Ocarina of Time

[Dave Long]

So did anyone else pre-order this weekend to get Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Master Quest? I got it Saturday night and it's an incredible package to receive for free. In Japan, the discs came in a cardboard sleeve with next to nothing. We get the full manual for OoT and a Wind Waker preview manual which is of course full color. Finally, the movies for Wario World and F-Zero among others are a nice touch, as is the completely remixed Zelda theme when you're at the game selection screen.

This is easily the best bonus I've ever received for pre-ordering a game, and considering Capcom is trying to sell Resident Evil 2 and 3 for $39.99 each, both with similar upgrades to Ocarina of Time, and I got this for free, it's a hell of a deal. If you have any interest in buying The Wind Waker next month, don't wait, go pre-order right now so you can play this masterpiece beforehand, especially if you missed it the first time on N64.

--Dave

[Matthew Gallant]

I got it. Mine also came with a free Prima walkthrough. I agree that it's a huge bonus. The F-Zero movie looks neat.

[Aszurom]

Yeah, I put my notes about it up on coregamer.com, but the basic gist of it is that the game looks a lot better that I was expecting it to. The texture rework did wonders for the old dog. My only complaint is that you can't control the camera view other than centering it.

[Dave Long]

I also got the chance to play Wind Waker at a kiosk...well, my son did. I helped him out a bit. My wife was stunned by the animation as was I. It really is a living cartoon world. Pretty incredible stuff. It's the polish, like all the Nintnedo titles, that really makes it though. Oodles of detail and yet the areas in the kiosk version are just tiny segments of the full game.

If it weren't for this bonus stuff, I probably would have a hard time waiting for Wind Waker next month. But this, along with a lot of unfinished stuff and a rental of Guilty Gear X2 will keep me busy.

--Dave

[Jason McMaster]

I sold my gamecube because my fiancee has one, then I considered the fact that it'll be another month before she moves in. I however did pre-order the new Zelda. I plan to stare at the package and cry.

[Jim Preston]

We have a copy of Wind Waker at work that we imported from the usual sources, and while I agree that the visuals are spectacular, I don't regard them as a much better than other games with amazing cel shading like Herdy Gerdy's Don Bluth style, or Cel Damage's masterful recreate of Tex Avery's look. Where Zelda flourishes is, not surprisingly, in the superb gameplay and excellent blending of different play styles. Only one guy can read kanji, though, so I'm not too sure about the story. We've caught guys in the lounge doing nothing but sailing around, bounding on the waves and chilling out.

Oh, and Ocarina of Time is easily the best bonus I've ever heard for pre-ordering. Beats the hell out of long-sleeved t-shirt of a key chain.

[Anonymous]

I picked up my disc on Saturday and have been glued to the new Master Quest ever since. The difficulty is ramped up a bit with more enemies to take down and with all new puzzles and tricks to solve in each dungeon, it has been truly thrilling working through this game once more.

As far as Wind Waker is concerned, having beaten the import it's a very solid title, but lacking in many of the personable touches that Ocarina and Majora's Mask really offered. Still a wonderful experience on it's own, but oftentimes rather basic and derivative as far as the Zelda license is concerned.

[Aszurom]

That makes me wonder if they're (gasp) doing Windwalker a dis-service by leading with OoT -- if they had given Mario64 out a month before Sunshine hit, I wonder if people would have had an even stronger "oh, more of the same" reaction to it than they already did?

Not that I have *any* complaint about getting a free game of such quality.

[Anonymous]

Well to put it more clearly, it's not that my biggest problem with Wind Waker was that it followed a familiar formula, it was that it didn't quite manage to pull off a world as intriguing or personable as in past incarnations of this series.

The sum of the parts of Ocarina's/Majora's world merged to create a rather uniform environment, one which connected and intertwined the various regions in a very progressive manner. For example, in Ocarina of Time, Lake Hylia to the South shared profound connections to both the land of Gerudo to the East, and the Zora Caves to the West despite being so distant from each other geographically. The world and the quest would appear congruent with each other as you explored its vast recesses.

In Wind Waker, it appears obvious that more time was spent nailing down the engine or concept behind the new overworld scheme(sailing), moreso than there was dedication put forth to really flesh out said concept. While novel in its own right, an extra year or two of development would have really gone a long way to really personalizing the world with unique traits that would make it appear...well less stoic.

Of course that isn't to say there is anything inherently wrong with Wind Waker, just that it doesn't reach the potential it deserves. Many of the major quests feel rather limp and tossed in(especially when it comes to piecing out the overworld) without much regard for creative thought, moreso it seems to simply add more overall hours logged in to the save clock. It's invigorating at first simply experiencing the ocean and it's delights on that first foray, again let me stress it is absolutely intoxicating! Which makes it even more dissapointing once you have journeyed throughout the four corners of the map and have very little to recount of your esteemed travels around the known universe. In fact one may argue the overworld simply serves as a glorified money-grubbing diversion that rarely intermixes itself with the quest much as it does with the past game titles.

All in all, it is not my goal to dissuade anyone from looking into Link's Gamecube adventure(not bloody likely I could even succeed at such a feat if I were to try) even with it's problems the game still has an overdose of quality moments that really make it shine, but in many ways I still find the previous adventures superior.

[Captain Cookiepants]

That makes me wonder if they're (gasp) doing Windwalker a dis-service by leading with OoT -- if they had given Mario64 out a month before Sunshine hit, I wonder if people would have had an even stronger "oh, more of the same" reaction to it than they already did?

Not that I have *any* complaint about getting a free game of such quality.

Seriously Wind Waker is a COMPLETELY different game, much more stealth and weapons managment and crap. I was the loudest hater of the cel shading, but it works so well that OoT actually looks BAD compared!
And I have one grumpy little vote for Mario64 being better than Sunshine.

[Cog]

In fact one may argue the overworld simply serves as a glorified money-grubbing diversion that rarely intermixes itself with the quest much as it does with the past game titles.

So sailing is really that much of a gimmick? I was hoping this Zelda would give the player more "free will" when it came to traveling to new lands. In fact, the idea of implementing the sail boat seemed it would evolve Zelda is something completly new compared to past titles. I had imagine a Zelda where you have the freedom of Morrowind! It would seem your comments burn this case. Shit. At least I have the remake of OoT :D