By The Babylon Bee | Created at 2026-06-17 12:55:21 | Updated at 2026-06-17 15:43:04
2 hours ago
When I first booted up The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I thought I was gonna be in for a magical experience. The opening title card is fantastical and mysterious, and the music is pretty good. I couldn't find an option to turn the graphics to 4K resolution, but I set that aside and got started.
At first, I enjoyed a little bit of running around the forest village thing you start in for a few minutes. But then the cold, hard reality of how badly the game has aged set in. I started looking for the button to do a funny emote but couldn't find it. How am I supposed to enjoy this game if I can't make Zelda hit the griddy? I looked for options to change my character's skin and play as Thanos or Spider-Man or even the princess, Link. I walked around looking for loot boxes to open for a low price to give me an edge in the gameplay.
But after a quick Google search, I was shocked to learn the game doesn't have a single one of these features.
The game also doesn't have any social or online features whatsoever. Achievements? None. Streaming options? Zero. An Ubisoft, EA, or Epic Games sign-in screen? Not that I could find. You can even play the game offline! Ridiculous. How can I feel confident that someone is tracking my game stats? I can't!
The closest Link gets to doing an emote is to stretch once in a while.
Other problems not necessarily stemming from the game's age plague its design too: dungeons don't have any yellow paint telling me where to go. I got lost in the Deku Tree for hours. Do I need to go up? Down? Topwise? The level design feels like a riddle with no answer.
If you don't believe me when I say how many glaring absences there are here, I actually took detailed notes and listed everything I feel like the game is missing:
Emotes
Skins
DLC
Online play
Constant updates
Loot boxes
An easy mode for game journalists
Ray tracing
New Game + modes
POC/LGBTQ+ representation
A world map that shows you where every secret is
Dual stick controls
A dating simulator (why can't I romance Mido?)
Skill Trees
An expansive Morality System that lets you punch any character in the middle of a conversation
Holiday events
A Skulltulla pet that you can send into tiny vents
And worst of all, this is a complete and finished product. OoT is not built as a live-service game, which means that what you see is what you get... forever. The developers can't add in more Gorons later or implement new narrative reasons for the world to change.
Need I go on? Now, I didn't get out of the forest area (again, due to the game not having an easy mode for game journalists), but I watched my favorite streamer play the rest of the game while making funny faces, so I know these features aren't anywhere to be found.
If you like Ocarina of Time, you're definitely looking at it through a distorted lens of nostalgia. There's nothing here to recommend. Why not try something new, modern, and therefore better, such as Fortnite? At least there, I can play as LeBron James.
After a slight mixup, Steve, Timpani, and Britunni end up at the Alamo instead of the Alamo Car Rental. Protestors block their way out and Timpani is going into labor!
