The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Review – A Tantalizing Tune-Up of a Timeless Classic

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

November 5, 2026

Platform

Nintendo Switch 2

Publisher

Nintendo

Developer

Nintendo

Remakes of classic games aren’t an easy thing to get right, and Nintendo set themselves a particularly daunting challenge with their soon-to-be-released Switch 2 revival of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Nintendo’s N64 classic is, of course, the most critically acclaimed game of all time, a title it's improbably managed to hold onto for nearly three decades. The title was a landmark in the development of early 3D gaming, and the action-adventure genre in general, and as we've found out since this remake was announced, people have opinions about every polygon and pixel from the original game. Heck, longtime Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma has outright admitted to being "nervous" about the remake.

So, does this new version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time preserve the wonder and excitement of the original? Or is its magic bar running a bit low? Take a little time to read my review to find out.

While it’s hard to believe anybody is completely unfamiliar with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's story, I do have to remind myself the game is, as mentioned, nearly 30 years old. Players take on the role of Link, who begins the story as the only child living amongst the forever-youthful Kokiri who doesn't have a fairy partner. But something is very wrong with the Great Deku Tree, which overlooks the forest, so the tree pairs Link with a fairy, Navi, and asks him to defeat the monsters that have taken root in his guts. It seems a nasty customer known as Ganondorf was responsible for cursing the Deku Tree, and so Link is sent off to Hyrule Castle to warn Princess Zelda about this growing threat.

The Princess sends Link on a quest to collect three Spiritual Stones, because that's how these games work, which he manages to do, but when he returns from his quest, everything's gone to hell. Hyrule Castle Town is overrun and Link arrives just as Zelda and her retainer Impa flee the castle gates with Ganondorf on their heels. Zelda desperately throws an ocarina to Link as she flees, which he uses along with the Spiritual Stones to open a chamber in the Temple of Time that grants access to the legendary Triforce and the Sacred Realm. But alas, Ganondorf predicted our naive hero would do exactly this and takes the opportunity to seize the Triforce and enter the Sacred Realm, with Link being whisked away across time itself at the very last moment. And thus, the real adventure begins.

While some people have attempted to belittle The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as merely impressive for its time, I've long held that in terms of storytelling, worldbuilding, and the overall flow and structure of its campaign, it's legitimately the best Zelda game ever made. A perfectly-tuned coming-of-age story that precisely captures those first halting steps into a new world of freedom, exploration, danger, and yes, girls (the ladies sure have a thing for Link in this game, don't they?). And after the time jump, the game expertly weaves in deeper, darker threads like death, loss, responsibility, and the wistfulness that comes with them. The design of the campaign mirrors this journey, starting on a lighthearted, exhilarating note, before taking a darker, more foreboding turn in its back half. The game has an episodic feel, with each region and dungeon you explore having its own unique vibe and purpose within the overall campaign.

Well, I'm happy to report the Ocarina of Time remake does a spot-on job of preserving and elevating the original game's fantastic story, worldbuilding, and campaign. Moments in the original game that offered a moment of poignancy but were ultimately held back by the limitations of the N64 hardware are now full-on emotional story beats delivered via vividly detailed cutscenes and solid voice acting. Link saying goodbye to Saria as he begins his journey is now genuinely heart-wrenching, and your first encounter with Ganondorf is truly spine-tingling. Much to my relief, Nintendo hasn't shied away from this story's darker, more melancholy moments, though the goofy, weird bits are still there, too.

The overall look of this game is fantastic. Early knee-jerk complaints that the game looked like an Unreal demo or AI slop couldn't have been more misplaced, as this game is bursting with quirky personality. Original Star Fox designer Takaya Imamura dropped a tweet shortly after the reveal of the new Ocarina of Time that posited the game was doing something similar to Star Fox and chasing a puppet-like look, and that feels right on the money (in fact, Nintendo has confirmed it). Most of the game's lesser NPCs have a very Muppety feel, sometimes even looking like they're carved out of foam, and I say that in the most complimentary way. These characters have a great tactile feel and are overflowing with oddball charm.

But man, the real magic was saved for the major characters like Zelda, Ganondorf, Saria, and Link himself. Okay, yes, young Link sometimes looks a little like he might be planning to stab you, but grown-up Link is maybe the best version of the character to date. And grown-up Zelda? No, maybe about it; she is the best version we’ve seen. This game has a fantastic fairy-tale-meets-Jim-Henson appeal that perfectly serves this story.

But the game isn't merely whimsical; it delivers those big "wow" moments too. Yes, this game’s Hyrule Field isn't nearly as big as Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s rambling world, but you could take a screenshot at any given second while exploring it and hang it on the wall. Every dungeon, once much more brown and drab than you likely remember, has been given a glorious glow-up. The Forest Temple is now a wonderfully spooky mist-shrouded haunted mansion while the Water Temple is an eerily preserved underwater relic of another time. And yes, all of this runs at a silky 60 fps without any notable frame drops I can recall.

Oh, and the music. The music! All the lovely compositions you remember are back, now fully orchestrated. While these classic tunes often start out sounding similar to their N64 counterparts, they tend to grow in intensity alongside the scenes and sequences they accompany, reaching new heights of richness and grandeur. For every hour I played the OoT remake, I spent two or three hours compulsively humming its songs.

