Ocarina of Time What Flaws Exist in Ocarina of Time?

[Ventus]

We all or most of us know about the N64 game Zelda:Ocarina of Time and it's splendor. Some of us are called OoT Fanboys because we have excessive love for the game. Admittedly, I am of that group, as I truthfully can't find any flaws in the game whatsoever. I heard about the numerous glitches, but things like the Infinite Sword Glitch and Swordless Link just make the game that much more fun!
A flaw is an opinion in almost every situation, such as story elements being weak (sometimes loose ends can be a good point for a book/game), but there are times that a flaw will be so obvious and detrimental to an experience that it becomes fact.
Now, I know that there has to be some flaws in the game, but I'm having trouble finding any such thing. I'd appreciate any comments that people have.

 

[PhantomTriforce]

Some of us are called OoT Fanboys

Hmm...who does this remind me of?

Anyways, I find very few to no flaws with the game either. A lot of people's complaints (and some of mine to, as a matter of fact) come from the graphical restrictions on the game. My biggest hatred in this part would be the magical arrows. They deplete your magic even before you fire the arrows. How much more annoying can that get? Also, the arrows don't exactly shoot in a straight line, but then again, I can't complain if this is tied with the graphical limitations.

I also disliked the way the Inside the Deku Tree dungeon was constructed. It was made like a tutorial, simple dungeon. I would have preferred a full, normal dungeon (perhaps the length of the other Child Dungeons). But like you said, this "flaw" is very much opinion based.

I also thought that despite the game being called Ocarina of Time, I felt like the Ocarina was underused. I rarely, if ever, used the transportation songs other than the Prelude of Light. And the only other song I can recall being played on a regular basis was Zelda's Lullaby. The other normal songs were used very few times throughout the game

 

[Seth]

The only real flaw in the game in my opinion is that it is way to easy to get rupees. WAY to easy and with nothing really to buy. Of course that is true in several Zelda games. But other than that I can really think of no flaws in this game, its as close to perfection as a game has ever gotten in my opinion.
Even the glitches aren't annoying and don't show up unless you purposely exploit them, and they can be fun.

Also I think the Deku Tree was treated as a tutorial as it was the first 3D dungeon in Zelda, 3D being a fairly new thing.

 

[Djinn]

Hmm, this might be a bold move since there are many that consider the game flawless.

The fixed camera angles when you walked into a town or shop always drove me crazy. The seemed like they were meant to show off someone's background work more than to create an environment for the player. In fact they sometimes made the game seem much less like a free roaming 3D game, especially in Castletown. Small spaces like shops can be dealt with since you are only there a minute and only for one purpose, but roaming Castletown was annoying. It was as if the developers got a little lazy and just placed one image instead of bothering to make another environment.

Other than that I always found the controls to be a bit slow, which caused a couple problems in places. This was fixed by WW but not on the Gcube rerelease of OoT. But many times Link would act almost a half second after I pressed the button in many places. This also made aiming the bow a little annoying as it moved too slowly and the controls were too laggy. Sometimes in a situation when I needed something shot quickly the controls worked against me.

 

[germ1137]

One flaw that made the Water Temple easier is the way when you sometimes go underwater you can see through the walls.

 

[JuicieJ]

The only flaws that are there are due to it being the first attempt at 3D Zelda. The only flaws would be gameplay, though. But it's forgivable due to it being the first 3D Zelda game. However, I believe Ocarina of Time 3D will show that it's the best of the Zelda series, as it will "fix" any of the "flaws" the game has.

 

[athenian200]

1. Kaepora Gaebora switches "Yes" and "No" around, so that you can't easily skip past his dialogue if you don't want to read it.

2. Epona is very finicky. She often stops and "neighs," waving her hoofs at nothing except a gradual incline, so it can be very hard to aim at a Big Poe, because you automatically stop using your bow as soon as Epona stops and "neighs." If it would even let you continue aiming after the horse hit something and stopped, that would be easier.

