Memories of a Legend - Ocarina of Time in the 90s
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Old man shares his memories about Ocarina of Time.
Special Thanks to:
- My cousins Daan & Mike
- My brother Jesse
- Javed L Sterritt (Good Blood)
- You!
Zelda Jewelry and Monster Maze Pins:
joyouscrafts.c...
Notable Video Credits:
Dennis Fleaman
• De zeldzaamste Power U...
James Rolfe
• Contra Memories - Cine...
Ionic1k
• Getting Dial Up Intern...
RetroBytes
• How 90s dial-up Intern...
Notable Music Credits:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Hyrule Symphony
25 minutes for 25 years of Ocarina of Time
Have a great weekend everyone!
😅😅
First
Awesome video
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You know its funny. This Thanksgiving my parents asked us which Christmas we remembered most fondly. I said "The day you brought home the N64 and OOT" and my mother laughed. I asked why she laughed and she said "That was the only Christmas gift you two got that year, I had to save all year to buy it." and I said "I know, and it's the reason to this day I'm a gamer, we were ecstatic about it then and to this day I'm grateful you did."
Thats pretty sigma
@@karesipila3331bro what is wrong with you and your gen alpha humour
Mine was when my uncle gave me one on my 8th birthday, I was almost 11 when OoT dropped. The power of imagination did so much to render those blocky polygons into perfect astral shadows inside our minds 😅
Something about hearing stories like this fills my head with serotonin
Omg, same, but with the super Nintendo 🥰🥰 I love this
I'm 35 so my experience playing OoT was pretty similar in a lot of ways. As a girl, I didn't exactly play with a lot of friends and my brother was way more into golden eye and star wars so I played on my own most of the time. My friend did introduce me to OoT and I rented it before buying it. It was mindblowing in terms of graphics at the time and the story was so amazing. I was obsessed! It will always hold a special place in my heart for it because of how incredible it was for the time. I've never felt that level of wonder about a game since OoT.
It's so hard to recapture that feeling, not just because of our fond memories and nostalgia, but because the leap to full 3D was such an incredible difference, and games like Mario 64 and OoT just got it so right, right from the start.
It's difficult to imagine what kind of next big leap could ever compare to that. Processing power where the world is legitimately photorealistic, and every cape and even every blade of grass has real physics? AI generated NPC dialogue that makes it possible to actually speak to any of them about anything, rather than choosing options from a menu or just hitting A as they talk at you? VR simulations of complete worlds that are so convincing that it's genuinely difficult to tell it isn't real?
I guess those things will likely come, and if they do, then probably in our lifetimes. Not exactly the Great Leap Forward I'm hoping comes to pass in our days, but it's interesting to think about what it would take to compare to the amazement we felt with Ocarina back in the day
I DISTINCTLY remember being blown away by the look of the water. I was like, "this is it. Games couldn't possibly get more realistic than this. This is the peak." 🤣
@@manaash4316 haha I remember having similar thought about the graphics
@@manaash4316i did that at least once a year up until the Xbox 360 came out lmao
In the 25 years since Ocarina of Time, I've been trying to find the same feeling in games that the final battle in OoT gave me and not a single game has even come close.
Buddy. You went and did it again. It probably sounds strange, but I teared up several times through this video... I guess that's what they call nostalgia. That, and I'm getting more emotional in my old age. You've created an amazingly paced, honest retrospective of this wonderful, timeless game - and it will be the standard video I pull up when I can't think of the words to use to explain to others just what Ocarina of Time means to me (which is a conversation that happens more and more these days... 25 years? When did that happen??). I really enjoyed hearing both your personal experiences with Ocarina and what each part of the game meant to you, as it also encapsulated much of my own experience with the game while highlighting some of the different outlooks we did not share since we were at different ages when the game released... but through those memories, shared or not, we keep the magic alive.
Very well made, very well done. A masterful, insightful, emotional retrospective. Please keep making these about your experiences.
Nostalgia tears are the best tears! Im glad I was able to hit the right notes for you, since us OoT old timers will resonate with videos like this the most. Thanks a lot bud!
One of my most anticipated things in life is introducing Ocarina of time to my children
I am in the middle of it : playing with my 7 years old daughter. Words cannot describe how awesome it is sharing her excitement, her fear (so far she won’t hold the 3DS whenever a redead is near😅), her sheer joy of being part of the Zelda world. Truly a very strong father-daughter moment 🥰
I'm currently doing this very thing with my 10 and 7 year old children. It's incredible to see their sense of wonder at a game that's been so near and dear to my heart for decades. They were a bit frustrated with the Z-targeting at first, but they're getting the hang of it now. They absolutely love the story and characters. I wish I'd recorded their reactions to seeing Hyrule after the 7 year time skip. 😂
Very similar experience with OoT. Especially the part where you were afraid to pause the game and leave it. I remember keeping my N64 running all night long on the pause screen while I got a couple of hours of sleep because I didn't want to reload my save file, even though it was probably a two minute long task to get me back to where I was. I feel so bad for my old N64 now, there's no telling how many nights it stayed on in a row.
Haha, good luck sleeping under those circumstances xD
I let out an audible "aww" when you showed the wooden Master Sword your grandfather made you!
Edit: You know good blood/the hyrule journals! It's always funny when two of my favorite channels on the platform are friends. Your styles are very similar in retrospect!
Enough to make a grown man cry :')
I was 6 years old when OoT came out. I'll never forget seeing my tia play it and instantly falling in love with the game and the series. Since that day 25 years ago, Zelda has been my favorite gaming franchise.
Very nostalgic 💜
I remeber when we drove to the store to buy the N64 + Mario bundle ( I sold some SNES games to afford it) and I was coming by the games and stared at Zelda for minutes. My father came up and saw me staring and he took the game and bought it for me :D Best day!!! Love you, Dad!!
Here's a fun "did we just become best friends?" Story. A few years ago I got hired at a piano shop as a refinisher. The wood shop Mgr was my age (40 now) I heard him playing song of storms on a piano in the show room and joined in. It was like we both knew a lot about each other with that one moment. Of course we hit it off
The scream of the redead has been haunting me since 1998.
I was 12 when it came out. I had played other Zelda games, but very infrequently. I didn't have a firm grasp of them. OoT was the first one I owned. It is still my second favorite video game, and it's of course drenched in nostalgia.
