Now is the Best Time to Remake The Best Zelda Game

The latest game-specific Nintendo Direct was this morning, this one being about The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary, covering less than I had expected for a large anniversary like this. I had hoped for something out of left field like a Zelda Maker or Zelda 40 (a la Mario 35), but instead they presented us with a very nice orchestral arrangement of the series’ music throughout the years, a very brief mention of the upcoming movie, and the announcement of a series of live concerts (which is very cool). The bulk of this Direct was indeed spent going over the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Remake (or remaster or whatever they’re designating this game).

On the internet™ there is no shortage of discourse about this game and why shouldn’t there be? At the time of its release, it changed everything and quickly gained a “Greatest of All Time” designation. I am in the camp that this is well deserved, but of course there are plenty racing to the bottom of the podcast-o-sphere that would love to tell you “no, wrong, Ocarina of Time is a bad game.” But! It’s not, it’s actually wonderful and I think just as playable today as ever. But guess what? People aren’t going to play Ocarina of Time today if they haven’t already. It’s been accessible in lots of ways, both legal and extra-legal, for years. So why not tap into a demographic of people that aren’t sprinting out to play a 30 year old game?

Because this game isn’t for them. It’s not for the people that haven’t gotten around to Ocarina, or people who thought that any of the Zelda games on NSO are “too old” to play. It’s for the kids who were 6 or 8 when Breath of the Wild came out, or who’s first Zelda game was Tears of the Kingdom. They don’t know what the classic Zelda formula is, they weren’t there for the gatekeeping of areas, the need to finish a dungeon before unlocking a tool to be able to solve a puzzle. Shit, because of the culture of video games today they probably didn’t even play these games, they probably watched someone on Twitch play them. They don’t quite understand the struggle of the seeing a heart container sitting out in the open at the beginning of a game, often in an area that you go back to over and over again, and not being able to obtain that until late in the game, once you unlock the secrets of the specific puzzle. Hell, these kids don’t even understand what heart containers are!

I loved BotW & TotK, but they chewed up classic Zelda and blew a deku-sized spitball right through your old Sony Trinitron. Even Echoes of Wisdom would give you a fair amount of freedom to figure out and solve the puzzles in your own way. What would be a better way to introduce the next generation of young Zelda fans to the classic Zelda formula than letting them play the “best Zelda game” ever made with a modern coat of paint? The one that nailed the formula oh so many years ago. It’s a brilliant strategy.

The rest of the discourse around The Remake is fairly predictable. I think that the game looks great, it’s dark and gritty and has an elevated dark fantasy atmosphere that fits the tone perfectly. Baby Link is slightly more yassified than I’d like, but Adult Link looks better, more mature. I cannot wait to explore the depths of the well and see the ReDead in all their terrifying glory.

There was also a moment in the direct where an eyeball switch is hit with the slingshot and a ladder is released (classic Zelda amirite?) and it’s caused a stir about the lack of mystery and imagination in this remake (and games at large). Nobody needs to know how these puzzles work, but it’s interesting to see behind the veil. We’ve been playing these games for decades and they don’t often show you how the doors open and close by themselves, how the ladders raise or lower or how the temple twists and turns. I think getting the inside baseball peek of that is interesting. I’m sure there will still be no shortage of floating platforms and magic curses to keep the mysteries alive. I, for one, think because the original creators are still involved, that a lot of this could be them revisiting their initial vision. Maybe this is just me being overly optimistic, I am putting intent where I don’t know for a fact it’s warranted.

This remake is going to be a lot of kids’ favorite Zelda game, for the rest of their lives. They are going to play this and see what we all saw 30 years ago and suddenly the machines we’ve constructed in Tears of the Kingdom or the shrines that we bypassed with a weird glitch in Breath of the Wild are going to feel like they were part of a different series, once again, and the new modern Zelda mythos, the one with 8 dungeons and just as many unique tools will take over the conversation and imaginations once more.