The Difficulty of Ocarina of Time

A 10th Anniversary Article by lftenjamin

As the series progresses to take in new audiences, long-time Zelda fans find themselves presented with a problem. The games start off almost stupidly easy to those familiar to the Zelda format, the first temple has amazingly no-brainer puzzles and a two-minute boss fight, but it doesn’t actually get much harder from there on in. It’s all too easy. For those used to the controls and tactics, enemies take downwards of five seconds. The puzzles, once you know how, seem amazingly easy. The enemies take off a quarter of a heart out of your thirteen-heart health gauge. And people are screaming out for something to make their games harder, something to bring back the difficulty of past Zelda titles.

In the beginnings of the Zelda series, the Zoras were just glorified fish. There weren’t pretty, or attracted to sword wielding Hylan heroes. They were just annoying foes who spat fireballs at anything that walked past. While some Zelda players have always had no trouble dispatching them, I’ve always dreaded there arrival. There were many a time when I would walk by a Zora in LttP and get my arse fried by one of their fireballs. By 1998 around the time I started OoT my harsh feelings for the Zora race where still unsettled, and I hoped, with the onset of 3D graphics, that I would be able to conquer my foes without much difficulty. So, you can imagine my surprise when I found out that the Zoras would be playing a good guy role in the game. I just couldn’t believe it!

Let me start by saying that I would not reccomend people importing the Japanese version of the game, unless like me, you are only after it because of the collecting-value the game has. I did not really intend to put it into my GameBoy Advance at all, since the European version is released in just a few days, but the temptation was too big, so I had to give it a try.

Insights from Eiji: Game Developers Conference 2004

Eiji Aonuma gave a lengthy speech about Zelda on March 24, and if you haven’t read the transcript yet, you should. There isn’t really any new information, but some of the comments he made are especially interesting anyway . . .

Last year’s E3 was a big disappointment. This year’s E3 resulted in a big puddle of drool on our collective carpets. The style of Link we had grown to know and love on the Nintendo 64 games was back, and now in a larger, darker, more fully realized Hyrule. These are some of my own reflections on the trailer.

Some time ago I looked at the first 23 enemies of The Wind Waker. I noted that overall the enemies were well designed in that they added to the immersiveness factor (which I will refer to as the I-factor for the rest of the article), but that the few enemies that needed to be difficult weren’t. Let’s take a look at the remaining enemies and see how well they stand up to scrutiny . . .

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker delivers a wide variety of musics from past remixes to new tunes that seems to fit right in to the Zelda series.

Even before The Wind Waker hit American shores, it was hinted that the next Zelda game would be revealed at the Electronics Entertainment Expo. And then, when the event came, many Zelda fans raised their eyebrows in disbelief when they saw the games that were revealed, Tetra’s Trackers and Four Swords, as you can see by simply visiting our forums. And, in my opinion, probably for good reason . . .

Ahh, battle. What would Zelda gamers like us do without it? All the games have had a fantastic cast of enemies, even if they do fit neatly into fantasy clichés. But how does The Wind Waker stack up to its predecessors? Many reviewers, such as IGN, have said that battle is simply too easy. Are they right? That’s the question which prompted me to critique the design of each and every enemy in the game. Here’s what I think of the first 23 baddies.

In terms of gameplay, The Wind Waker evolves nearly every aspect of the mechanics seen in the previous games. However, the game is not perfect. There are certainly a few areas which are actually a step down. Before the game’s release, I complained that getting rid of the guardian fairy took away some of the mystique of the games. That is only one issue; there is actually a larger issue at stake.

“Ow! My eye!” Those were my first words upon receiving The Wind Waker from EB Games. As I slid into my car, I glanced at the new game. I was about to drive home, but I couldn’t resist, and promptly opened the package. Since the car was parked in a sunny spot, I was blinded by the bright, shiny gold disc. “Wow, I like this game already,” I thought.

At the time of this writing, The Wind Waker is not out yet. But by the time you read this, I will be venturing across Hyrule once more, provided the ‘Cube doesn’t spontaneously explode. I am certainly eager to see what new items Nintendo has come up with for this new adventure, but there are still some old items that I would love to see appear again. In fact, some of these old items have yet to appear in the more fully realized world of 3-D. With that in mind, I have constructed a top ten list. Keep in mind that I am not including on this list anything that I know will definitely appear in the game (like bombs). Since I have avoided spoilers as much as possible, I don’t know the full list of items that will appear in the game. That said, here is my top 10 list of those old items I hope to find as I adventure across the watery world of Hyrule:

It’s coming. In a mere week, the biggest Gamecube game yet hits stores in America. It won’t be long before you will guide Link on a new quest through a new world of water and wind. Here are my thoughts on the impending release of The Wind Waker.