Wow; it's not often I'm lost for words, but after watching the Ocarina of Time remake Direct just now, I've had to just sit and process everything I've seen over the past half an hour. The game looks even better than I could have ever imagined, and for those of you who missed the announcement or don't have time to go through the whole video, I'm going to give you an overview of some of the new features and the game's new look.
I've loved Ocarina of Time ever since I was a kid; it's one of the first games I ever completed, a game I played with my mum whenever I got home from school. So to see it remade with a brand new look where you can see the textures of Link's clothing and experience familiar locations like Kokiri Forest and Hyrule Castle Town in a brand new light is a dream come true.
I watched Eiji Aonuma go through the game and show off Link's remade look and the updated version of Kokiri Forest with my jaw on the floor. It's strange to me that he would have to explain how Ocarina of Time works, but I suppose for gamers who have grown up with the Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild, Ocarina will seem completely different. And Nintendo have made some quality-of-life changes to the game that make that fact even more apparent.
Seeing Eiji Aonuma rolling through Hyrule Field just like we have over the years made me smile, and when he said you can now roll and dash across the field to 'actually' get places faster, I just thought, 'yeah, that makes a lot of sense'. Link can also jump now too by pressing a button, as opposed to just jumping when you reach a ledge, and I noticed that there's no loading time when you enter shops or houses, or the backstreets of Hyrule Castle Town, which is ace. Aonuma did say that they've left some of the loading screens in for entering bigger places just to keep that nostalgic feel, which I'm not mad about.
Nintendo have also added in voice acting in all of the cutscenes, so Saria now has an American voice when she's talking with Link. Navi also says a lot more in little speech bubbles too. I'm not sure how that's going to feel, but I do have to admit that hearind Ganondorf and Impa talking was a cool feature that helped the narrative to flow, so I'm sure it's something i'll get used to.
There's now a free-camera option too, which is a new feature for Ocarina of Time. It makes looking around Hyrule Castle Town much more exciting, especially now everything has been updated. Aonuma said that there are more things to find out in the town square and the backstreets too, and that people will undoubtedly spend more time there than they previously have, exploring and finding out secrets.
Then when the trailer dropped and showed Queen Gohma and King Dodongo alongside other enemies, I lost my mind. This game looks like everything I ever hoped it would be and more, and the fact that it's coming out in just a few months time is music to my ears. November will be getting colder here in the UK, which means long nights getting cosy and playing one of my favourite games of all time.
Oh, and let's not forget that there seem to be some changes to the dungeons too, with some new features for us to check out. The main essence of the story is exactly the same, but new animations and features wil be sure to keep us on our toes while playing. The fact that Nintendo Switch 2 users can also hum Ocarina tunes is pretty cool, because let's face it, we all know them from when the N64 game first came out. I'm not too bothered about the Ocarina peripheral; I'll save my money for the Zelda Pro Controller, but humming Epona's Song into my controller will be a nice little feature.
Then there's the 'Threads of Time' feature, a new feature where players fill in a tapestry with new images the further they get through the game. It's a feature that also helps gamers not familiar with the story figure out where to go next too and keeps track of their progress.
The video I watched in the Direct said that the game would be available to pre-order now on the Nintendo Store, but at the time of writing, I've been waiting in a queue for a while and then eventually got to a store with no pre-order information available. Hopefully it will appear soon and arrive on Amazon shortly afterwards. For now, I'm going to watch the trailer again for a second time and immerse myself in a new but familiar version of Hyrule!
