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# Twenty-eight years late to Ocarina of Time
- URL: https://www.splitsandsprints.net/late-to-ocarina-of-time/
- Published: 2026-11-08T10:13:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T08:19:28.000Z
- Description: Last time I played Zelda, I mapped Hyrule on squared paper. Twenty-eight years and one remake later, I’m thinking about going back.
- Author: Camiel Schoonens
- Tags: Personal

I have been hearing about this game in many tech podcasts lately, and I have never played it.

*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* came out on the Nintendo 64 in 1998\. It sits at the top of Metacritic as the highest-rated game of all time. Earlier this month Nintendo released a full remake for the Switch 2, and since then I keep running into it. The Tweakers podcast talked about it, their video review sold me a bit more, and now I'm seriously thinking of buying it before my flight to San Diego at the end of this week.

The only Zelda I've ever played is the original, on the NES gold cartridge. I played it a lot. I remember drawing maps on squared paper to keep track of where everything was: which bush to burn, which wall to bomb, where the next dungeon was hiding.

For me, *Zelda*, *Super Mario Bros* and *Duck Hunt* are *the* NES games. 

When *Ocarina of Time* came out I was in my early twenties, and games had dropped off my radar completely. I was busy tinkering with everything around the internet: modems, servers, websites, and generally anything computer related I could take apart and put back together. So the game that apparently changed 3D gaming went right past me. I knew the name, never touched it.

My Switch 2 is mostly a travel device. At home it sits in the dock and stays charged, rarely used. On long-haul flights it comes out, and so far that has meant *Donkey Kong*, *Mario* and *Indiana Jones*. All good company during an eight-hour-plus flight.

This big and classic Zelda adventure feels like a natural next step. Many hours of play, a world to explore, puzzles to figure out. I'm tempted to buy it before the end of the day for two reasons: reputation and curiosity. When something has been called the best game ever made for almost three decades, at some point I just want to know what that is about.

There is also something nice about coming at it fresh. Most people talking about this remake are comparing it to the version they played as teenagers. I don't have that. I just have a stack of squared paper somewhere in my memory and a vague idea of who Link is.

I’ll probably have bought this game before I finish my next coffee.