The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Review

Nobody knew how a sword fight should work in 3D until Z-targeting answered the question so completely that the industry simply adopted it. Lock on, circle, strike: that one mechanic, plus a context-sensitive action button that reads your intent, let Ocarina of Time translate every idea from the 2D Zeldas into space without losing an ounce of precision. The dungeons remain the high-water mark of the form, the Forest Temple's twisted corridors and the Water Temple's rising levels demanding you hold a whole architecture in your head.

Layer on the child-and-adult time split, ocarina songs that double as world verbs, and a Hyrule Field that made scale itself feel new, and you have a game whose ambition on 1998 hardware borders on absurd. The story is simple mythic stuff told with real melancholy. Every category here is graded against what came after, and almost nothing after clears the bar.