The BEST Ocarina of Time Review You Will EVER see

Finished watching the video. I'm not one to gush usually, even though your content has been consistently knocking it out of the park, but this is by far the best coverage of the game I've seen on YouTube. I've watched quite a few videos covering the game, some more entertaining than informative, others quite poorly written even, and this one found a strong balance on being entertaining and informative. The latter is such a surprise, because there's a lot of stuff you bring up I hear no one else mention, and content of this quality increases my belief that being an experienced designer can offer so much in professional critiquing.

I'm genuinely looking forward to your coverage of Majora's Mask, especially to see if it might be the second game you cover to give a near perfect 100 score, which personally is my way of saying something is unquestionably high quality. 👍👍👍

This whole generation of games are sort of the puberty of the games industry. I remember watching a super interesting video diving into the textures for example. Apparently final fantasy 7 and occarina of time share a completely identical stone texture because they took it from the same stock texture CD without altering it. And metal Mario's texture is a picture of a lake with a pink flower. You can even see the pink flower on mario if you look close enough. I'm sure many games to this day use unaltered stock footage without me noticing. I'm not sure if I could tell. But the point I'm trying to make is that this generation of games were super janky. The same can be said about the game design as studios were having to learn how to make games in 3d. There is a massive difference between early and late PSX games as a result.

As much as I generally agree with your reviews this one seems to be the worst. Gameplay wise the game is very basic. Expecially for a 3ds remake. Which could have done so much more than re purpose n64 models for a port . With worse textures that somehow look more compress than the og n64 version in most cases . The 3ds while better in htz for music. The resampled music doesnt sound the best when it doesn't use slider parts in the updated midi renders. Making it feel rather rushed in the music department.
The overworld for the ambiance feels very basic on the n64 version and the 3ds surely had the power to add more npcs in the overworld . But, didn't. Making the over all emotions / character development for the game feel lacking and unfocused.
While, the story is barebones even for a n64 game. The 3ds version didnt do much to really improve upon what the n64 game did.
I honestly think given your review holds the game higher just because of the music in many cases. The game really deserves a 5 or 6 out of 10. The 3ds remake had so many things it could have finished. But, many things weren't improved. An at best its a mid range quality adventure game. That has so much that could be improved .

Always enjoy your reviews and I genuinely think your scoring system is quite well thought out. One of the hardest things for a lot of people to do is to separate the objective aspects of a game from the subjective ones and I think ignoring one over the other is the wrong way to go about it so your system is quite compelling as it includes both. Great review, I’ve played OOT at launch and every 4 or 5 years I re-play it and I can still have a lot of fun with it but I must acknowledge the nostalgia is absolutely a factor.

How dare you deconstruct the 10/10 reviews of Ocarina of Time and give its Design a 7/10! You are automatically trash tier because I say so!

In all seriousness, you do have the right viewpoint about OOT. It is overhyped, but it still has plenty of selling points to warrant calling it solid.

I was always intrigued as to how this game in particular seemed to top every "best games of all time" list. I haven't played it back in the day and my only attempt with an emulator ended pretty quickly because it was really cumbersome.

I think your review was incredibly comprehensive. I felt like even without playing the game I understood everything I needed to, and also it made me understand how something like this would feel revolutionary at the time it came out, even if it didn't hold up the test of time (at least gameplay wise).

Anyway, great review! Can't wait for the other Zelda ones – like you, I never had any Nintendo console so I'm pretty fascinated by this series and its long run.