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«Ocarina of Time» on the Switch 2: seven years in an instant
It’s such a joy to play «The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time» on the Nintendo Switch 2. I’d been waiting for this game even more eagerly than for «GTA 6». The remake of the 1998 Nintendo 64 classic has been out since November 5, a fitting release for the 40th anniversary of the Zelda series. The plot grips me too, which is no surprise for an author of dark stories: it’s about a child who loses seven years and, with them, his childhood.
Single · Anna-Mariia Kostiuk
Choose your streaming service and listen to the song right here on this page.
Tap ▶ once in the official player that appears. You stay on this page the whole time.
Bite-sized Hyrule
I play in handheld mode, in short sessions while I rest. I don’t even turn on the TV for it, because there’s no time for that. Still, I can really unwind. The picture is gorgeous and vivid, and it’s easy for me to lose myself in this world.
Two new features are a particularly good fit for breaks like these. “Threads of Time” sums up what has happened so far and shows your current objectives, so when you pick the game back up, you don’t have to puzzle over where to go next. There’s also a new dash ability that gets you across long distances on foot more quickly.
What «Ocarina of Time» is about
The cutscenes in the Switch 2 version are fully voiced, and there’s new dialogue. The story itself, though, is the same as it was in 1998. It starts out darker than the lush colors would suggest: in Kokiri Forest, the Great Deku Tree lies dying and sends a boy named Link out into the world. Princess Zelda, meanwhile, has a dream in which the kingdom falls.
Three Spiritual Stones eventually lead Link to the Master Sword, and when he draws it, seven years pass in a single instant. He wakes up as a young man, and Zelda’s dream has come true: darkness has fallen over Hyrule. Now he has to awaken the Sages and face Ganondorf.
What makes it so dark
Link grows up among the Kokiri, who stay children forever, yet he of all people becomes an adult overnight and is expected to save a land whose decline he slept through. No one asked him.
As the player, you skip those seven years along with Link: one moment you’re controlling a child, the next a grown man. You know no more about what happened in between than he does.
The ocarina and my song
Music matters in this game, and the soundtrack has been refreshed for the new version. The ocarina’s notes are mapped to the buttons, but you can also hum the melodies into the Switch 2’s built-in microphone. My single «Ocarina, Carry Him Home», which came out on November 6 and runs 4:12, addresses the little instrument in its very title.
It’s sung in English, and “Ocarina, carry him home” is a plea that the chorus keeps coming back to. My lyrics don’t mention a single name from the game, but they still follow the story of «Ocarina of Time» all the way to the end. One line reads: “He saved the world, but lost his own.”
The cover shows me in princess cosplay with a blue ocarina. You can listen to the song in the player further up, via YouTube Music or Apple Music, and the full lyrics are on their own page.
This post is unpaid and was not commissioned.