When you mentioned the commercials it immediately brought me back. I was so excited. The only other thing I had seen was a bit of spoilers. I saw the moment you get the master sword when another friend who had the game before me was playing. I was hooked, and it never left go.
I spent hours and hours in the fishing hole alone. The story and dungeons are still some of the best in the series. I can't imagine not having grown up with this game.
The Forest Temple was my first experience with the game. Saw it at a neighbor's house and was ecstatic to find it years later.
As a 40 year old Zelda fan, your story is similar to mine. Sometime around late '98 or early '99, I visited a friend in a neighboring state who ultimately let me borrow one of his systems (either SNES or N64, I can't remember which). I remember playing lots of games from every system while staying with him and his family, including Cool boarders 3. I actually can't remember if he had ALTTP on his SNES, but he told me about it and that he loved Zelda.
I ended up buying my own N64 with the Zelda cartridge from a kid named Kyle in 10th grade for $100. At one time I even owned the version 1.0 golden cartridge.
I ultimately went back and played most of the older games and some of the re-releases on game boy, and have played every mainline title since.
I also used the Nintendo Power line sometimes back then!
Those are great memories, but I feel that years from now we will have the same fondness for the first time we played BotW and perhaps TotK as well. I have close to 2,000 hours between both games and I'm still going strong!
Amazing and just what I needed right now. Love this style of content for you too, you can feel the joy which is what the world needs now more than ever
growing up in the 90s my brother was a PC gamer and i was PS1/PS2 gamer, but our friend had N64 and one time he either came over to our house or we went to his, not sure, but the only game i remember him showing to us that day and us playing was Ocarina of Time. i fell in love instantly and that love never went away. it was also the only reason, alongside Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64, i was jealous of my friend owning N64 and i always wanted to have it. actually i'm not even sure if was being sold in my country then. eventually i did play everything i always wanted to and still do, but that far away memory of wanting something so out of reach will always stay with me, even if the game itself is in my life now.
This video really resonated with me. I very much understand what you mean. Ocarina of Time fundamentally changed my perception of the world, and me as a person, on levels I can't even begin to describe. Before it, I was just some kid that played games every now and then, and that had an overactive imagination. Afterwards, I was a gamer. And I live and breathe for creating worlds, and stories.
I saw the EU commercial, and instantly fell in love. I had the N64, so this game shot up to the top of my wishlist for the holidays of 98. And by some miracle (my parents weren't doing good financially, so a game was a wild thing to buy, even if it was christmas), I got the game. I was 13. I was an outcast with few friends - a geeky little girl that everyone considered a freak - and with a somewhat troubled homelife. This game was pure magic, and in a lot of ways I have it to thank for me still being alive today. I could go on and tell long stories about things I pushed on to do, and how it changed me, thanks to this game, but then we'd be here forever. All I can say is that there is no game - no anything, really - that impacted me the way Ocarina of Time did. It changed me, and my life, forever - in all the best ways.
the part when Kaebora Gaebora says “ you look bigger and stronger “ I remember as a kid I was looking at Link and was like he’s right! I do look bigger… That part really made me laugh. Great video!
Was probably a "Nah no wa- HOLY SHIT!" type of reaction
36 year old me will never forget the feeling of riding that horse around the fields aimlessly.
It was really the first open world feeling I ever had.
Awesome vid, man. This was my first Zelda game too, and it’s what made me fall in love with the franchise. I remember the day I got this game-it was just before my 7th birthday in 1999. My dad had recently split from my mom, and he was dropping me off back at my mom’s after his weekly weekend visit. My brother and sister got out of the car and ran in, but my dad told me to hang on a sec as he had something for me. He pulled out the cartridge from his glove box and said he bought me this. I was so excited holding the cartridge in my hand that I asked him to come in and play with me. We quickly loaded it up, and as soon as I heard that intro, I was hooked. I pressed start and was greeted by the save selection to see a very unusual name already loaded that said 'F**k.' Being too young to know, and my dad too cool not to flip out, I clicked through to start the game. I remember going down Link's treehouse and reading the sign outside out loud to my dad, 'Hey dad, look, it says "F**k's house,"' to which he said, 'Okay, we need to change that.' I will never forget that memory 😂
This game is one of my first childhood memories, I played it every day at my baby sitters. It was a defining moment just to see the title screen; I never got tired of the game. I played it hundreds of times not even finishing, just exploring. The secrets of the world felt infinite. I imagine it was what a lot of people felt experiencing Skyrim for the first time.
My brother and I grew up playing A Link to the Past with my Grandfather. He got us into it. We were ecstatic when this came out and I was obsessed with it for months. It’s still the best gaming experience I’ve ever had. The memories of trying to find all the gold skulltullas without internet are cherished
In my mid 30s. the biggest thing I love about gaming channels like GameGrumps and others is it's like playing games with my siblings and cousins when we were growing up. Sharing the gaming experience with people around you is what made it so fun and nostalgic. Your story about playing single player games with multiple people is exactly how we grew up. Thanks for bringing up the memories!
I'm an '01 kid, so I didn't grow up with Ocarina of Time being a brand new game, but it was still my first Zelda game. Every christmas I would visit family in Miami and my uncle had an N64 with Ocarina of Time. I instantly feel in love with the game, although I was never able to get far during those visits(I don't think I ever got past meeting Zelda). I often would play the game with my cousin who lived in Miami as well, and would have to read out the lines for him as I was a year older, probably around 7 or 8 at the time. This went on for I want to say two or three years before I finally was able to get the game myself, not on the N64, but on the Wii through the virtual console feature I wasn't even aware of before my older brother told me. Before I knew it I was playing the game nonstop, and didn't take any breaks until I had gotten to the Shadow temple which was way, way too scary for me as a 9/10 year old. Of course in response I went and played majora's mask instead which somehow seemed less scary at the time up until the third dungeon which I couldn't figure out. Then I went back and beat Ocarina of time realizing the shadow temple wasn't nearly as terrifying as I had thought. I even used a speedrun strat to skip the invisible wall blocking the stairway in ganon's castle, because in my head that was easier than just doing the different segments first. I had a lot of back and forth between Majora's mask and ocarina of time, and even windwaker which I got my hand on shortly after the two, and although I can't remember if I beat windwaker or majora's first, I can say Ocarina was the first of the three I had successfully beat. Honestly all three of those games have a fond spot in my heart.
Growing up in a difficult enviroment, not being happy at home and school, playing this are the best memories of my youth. even hearing the music makes my heart tender to this day. Masterpiece for its time.
