As a huge fan of OoT, having played it since release and even been part of reverse engineering efforts early on for file format discovery and such on the original N64 rom (HylianToolbox was a mod tool that was brand new back then), I have been pretty disappointed with the remake.
There are certainly elements I like, such as improved graphics quality on par with other realistic looking AAA games from about 10 years ago, but I am finding all of Nintendo’s changes pointless and frustrating.
An example is in the Deku Tree. The 23 is number 1 Deku Scrubs. In the original, they were spaced out, and it was pretty intuitive to the player that the order is middle, right, left. Then the final Deku Scrub would tell you about Queen Gohma, ending with “Sorry Queenie.”
In the remake, the three scrubs are way closer together, and they have spotlights on them that flash in order from left to right. When defeated, the final Deku Scrub tells you something about “Dark Gohma” and says “Sorry Dark One,” or something like that, and then a new dialogue line is added in small letters: “But not really though.” Why? The original encounter was already fine, what on earth is the point of this change? It completely changes the context of the encounter.
There are hand-holding elements literally every inch if the screen. Navi is worse, and they added more places for Kaepora to appear. This, combined with the earlier mentioned change to the Deku Scrubs encounter, it makes me feel like Nintendo is afraid of letting the player explore. Which is baffling considering OoT already was piss easy.
Also, there are loading screens, which the original game did not have, and Aonuma really wanted to minimize during the gameplay reveal. They are pretty disruptive to the pacing of playing the game. Especially compared to the original, that was so good at scene transitions that most players dont even notice the original game changes levels in the tunnl between Mido in Kokiri Forest and the Great Deku tree in the original game, even during the cutscene that Navi flies through that tunnel. Some people may know it because emulators early on struggled at that part and have a stutter when that happens, but on original hardware at 20 fps it was not noticeable.
I’ve been watching ZFG play the remake. They’ve got an insane amount of knowledge of the game from decades of 100% speedruns, and keep pointing out like “oh hey, this pot used to contain a fairy” which is really interesting. Highly recommend watching that playthrough.
So far the main criticisms I agree with are:
Rupees are artificially scarce. Most farming spots are gone, and most 50 and 20 rupees are replaced with 5’s. You’re very poor in the remake. Plus prices are increased as well for some reason. Bugs no longer sell for much either. No drawbridge chains rupees. The castle pot room contains only 1’s. Etc. General economy problems
A lot of little secrets are either completely removed, or extremely obvious. Like the lava waterfall in dodongo cavern, grottos, shooting the gallery sign, etc. Everything is highlighted and shown to the player so you cannot possibly miss it (yellow paint)
Lots of fun movement tech and combat options were removed or made clunky. Rolling has no invincibility frames and is slow, making it pointless. Spin attack is much slower and short range. Jump attack shorter range. Back walk and side hop are now slower than walking
You have to hold A to sprint, which hurts your thumb. There is no toggle sprint.
A lot of sequence breaks were patched. E.g. you cannot backflip to get the heart piece early above dodongo cavern. Hookshot is severely nerfed, you can only hook specific targets and climbable surfaces, not wooden textures. You basically have to do everything the intentional way; they really went out of their way to patch every single possible sequence break, even the very minor ones like for every heart piece and golden skulltula. Though you can still do dungeons in any order.
Horse controls are annoying breath of the wild controls.
You can only have one item “ready” at any time. They use the horrible recent Zelda game menu where every item is in one long list to select it. Luckily there’s not THAT many items to scroll through.
Of course there’s many good points as well. Graphics, voice acting, quality of life improvements, bonus lore, etc, make it a genuinely good remake. But it also feels like it lost a bit of it’s soul in the upgrade.
That’s an interesting review to read, considering you’re someone who has clearly been heavily involved with the OOT game and community for a long time.
I’m personally someone who played the game as a child and loved it, but haven’t played it in 20 years - and I expect that puts me squarely in the target demographic Nintendo were eyeing up for this remake.