So, the Ocarina of Time remake looks and sounds great and nails the story elements, but how does it play? Nintendo hasn't radically reinvented OoT's core gameplay, with most of the changes taking the form of minor modernizations and other tweaks. You now have full camera control via the right analog stick, the original game's auto-platforming has been replaced with an actual jump button, and after an initial roll, you can now sprint (for an unlimited distance, no less). Beyond that, the essence of the N64 game remains, as combat still revolves around targeting and circling enemies, with guarding with your shield and hopping out of the way of attacks being your main defensive capabilities (no tacked-on parry system here, thank God).

While Nintendo hasn't altered the underpinnings of Ocarina of Time's combat, they have made some effort to make it feel more intense and dynamic, largely via presentation and tech. Everything moves much more quickly and smoothly now, with every strike of your sword landing with a satisfying thump while enemies are just a bit more aggressive. Combat isn't any harder than it used to be; the remake's refined controls probably make it easier, if anything, but it's definitely a lot more exciting.

This goes for pretty much everything in the game. Running around, riding Epona, navigating platforms - it all just feels quicker and more satisfying. The one exception is secondary item switching, as the Switch 2 doesn't have the N64's c-buttons and the d-pad is dedicated to specific items (your ocarina, the Iron and Hover Boots, the Lens of Truth), limiting your ability to set shortcuts. Instead, items are switched via a horizontal menu, very similar to those in Breath of the Wild and Echoes of Wisdom. Granted, this approach is functional enough, but it does stand out as the one way the OoT remake doesn't control as well as its predecessor.

Now, onto the most burning question of them all -- how has Nintendo reinvented Hyrule itself? There was plenty of debate before its release about whether this version of Ocarina of Time is a 1:1 remake of the original game, and I'm here to tell you it isn't. At least, not really. I'd liken this new Ocarina of Time to a good director's cut of a movie. The overall thrust of the story remains familiar, the work hasn't been fundamentally altered, but there are numerous smaller tweaks and changes scattered throughout that will keep even longtime fans on their toes. Link goes to the same places and does the same things in the same order, but not everything looks quite like you remember, not every puzzle is solved like before, not every dungeon map twists and turns exactly like it used to. Folks looking to catalogue every little alteration in this remake have their work cut out for them, because there are a lot of them.

As mentioned, every dungeon has received a full visual makeover, and it can't be overstated how transformational this extra layer of graphical glam can be. Often I’d think I had stumbled upon a completely new area, only to have an "Ohhh, this is supposed to be that room" realization minutes later. The new level of detail was so extreme I didn’t realize where I was.

A good number of the changes Nintendo has made to the dungeons are clearly designed to lessen some of the friction of the original game. To temper some of its more obtuse moments. Bombable walls are now much more obvious and almost all the timed challenges from the original game are now simply... not timed. I'm sure there will be discourse around Nintendo sanding down some of the original OOT's more unfriendly edges, but I really didn't have much issue with the changes. The substance of the game's dungeons and puzzles hasn't changed, even if some of them aren’t quite so inscrutable now, and I was still fully engaged while working my way through them. In some instances, the Water Temple in particular, the changes are clearly for the better as the various parts of the dungeon are now much more visually distinct and easy to navigate.

I also have to remind myself that I've played this game through multiple times. Yes, I didn't have much trouble with this remake’s dungeons, but then, I wouldn't have much trouble with the original game's dungeons either. It will be interesting to see how players completely new to the game respond, but I find it hard to believe most won't be won over by the personality, atmosphere, and timeless design of these dungeons.

One aspect of the Ocarina of Time remake I was most concerned about, the overworld, turned out to be one of the game's most pleasant surprises. Yes, Hyrule Field is a tiny fraction of the size of Breath of the Wild’s sprawling map, but it's exactly the right size for this game, and I still had a ball galloping around it on Epona’s back. It's in the bits between the dungeons that the developers of the OoT remake seem to have allowed themselves the most freedom. Of course, Castle Town has been fully reinvented as a true 3D environment, replacing the smeary pre-rendered backgrounds of the original game, but the stealthy sequence where you first infiltrate Hyrule Castle has also been largely redesigned. This is to say nothing of Hyrule Field itself, which is small, but packed with new landmarks which infuse it with much more character.

Compared to more recent 3D entries in the series, particularly the (frankly overstuffed) Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a relatively brief experience, offering a campaign that takes around 20 hours to finish (perhaps 25 if you're new to the adventure and avoiding guides). Of course, extras like collecting heart pieces and Gold Skulltulas can push you closer to 30 hours, but you shouldn't expect too much extra content beyond that.

Ultimately though, Ocarina of Time's tight runtime is more of a feature than a bug in my opinion. This game is all killer, no filler, with very little downtime or padding, and is one of the last games in the series that really feels compulsively replayable. And given how richly satisfying this adventure is, I suspect more than a few people will want to turn back time to the beginning again as soon as they roll credits.

This review was based on a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time provided by Nintendo.

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The praise heaped upon The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time back when it first released was not misplaced. It still stands as one of the best games of all time, the pinnacle of the Zelda franchise, and this gorgeous, technically impeccable, thoughtfully updated version of the game will allow a new generation to fully appreciate Link's greatest adventure. This is the new high-water mark for video game remakes and a note-perfect confirmation that some songs never fade.

- Breathtaking recreation of Hyrule

- Puppet-style characters super charming

- Cutscenes bring new drama to the story

- Still the best constructed Zelda campaign

- Core gameplay smoother and more intense

- Dungeons have been carefully refined

- Overworld feels richer than ever

- Genuinely moving soundtrack

- Flawless performance

Pros

- Some challenge refined out of dungeons

Cons