So much of what you shared parallels my own experiences playing this as a 7-8 year old. Truly life changing game
I was 19 when I first played OOT back in 2000. Bought the N64 specifically for this game, and I loved every bit of it ! But I want to share a memory in the making : my oldest daughter (she’s 7) is currently playing OOT on the 3DS, and it’s her first time playing a video game (almost) by herself. She grew up watching me play BOTW and listening to my theories about the lore, searching information with me in the Zelda books we have at home. The cool thing is now she loves making up theories about the story in OOT, and more often than not, she’s quite right! Anyway, watching your amazing videos made me discover the joy of overanalysing the Zelda lore, and now sharing OOT with my daughter has become even more special ! So thank you so very much for that ❤
My biggest memory about oot is that in spite of having the box and the manual, it never registered with me that Link would grow up. I think I dragged out things after ginishing jabujabu, explored everything available, because I thought those three dungeons were all I was getting (I was no older than 12, I felt I'd already played this for ages, and I had played almost no games before). It was a (wonderful) shock when the timeskip happened and I realised I'd get to play even more of this game, and explore all those areas I thought were out of reach.
I love how personnal this video is. We can feel the love this first entry of the Legend of Zelda sparked in your heart. Very cool video thank you Don!
I will forever remember this game because my life at that time had been somewhat crazy.
I had not long ago received my driver's license. Around the time Ocarina of Time released, I was 17. I had crashed my car into a ditch because I was a stupid teenage driver who took his eyes off the road. My friend was in the car with me. I had cracked my sternum, and my friend had his leg shattered. It was pretty bad, and we're both lucky to have survived. Especially him.
In the weeks and months afterwards, I was in a fair bit of pain both physically and emotionally. Ocarina of Time was the only thing I had that gave me any sense of relief around that time. It distracted me for a few hours, and in that time I spent playing, I did not have to feel the full weight of the guilt over what had happened. It helped to take my mind off of how much it hurt to breathe.
Ocarina of Time is a great game just on the merits, but to me it also acted as a sort of salve for my mind, body and spirit. I always look at it with a sort of warm, loving embrace because of this.
this is one of your best videos. we’re the same age and everything you covered in the intro hit home. RIP the 90s.
I definitely remember playing ocarina of time when I was just a wee lad, I remember not being able to get past the death mountain gate guard and always asking my uncle to help me but he never bothered to help, I actually first played ocarina of time on the Zelda collection on the game cube
I absolutely love hearing childhood misconceptions about games. I always gave games way more credit than they were programmed for in my youth, and it's fun to hear others', like Link growing older over time.
It’s really cool how I can relate to all this even though I’m only 17 and that’s through Breath of the Wild it was the game I played while transitioning from primary school to high school, it changed my life and made me a forever Zelda fan. I love how Zelda has retained that magic throughout the years
I always love to hear the experiences of older games from others. Especially the weird scenarios that happen for some of them :D
And boy were some of them relatable haha
That was a fun watch, thank you for sharing!
I'm turning 27 soon and OoT war also one of my first games. I played it as a child and since then a million times. Listening to the soundtracks alone makes me want to play this game again and again and again. I don't know why but there is especially something about the Forest Temple that makes me want replay it.
For someone who didnt experience this game as a child i want to say that this video was really good at portraying younger emotions and really putting a perspective on how it is to play a game like this when young
An amazing video for an amazing game.
Thanks for sharing the story of your first playthrough.
Ocarina of Time wasn't the first Nintendo 64 game I had- I was one of those weirdoes who asked mom and dad for Shadows of the Empire for whatever reason, and the first Nintendo made game I actually played was Lylat Wars 64. But one thing about Nintendo 64 was that I was finally growing old enough that I could leave my ordained little brother role to read the manual and give my older brother tips as he played the games (sure, there WAS circulation of the controller but he always had first go), but while I can't remember now if Ocarina of Time or Banjo Kazooie was the first time I really truly PLAYED a 3D-world game and just felt what it was like to not maneuver a 2D-plane... I do feel like I remember Ocarina better. And it is as you said- Link grows up alongside us, and we go from children to adults (I say adult when I was 11-12 when I played it, Link became 16, and I am now in my later 30's...), and that gives the story a very different weight.
Of course, experiencing it all linearly makes my experience very different from yours, no confusion or big rumours spreading in my area. I saw all you saw- Saria saying goodbye, the masks being sold off, King Zora taking an E T E R N I T Y moving aside... and yes. The ReDeads. I don't know where I read it or how I learned, but once I figured out the song of the sun froze ReDeads I did not engage with ANY of them. Those little bastards were ALWAYS paralyzed, and I made sure to go near them and carve them up as quick as I could. Whatever they were doing back then to infuse horror in their games, Nintendo most certainly succeeded better then than they do now. And I didn't even see the cutscene in Kakariko village where Bongo Bongo goes out of the well- my older brother played and accidentally triggered it while I was gone. That day did NOT bring about a happy session.
Through the years, this game has come to mean a lot to me. While Link to the Past was the game I saw my older brother play and which made me a Zelda fan, this was the first game that I feel I really actually got to play myself. It was the first big 3D world that I really got to explore, for I didn't play Tomb Raider or Mario 64. It was Ocarina of Time that was my first real foray into 3D exploration, a game where I didn't just sit back and watch a more experienced gamer handle all the scary navigation in a world that seemed so vast and terrifying. No, this was MY time to explore. My time to see the world in all it's splendor. And it was also a game that I played and which my sister watched me play, just as I had watched my brother play other games when I was younger. It gave her a great interest in the Zelda universe, and gave us both a fandom to bond through- kickstarting a longrunning habit of me playing games and her experiencing them through my sessions. So in a sense we're still doing what you and your cousins did back then, and I think it really started here with Ocarina of Time. It's an adventure that's come to mean a lot to me in many different ways- and I think I'll always love it for that, no matter how stale the formula ges or whatever new games I may play in the future.
I got Ocarina of Time for Christmas - I got my n64 late for my birthday 2003. Once hearing about Zelda sometime between then and December, I couldn’t wait so I too rented it for 4 days at the beginning of December. I got through all three dungeons, went back to Zelda, watched the cutscene revealing adult Link and then boom - time to return the game. I had to wait the entire month to get the game again after finding out you travelled through time.
