Zelda: Ocarina of Time

In attempting to write this review of the new Legend of Zelda game, Ocarina of Time, I came to a somewhat stunning realization: video games haven't really been "hip" since the days of Pac-Man. Nowadays, systems such as the Sony PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 sell quite well, but only by peddling their wares to an audience of young kids and male gaming geeks. It's a shame that video gaming has acquired this "loser" stigma, because Ocarina of Time is the kind of video game that deserves as wide an audience as possible, and it may never get that audience.

Back in the days of the first 8-bit Nintendo system, there were two lynchpin games around which the company built their product line: Super Mario Bros. and the original Legend of Zelda. Both were hugely successful in launching the system with a bang, and both have spawned new incarnations with each video game system that the Nintendo company has developed. There are Zelda games for the Super Nintendo and the Game Boy systems as well as the new Nintendo 64 version, but this Zelda easily tops them all. With amazing graphics, a mythic quest and a streamlined user interface, it's the best excuse yet for disregarding the "loser" stigma surrounding video games today and dropping a cool $200 bucks on a Nintendo 64 and a Zelda game cartridge.

The storyline of Ocarina parallels the storyline of the first Zelda game in some ways while at the same time expanding upon the plot and characters. You're Link, the usual hero of the Zelda games, and as the game opens you're one of the Kokiri children, living in the Kokiri forest under the loving care of the Great Deku Tree. (Yeah, they're jibberish names. That's fantasy for ya.) He suffers a recurring nightmare about a dark, evil man riding with a beautiful kidnapped woman out of a castle, but isn't sure what the nightmares are about. Then the Deku Tree calls Link to his presence (a great honor) and reveals that the entire land of Hyrule is in grave danger! It's up to Link to protect the Triforce and its awesome earth-shattering power from the evil clutches of Ganondorf.

There's a lot more detail and intricacy to the plot than that vague summary, but I don't want to ruin it. Half the fun of Ocarina lies in sitting back as you complete each small part of your quest and watching the plot unfold. In that sense, the cinema sequences--where you watch short film-like clips of the characters that reveal the major points in the ongoing plot of the game--are perhaps the best part of Ocarina. The nuance and subtlety in these sequences rise far beyond the quality you'd expect from your usual video game. So far (it's a big game, and will probably take over one hundred hours to complete) the best sequences have revealed the creation myths of the land of Hyrule, with three goddesses descending upon the land and bestowing it with life and wisdom. The graphics are breathtaking, and the storytelling suggests a massive mythos to the Zelda universe not unlike those which govern other classic fantasy and adventure universes, such as the Star Wars galaxy or Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's light-years beyond the "here's a gun, shoot the bad guys" stories behind today's most popular video games. The storytelling is as rich as a good fantasy film or novel.

It's the massiveness of the story that makes Ocarina such an engaging adventure to follow. As usual, there's the fate of an entire world at stake. But it's more than that--it's about real characters, brought to life through *gasp!* a compelling story and dialogue. Just like a great movie, the genius in the new Zelda game can be traced back to some inspired writing, surfacing both in the compelling plot and characters and in the hair-pulling difficulty of some of the game's puzzles. There's always hope that the quality of entertainment will rise with the improvements in the technology that brings it into our lives. In the case of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, that's absolutely the case. It's not just for video game geeks--it's for anyone who loves intriguing puzzles, grand adventure, and a timeless story.