The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Trivia

It was named #8 out of 200 of the "Greatest Games of Their Time" by EGM Issue #200 (Feb. 2006).

The lantern-carrying ghosts called Poes are named after the famous horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. Also, in the Forest Temple you encounter the four Poe sisters: Joelle, Beth, Amy, and Meg. They are all named after the four protagonists of the novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

The Fire Temple music was changed in the later versions due to it having a chant from an Islamic prayer looped in the background which offended some members of the Islamic community.

The design of the mirror shield was also changed as it crescent moon and star symbol looked very similar to the symbol of Islamic religion.

Contributed by festershinetop (8823) on Aug 19, 2007.

The characters Malon and Talon are based on Marin and Tarin from Link's Awakening.

Marin was a Zelda lookalike who also had a beautiful singing voice.Tarin was her father and had a liking for mushrooms.(He resembled Mario).

And here's some more Malon/Talon Trivia: Both Talon and his assistant Ingo resemble Mario and Luigi, although it's interesting to note that they have an antagonistic relationship. Both Talon and Malon wear medallions that are shaped like Bowser's head.

For the Wii Virtual Console version of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", the Stone of Agony (which allows players to feel a rumble to find hidden areas), has been disabled.

Due to overwhelming fan requests, Nintendo decided to release the original production releases of Ocarina of Time as a gold-colored cartridge, restoring the "golden cartridge" lineage that had previously been broken by the SNES version of Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, and the Game Boy Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Link has always been left-handed, but this is particularly noticeable starting with Ocarina of Time. In the original title, this wasn't always noticeable due to sprite-flipping techniques.

The reason for Link's left-handedness is that his creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, is also left-handed.

Nintendo Power Magazine issues 196-200 were listing the top 200 Nintendo console games of all time, The #1 game of all time was The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The Legend of Zelda was rated #2 game of all time by IGN.com. It was beaten only by the game Super Mario Bros. for the NES

There are at least three different versions of the game - 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. The golden (limited edition) carts, as well as some gray carts, are all 1.0, and majority of the ordinary gray carts are 1.1, many of the later produced ones are 1.2.

The only notable change between 1.0 and 1.1 is that the Fire Temple music was changed a little bit. 1.1 also fixed some bugs, the most famous of them being the sword-losing bug: In 1.0, if you save the game in the end battle after losing the Master Sword, and restart the game, you don't have the sword anymore - but you can use all items while riding Epona!

Daniel Barras was making a PC fan remake of the game, titled "Ocarina of Time 2D". Basically, this was to be a remake with all of the story, areas, creatures and items from Ocarina of Time, using graphics similar to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Regrettably, Nintendo was not very happy about this (or any other Zelda remakes that use LttP sprite rips), so the project is gone now.

Looking inside the windows of Zelda's Castle, players can see pictures of Mario, Bowser and other Super Mario Bros. characters adorning the walls.

Many of the characters names in Ocarina of Time are actually names of towns in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Rauru, Mido, Ruto, Saria, and Darunia are names of characters in OoT as well as names of villages in AoL.

This game started life in development for Nintendo's 64DD add-on for the Nintendo 64 (which was a disk drive that was only released in Japan with little fanfare). The 64DD flopped in Japan and it wasn't even released in the USA. As a result, this game, instead of being released in disks, was crammed into a cartridge (which was the biggest N64 pre-Expansion Pak cartridge released, in terms of space).

The horse in the game is named after the Celtic horse goddess, Epona, who was also known as the Mother of Foals.

At one point in the game, you can acquire an ability to make the controller rumble whenever a secret is nearby. This of course only works if you have a rumble pack accessory attached to your N64 controller or are playing the Gamecube version.

It is stated on screen and in the manual of the European release that neither "Ocarina of Time" nor "Master Quest" will work properly with a television set that doesn't support a 60 Hz refresh rate.

In Europe, these games were bundled with a limited edition of "Zelda : the wind waker"

Miyamomto has openly admitted that "The Legend of Zelda" game series was based on both the fantasy of young children to explore those woods out beyond your house (ala Narnia), and the movie "Legend". The movie "Legend" was released just before "The Legend of Zelda" was made, back in 1986. "Legend" was directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Bladerunner, Gladiator), and starred Tom Cruise. I encourage all Zelda fans to watch the movie. Besides the title being similar, the story is also: Young scrawny elf like boy is sent out by various dwarves and pixies to delve into the dark dungeons and rescue the princess captured by the evil Gannon like demon. In his way are many smaller demons and the such. It also has the exact same mythological and medival fantasy feel to it. But, don't get all upset, it's not like he copied it. Let's just call it "inspiration". Kind of how "Alice in Wonderland" was an inspiration for Super Mario Bros. (and the movie, along with combining already existing characters and themes). The best is inspired by the best.

The person who did the voice acting for adult Link was a Japanese guy named Nobuyuki Hiyama who also did the voice acting for Link in Super Smash Bros. What few people know is that Fujiko Takimoto ho did the voice acting for Link as child is a woman! That explains Link's extremely high voice.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was voted #11 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Jul 28, 2001.