8 ms·

I think "as a kid" is the operative phrase here. Nothing will ever live up to that nostalgia. That's not to discount the criticisms or "feel" you get from the

I think "as a kid" is the operative phrase here. Nothing will ever live up to that nostalgia. That's not to discount the criticisms or "feel" you get from the game, but it's worth noting that nothing lives up to our childhood favorites.

wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Nostalgia is definitely the reason I love civilization II so much (I'd argue it's #2 behind civ IV in the series). It's a damned shame civ II is so hard to get properly running (dosbox, win3.1, etc, sound drivers, etc)
archagon 3y ago
I don’t think that’s true. I played Ocarina as an adult and loved it, but BotW left me feeling similarly cold. It’s just a different style of game. Meanwhile, Elden Ring drew me in like no other game in recent memory.
- skeaker 3y ago
  I've experienced the opposite, where I played OoT as an adult but thought it was only okay but got completely absorbed into BotW. OoT is too railroaded for my taste, especially the dungeons that often have one linear path. Towards the end of the game when you have to do several temples I thought of quitting. BotW on the other hand gives you plenty to do all at once and doesn't care how you do it. I enjoy devising my own approaches to things rather than finding the singular linear solutions to OoT's dungeons.
slothtrop 3y ago
I agree. It's a formative stage where everything is novel - even a new game that does everything right can't capture that in adulthood. You also have way more patience as a kid with nothing but time. I didn't mind trudging through jrpgs then, but I hate it now. I don't replay old games like this (the ones that have you solve and explore). It's effectively a security blanket, with no thrill - the opposite of the first experience. I find it bittersweet and it dulls feelings I associate with those games. You can never go back, is the thing.
jader201 3y ago
I don’t know. If we’re strictly speaking of nostalgia, I can still feel a very strong sense of nostalgia from things I’ve experienced as an adult, even experiences from just a few years ago — or even the previous year! This can apply to a trip we went on, or a TV series we watched, or music I listened to, or a video game I played (e.g. I really experience this when playing Factorio again after it’s been a while). So maybe YMMV, but I can still have things that (at least almost) live up to “feels” I had from childhood.
jrgoff 3y ago
Agreed. My niece loved Breath of the Wild and has been eagerly anticipating Tears of the Kingdom since it was announced.
eslaught 3y ago
I loved Star Wars as a kid. Then the prequels made me jaded that there could ever be anything as good as the originals. The sequels and other content did nothing to dissuade me from this. Then Andor showed up and it's like, holy cow, this is actually good. Sometimes when the follow-on content is bad... it's because the follow-on content is bad.
- deskamess 3y ago
  Ok... that was my path and since I was not interested I did not know of Andor. Will have to take a look at it.
  - shorsher 3y ago
    It really is brilliant. The screenwriter is Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Bourne Trilogy).
  - kabdib 3y ago
    Andor is the first SW content I have re-watched since Jedi. [spends a few minutes on a mental inventory] Well, okay: I watched all the SW eps with my son. (His words after seeing Ep1 were "Daddy, that wasn't a very good movie.") Still, I rest my case. Andor is the first content that I would actually miss if it went away.
- valianteffort 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - footlose_3815 3y ago
    This is the take I wanted to hear. BoTW was actually all hype, empty space, and busywork. Now they want to make ZeldaCraft of the Wild. I'm not interested. The height of BoTW was the 4 tiny animal fortresses. And even they felt kinda shallow.
  - jghn 3y ago
    I had plenty of fun running around BotW and just exploring the world. I didn't feel the need to be "rewarded" for doing so. I didn't care about the bosses or dungeons because I was, well, exploring. I didn't care about the story because I was, well, exploring. The mobs were really only there for me to find new and inventive ways to interact with the world.
em500 3y ago
Moreover, today's kids, including your own if you have them, like different things than you did. Most kids growing up with Breath of the Wild are not going to be impressed by Ocarina of Time. Most likely, you have pretty different preferences for book/music/movie preferences than your parents.
- mbreese 3y ago
  It’s funny… talking about the Tears of the Kingdom yesterday with my son, he kept bringing up Ocarina of Time as an example of a perfectly rated game. He’s never played it and yet, it’s stuck in his head. I played it when it came out, but I still had more of a fondness for the original Zelda which somewhat betrays my age. I think Ocarina felt a little too guided for me (or maybe it was the limits of the platform). My son never finished BOTW, but I did. But I have a feeling he’s going to try to play Ocarina of Time before the summer is through. (And yes, I’ve already put in some time in TOTK).
purpleflame1257 3y ago
I would disagree. As a kid I played OOT to death but never owned a copy of Majora's mask. I have just started playing it and I think it may even be better than OOT (though it is not really even a "Zelda" game.)
- rightbyte 3y ago
  I think if you play MM before OOT you would think MM is way better. In a way MM is genius because it feels so alive with all these characters reliving the same three days over and over. The time reset makes all those hard scripted events believable.
snarkypixel 3y ago
Ocarina of Time does a fantastic job going from the bright world of young Link to the more serious and darker world of adult Link. This adds a ton of depth to the game. And let's not forget the clever game mechanic of swapping between young and adult Link to solve puzzles.
kr99x 3y ago
There are indeed modern releases that live up to nostalgia for games of yore and they are... games that are incredibly similar to their predecessors. Game design has gone through a variety of eras and fashions and fads, and games "back then" (for whatever period you happen to be nostalgic for) were just built different. That doesn't necessarily mean better or worse, and maybe nostalgia is the reason people prefer games from the time period when their tastes were developing, but it's not just the games themselves. It's the way games operated. I guarantee you that if Nintendo released "A Zelda in the mold of OoT but with a new set of dungeons and items and such" people who love OoT would go nuts for it. Look at what happened with Sonic Mania. For some reason, though, publishers/developers are very wary of doing this. Nintendo refuses to make a new Zelda that just reapplies the winning formula. Sega refuses to make Sonic Mania 2 - honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised they made the first one! I blame the late 2000s mantra of "innovation" and its presence/absence that seemed to be all the rage in critic circles.
- filleduchaos 3y ago
  > There are indeed modern releases that live up to nostalgia for games of yore and they are... games that are incredibly similar to their predecessors. That just seems tautological to me. Of course things that are deliberately trying to tug on your nostalgia will "live up" to it.
Tainnor 3y ago
> I think "as a kid" is the operative phrase here. Nothing will ever live up to that nostalgia. Of course, you're entirely correct but other entries in the series, even Skyward Sword with all its flaws, has managed to capture some of that spirit. BOTW to me is just an entirely different game.
Fricken 3y ago
I thought I was too dried up and curmudgeonly to get immersed in a video game but BOTW dispelled that myth. Prior to BOTW Ocarina of Time was my greatest gaming experience.
rcpt 3y ago
I played OOT for the first time at the start of COVID after no gaming for 20 years. It's the best game. As a kid I liked Marathon and Mario but never played Zelda for some reason. OOT is just a perfect game.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  As a kid Zelda might be too hard. You need to be able to read. And as me, read a foreign language, English. I could not play it properly until I was like 12-13yo. How would you compare it to MM? I think MM is better.
  - rcpt 3y ago
    MM is better aesthetics but I enjoyed the storyline and adventure of OOT more.
deleted 3y ago
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wing-_-nuts 3y ago

