Topic: Ocarina of Time = Pure Frustration

Been really getting back into the Zelda series again lately and as I'm rather new to the 3DS and DS in general I never played any Zelda games on it, so I wanted to try Ocarina of Time, apparently one of the best games ever made.

My experience with it has been the MOST frustrating gaming experience I have ever had, ever. Don't get me wrong I can see why when it was released all those years ago why it was so spectacular and I did enjoy my time with the game but I think I was reading walkthroughs more than playing to be honest as the puzzles are just so...odd.

Examples (SPOILERS, DON'T READ IF NOT PLAYED IT):

1. Getting the Lens of Truth. Even when I found a walkthrough on how to do it, I was still scratching my head wondering how it even makes sense. Who would honestly think "oh, I know how to get down this well. Firstly I go to the Windmill, stand in front of that random guy in there with my Ocarina pulled out then he will teach me a song that drains the well". Seriously, this is just so strange and was so frustrating. I tried so hard to work it out but had to go back to the walkthrough.

2. King Zora. How do you find out how to move him without a walkthrough? I would never have thought of the answer without a walkthrough, it just seems such a stupid thing.

3. Opening that big fishes mouth. Tried working it out for like half an hour. The answer is again something I would never have thought of as I had no clue you could fish with a bottle.

4. Getting red tunic. Again, such an unusual answer, something I would never have thought of. Yeah, I know you could also buy it, but even though I had 200 rupees (which is how much it cost) the shopkeeper said he can't give it to me. WHY? I HAD THE MONEY FOR IT! OMG!

5. Getting Din's Fire. That was so much fun finding, NOT!

This game is so abnormal and confusing and frustrating. I love Zelda but really felt this game just wanted to destroy me. I don't think I will ever play Ocarina again. Other Zelda games, yeah, but not this one. Am I alone in finding this game the most frustrating experience ever?

The only puzzle I found odd was the bunny ears as I remember so many people asking me in school what to do about that one, the water temple is a pain but not in an odd way imo.

I pretty much agree from my personal expereicnce with OOT. the game is indeed brilliant and well made, but the things you need to do are just... random. go to a place you never even knew it existed, stand on a specicip spot and play a specipic tune. dont get me wrong, just like you I find this game to have a lot of charm, but it was frustrating for me as well.
Zelda a link between worlds, on the other hand, was the perfect zelda expereince for me. I actually tried my best to solve the final puzzle in a dungeon to reach the boss, instead of guessing to which random spot I should go. it was hard at sometimes, but not frustrating, and even in the later dungeon when the difficulty level was higher the the previvous ones the puzzles were spot on.

I highly recommend ALBW if you havent played it yet. for me it was the ultimate zelda experience =]

I agree about the randomness, and while I'm not one of those people who think it's the greatest game ever made, the thing I liked was the sense of exploration. Not having everything spelled out, with a real sense of "whoa! so...that happened" made it one of the better Zelda games in my opinion.

But then, I wasn't playing it on any sort of schedule where I absolutely needed to get through it or anything. I did eventually beat it, but beating enemies is not usually why I pick up a Zelda game (in fact, I often quit once I get everything and find the final boss!).

... So you wanted the game to tell you how to do everything? Puzzles in Zelda games aren't just inside the dungeons.

I dunno, my 9 year old self (who btw understood 0 English) had no problems with it.

Things just happened naturally by doing stuff.

I KNEW someone would say this. No, I don't want the game to tell me everything as I like to expore, but the puzzles could be so random and plain odd is what I'm getting at. As in even using logic won't help you find the answer.

I actually just started that game. Can't wait to get truly stuck into it, seems great so far.

If you don't have a lot of time to kill to just explore needlessly, then these puzzles can be very frustrating. OoT does a poor job explaining what the player can do, which leads to people exploring and discovering these things themselves. I just don't think having a lot of this in the main story is good. If the game doesn't explain something and you spend hours trying to figure it out, then that is frustrating.

If I remember correctly, Wind Waker did a better job at this except one of the first quests. You have to buy a sail but the store owner only talks about selling a blanket or something like that. It turns out to be the sail but it was very confusing and sent me searching the town for hours until I just bought the darn thing and it turned out to be a sail.

@DefHalan: actually he only refers to it as "that". Yeah, I don't know what it was about either.

@Meowpheel: Haven't played Wind Waker in years... I have the HD version, maybe I should play it again.

There is a technical term for what I am talking about in the industry. I want to say it is conveyance, but that doesn't look like it is spelled right and may not be the word I am thinking of lol. It is basically about how designs use mechanics to explain to a player that they can do something without just having a tutorial.

@Meowpheel: Those were the days. That's why I studied english, but even then, when I didn't understand a single word, I made my way through many games.

@Bsham: I'm sorry but I never had a problem with OoT puzzles, yeah, some of them are "hard" but isn't it the whole point of it? I mean, giving a fish to Jabu Jabu is not that random, Ruto feeds him so... Yeah.

... But the game gives no hint that you could scoop up a fish in a jar. It's a pretty unlikely feat in real life, so it just never occurred to me.

I've not encountered the others yet (playing it for first time currently), so skipped past them, but I most certainly got done over in WWHD by not standing in exactly the right spot to play a tune once. Did my head in.

But probably the worst I've come across in WWHD was when you had to roll repeatedly the length of that hall because Link moves faster rolling than running - nobody moves faster rolling than running - that really downgraded my opinion of the game, nowhere else in the game did that come up.

I don't remember that... like I said, I need to play this masterpiece again. I know the game never explains that you move faster while rolling but it is something that people pick up pretty fast usually. If only I could play WW for the first time again, that would be amazing lol.

@gcunit: Pretty sure that the Zora shop has a fish in it, saying that you need a bottle to keep it in. It's a lot of rupees, but when you leave the shop there are fish pretty close by to scoop up for free. That's how I remember coming by that anyway.

I mostly agree with the OP. Even though Ocarina of Time is my favourite Zelda game (though I still need to play most of them), a lot of the time I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I love working things out for myself, but I felt this game needed a few more hints of what to do.

I had similar confusion issues the first time I played it. The game is bad about expecting you to do some random thing in some random spot to progress the game. What's funny is that I didn't have these issues at all with Majora's Mask. Or any other 3D Zelda game thus far.

Link's Awakening was worse for me, though. I couldn't figure out how to get to certain spots in the overworld to save my life. I had no idea what to do in Eagle Tower until I looked it up online. The trading sequence was an exercise in pure frustration. Etc. etc.

Most of the Zelda games are good about letting intelligent game design guide you, but a few of them are... rough.

You could try, you know, talking to the NPCs. They give you hints about most of these problems. It sounds more like you're not paying attention to what people are saying than not getting enough help.

@Bolt_Strike: I think I talked to every NPC in the game. Some are just too cryptic. I'm happy I tried this game though and finished it. But it will remain a memory now, I sweat just looking at the box lol.

Best thing Ocarina has done for me though is make me have a true understanding of what Zelda games are all about. It's defo a 'think outside the box' game. Ocarina is basically my tutorial to understanding, in depth, what Zelda is and what makes it great. In fact Ocarina has took me from liking Zelda to loving Zelda as I could see through its flaws and saw an incredible game franchise.

Now you can move on to the NES games!

Oh yeah, I do remember being stuck trying to get Jabu Jabu's mouth to open up... but then I was like "what if I just put the fish in front of him?" and bam (thankfully, I already knew from the Zelda games I played that I could put a fish in a bottle). Other than that, I don't remember any other frustrating moment in the game. Even the Water Temple was enjoyable for me... once I figured out how the whole water-rising-and-falling system works. That was fun!