London MCM - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS Hands On
There’s a veritable buzz in the air at the London MCM this week – gamers from all corners of the expo are flocking to the Nintendo booth, eager to get their hands on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS. I was one of these gamers – I stood in line for over twenty minutes (and that was when the queue had shortened considerably!) and finally, after a long-ish wait, I had a 3DS in my hands and was prepared to play Zelda for the first time in 3D. The question is: was I impressed?
To be quite frank, I wasn’t really impressed by Zelda in 3D. It’s the same game we all know and love, and has been given a few visual improvements for Nintendo’s latest handheld, but the fact remains that this is still something we’ve all done before, albeit this time with some 3-dimensional effects thrown in for good measure. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I wouldn’t want them to tamper with the formula too much, as that would be a recipe for disaster. Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still a classic, but if you’ve visited this game before you probably won’t find a lot of new stuff.
During my twenty-minute stint with the title I got to explore two areas, the first being Kokiri village. I then got to advance slightly and found myself entering the Great Deku Tree, where I progressed pretty far before being greeted with the dreaded ‘Thank you for playing’ screen that meant my time, alas, had ended. Despite my whining to the Nintendo reps, they wouldn’t budge and let me play further – apparently it isn’t fair on the other people waiting in the queue.
The twenty minutes I did experience were pretty decent. The 3D effects present looked very nice, with a great sense of depth to the gameplay (when I finally managed to get the angle right) but I found myself often becoming distracted and looking away as the expo is a very busy place. It then took my eyes several seconds to adjust to the 3D again, as every time I looked away it seemed to go very blurry. After forcing myself to constantly pretty much stare at the 3DS screen I found the experience much better – the game world seemed to come to life with little fairy light effects shining off the screen and the depth perception becoming much more profound. Ocarina of Time, and perhaps the entire Zelda series, has never been presented this well – the game looks crisp and new despite its significant age.
'Green is So Last Year.'
The vibrant colours on the 3DS are what sets this apart from its early iteration on the N64 – everything looks very colourful, and the world drips with a level of detail that was not possible when the game was first released. Link’s face now actually looks quite like a face rather than a jagged block with eyes and a mouth, so it’s obvious Nintendo has taken the time and effort to refine this product for its new home on the 3DS.
Gameplay wise, this is pretty much identical to Ocarina of Time when it came out on the Nintendo 64. The only major difference is the inclusion of the Nintendo DS’s touch screen, which acts as a central hub for Link’s inventory as well as offering information on your current location and any messages your friendly fairy Navi might have to tell you.
You’ll still be using Link in traditional fashion – targeting enemies by holding a shoulder button, swinging your sword and using various items that are mapped to the now non-existent ‘C Buttons’ (which are replaced with buttons on the 3DS controller). In my brief stint with the title, I only got to wield the slingshot and deku stick – there was no Ocarina of Time to be seen.
Controlling Link is actually relatively easy due to the 3DS’s new analogue stick. An extremely responsive bit of software, this is much, much easier to use than the d-pad we’ve been previously limited to on older versions of the 3DS.
Overall I came away thinking that this was just Ocarina of Time – I wasn’t particularly wowed by the product, as I’ve done it all before and, to be honest, I’d much rather play without the 3D effects as I find it annoying to have to stay in one place all the time in order to see what’s going on.
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