Ocarina of Time Mech
Written by: Sage Raziel

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was one of the greatest games of it's time, and a break through for the video game field world wide. Initially titled "Zelda 64" (the title was never official and was mainly used by the development team to refer to their untitled game) it features a first person view, but was later changed once the concept of having a Young Link and an Adult Link was brought up. Several months into the games' design the title The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was introduced, and eventually became the actual name of the game. Originally, Ocarina of Time was being created to launch a new add-on to the Nintendo64 called Nintendo64DD. The Nintendo64DD was a Disc Drive that would hook to the Nintendo64 to allow discs to be played rather than cartridges. The extreme price it took to create cartridges was forcing many companies to switch to discs at the time, this was kind of a revolution toward the modern gaming of today. Though The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was meant to break the ice into this new gaming world, its time never came. At the last minuet the team decided to release it on a cartridge. Nintendo ended up creating a special cartridge just for that game too, it was a 32-megabyte memory expansion. This was the largest cartridge for the Nintendo64 console that Nintendo ever produced!

The game brought many revolutionary aspects to the gaming world, and satisfied the taste of fans globally. It was one of the first games to introduce Z-Targeting. Not to mention it was the first 3D Zelda video game, and had a Free Roaming overworld environment. Zelda toppled sales and killed it's previously released rival Super Mario64. Both of the games were being created around the same time, and were developed by the same guy, so many ideas from Zelda were switched over to Super Mario64, and many elements from Super Mario64 were switched over to Zelda. In the end both games were a huge success for Nintendo.

Ocarina of Time was first shown as a technical demo at Nintendo's Space World Trade Show in December 1995. Though many changes had been made by the time it was released in Japan on November 21, 1998. It was released in North America just a few days later on November 23, 1998. Both the North American and Japanese versions were mainly the same with a few minor changes. Then on December 11, 1998 The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was released in Europe. This version differed greatly from the North American and the Japanese versions most notably by the visual effects and over all graphics. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time became a "must own" game for the Nintendo64, and was the top selling game of 1998 in all three areas it was released. That was really saying something for Europe since the game was only around for the last few months of 1998!

A special Collector's Edition was also released by Nintendo, but was only received if the game was pre-ordered. Amazingly today the original grey cartridge version of the game is worth a great deal more than the Collector's Edition gold cartridge. After it was released the unchanged version of the game existed only in North America and Japan, with Europe getting the upgraded version. Then Nintendo saw a major problem with their game that was upsetting fans. So they decided just a few months after the release in Europe to re-edit the game and release the edited version with the same graphics Europe had received to North America, Japan, and yet again Europe. Nintendo ordered all unsold game cartridges to be sent back and replaced with the new more politically correct version of the game. Among the things changed were: Ganondorf's blood from red to green. Muslim chants in the background music of the Fire Temple were removed. The muslin moon and star symbol on the mirror shield were removed, and then replaced with a more generic versions. They also took Muslim references off of all the blocks, signs, and objects around the game.

Among the most popular items in the game, the music brought The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time a lot of attention. During the 39 days the game was available in 1998 it sold over 2.5 million copies. Selling a total of 7.6 million copies since then, excluding re-releases on the Nintendo GameCube and the Virtual Console on the Nintendo Wii. Over all the game was quickly becoming one of the most popular games of all time. It's unique game play, 3D graphics, Z-Targeting, and overworld traveling paved the way for later games. Introducing many elements that games still use today, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time still sits in the #1 space on G4's list of Best Games of all Time.