From my perspective, it worked. The modern graphics feel as beautiful as what I probably imagined the original game looked like as a child - through the rose-tinted fog of old memories - and the vibes are so on point.
Everything about the game I do remember seems to fit, and all the details like the dialog changes you aren’t at all fond of I wouldn’t know - because for me that’s long forgotten.
It’s seeming so far as if someone could follow an N64 walkthrough and it would be 95% correct, and so from my inexpert perspective it feels like Nintendo were incredibly restrained in their treatment, and changed little.
Very different thoughts from me, coming from my very different position :)
OoT is tied for my favourite Zelda, although I can’t claim to be involved in reverse engineering. Didn’t share any of your criticisms so far and loving the remake; it’s brilliant.
As a huge fan of OoT, having played it since release and even been part of reverse engineering efforts early on for file format discovery and such on the original N64 rom (HylianToolbox was a mod tool that was brand new back then), I have been pretty disappointed with the remake.
There are certainly elements I like, such as improved graphics quality on par with other realistic looking AAA games from about 10 years ago, but I am finding all of Nintendo’s changes pointless and frustrating.
An example is in the Deku Tree. The 23 is number 1 Deku Scrubs. In the original, they were spaced out, and it was pretty intuitive to the player that the order is middle, right, left. Then the final Deku Scrub would tell you about Queen Gohma, ending with “Sorry Queenie.”
In the remake, the three scrubs are way closer together, and they have spotlights on them that flash in order from left to right. When defeated, the final Deku Scrub tells you something about “Dark Gohma” and says “Sorry Dark One,” or something like that, and then a new dialogue line is added in small letters: “But not really though.” Why? The original encounter was already fine, what on earth is the point of this change? It completely changes the context of the encounter.
There are hand-holding elements literally every inch if the screen. Navi is worse, and they added more places for Kaepora to appear. This, combined with the earlier mentioned change to the Deku Scrubs encounter, it makes me feel like Nintendo is afraid of letting the player explore. Which is baffling considering OoT already was piss easy.
Also, there are loading screens, which the original game did not have, and Aonuma really wanted to minimize during the gameplay reveal. They are pretty disruptive to the pacing of playing the game. Especially compared to the original, that was so good at scene transitions that most players dont even notice the original game changes levels in the tunnl between Mido in Kokiri Forest and the Great Deku tree in the original game, even during the cutscene that Navi flies through that tunnel. Some people may know it because emulators early on struggled at that part and have a stutter when that happens, but on original hardware at 20 fps it was not noticeable.
I’ve been watching ZFG play the remake. They’ve got an insane amount of knowledge of the game from decades of 100% speedruns, and keep pointing out like “oh hey, this pot used to contain a fairy” which is really interesting. Highly recommend watching that playthrough.
So far the main criticisms I agree with are:
Of course there’s many good points as well. Graphics, voice acting, quality of life improvements, bonus lore, etc, make it a genuinely good remake. But it also feels like it lost a bit of it’s soul in the upgrade.
That’s an interesting review to read, considering you’re someone who has clearly been heavily involved with the OOT game and community for a long time.
I’m personally someone who played the game as a child and loved it, but haven’t played it in 20 years - and I expect that puts me squarely in the target demographic Nintendo were eyeing up for this remake.
From my perspective, it worked. The modern graphics feel as beautiful as what I probably imagined the original game looked like as a child - through the rose-tinted fog of old memories - and the vibes are so on point.
Everything about the game I do remember seems to fit, and all the details like the dialog changes you aren’t at all fond of I wouldn’t know - because for me that’s long forgotten.
It’s seeming so far as if someone could follow an N64 walkthrough and it would be 95% correct, and so from my inexpert perspective it feels like Nintendo were incredibly restrained in their treatment, and changed little.
Very different thoughts from me, coming from my very different position :)
OoT is tied for my favourite Zelda, although I can’t claim to be involved in reverse engineering. Didn’t share any of your criticisms so far and loving the remake; it’s brilliant.