I got an N64, with Goldeneye (and gold controller!) for my birthday my freshman year of high school. OoT came out right after my birthday the following year, which was the same time I broke my leg playing football. It was an early Christmas present. My recovery was spent playing a lot of solitary Ocarina. My older brother had just left for college, and my sister didn’t really care about Zelda. Most of the kids at my high school just played Goldeneye and Madden 64 (not gonna lie, I did too), but I always had a deep connection with Ocarina, and it got me through a tough, transitional part of my life. Even the music from 98 and 99 still remind me more of OoT than anything else.
Truly a magical game, and a defining experience for so many of us.
Man, watching this vid brings back memories. While I was quite younger (now 27, played when I was ~6 years) when I first played it. I got the snes from my dad that was in the attic, skipped the n64 and got a gamecube later. And yes, there it was. With mario kart DD, an extra disc with zelda with WW demo, oot, mm and the classic games. I played sooo many hours on those games with my brother. Writing songs in a book so we didn't had to open a menu, beating the fire temple without the fire tunic because for some reason we managed to skip it by jumping down somewhere in the crater so we skipped it. And me being scared shitless by the floormasters in the forest temple. Very good memories
My memories of playing OOT were watching my older brother and mom play through it. They’d let me play on their save files because I loved running/riding through hyrule field and talking to NPCs. As I got older I’d actually play through the game many times in my own. Forever a beloved game
We were gifted an N64 and Ocarina of Time the christmas it came out in 1998. I was 4 years old, and I remember vividly watching my dad and my older brother play the game. At the time, 3D games were so new that it took us three weeks to get out of Kokiri Forrest! Watching this game unfold changed my life and started my fascination with storytelling.
When Majora's Mask came out, our family didn't have enough money to buy it, so my brother and I kept renting it (spending much more than it was worth buying, I'm sure!) We liked the whole 3 day mechanic, but it made the game very complicated and we never figured out how to get out of Clock Town. We eventually stopped playing, and I swear it took me more than 10 years to finally learn that THIS GAME HAD DUNGEONS and that it was so much bigger than we could ever anticipate!
I'll never forget that feeling. The awe of discovering the new highs of 3D gaming, the incomparable scale of these games at the time and looking in wonder at the amazing cinematics will always be some of my fondest memories.
Man's literally made a while video about a single tweet. I love it!
Thanks for the trip through memory lane. Im 34 and your childhood story is 95% the same as mine. OOT was the first Zelda game i ever played and i hold it dear to my heart. I would love to hear about tour first experience with other zelda titles, especially Majoras mask. Keep up the good work, and take care.
I was born in 2000 so I don't have any of the classic 90s kids memories surrounding the n64 or oot but this was still my first ever console and zelda game growing up and I have a lot of fond memories playing this game with my dad. For me the sounds of this game is what really stick with me, from the very beginning to this very day. If someone asks me about the sound of Zelda oot is the first place my mind goes. Each place has its own distinct music and themes with amazing sound effects filling the spaces in between. Even now as an adult there is no soundd that will hit me quite as hard as the opening sequence of Ocarina of Time.
Loved this so much. Ocarina of time was magical back when we were kids
OoT is one of maybe 2 games I go back and play through again, and again, and again, and again, and again. At least once a year I do a full playthrough.
OoT wasn't my introduction to the series, but it was definitely the catalyst for my love of the series.
I grew up playing games on an NES that my mother owned since before I was born. The SNES was already out, but we couldn't afford one back then. The one game I wasn't allowed to play on it was Zelda 2 (the original had been traded in years ago), mainly because my mom didn't want me to accidentally erase her savefile. Once I finally got to play it, I never made it past Death Mountain. But I'd still spend hours just wandering around exploring and fighting monsters. I'd also read my mom's old issues of the Mario and Zelda comics, so I was already familiar with the franchise.
I got an N64 for Christmas when I was 8 and my mother bought OoT for herself a few months later. We were absolutely mesmerized by the game and I would either play it or watch her play it for the next few months. Once, when I was so sick I couldn't get out of bed I even asked mom to play it instead of putting on a movie or something. I think OoT and Pokemon was how I learned English, since my mom has a habit of muttering when she reads and I'd ask her what it means.
What else is there to say? I also beat the Spirit Temple before the Shadow Temple. I think it was because I remembered the invisible ghost in the desert and made a dash for it right after getting the Lens of Truth. Or it might have been that I too was terrified of the ReDeads and didn't want to tackle the Shadow Temple until I absolutely had to. For some reason, I really liked the mask sidequest and would make it a point to talk to every character with every mask just to see their reactions to it. Might be why I was so hyped about Majora's Mask, since not only was it a sequel to my favorite game, but it also revolved around a minor gameplay element I was really fond of.
This game was the start of my love for zelda as well. I remember my sisters and I all sat around and played this from probably 2000s to 2015. We still all play it on the switch and my parents still have the n64 and we play it when we all come to visit now. This game is what started all of us playing zelda, and I absolutely fell in love with Ruto! But now my sisters and I all share a text group where we talk about BOTW and TOTK, the memories that come from OoT is amazing and ill never ever forget them! And the blowing in the cartridge had me DYING 😂😂😂😂
The bit about the master sword at the end is legit adorable. 💜
Ocarina of time was the first game I ever played, and to this day it has been one of the greatest memories I’ve ever had and that game is the ONLY one I wish I could forget absolutely everything about so I could experience it all over again and fall in love with it all over again, that game and the memories it created not just for me but for many others. It will always be the goat in my eyes. ✌🏻
Interestingly OOT was the second videogame I experienced from what I can remember. I was younger than 5 at the time and my oldest brother had traded in our Spyro game in exchange for OOT Masterquest edition for GC. I didn't know how to do anything other than ride around on Epona at the time. My full experience of the game wouldn't come for another 2 years. I remember my brothers and I taking turns playing through dungeons and eventually, we made it to the finale. We were thrilled with how difficult we found Ganon to be and I couldn’t beat him on my own for another 4 years. While Twilight Princess takes first place in my book, I too have fond memories of this masterpiece. Love your work Don; have a good one!
In '98 when this game came out i was 3 yrs old. It wasnt until I was 10-ish when I discovered OoT. I remember sitting for hours in front of the screen learning the game and playing the hell out of it. Its one of the only games I played through multiple times, i think I have 3-400 hours in it but I never paid attention so Im not exactly sure. The only other game around that time with that amount of time played was RE4 on PS2.