3. It was somewhat inconvenient to have to switch out the Hover Boots and Iron Boots on the Equipment subscreen.

4. There was NO indication that the stained-glass windows in the Ganondorf battle

Spoiler

could be grappled with the Hookshot

. They weren't made of wood, and there were no targets on them.

That's how good the game was... I had to REALLY nitpick. Hehe.

 

[JuicieJ]

1. Kaepora Gaebora switches "Yes" and "No" around, so that you can't easily skip past his dialogue if you don't want to read it.

2. Epona is very finicky. She often stops and "neighs," waving her hoofs at nothing except a gradual incline, so it can be very hard to aim at a Big Poe, because you automatically stop using your bow as soon as Epona stops and "neighs." If it would even let you continue aiming after the horse hit something and stopped, that would be easier.

3. It was somewhat inconvenient to have to switch out the Hover Boots and Iron Boots on the Equipment subscreen.

4. There was NO indication that the stained-glass windows in the Ganondorf battle

Spoiler

could be grappled with the Hookshot

. They weren't made of wood, and there were no targets on them.

That's how good the game was... I had to REALLY nitpick. Hehe.

All of these things are minor and don't harm the rating. (And there didn't need to be an indication for the stained-glass windows. You didn't have to do that.)

 

[MartDiamond]

The switching between boots and items got annoying, major flaw and one of the things that keeps me from playing the game more often.

 

[Ventus]

1. Kaepora Gaebora switches "Yes" and "No" around, so that you can't easily skip past his dialogue if you don't want to read it.

4. There was NO indication that the stained-glass windows in the Ganondorf battle

Spoiler

could be grappled with the Hookshot

. They weren't made of wood, and there were no targets on them.

That's how good the game was... I had to REALLY nitpick. Hehe.

I agree that the Owl of Doom had some annoying (often repeated 3x in a row) dialogue, but it was a pretty small flaw and easy to pass by if you have patience. x)

I did notice that Epona would stop because of an incline, and that DID raise some questions to me, but I never found it to be a nuisance. It's a valid question, but I don't consider it a real flaw simply because in real life, a horse WILL buckle up at an incline. Not every single time, but know that it's completely natural because the horse may not know what's up ahead.

I don't think that switching between your tunics or items or whatever was annoying, because doing so was a marvel for the game's time period. I still don't like the idea of OoT3D having the quick selection from the touch screen, although I'll live with the idea.


You can do WHAT? I did NOT know about that whatsoever, I'll need to try that out as soon as possible...
----

Also, am I the only one who believes that the graphics of OoT are STILL amazing even in this day of HD 3D gaming? The water looks convincing even on a system like the N64, and it beats out the Xbox360 and PS3, maybe even the Wii! :O

Djinn, I do agree that the controls were a little laggy. Well, actually for me they were too sensitive. I still have trouble aiming the bow to shoot one of those eye targets, because barely tapping the control stick upwards will make it fling across the screen, haha. On the topic of the still image areas, they really had no choice but to superimpose Link onto a pre rendered background. An N64 cartridge can only hold so much data. Games like Resident Evil 1-3 did it, and I believe those were on the PS1 where graphics were definitely better than N64 and more space was available.

 

[ottobot]

1. Kaepora Gaebora switches "Yes" and "No" around, so that you can't easily skip past his dialogue if you don't want to read it.

2. Epona is very finicky. She often stops and "neighs," waving her hoofs at nothing except a gradual incline, so it can be very hard to aim at a Big Poe, because you automatically stop using your bow as soon as Epona stops and "neighs." If it would even let you continue aiming after the horse hit something and stopped, that would be easier.

3. It was somewhat inconvenient to have to switch out the Hover Boots and Iron Boots on the Equipment subscreen.

4. There was NO indication that the stained-glass windows in the Ganondorf battle

Spoiler

could be grappled with the Hookshot

. They weren't made of wood, and there were no targets on them.

I agree with all this, but there are a couple extra things, namely how hard and time consuming it is to cross hyrule field as a child and the fixed camera angles Djinn mentioned. It's part of the reason I chose to get MM instead of OoT, along MM's time feature, but that's kind of off topic.

