the negative vibes, there are strings of events that must be repeated if you mess somewhere up, don’t know what you’re doing or don’t finish all interrelated events. You have to kill bosses again to do some of them. After you reset time, the poisoned waters and melted snow reappear and some items (including mundane stuff like bombs and intermediate quest rewards) disappear. And this is the only way to permasave. As for the waiting, a time-speeding song would make this a non-issue. I’m actually trying to beat the game after 6 years because I the save system didn’t allow saving before the next-to-final boss without resetting the whole accompanying dungeon.
On the other hand, Majora’s Mask has plenty of things going for it. It’s more laid back, it rewards looking around (a strong point in Zeldas that has been lately somewhat put aside) and interacting with people and it has a real town, for the first time since Link’s Awakening. This emphasis on side-quests and exploration makes the game a spiritual predecessor to The Minish Cap (ALTTP is the other parent) and The Wind Waker. The Goron and Zora masks were a great idea as they tweak the way you interact with the game.
Once you get used to the idea of resetting time, it gets kinda funny, like you’re playing Groundhog Day:The game. Luckily enough, MM helps you reach and explore places quickly. There’s the teleporting Song of Soaring, Epona, the Zora mask for water, the Goron rolling and the Bunny mask that makes you go faster and makes me thank whoever put it in the game. I never remove it when playing as Link.
The motivation to see the game through doesn’t come from the pathetic antagonist and the emotionally weak story, but the wish to interact with the characters and see how they’re living. This is often primitive, but Termina does feel populated (more than LA’s Koholint island, which was the best Zelda had done so far) and there’s satisfaction in figuring out a “people puzzle” and helping them. The Anju-Kafei interlocked sequence, one of the first quests you get and one of the last to complete, is the high point of the game. Haven’t gone far in this playthrough, but I’ve enjoyed the hours I put in.
By the way, it turns out the graphics of MM were as I remembered them; it was the usual N64 dust problem. The resolution still isn’t the greatest :get it?: Not having touched a N64 controller for a decade, I have a newfound appreciation for newer-gen analog sticks.
I hated the overworld in Zelda OoT and they didn’t improve it much in TP. Its just too big empty and boring.
I didn’t like the music much overall. Some of the tracks really got on my nerves.
I absolutely hated several graphical decisions like the children in TP and the clowns for example. They’re ugly. This is a concept that was present in Zelda OoT.
I found the combat to be profoundly uninteresting and in the case of OoT, way too infrequent.
I hate the concept of the ocarina where I have to remember several crappy little tunes and have to memorize the button sequence to get it to activate the right thing.
Water Temple.
Overall, everything takes too damn long to do. I find the pacing too slow and it did not engage me at all. The combat could be interesting if there was enough of it but when there was it wasn’t very deep. Zelda was previously a fast paced action packed 2D overhead game and they turned it into a 3D slow and ugly puzzle solver. The old zelda tunes are classics. The new ones are garbage. If OoT had any other name than Zelda attached to it, the reaction to the game would’ve been drastically different.
I pretty much agree with Sin. Zelda pretty much ruled way back when. Even then, I’d say that the Zeldas were going downhill at about Link’s Awakening; it wasn’t a TERRIBLE game, but it was such a tedious game that I could never imagine playing it again.
Wow, you guys think OoT was slow? Oi, I got to the Shadow Temple(had already completed all the others) in about 7 hours of play! I mean, each dungeon(even the Water Temple) was exceedingly simple and short for me.
Then again, the game is much faster if you’re good at that type of play(and also seen someone do it all and beat it). My only problem with OoT is how fast it goes(and Phantom Ganon…I hate you, Phantom Ganon). Some of the dungeons are quite enjoyable for me and so are the bosses(I liked beating on Twinrova).