Seeing yall blow into that cart brought back so many memories, like the time i thought my N64 went to shit. Blowing the cart and trying multiple times, sometimes nothing happening and other times the black screen but nothing else. I was almost heartbroken until it started up again lol
OoT is so important to me, as it is for many others. It was the first game I ever truly enjoyed, the first open world game that I fell in love with. Nowadays, I have a Wii U gathering dust under my PS5 and BotW, but I would give my kidney to get a N64 and both OoT and MM. Thats all I want, that and a TV to play it on or some sort of HDMI cord for it.
Being born in 89 i can say that OoT was a big part of my childhood and a reason why I keep playing games today. My brother had bought the game on his birthday after we saw it on one of the shows talking about games back then. My siblings and I each had our own save file which my sister shared with my mom. I remember when one of us first beat Gohma and venturing into Hyrule field it felt like such a big world. I also got stuck at the Deku tree as I misremembered how to save and beating Gohma over and over again before finaly realizing what I'd done wrong with saving and then trying to catch up to where my siblings were in the game. We each had our own game time and we kinda made it a race to see who could make it to the next part first. I don't remember who won that race but we had a lot of fun together
I loved this video! Thanks for sharing. Also very nice to read the comments. Wish we could go back in time and relive it as a child.
As a British person, learning that someone from my country made an advert like that is funny.
I feel every moment of this video from the nostalgia of the video store to being scared to death of the shadow temple. (totally backed out and beat the spirit temple first) I was learning how to unlock cheats for Goldeneye and trying to 100% Mario by enlisting the help of all my friends and my brothers. I also enjoyed playing these games in the company of others. I was 11 when we got this game for Christmas. I watched my brother of 13 play with his friends at first and when I picked it up for myself it was like magic. Also my first Zelda game. I have a special place in my heart for this game. Those were some of the most wonderful times of my life. Just a few days ago I took a journey back to that happy place and started a play though on my favorite video game of all time. Thanks for sharing your experience.
My experience was also pretty similar (currently 35 years old). OoT was my first Zelda experience, played it mostly together with my best childhood friend from down the street, discussing locations of heart pieces and empty bottles in school and stuff. I remember we already got stuck finding the kokiri sword, we both were scared to death by the big skull spiders swooping down inside the Great Deku tree so that we actually threw the controller away and shut down the N64 :-). We both had the same "wow" feeling when learning there were five more temples and we also got stuck on the same jump in the Fire Temple. Very nice to see you trip down memory lane and to feel so familiar given the similar experience!
I remember as a little kid going to one of my first orthodontist appointments and getting to rent wind waker on the way home from Hollywood video. I made it either up to or just through the forbidden woods before having to give it back, and just remembering hanging out on windfall Island, breaking pots and exploring dragon roost Island trying to figure out how to get the bombs to work with the bottle of water were some great memories of my first zelda game. It made me so nostalgic for wind waker and its art style and is probably why I like cartoony cel shaded graphics in games so much. Skyward sword looking the way it made me all the most excited for it. It's funny how renting games can make them stick out in your mind more than just owning them because it draws out the time it takes to finish them.
3:05 I recognize that 4-way split screen without having to look at the cartridge or have you say the name. Several hours killed playing that game with college friends, but Ocarina of Time is why I bought myself an N64. I played a little bit at a friend-of-a-friend’s and was blown away by the graphics and the game play. I grew up on Zelda and this was a mind-blowing experience. I don’t remember how quickly after that I bought myself the console and game, but it was not long. I then spent so many hours playing until I beat the game. I’m sure I probably spent more time going in circles in the Water temple trying to get “that one door” open, but I remember spending a lot of time in the Forest temple trying to navigate that twist and solve those rooms in two different orientations.
Yep, 36 here and I started my OoT watching my older brother play a bit before trying it for myself. I was also so so creeped out by the re-deads, to the point where the furthest I ever got as a kid was through the water temple before seeing shadow temple was next and deciding NOPE. I'm glad I went back to it as an adult and got through the shadow and spirit temple for the first time.
I was 2 years old when it came out and sadly i do not have many memories of my early childhood playing it. But i was lucky enough to have an N64 console and the game at that age. I remember two scenes vividly. When you first wake up as a child in Kokiri Forest as Saria greets you, and around the end where Zelda gets wisped away by Ganondorf in the Crystal. But both LoZ: OoT and Starfox 64 are the two games that have left nothing but amazing memories for me and my father and i'm forever thankful to have them, even to this day. I remember having my tiny hands around the N64 controller and playing through it as best as i could. And, just like you, being scared out of my wits in the Royal Tomb and Bottom of the Well. Good times and not so great nightmares lol. To this day, OoT has left it's impression on me and it's one of my most beloved games and memories.
I grew up playing OoT and MM with my dad and they are the fondest childhood memories i have
Another old man here! My first Zelda game was Link's Awakening, which probably holds the most personal memories for me. Ocarina is a very close second, though. I would've been 14 or 15 at the time my brothers and I played it, but part of the excitement was getting to see that transition to 3D. I replayed the game recently on the Switch and it's still impressive what Nintendo was able to do with the technology of the time. The world just felt huge and mysterious and lived in. I wouldn't get that feeling from a Zelda game again until Breath of the Wild. In terms of story, though, Ocarina continues to be my favorite in the series. I'm sure some of it is nostalgia, but the lore they packed into it and the themes it dealt with (time, light v. dark, childhood/adulthood, companionship, etc.) were more sophisticated than a lot of games at the time.
You touched on the '90s Internet and that was an interesting part of it for me, too. Specifically the insane amount of rumors, myths, and urban legends. GoldenEye was another N64 game I played the hell out of with my brothers and friends, and that one had a ton of the same thing. Like you said, it wasn't easy to know what to trust online back then, or where to go to find out if something was true or not. The hours we wasted trying to beat the running man, trying to get Zora's domain to unfreeze, and trying to access the Sky Temple, lol. But it was fun in a way because it made it feel like anything was possible in the game, even though part of you always knew it wasn't. It fueled the imagination like the game itself did.
Ocarina is also one of those games that handles space in an intriguing way, by design or by the limitations of the technology. I've found myself missing places in the game and wanting to boot it up again simply just to visit them. You and some of my other favorite creators have talked about liminal spaces in games, but sacred spaces are an old concept from religious studies, too, along with sacred time. Ocarina leans heavily into both those ideas in a number of ways. It's also interesting that I don't feel like I've ever gotten that nostalgia for a place from any 2D game, which is another reason Ocarina might be memorable compared to what came before it.
