The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

If you or your kids have never played this masterpiece, Nintendo has you covered with this brilliant updating for the 3DS.

Published: 11/22/2011

by Allen Rausch

by Nintendo for 3DS, $39, ages 10 and up

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time first came out for the Nintendo GameCube in 1998, and has been gold standard for action/adventure games ever since. If you or your kids have never played this masterpiece, Nintendo has you covered with this brilliant updating for the 3DS.

As in all Zelda games, you play Link, a young boy on an adventure to save the land of Hyrule from a terrible enemy. The twist in this version is the Ocarina of Time, a magic flute that lets you time travel back and forth seven years. That sets up all kinds of fun time-related puzzles. (You might have to plant a vine in the past to climb up to a window in the future, for example.) The story is as fresh and fun today as it ever was.

The biggest irony of the passage of time is that the game actually plays better on the 3DS than it did on the original GameCube. The controls are tighter and the addition of motion controls makes the bow-and-arrow much easier to use. The graphics have been spruced up (though the 3D doesn’t really add much to them), and the addition of a built-in hint system makes this the perfect game to take on the road for a long trip. If you own a 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is “must have.”

Allen also recommends …

• Squids, by The Game Bakers for iPad, $1.99, ages 6 and up

• Just Dance 3, by UbiSoft for 360, PS3 and Wii, $39.99, rated E10+

• Just Dance Kids 1, by UbiSoft for 360, PS3 and Wii, $39.99, rated E

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