《塞尔达传说：时之笛》重制版 29 项新改动解析 — 重设谜题、更新小 Boss 战与更深对话

I played more than an hour of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2, and as someone who’s finished the original several times, I noticed a lot of small changes that shine some light on the thought process behind recreating this adventure.

It seems everything was on the table when considering what to tweak: altered puzzles more closely fit the modern controls, redesigned miniboss fights spice things up across each round, and new shortcuts and context clues make navigation more intuitive. If you’re dying to learn every detail you can about Ocarina of Time before its November 5 release date, I’m going to list a bunch of notable differences I saw when comparing it to the N64 original. Before we start, a couple of notes:

First, this article is not my official preview – you can check out my more formal first impression of Ocarina of Time here, and watch this week’s Nintendo Voice Chat where I dive even further into it. 

Second, this is far from an exhaustive list of differences. I’m mostly leaving out the really obvious things like controls, art style, and voice acting (you can read up on things like that in the prequel to this piece), and this would take far too long to write if I catalogued every difference there is. I’m only bringing up a change I already pointed out if I was able to officially confirm it through gameplay or learned something new worth sharing. 

Third, we’re restricted on how many screenshots we’re allowed to publish for this preview period, so for this piece, you’ll have to rely on the written word alone. We’re going old school!

Finally, and most importantly, there will be spoilers for the original Ocarina of Time as we dive into the changes I saw in Kokiri Forest, Inside the Great Deku Tree, Hyrule Field, Castle Town, and the Forest Temple. It’s kind of hard to discuss changes without explaining the source material! If you don’t know the original, don’t want to be reminded of it, or don’t want to see how some things play out differently, this is not for you! Okay, that’s more than enough preamble – let’s get started.

Kokiri Forest

1. Link’s wallet can hold 200 rupees from the very beginning, as opposed to the N64’s starting limit of 99. 

2. Jumping across the stone platforms next to the Kokiri Forest shop no longer rewards you with a secret five rupees. Instead, additional blue rupees are scattered throughout the forest.

3. Speaking of the shop, there’s a new scarecrow training dummy to the right of the counter. A villager uses it to run you through a quick tutorial on raising your defenses.

4. The challenge to obtain the Kokiri Sword has been overhauled. The treasure chest used to be tucked in the back corner of the room; now it’s placed high on a platform in the middle. You have to jump to it instead of practicing reorienting the camera to reach it. I dive into more of the philosophy behind this change in my preview.

Inside the Great Deku Tree (Child Link Dungeon)

5. In the room where you get the slingshot, a second, smaller treasure chest used to hold a random recovery heart. It was always kind of a disappointing reveal, in my opinion. Now, it holds a few Deku Nuts. I think that’s a slight improvement!

6. You fight a lot of Skulltulas in the Great Deku Tree, and their attack patterns have changed. Rather than just deciding to occasionally reveal their weak spot to you, whacking them with your sword sends them spinning around, exposing their soft underbelly. This fits in line with Ocarina of Time’s newfound focus on logic: an enemy doesn’t give you an unearned opening anymore -- you have to trigger it. 

Hyrule Field

7. On N64, Lon Lon Ranch kind of looked like an impenetrable fortress from the outside, with high walls you couldn’t really see over. Now, it’s more naturally woven into the environment, and you can spy the horses grazing from outside.

8. Peahat enemies decorated the corners of Hyrule Field in the original, but on my way to Castle Town, I ran into a few that were more centrally located. A Hyrule Field populated with more enemies is a good thing in my book.

9. Near the new Peahats, I saw a cracked piece of the ground that looked perfect for a bomb. Most entrances to hidden rooms in the original were completely invisible to the naked eye – this is a much clearer hint towards a secret area. I can’t wait to see what those sparse caves look like now.

10. In my last “Biggest Changes” piece for Ocarina of Time, I noticed a new sign right outside of the Castle Town gate. I was wondering if it would provide new lore surrounding the history of Hyrule, the events of Skyward Sword, or something like that. But, it’s just a large sign pointing you in the direction of Hyrule Field’s biggest landmarks. Not really what I was hoping for, but a noteworthy change nonetheless.

Castle Town

11. The biggest difference in Castle Town is its perspective shift. It’s no longer restricted to fixed camera angles; it’s in third-person with complete camera control the whole time. You can even seamlessly walk all the way from the town’s entrance to the Temple of Time with no loading screens or camera breaks.

12. Upon entering Castle Town, I spoke to a new NPC: a blonde woman who warns Link not to spend all his money, even though there are so many exciting options at the market. This is just the first visit to the town, so I’m hopeful she’ll have some sort of additional quest or dialogue later on.

Forest Temple (Adult Link Dungeon)

Last spoiler warning here – some of the puzzle changes in the Forest Temple are fairly significant!