Nostalgia is definitely the reason I love civilization II so much (I'd argue it's #2 behind civ IV in the series). It's a damned shame civ II is so hard to get properly running (dosbox, win3.1, etc, sound drivers, etc)

archagon 3y ago

I don’t think that’s true. I played Ocarina as an adult and loved it, but BotW left me feeling similarly cold. It’s just a different style of game. Meanwhile, Elden Ring drew me in like no other game in recent memory.

skeaker 3y ago
I've experienced the opposite, where I played OoT as an adult but thought it was only okay but got completely absorbed into BotW. OoT is too railroaded for my taste, especially the dungeons that often have one linear path. Towards the end of the game when you have to do several temples I thought of quitting. BotW on the other hand gives you plenty to do all at once and doesn't care how you do it. I enjoy devising my own approaches to things rather than finding the singular linear solutions to OoT's dungeons.

slothtrop 3y ago

I agree. It's a formative stage where everything is novel - even a new game that does everything right can't capture that in adulthood. You also have way more patience as a kid with nothing but time. I didn't mind trudging through jrpgs then, but I hate it now. I don't replay old games like this (the ones that have you solve and explore). It's effectively a security blanket, with no thrill - the opposite of the first experience. I find it bittersweet and it dulls feelings I associate with those games. You can never go back, is the thing.

jader201 3y ago

I don’t know. If we’re strictly speaking of nostalgia, I can still feel a very strong sense of nostalgia from things I’ve experienced as an adult, even experiences from just a few years ago — or even the previous year! This can apply to a trip we went on, or a TV series we watched, or music I listened to, or a video game I played (e.g. I really experience this when playing Factorio again after it’s been a while). So maybe YMMV, but I can still have things that (at least almost) live up to “feels” I had from childhood.

jrgoff 3y ago

Agreed. My niece loved Breath of the Wild and has been eagerly anticipating Tears of the Kingdom since it was announced.

eslaught 3y ago

I loved Star Wars as a kid. Then the prequels made me jaded that there could ever be anything as good as the originals. The sequels and other content did nothing to dissuade me from this. Then Andor showed up and it's like, holy cow, this is actually good. Sometimes when the follow-on content is bad... it's because the follow-on content is bad.