Anyhow, thanks for another great video and the nice little trip down memory lane! 🙂
Oh wo, Link's Awakening as your first huh? You don't hear that very often!
My first experience with Ocarina of Time was back in 2001 when I saw one of my older brothers playing it and when they were done I wanted to play and after that that’s how I became a Zelda fan ever since!
Mijn oudere broer speelde Ocarina of Time en ik, mijn zus en broertje keken altijd hoe hij het speelde. Mijn liefde voor Zelda begon toen! Wind Waker was de eerste Zelda die ik echt zelfstandig heb gespeeld toen ik ongeveer 9 was. Goede tijden!
What a great video. Just like for you, OoT is the embodiment of nostalgia. It's such a great and amazing game and I still love playing it every so often - be it vanilla or in a randomized fashion. The community truly turned this masterpiece into an eternal evergreen through Randomizer and ROM Hacks. God, I really miss the good old times.
This was very sweet and lots of fun. And absolutely one of the most interesting ways to look at really any game: writing from your own experience is so much more interesting than recounting the story or yet another deep dive on the ___ of the game (as valuable as those are).
I never had this moment with OoT, it was actually Wind Waker for me. That game was such a huge part of the year between leaving college and properly moving away from home, and I still get a lump in my throat every time I hear the Outset Island theme. And then years later, just before the pandemic began, playing Breath of the Wild in my first by-myself apartment, and exploring the Zora kingdom while it rained for days in Los Angeles... what a series.
Great work, Don.
This game came out a year after I was born and I still love and play to this day ocarina is the best Zelda game in my opinion still brings me so much Happiness
I've been a Zelda fan for as long as I can remember, literally. I remember having a distinct fascination with the original, seeing the older kids play it at the "daycare" I went to (a neighborhood couple that would have all us kids over 😂). I had to have been no more than 3 years old at the time, maybe 2. That was well into the NES's life, maybe even the SNES a little; but NES was all we had at the time. It wasn't the obsession it would become later on, but it was still one of my favorites for how unique it was compared to the rest of the games I played back then. That carried forward to playing Link's Awakening on GameBoy at school/daycare when I got a bit older and then to watching a friend play ALttP on his SNES years later. I never even really played much at the time (my family had a Sega Genesis), but I loved watching him (beginning of streaming culture, obviously). I remember my parents letting me subscribe to Nintendo Power around fourth grade after another friend had let me borrow one of his issues. It was here that I was first introduced to OoT. I remember following this game like a hawk, as much as one could at around 8 or 9 in the mid-late 90s. It felt like years that I was re-reading the same articles, scouring the tiny screenshots, and imagining what it would be like. I eventually was able to preorder through that Nintendo Power sub to get the gold cartridge and t-shirt. I still have it to this day. I got an adult large at the time because I was embarrassed of my gaming hobby to a degree and figured that would at least be a nice sleeping shirt at home. I remember my first time playing was with one of my best friends over after school. I got to the part where you leave the forest and Saria says goodbye... we may have gotten a little misty-eyed... Even just the title screen and music got to me simply because of the beauty and anticipation finally paying off. The game was everything I imagined and more. Forever my favorite. The only game I've felt the same excitement for since then was BotW, which ended up being equally as impactful to me.
I also have a comforting and deep history with OoT.
This game has marked me in so many ways. It was probably my first video-game, as my parents bought me a n64 for my 5th year birthday or so. It was 2004.
The connection I have with its music is outerwordly. Nothing is as peaceful and emotional to me as the Title Theme. God, this is the anthem of peace to me. The slow piano and the delicate ocarina can bring me to tears. It has also shaped the view I have about a role model, since I believe I kind of had Link as a role model, being also a little blond caucasian kid xD
Anyway, not only because it was a well-developed game for its time and has an intelligent gameplay, OoT has clearly stamped a lot of childhood and early adolescences. And that is why the game will always live on.
Deep on our hearts.
Thank you, Nintendo, for granting us such a beautiful and immersive experience.
I was born in 2001 but in terms of video games I like to think that I grew up in the perfect window of time. My grandmother had an NES, a SNES, and an N64. Those were the consoles I grew up with, as well as a hand-me-down GameBoy SP that I remember getting when I was like 4 or 5. OoT and ALttP were the first and only Zelda games I had ever gotten to play until I found the original golden LoZ cartridge in a storage bin, and I was terrible at Zelda games. I remember not being able to do anything other than run around Kokiri Forest until one Christmas where an older cousin showed me how to get to the Great Deku Tree. Then I remember running out into Hyrule Field and getting to the castle, where I got insanely frustrated at trying to sneak past the guards. I eventually got stuck again at Death Mountain, because I didn't put together that I had to return to the Lost Woods to get the song from Saria.
So then a few years later, maybe around '08 or '09, my mom gets internet at my house for the first time ever, and the only computer we had was a shitty laptop that didn't even have a battery and we had to keep it plugged in and use it like a desktop. I don't remember how, but I had just discovered RUclips, and I just entered 'Zelda' in the search bar one day and went down a rabbit hole. That's how I found TheZeldaDungeon, and discovered walkthroughs. I started watching him play OoT and got up to where I was stuck in the game. I only ever went to my grandmother's house every other weekend, and it was a rule that the N64 had to stay there. So I grabbed a pencil and some copy paper, and started to write down what to do to get unstuck in the game. I waited a whole two weeks, packed that paper into my bag, and turned on the N64 as soon as I got there. I beat Dodongo's Cavern and made it to Zora's Domain, where I immediately got stuck again at Jabu Jabu's Belly. I ran out of time that weekend and didn't get to beat the dungeon, but that just started a whole process where I played the game every two weeks, and then went back to my mom's house to do Zelda research lmao. I eventually beat the game a few months later, and it was the first Zelda game I ever beat. I'll never forget those days.
This is a beautiful love letter. Thank you for making this.
I was born the year of its release and started paying it at 3 because my mom bought it for herself at the time. I friggin love this game. Of course at these time my mom was doing most of the job. Later when I was 5 I could go through the fault but I would call her whenever I faced adult bosses, until one day she told me I could do it alone against volvagia. And I did. I've completed your game dozens of times, more than any other games, and I was happy to revisit it on the 3ds, such a great remake.
