The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is largely a very reverent remake, with new quality-of-life features and small tweaks. That goes for the story as well, which largely maintains the original and slightly expands or clarifies some sections. But it also appears to pay homage to a classic Zelda manga.
The manga is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time by Akira Himekawa, which itself was a retelling of the Nintendo 64 game. It was released in Japan in 2000 and first released in America in 2008, followed by an expanded Legendary Edition in 2016. This version of the story isn’t considered canon, as it took liberties here and there, but a couple of those have now been incorporated into the remake’s story.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 2026 Ending Spoilers Follow
Following the climactic battle against Ganondorf, his evil tower itself falls apart, with Link and Zelda escaping to safety. During this escape sequence in the remake, Link takes out his trusty hookshot to cross a gap, and does the undeniably cool hero maneuver of grabbing Zelda to pull her across with him. If you saw that and felt it was vaguely familiar, it’s probably because you saw it in Himekawa’s art, when Link pulls a similar move with Malon.
Subsequent panels make the parallels even more overt. When Ganondorf emerges as Ganon, he smacks the Master Sword right off of Link, forcing you to temporarily use another weapon to damage him. In the original Ocarina of Time game, you eventually stun him long enough to run over and retrieve the Master Sword, and get a little pep talk from Zelda. The manga made this story beat more dramatic, and Zelda more proactive, by throwing the Master Sword to Link. This appears to have been adapted directly for the Ocarina remake, right down to some of the shot composition.
These are fairly minor changes on the whole, but it’s a neat nod to a classic manga, and it makes the whole scene more stirring as well.
In our interview with producers Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Aonuma showed a marked willingness to reexamine elements of the original Ocarina. He said that developers who raised “that’s how it was in the original” as their reasoning would prompt him to press deeper on their reasoning.
That approach produced a game receiving raves across the board, including in our Ocarina of Time remake review, which called it the definitive way to play this classic. Ocarina of Time is currently the top-rated game of 2026 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic.
