My Initial Thoughts on Ocarina of Time: It Looks Amazing. Is That Enough?
Nintendo has sold me on how its remake looks. After playing the original dozens of times, I still want to know how much there will be to discover.
The short version
- The new art direction looks incredible to me, but familiar dungeon layouts leave me wanting more.
- Expanded dialogue, updated controls, and added detail in Castle Town give me reasons to be hopeful.
- I want new discoveries inside this familiar adventure. These are reactions to the Direct, not a review of the finished game.
An impressive Direct that left me with a question
Ocarina of Time hasn’t fully convinced me yet, even though it looks amazing. The Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct has come and gone, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about it.
For me, the show came down to four big things: the movie title, the concert tour, the special-edition hardware, and a much closer look at Ocarina of Time. The movie is called The Legend of Zelda. No subtitle. The concert tour genuinely excites me, especially if it eventually makes its way to Utah. And that dark forest-green Switch 2 and matching Pro Controller look slick.
But Ocarina was the reason I was watching. What Nintendo showed looks like more than a straight one-to-one remake. The question is how much more—and whether that will be enough for someone who already knows this game inside out.
I have already explored this Hyrule
I played Ocarina of Time dozens of times as a kid. I completed it 100 percent multiple times. When I was bored, I would spend hours exploring every part of every location, just looking for something I might have missed.
That is why I wanted more from a remake. A one-to-one recreation would still be a game I have played twenty times before, only with shiny new paint. For somebody playing it for the first time, that might be perfect. For me, the original’s biggest surprises stopped being surprises a long time ago.
I don’t need Nintendo to throw Ocarina away and make a different game. I want a reason to explore it again beyond seeing how every room looks now.
Nintendo absolutely sold me on the graphics
Now, I will say this: that new paint looks incredible. I was never particularly fond of the fan-made Unreal Engine versions of Ocarina. To me, they often looked too busy, too shiny, or just slightly off. When Nintendo showed a more realistic direction, I immediately worried. It proved me wrong.
This feels like the kind of next-generation visual jump I have wanted from Nintendo. The water looks clear, and the reflections look good without everything shimmering like a tech demo. From what was shown, moving underwater looks smooth. It looks like entering a body of water without suddenly losing the ability to see anything.
The character models are crisp without losing their original charm. The Gorons look like hard pieces of living stone. The Deku look organic and fit naturally into the forest. Princess Ruto has that smooth, fishlike look. These are very different character designs, but they still look like they belong in the same world.
The people in Castle Town are still goofy. Somehow, the new style makes that work instead of trying to turn them into ordinary realistic people. Their clothes and colors stand out against the decorated shops. Nintendo has managed to make a style I didn’t think would work look incredible.
The familiar dungeons are where I start to worry
The layouts shown look very familiar. There are platforms I have crossed hundreds of times. The web in the Great Deku Tree is still there. The Forest Temple’s twisted corridor looks immediately recognizable, and the Shadow Temple’s ferry still looks like a fight waiting to happen.
Those are great memories, but I have already done those things. The game also already received updated graphics on the 3DS. This remake is obviously a much bigger visual change, but better-looking versions of familiar rooms are not automatically new discoveries.
That doesn’t mean every dungeon is unchanged. We have only seen part of the game, and I haven’t played it. It means the footage has not yet answered the question that matters most to me: what will surprise me when I go back?
There are real reasons to be hopeful
Some of the action looks better already. The Megaton Hammer swing looked quicker to me, and the sword attacks looked more exaggerated. I even wondered whether the boomerang was reaching farther. Those are impressions from edited footage, not measurements or confirmed changes to weapon stats.
The clearer improvements are the ones Nintendo actually explained: a jump button, dashing, and freer camera movement. Eiji Aonuma also discussed expanded character dialogue and new details in Castle Town, including areas that used to be backdrops. Characters are voiced during in-game cutscenes. That is more encouraging to me than simply making the same scenery sharper.
More conversation could make these people feel like actual characters I want to spend time with again. More detail in town could give me a reason to look around instead of running straight to the next objective. Those additions matter. I just want to know how far Nintendo has taken them.
New dialogue does not automatically mean new side quests or a substantially expanded story. I hope those things are there, but I am not going to pretend the Direct confirmed them.
I want familiar places with something new to find
If I get into this remake and Hyrule Field still feels just as empty to me, the conversations are mostly the same, and I am going through every dungeon on memory, I will be disappointed. It can be a beautifully made remake and still leave me wanting more.
If there are meaningful changes to the places I know, substantially more dialogue, stronger character development, and faster, smoother gameplay, then I am on board. Give me new people to meet, side stories to follow, and reasons to search the map again. A few more interesting encounters in the field would help too.
I am not asking for another enormous hundred-hour game. I want more to discover inside Ocarina’s adventure. If Nintendo has added enough of that while keeping what made the original great, this could become one of my favorite Zelda games all over again.
So those are my initial thoughts: the graphics have convinced me. The amount of new adventure has not—yet. I hope the finished game proves me wrong.
What did you think of the Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct? Was this the remake you wanted, or were you hoping for more? Leave a comment on the video and subscribe if you want to help NaizerBeam grow so I can spend more time talking about games with people who love playing them.