I'm pretty sure the N64 WAS the strongest machine out there, at least at launch. I was almost 9 when it came out and my older brother bought the game. He said we could play it AFTER he finished it, so naturally his 3 little brothers swarmed around the TV and tried to help him as much as possible. It was a single player game we played with the 4 of us - pointing at things he didn't happen to see, thinking of things he just couldn't, all while being in awe of how great this game looked and felt. None of my own subsequent playthroughs was as amazing as the first playthrough I watched along with my brother.
My most iconic memory was the night of Sinterklaas, probably 1999. We were all showerd and in our jammies, all our presents had unwrapped and my brother asked if he could play the N64, because he was so close to the final boss. Of course, that was only an assumption, based on the fact that he was IN Ganon's castle. Ganon, the evil man he sought out to stop.
Permission was granted and he made his way through the trials and up the steps, hearing that organ grow louder and closer. Having no internet, he managed to beat that sorcerer and escape the castle, thinking he was done.
What happened then, I have not felt in the 25 years following it. I've chased it, but not a single game has invoked the same feeling as what happened on top of the ruins of Ganon's collapsed castle. The anxiety that the evil man was still alive, the imposing transformation into that gargantuan beast, the flames blocking all escape - all accompanied by the best lighting and soundtrack I had and have EVER heard.
That moment, eventhough I wasn't playing myself, is the single best memory of my entire life of gaming.
I was 12 or 13 years old when I first played and fell in love with the original The Legend of Zelda on my NES so by the time Ocarina came out I was 5 years out of high school, but I remember being SO excited to see and experience Zelda in 3D. I remember telling my girlfriend at the time that I was going to buy a N64 just to play it and she refused to let me because as it turned out she had purchased them both as Christmas presents for me. She came over to my apartment for an early dinner and gift exchange and we were both very excited to play it but for some reason I couldn't get it to work on my TV. After trying for what seemed like eternity I had to take her home for her family's dinner and the moment I got home it miraculously started up on the first try. I immediately called and told her and she was so upset that she didn't get to play it with me that day. I must have played all night long.
My mom played the game while i watched, mesmerized, at 6. I have such great memories of falling asleep watching her work through ganons Castle, because it was the only time i was allowed to stay up past my bedtime. Then, i would play the game in the morning and copy what my mom would do
i grew up right on the cusp when technology was switching rapidly from vhs to cds to digital, but i just barely remember watching my mom play OoT as a toddler. i grew up with ocarina, majoras mask, link to the past, and wind waker. i remember being 6 years old excitedly waiting for twilight princess to come out because it looked so cool, and beating the game 5 or 6 times in that and the next year. playing oot on the 3ds and finally getting to fully experience the game for myself as a young teen, wearing the blue tunic and wielding the biggoron sword pretending to be finn from adventure time which was a separate file from my link save file.
skyward sword came out around the same time, and it the story and adventure was incredibly fun even if others didnt like the linearity. a fun time between skyward sword and BotW was finding my parents old N64 and playing majora's mask because i heard about the darkness and strange atmosphere, and i played it to try and 100% it on my first playthrough because i wanted the fierce deity mask, and to this day i never actually beat it as life got busy and i think the n64 got put away again to make room for another console or something.
finally with botw came out it really blew me away despite its departure from the traditional zelda experience, and with the dlc additions that came out every so often i ended up playing botw several times, each time a new dlc wave came out. i was excited for totk and hadnt been as excited for a zelda game since i was literally a child, and when i finally got my hands on it... it was fun, but i felt alienated from the world. unlike previous zelda titles, this was a direct sequel taking place on the same map, and a lot of concessions had to be made at the story's expense to make link both the hero of BotW but also a person nobody really knows so newcomers wouldnt be overwhelmed, and it ended up undercutting a lot of the intrigue for the story along with its poor handling of ganondorf's and zelda's characters. i played it once, beat all the shrines and got the roots, and thought to myself maybe it'll get better with the dlc like botw, with more zonai parts and maybe some story explanations for the sheikah tech disappearances, only to learn that we probably wont be getting dlc and that any questions about the story were unceremoniously answered in interviews with explanations that really didnt make sense.
it makes me wonder if TotK will have the opposite response compared to Wind Waker. wind waker was disliked at release but became beloved as the game aged and its players got older to appreciate its charm. TotK is touted with praise and was even given a nominee for the game awards as game of the year, but already we're seeing people talk about their bitterness about TotK and its story and world building being put aside for the same of game play. it wanted to be BotW again, not just BotW 2.
So OoT is kind of bittersweet, I'm the youngest of three boys, my eldest brother had cystic fibrosis. We used to sit around or grandma's TV and play lttp with her pointing out things we missed, or helping out in a tricky dungeon. Gma couldn't play OoT because of the effect the camera and graphics had on her motion sickness but she'd still try to help out. The same year we got it, early to mid 99, my brother had a major down swing that left him in the hospital for almost a month, so my other brother and I would pack up the 64 and oot and go visit him and play.
Haha, i used to think link was gradually getting older too!
Wow what a blast from the past Don, i could feel the same thing you were describing here.
Amazing video!
Thank you so much for sharing that my friend . Your story gave me chills . My story is relatable.
That was really heartwarming, thank you for sharing :)
Great video! My memory of Ocarina was playing it every Friday when I came home from school. My weird nostalgia comes from when it would get very hot for us in summer, I would move my N64 into the lounge (only room at the time with air conditioning) and me and my stepfather/mother would sleep in the lounge. They would be watching something on the TV and I would move my TV into the lounge also, and my parents would also watch along (and even remark that watching me play was better than the crap on tv late at night lol).
That feeling of hot dry Australian summers (which we have just entered again) always gets me into a mood to play Ocarina and Banko Kazooie to this day due to that lol.
I got Ocarina for Christmas in 1998 and my cousin got Turok 2 (he had an American system) and we sat up to like 5am playing both games in the same room.
