Nintendo just showed off a bunch of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo Switch 2. Let’s talk about it.
In a special Nintendo Direct on Tuesday morning, the company took about half an hour to discuss the 40th anniversary of the venerable Legend of Zelda series. There was a little bit of info about the upcoming live-action movie, but most of it was dedicated to the new Ocarina of Time remake.
Here are the main things we learned from the presentation.
The Zelda movie has a title
First, Nintendo shared a very tiny bit of news about the upcoming live-action movie, coming out on April 30, 2027. It’s simply called The Legend of Zelda. That’s it. No subtitle.
Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto said the title would make sense once we see the movie. I’m guessing there’s no subtitle because they plan on making sequels. We’ll see!
Ocarina of Time is the same game with new visuals and some gameplay changes
Credit: Nintendo
Series producer Eiji Aonuma gave us a pretty detailed gameplay walkthrough of an early section of the Ocarina remake. It answered most of the pressing questions we had about it.
Mashable Top Stories
Namely, it appears to be a pretty faithful remake in the sense that area maps and puzzle solutions seem identical to the original. Aonuma walked around Kokiri Forest, the game’s starting area, fought some enemies, and solved a couple of puzzles in the Great Deku Tree, the game’s first dungeon. All of that worked basically the same as it did in 1998, as far as I could tell.
There are some notable differences, of course. Visually, the new Ocarina looks much more like a modern video game, with more realistic material textures and water. Characters have some of that on them, too, but for the most part, they look relatively faithful to how they looked in the original. Link’s outfit has some more texture on it, which is kind of strange, but NPCs look about how I expected them to look.
I don’t hate the way it looks, but some people will. That’s fine!
The developers also made some small but meaningful gameplay changes. There’s now a jump button, as opposed to Link automatically jumping when you approach a ledge in the original. That approach worked great in 1998, but I get why they changed it; it was too easy to accidentally jump when you didn’t want to, and the Switch 2 controller’s layout is more conducive to having a jump button than the N64 controller’s was.
You can also sprint, which negates the need to somersault everywhere. I’m going to miss that, personally, but again, I get it. This version of the game is for people who got into the series with more recent entries that had sprint buttons. As a fun sidenote, when you play the titular ocarina in the game, you can now hum notes into the built-in microphone instead of pressing buttons. There’s also a playable ocarina accessory coming separately that works with the game. That’s very, very silly.
Oh yeah, cutscenes have full voice acting now. It’s TBD on whether or not that’s a good thing.
We know the release date for Ocarina of Time now
Oh yeah, there’s also the matter of when the game actually comes out. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo Switch 2 launches on Nov. 5, just a couple of weeks before Grand Theft Auto VI. That’d be a bold gambit for any company other than Nintendo, but I have a feeling Ocarina will do just fine.
There’s a special Switch 2 console for the game
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On Oct. 29, Nintendo is also releasing a new Switch 2 console and Pro Controller, both themed after the game. They have neat Triforce designs all over them. Unfortunately, now that the Switch 2 got a recent price hike, you’ll have to pay $500 for the console.
