I will forever credit Ocarina of Time for really opening up my mind to different types of games and stories that I hadn't experienced yet as a kid. It completely changed my life as a gamer. This was my first time playing the 3DS version, probably my fifth time overall, and it was a really interesting experience. For much of the early game I kind of thought a lot about how the game held such little wonder for me at this point because of my intense familiarity with it, but by the end, I was right back to 1998, in awe of its accomplishments and building such a huge, varied world for the time. The game will always have some of my favorite dungeons, like the Spirit Temple, Forest Temple, and Water Temple, and the quality of life upgrades to item management, while difficult to master at first, were very appreciated by the end. It is still true that there is not a lot of time spent for me wondering what to do, but the target of wonder has changed from exploring the world itself and getting lost in it, to appreciation for the building of that world and how well it all still works today.

Reviewed on Tuesday, September 5th, 2023, 1:01pm.