deskamess 3y ago
Ok... that was my path and since I was not interested I did not know of Andor. Will have to take a look at it.
- shorsher 3y ago
  It really is brilliant. The screenwriter is Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Bourne Trilogy).
- kabdib 3y ago
  Andor is the first SW content I have re-watched since Jedi. [spends a few minutes on a mental inventory] Well, okay: I watched all the SW eps with my son. (His words after seeing Ep1 were "Daddy, that wasn't a very good movie.") Still, I rest my case. Andor is the first content that I would actually miss if it went away.
valianteffort 3y ago
[flagged]
- footlose_3815 3y ago
  This is the take I wanted to hear. BoTW was actually all hype, empty space, and busywork. Now they want to make ZeldaCraft of the Wild. I'm not interested. The height of BoTW was the 4 tiny animal fortresses. And even they felt kinda shallow.
- jghn 3y ago
  I had plenty of fun running around BotW and just exploring the world. I didn't feel the need to be "rewarded" for doing so. I didn't care about the bosses or dungeons because I was, well, exploring. I didn't care about the story because I was, well, exploring. The mobs were really only there for me to find new and inventive ways to interact with the world.

em500 3y ago

Moreover, today's kids, including your own if you have them, like different things than you did. Most kids growing up with Breath of the Wild are not going to be impressed by Ocarina of Time. Most likely, you have pretty different preferences for book/music/movie preferences than your parents.

mbreese 3y ago
It’s funny… talking about the Tears of the Kingdom yesterday with my son, he kept bringing up Ocarina of Time as an example of a perfectly rated game. He’s never played it and yet, it’s stuck in his head. I played it when it came out, but I still had more of a fondness for the original Zelda which somewhat betrays my age. I think Ocarina felt a little too guided for me (or maybe it was the limits of the platform). My son never finished BOTW, but I did. But I have a feeling he’s going to try to play Ocarina of Time before the summer is through. (And yes, I’ve already put in some time in TOTK).

purpleflame1257 3y ago

I would disagree. As a kid I played OOT to death but never owned a copy of Majora's mask. I have just started playing it and I think it may even be better than OOT (though it is not really even a "Zelda" game.)

rightbyte 3y ago
I think if you play MM before OOT you would think MM is way better. In a way MM is genius because it feels so alive with all these characters reliving the same three days over and over. The time reset makes all those hard scripted events believable.

snarkypixel 3y ago

Ocarina of Time does a fantastic job going from the bright world of young Link to the more serious and darker world of adult Link. This adds a ton of depth to the game. And let's not forget the clever game mechanic of swapping between young and adult Link to solve puzzles.

kr99x 3y ago

There are indeed modern releases that live up to nostalgia for games of yore and they are... games that are incredibly similar to their predecessors. Game design has gone through a variety of eras and fashions and fads, and games "back then" (for whatever period you happen to be nostalgic for) were just built different. That doesn't necessarily mean better or worse, and maybe nostalgia is the reason people prefer games from the time period when their tastes were developing, but it's not just the games themselves. It's the way games operated. I guarantee you that if Nintendo released "A Zelda in the mold of OoT but with a new set of dungeons and items and such" people who love OoT would go nuts for it. Look at what happened with Sonic Mania. For some reason, though, publishers/developers are very wary of doing this. Nintendo refuses to make a new Zelda that just reapplies the winning formula. Sega refuses to make Sonic Mania 2 - honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised they made the first one! I blame the late 2000s mantra of "innovation" and its presence/absence that seemed to be all the rage in critic circles.

filleduchaos 3y ago
> There are indeed modern releases that live up to nostalgia for games of yore and they are... games that are incredibly similar to their predecessors. That just seems tautological to me. Of course things that are deliberately trying to tug on your nostalgia will "live up" to it.

Tainnor 3y ago

> I think "as a kid" is the operative phrase here. Nothing will ever live up to that nostalgia. Of course, you're entirely correct but other entries in the series, even Skyward Sword with all its flaws, has managed to capture some of that spirit. BOTW to me is just an entirely different game.

Fricken 3y ago

I thought I was too dried up and curmudgeonly to get immersed in a video game but BOTW dispelled that myth. Prior to BOTW Ocarina of Time was my greatest gaming experience.

rcpt 3y ago

I played OOT for the first time at the start of COVID after no gaming for 20 years. It's the best game. As a kid I liked Marathon and Mario but never played Zelda for some reason. OOT is just a perfect game.

rightbyte 3y ago
As a kid Zelda might be too hard. You need to be able to read. And as me, read a foreign language, English. I could not play it properly until I was like 12-13yo. How would you compare it to MM? I think MM is better.
- rcpt 3y ago
  MM is better aesthetics but I enjoyed the storyline and adventure of OOT more.

deleted 3y ago

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