 

[Ventus]

You could always sidehop across the Field or backwalk. Those cut the time sooo much, it's insane! 8D
But I agree with that point as well, it was a bit hard to get to Kakariko AAAAALLL the way from Kokiri Forest without a Bomb Bag or warp songs.

 

[Ganondork]

Also, am I the only one who believes that the graphics of OoT are STILL amazing even in this day of HD 3D gaming?

I still like the graphics. My dad always says "Oh my god, those graphics are horrible!" But then I watch him play the Godfather, and none of the

Spoiler

naked strippers

(Sorry, didn't want to get in trouble cause a young kid read that and I didn't have a warning up there first)
look realistic. I suppose it matters on how simplistic you are towards games. Like I'm sick and tired of motion gaming. It's boring now. And I pretty much use my Wii only for old Gamecube games and VC and WiiWare, oh and internet when I get grounded and lose computer. Everything in my VC are 2000 and earlier games. My oldest game on there must be Kirby 64. (a 2-day game was not worth 1000 Wii points.)

 

[Kybyrian]

ther than that I always found the controls to be a bit slow, which caused a couple problems in places. This was fixed by WW but not on the Gcube rerelease of OoT. But many times Link would act almost a half second after I pressed the button in many places. This also made aiming the bow a little annoying as it moved too slowly and the controls were too laggy. Sometimes in a situation when I needed something shot quickly the controls worked against me.

Never had this problem... but I want to comment on your fixed camera angle point. I think that Castle Town was pretty annoying, yes, but it wasn't something that really made me dislike the game any more. I never had a problem with any town except for Castle Town. I myself didn't spend much time there, so I guess it really just doesn't matter.

1. Kaepora Gaebora switches "Yes" and "No" around, so that you can't easily skip past his dialogue if you don't want to read it.

Annoying yes... a flaw that makes the game considerably less enjoyable, no.

2. Epona is very finicky. She often stops and "neighs," waving her hoofs at nothing except a gradual incline, so it can be very hard to aim at a Big Poe, because you automatically stop using your bow as soon as Epona stops and "neighs." If it would even let you continue aiming after the horse hit something and stopped, that would be easier.

Never had this problem... always stayed near the paths.

3. It was somewhat inconvenient to have to switch out the Hover Boots and Iron Boots on the Equipment subscreen.

Small little factor that may be annoying, but isn't going to stick in people's minds.

As for number 4, I didn't even know that until this day!

That's how good the game was... I had to REALLY nitpick. Hehe.

Exactly! That's what I always tell people. Ocarina of Time wasn't absolutely fantastic because its qualities were overwhelming in quality, but because of the diminutive amount of errors. If you want to find any errors in the game, you have to really look deep at stuff that most people don't even notice. This is what truly made Ocarina of Time fantastic. If I look at any other game, I can find something right away that instantly makes me think less of it. That's the problem with other games... they have big errors. Ocarina of Time wasn't like this, and that's why it typically appeals to a majority of the audience. The only way most people dislike Ocarina of Time is if they just don't like it... for no particular reason.

 

[Ganondork]

Exactly! That's what I always tell people. Ocarina of Time wasn't absolutely fantastic because its qualities were overwhelming in quality, but because of the diminutive amount of errors. If you want to find any errors in the game, you have to really look deep at stuff that most people don't even notice. This is what truly made Ocarina of Time fantastic. If I look at any other game, I can find something right away that instantly makes me think less of it. That's the problem with other games... they have big errors. Ocarina of Time wasn't like this, and that's why it typically appeals to a majority of the audience. The only way most people dislike Ocarina of Time is if they just don't like it... for no particular reason.

They have reason. It's because Link doesn't go around in a Jeep in Iraq carrying a machine gun shooting terrorists. That's what every "cool" kid likes to play. I'm up there in what people call "popularity" and half the kids don't even know why 911 happened, or who Osama Bin Laden was. People nowadays just have the attention span of a squirrel. I'm hoping that first person shooters like those will go out of style once the war is over, and go back to Zelda. Then I can have good game conversations.