《塞尔达传说：时之笛》重制版上手预览

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Remake Hands-On Preview

If you’re a gamer, born in the 80s or 90s, this last decade has undoubtedly been to your liking, with a significant number of remakes of your favourite childhood games having been released. From Resident Evil 4 to Final Fantasy VII, and even the early Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, there’ve been quite a few that have spoken to generations of gamers. The acclaim for each of these releases has been huge, but now we’re about to witness the highest-stakes remake of them all. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, still 28 years removed from its original release, stands as the best-reviewed video game of all time (as per Metacritic), and so the fact that Nintendo is looking to remake the game for a new generation, nearly three decades on, is no small feat.

Thanks to Nintendo Australia, I had the opportunity to sit with the game for almost two and a half hours, exploring a remade Kokiri Village, which includes spending some time inside the Great Deku Tree, exploring the dungeon, roaming the expanses of Hyrule Field, before returning to the boots of adult Link to complete the beloved Forest Temple. With the original release still being considered the greatest game of all time by many (if not very close to it), Nintendo has an enormous task ahead of them to remake this game, do the original release justice, and win over a legion of new fans who’ve been brought up on a very different kind of Zelda experience. Thankfully though, Ocarina of Time Remake is well and truly up to the task.

I’m all too aware that the largest contingent of people reading this piece are the experienced heads who have probably played Ocarina of Time, at least once, but likely, many times. Your familiarity with the source material is both rewarded and toyed with in this remake. No, the game is not attempting a Final Fantasy VII Remake-style treatment where it subverts your expectations of every story beat (or at least based on what I played anyway), but rather it celebrates the story and the shape of the world that Nintendo crafted for the 1998 release, and makes some subtle tweaks to gameplay to modernise things a bit.

Exploring Kokiri Village with the gorgeous new art style that has been implemented in this remake was a blast. The beats remain the same, be awakened by Navi and Saria, before attempting to visit the Great Deku Tree, be held up by Mido, before collecting a sword and shield to prove your worth, bypassing Mido, and then visiting the tree. Despite Ocarina’s remake following the same formula, I was instantly struck by the ways Nintendo were colouring a bit differently between the lines. From the inclusion of a new jump mechanic (which is somewhat remappable if you don’t like it as is), which absolutely saw me running off edges and into the water because my 1998-trained brain felt I didn’t need to jump as I approached the edge of a ledge, to the subtlest tweaks to the shape of the terrain that prompt you to navigate the space differently, Ocarina of Time Remake makes slight alterations to an incredibly familiar game, that at times toys with your memory. 

The game further subverted my expectations in combat, and this was first highlighted to me when I faced off against a Skulltula for the first time. Though the enemy and the weakness was the same, the movement patterns have changed, so where my 1998 Ocarina of Time powered brain knew to wait in place until the Skulltula spun around before striking, I was floored (literally in-game) as I stood there, only to have the Skulltula launch out and knock Link on his rear. This was just one of the numerous changes to enemy movement or attack patterns that forced my well-trained brain to go about scenarios differently. Each encounter will require an adjustment, but based on my experience so far, I’m happy to be contending with them, since they keep me from simply “going through the motions.”

Upon hitting the limits of what I was allowed to explore in the Great Deku Tree, I was set free in Hyrule Field to do some exploring, eventually ending my excursion in Hyrule. The experience was much the same. The locales are organised in the same way, and they look stunning, but there are the mildest of changes to the topography, and certainly when it comes to the field, there are changes to enemy behaviours, such as the Peahat, which prompt changes to your tactics. This segment of my preview experience was the briefest of the lot, but it gave me the time to bask in the majesty of exploring Hyrule Field, soaking up the game’s incredible and revitalised musical score.

Finally, my all-too-brief time with Ocarina of Time Remake ended with the opportunity to play through the entirety of the Forest Temple as adult Link. With a larger arsenal of tools at my disposal, including the hookshot and (soon-to-be) the bow and arrow, I had the opportunity to pair my melee skills with those skills to best enemies and solve puzzles. Scrolling through to select your tool of choice is smooth and simple, and does not require input mapping like we had to for the Nintendo 64 original. I made relatively short work of the dungeon (but, as the theme of this preview has made clear, I did so despite still finding new tweaks to the combat encounters to overcome) before finding myself battling against Phantom Ganon. The thrill of playing tennis with Ganon once again was awesome, and it was deeply satisfying to get to the dungeon’s conclusion, despite then being immediately saddened when the controller had to be pried from my hands by our lovely Nintendo reps, with my time now at an end.

I’m not the jaded, bitter video game media person that many are stereotyped as. I derive constant joy from the games I play, even some of the underwhelming ones (I’m looking at you, Wolverine!), but The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake has left a smile on my face after playing that I’ve not gotten from another video game in many, many years, and my particular tastes in games have been well catered to of late. Ocarina of Time Remake embraces what is beloved about the original game, and subverts expectations in subtle ways to bring the game to life in new ways once more. It has been close to thirty years since the original release, and it is like the game hasn’t aged a day. My body is ready.

Time Until Launch (November 5, 2026)

Days

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

Pre-order The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake here:

The post The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Remake Hands-On Preview first appeared on Player2.net.au.