Sir, everyone wants to do a OOT retrospective and everyone is intimidated by the thousands of videos already out there. However, your take is so relatable and refreshing, I really enjoyed this video and it brought back so many memories 🙌🙌 starting a new file rn😎
I started my entire video game and Zelda journey with OoT (The 1.0 Gold cartridge too). A bit late since the gamecube had been out a couple years by then. Anyway, I had started the game and immediately fell in love with it. The music, the story telling (even at the young age of 8 I really liked fantasy and adventure stories), and the fact Link was wearing my favorite color green. I also had difficulties in the adult section as well on my first playthrough, mainly that exact same impossible jump in the fire temple as you. Ended up leaving and beating the water temple before going back to the fire temple and was just as frustrated about the jump as you. Then there was the Shadow Temple and bottom of the well, dear lord I had nightmares for awhile thanks to Dead Hand. Anyway to try keeping this somewhat short, OoT helped shape me into the person I am today. I grew up having bad anger issues and having a hard time calming myself down, but playing Ocarina actually helped with that. It shifted my brain from focusing on whatever made me angry to playing the game. The music especially calmed me, mainly the title theme and Saria's song/the Lost Woods theme (just like Darunia 😅). This game got me into video games as a whole but mainly introduced me to the magical Legend of Zelda series and will always hold a special place in my heart.
Wow, the look of this video is off the charts - sweet CRT shots, sweet Don's Forearm Shots and sweet nostalgic web 1.0 shots!
Thanks for sharing! I was probably 4 or 5 years old. Bought the game from my uncle for $10. Played it everyday. Probably only beat it a couple years later. When I think of OOT I’m still amazed by its epic story, dungeons, items, characters, locations, etc. hard to believe it came out so long ago.
The dungeons still hold up so well too!
Man, this video gave me so many feels through memory lane... I also experienced it like you, but I didn't have an N64... I played it years later through an emulator (my mom was a programmer back then, so we had a "powerful" computer, but no game consoles), but we didn't have internet either, so I don't really remember how I got the emulator or the game image...
Your story experiencing this game is very similar to mine... You made me remember my experiences playing it for the first time, so many nice memories playing with my nerdy friend and trying to unlock the secrets and puzzles from this game. Thanks for the nostalgia trip :D
I grew up watching peanut butter gamer play thru ocarina and majora, always wanted to play them but didnt have an n64 or knew where to get one, so i waited.
My dsi bricked right before the summer that yr, but that was when ocarina 3d was announced, i got a 3ds and ocarina shortly after for my birthday, it was my first zelda game and i played it non stop
My first time with OoT was sadly about 3-4 years after release. My cousins had the only n64 i knew of until i got my own 3-4 years later and they only had mario, banjo, and some other games i cant remember. My other cousin i lived with had an n64 but he only had resident evil2, which i became a master of in a month lol. When i finally got my n64 my dad also got 3 games mario, perfect dark, and OoT. I still waited about a month to play OoT because i never heard of it and on my cousins mario game i only ever played the first 3 levels before and i was determined to beat it myself. But from the moment i blew into my cartridge and hit the on switch i was madly in love with OoT and still am to this day. Thanks for your story as well.
Very touching video. It's interesting that those feelings for our most nostalgic games are universal, despite the different circumstances I get exactly what you mean describing your experiences. And like you, some of my favorite memories playing single player games are taking turns with friends. I think that might be why streaming is such a popular form of media, it's the closest a lot of people have to sharing that experience with others nowadays, at least that's true for me.
This was beautiful. Thank you for sharing your memories with this game!
Ocarina of time is my first home console game. My first game was Men In Black II on the Gameboy Color. I watched my older brother play and I always wanted to play but my parents told me that only big kids who don't wear diapers (that's apparently how old I was) can play. And would you believe it, that was the last time I wore my huggies.
Playing OOT, through multiple save files throughout my life, never being bored with my next play through. Currently playing master quest on my 3DS for the first time and it's been beautiful. Allowing me to reminisce of a time I first play the beautiful masterpiece of a game that is, Ocarina Of Time.
Ocarina of Time has been one of my favorite games of all time, ever since I first played it at age 12, back in '98.
It was my first Zelda game and I was extremely hyped for it, and even got the golden cardridge, which was pretty cool. My younger brother, who was 8 at the time, often sat next to me watching me play the game, but was terrified of the Redead and usually left the room whenever I encountered them. I also vividly remember having to call Nintendo hotline to help me beat the Water Temple because I just couldn't figure it out; this was the first and last time I ever did that, but I just wanted to beat the game so badly and had been stuck for multiple days in that damn place, haha.
This game has always been something really special to me, so thanks a lot for this video!
I ALMOST called the hotline inside the Water Temple too, but I found the last key just in time not too, haha. Crazy to think you had to actually call someone up to help you instead of.. y'know... googling it!
I was first introduced to OOT by a friend who loaded his save file and had me fight Gannondorlf first phase. That had me hooked and I had to get a N64 and this game, took a whole year of chores and sacrificing all of my Christmas and Birthday gifts for it but was worth it.
I'm only 15 and this was my first and is my favorite Zelda game.
Back in I think 2018 or 2019, my copy stopped saving so, when I turned it off the save would be gone when I turned it back on, and I was grounded so wasn't even supposed to be playing. But I had a whole tv and the N64, hiding under a blanket in my bed, and I made to the fire temple before they found out. And it was super obvious that I was mid playthrough, because I would watch guides on specific parts of the game, and they would be forced to watch it with me.
I enjoyed these stories so much! Thsnks for sharing
I don't have quite as vivid a recollection of when I first learned of Ocarina of Time, but I too for the longest time played N64 when we rented it from the video store. And I think when we actually got a N64 by ourselves, I have to give credit to my sister for suggesting Ocarina of Time. But of course, this was the age that everything your sibling does is stupid, so despite having played Legend of Zelda on the NES and Link's Awakening on the Game Boy, I didn't quite jump on the game immediately.
Once I got into it however, in a way it really has shaped my life afterwards.
I remember just being obsessed with the game, deep-diving into every part of it, documenting, writing fanfiction by hand. Well, not typical fanfiction, but I wanted to tell the story of Ocarina of Time as if it were written as a book. I ended up knowing so much about the game that I helped a lot of people on the Nintendo forums in the early 2000s. And kind of from there on, I started an at the time very successful Zelda website, I went to E3 twice to cover Twilight Princess, and that was the start of becoming a semi-professional games journalist.
As someone who was good at school, but didn't actually know what I wanted to do. I think all the things I started doing following from my love of Ocarina of Time, is what has really shaped which skills I would end up developing, and although it has lead somewhere entirely different, it was what shaped the path my life would ultimately go down.
Golden Eye was huge. That was our tournaments pre Madden. My older brothers both played the Zeldas pre ocarina and when Oot came out they were both older so didn't get into it. But was my first that I really indulged in. I played the ones before but with them. The nes one holds strong memories because my brother is now passed. The last one we both played was Twilight Princess but not together. We lived far apart.