13. There are a ton of minor changes to how the Forest Temple looks and functions, and it starts right at the entrance. Instead of hookshotting onto a tree branch, Link aims at a more traditional hookshot target above the temple’s front door. Pairing this with a similar example, where in the Great Deku Tree Link shoots an eyeball target instead of a ladder, it seems the remake is more intent on teaching us how to use these items on recognizable, intended targets rather than parts of the world players might not think to interact with.

14. After completing a puzzle that involves pushing blocks and climbing ladders to get to the top of a room, you can now activate a brand new elevator that makes it so you don’t have to walk through all the same tunnels and climb the same ladders on repeat visits.

15. Floormasters – the iconic disembodied hand enemies that stalk Link from the ceiling – are now telegraphed by a bright spotlight that shines on Link and changes color just before the hand swoops down. It’s very cool, and fits this remake’s theatrical vibe I dive into in my preview.

16. This one is also from my preview: “An arena where Link fights a Stalfos used to have a giant hole in the middle. Link needed to avoid it or risk falling to the floor below, but the Stalfos could defy gravity and hover over the gap… Here, that hole has been exchanged for a shallow pool of acid. The skeleton enemies can still walk in it – they don’t have any flesh to lose – while Link takes damage if he enters it. This means the fight plays out the same as it used to: the Stalfos has access to the whole room while Link is constrained to its edges, but the way it’s constructed is more logical.”

17. The rooms and hallways on the side of the mansion with the red Poe have red carpeting and stained glass windows, while their counterparts on the side with the blue Poe have blue carpeting and windows. This really differentiates how otherwise similar rooms look and feel, and makes it so you are probably less likely to get lost.

18. A torch puzzle that used to involve spinning platforms has been redone without the rotating elements.

19. In the room where a giant block crashes onto the floor, guard rails have been added to prevent Link from leaping onto the block before it rises back to the ceiling. You couldn’t jump at the press of a button on N64! I imagine the developers had to rethink a lot of the world’s geometry now that Link can jump at any time.

20. The encounters with the final two Poes have been remixed. The sliding block puzzle to reveal the green Poe no longer has a time limit, but the extra block that’s meant to fake you out is slightly more interesting now. The moments leading up to the fight with the final Poe, and the fight itself, have been fleshed out. There’s an entirely new cutscene, and each round of the fight is unique, rather than having the exact same pattern repeat itself three times.

21. The final room before facing the Forest Temple’s boss used to be about rotating the inner wall of a cylinder to gain access to specific rooms on the outer wall. That concept is still intact, but it now involves torches as well.

General Changes

22. I really noticed the expanded dialogue from characters throughout my preview session. Everyone had more to say: Link’s friends seemed to know him a bit better, the Kokiri shopkeeper had beef with Mido, Castle Town villagers seemed more enthralled with this mysterious forest boy, and a few cutscenes I saw had voice acting. There are also more dialogue choices than before that are reminiscent of Link’s snarkier tone in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

23. When casting the Din’s Fire attack spell, the whole world would come to a stop on N64. Now, the spell is cast in real time, meaning you need to make sure you’re not at risk of getting hit before using it.

24. Like the 3DS remaster, you can quickly open a songbook when playing the Ocarina to remind yourself of the button prompts for each specific song, rather than having to go all the way into the pause menu.

25. The original Ocarina of Time had four empty bottles to collect. On the remake’s inventory menu, there are clearly five slots for empty bottles. I confirmed this extra slot when playing, meaning there’s an additional bottle involved somehow in Link’s quest.

26. Speaking of the inventory screen, here’s a fun fact: the top left quadrant is reserved for items only Child Link can equip, while the top right quadrant is for Adult Link’s tools. The bottom half has items both of them can use, and there are dividing lines clearly separating these three areas. 

27. When the hookshot lines up with an enemy it can strike, the target reticle color changes from blue to red, giving you an easy way to see that your shot will land.

28. A quest log lightly guides you where to go next (if you need it – I wasn’t required to open it a single time), and adds flavor text to the adventure. Quest descriptions are written like old legends – “There once was a boy named Link…” – which I find very fitting.

29. Lastly, I have to shout out the music, which was just a joy to listen to during my preview. From the bright Kokiri Forest theme to the adventurous Hyrule Field tune, hearing these classic songs brought to life by recordings of real musicians was a treat. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the soundtrack.

And that’s it! If you can believe it, we’re just over three weeks away from playing the Ocarina of Time remake for ourselves. Before you go, remember to check out my official hands-on preview and this week’s episode of Nintendo Voice Chat. Also, this piece is exactly 1998 words, which is the year Ocarina of Time originally released on Nintendo 64. There’s one more fun fact for you!