The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is frequently crowned the greatest game ever made, celebrated for its dungeons, its music, and a critical legacy that stands as the highest-reviewed title in gaming history. For those of us who were there at the time, it was for gaming what the sequence in The Wizard of Oz is when the world around Dorothy turns to colour: pure magic and wonder.

But for those of us who look to art to make sense of the unthinkable, it was something much more fragile and vital. In the summer of my seventh year my world collapsed, and that same winter a Nintendo 64 cartridge became the only safe space I had left to process the loss of my father.

In the summer before the European release of Ocarina of Time on the N64, my father took his own life. My father figure, and my understanding of what it would mean to transition from boy to man, gone. While at the age of seven you feel the loss, and most certainly feel grief, something of such magnitude is hard to fully comprehend and put into words. Overnight, without my mother consciously deciding it, I was the man of the house. I took on grief, loss, and pain in measures a seven-year-old mind is not built for. Half of me was still convinced he was about to walk through the door after work, the other half working out how it was possible to never see him again.

Understandably, I needed somewhere to escape, somewhere where I could digest what had happened in a way my childlike mind could comprehend everything. And it is here where Ocarina of Time became my safe space.

(While most readers will have experienced this game, please be aware that my experiences moving forward do involve spoilers around the narrative. If you wish to play it yourself first and then come back to share my personal experience, please feel free to do so.)

When we fade in from black, the first thing we are confronted with is calm isolation. A title screen that has been applauded and often imitated over the years. As the screen slowly pans across empty Hyrule Field at night, we are introduced to Adult Link and Epona galloping across the landscape.

There is a deep feeling of loneliness within this sequence, yet somehow it brings calm and a period of reset. The music is gentle, haunting, beautiful. There is nothing heroic or triumphant about this Press Start screen; it is reflective and contemplating. You are in no rush; Link and Epona are waiting quietly for you to start your journey. In my case, a journey I had no idea was going to become my grieving process.

With ‘classic’ Zelda titles before the modern open-world entries we have seen on the Nintendo Switch, tradition for those who had played a Zelda title before was to always put your in-game name as Link (anything else was considered a mortal sin). However, because this was my first Zelda title, I of course did as I thought was correct and entered my own name. As a result, I went through the story not as Link, but as myself.

Once your story starts, the first place we end up in is Kokiri Forest, a forest shielded in fog that stops the terrors of the outside world from coming in. The Kokiri live under the protection of the Great Deku Tree, a father figure who watches over the children of the forest.

At the same time as discovering the Great Deku Tree, we are introduced to Link, the only child in the forest who doesn’t have a fairy. He in many ways is the outsider of the forest, and doesn’t quite belong. A character who, while there are many other children around him living their lives in the forest, has a sense of detachment and alienation the other Kokiri would never truly understand.

The narrative of this adventure is already painting a picture my seven-year-old self (and perhaps anyone who has ever felt like an outcast) can instantly associate with. A father figure, his children, and the sense of not quite fitting in. It is to be expected at a young age to feel different to those around us, and to want to fit in, to look up to the parent and look for guidance.

However, once Link has acquired his own fairy, obtained his sword and shield, and convinced Mido to move aside, it is after this first dungeon that the first real pangs of my personal pain become apparent. Despite what we have tried to do for the Great Deku Tree, it is inevitable at this point in the story for the father figure of the forest to die. That, no matter what Link tried, it sadly was not enough.

The silence that comes after the death of the Great Deku Tree leaves room for the player to reflect on what has just happened. In my case, I had failed the Deku Tree; his death was something I had a hand in. My father had gone, and I had a part to play in it. I can remember starting to dwell on my real father’s death, and how at seven years old I felt like he had chosen to leave us. Was that also my fault? Did I play a part in the decisions made in reality as well as fiction? My teen and adult self in the years to come would, of course, arrive at a very different and more understanding conclusion, but at the time this guilt became very real.

The death of the Great Deku Tree creates a pivot point in the story we are enacting, where we are asked instantly at this point to leave the innocence of the forest behind and step out into the rest of Hyrule. The game portrays Kokiri Forest as a place of innocence, a place of wonder, a place where until now no real weight has been put on any child’s shoulders. Stepping out of that forest is a forced expulsion from such innocence. Link is not leaving because he is ready; he is leaving because his sanctuary has been attacked, and overnight he is asked to enter the adult world at an age that should never be expected.

Link leaves the forest carrying Kokiri’s Emerald, a stone of spiritual weight as well as a father figure’s dying wish. That spiritual weight is something Link has to carry moving forward. Something I again felt in reality: a weight of sadness, of feeling left as a child to take on the world of adults, without truly knowing what has happened for this to be the case.

For a while now, we explore Hyrule in various locations, completing tasks in order to obtain the Master Sword from the Temple of Time. Throughout this period of Link’s journey, we come across many adults who verbally ensure Link knows that little is expected of him. "Just a kid", "forest boy", and "little kid" are just three of many examples where, despite Link’s life being turned upside down and so much being expected of him, the adults around him are presumptuous and have little faith in his ability.

Even those who became significant figures in areas such as Death Mountain and Gerudo Valley make statements that they later reflect on and regret. Link, a boy forced out of his childlike innocence into a world of turmoil and confusion, still yet to be understood by adults around him, again is something my seven-year-old self could see as a mirror into my own reality. Anyone reading this who has ever felt patronised or dismissed by a world run by adults during a time of crisis will recognise that exact sting.

Once Link has finally achieved what many would have said he wasn’t capable of and acquired the spiritual stones to access the Master Sword, it is the next plot twist that (while of course applauded for its storytelling and mechanical design as a video game) subconsciously hit me hard, sat on the floor of my bedroom with my N64 controller gripped tightly.

When Link pulls the sword from the pedestal, there is hope that we have 'fixed' things and restored life to a point of safety. But instead of fixing the problem, we have unintentionally made things worse. Ganondorf used Link and gained access to all he desired. We failed. Gaining the Master Sword locks childhood away behind a stone door.

It is at this point that we discover Link has been asleep for seven years, and awakes now as an adult. He has faced premature maturity, in ways so profound that a child could never contemplate or forget. I remember seeing Link grow up suddenly in front of me, and even at the age of seven comprehended that Link had not actually grown up. He was still that child of the forest, lost, now expected to be an adult for the sake of others around him.

Ocarina of Time was once again a mirror into my own life. But it was not just the expectation of growing up that hits you hard at this realisation; it is also the understanding that Link has had his childhood taken from him. His innocence may have already passed at the death of his 'father', but now the expectations thrust upon him left him no choice but to grow up.

When Link steps back out of the Temple of Time into Hyrule itself, everything has changed. Once-vibrant open fields are now shrouded in purple mist. Kakariko Village is ablaze, Castle Town a graveyard of ReDeads, old friends scattered or lost.

Just like Link’s landscape had been completely changed, my emotional landscape was similarly altered. The places in life that once brought joy were now haunted by what they used to be. It is now no longer a journey forward leaving things behind; it is instead a desire to restore what once was.

Among the trials of this ruined adult world, descending into the Shadow Temple stands out for me as the next point in the story that linked to my own personal story. While the childhood chapter of Ocarina represents sudden loss and the forced end to Link’s childhood, it is the Shadow Temple where grief itself begins to take form.

The entrance to this temple is the graveyard of Kakariko Village, a literal holder of death and loss. While entry involves playing the Nocturne of Shadow, a song you learn in a place of the dead, the area is usually filled now with silence. Gone are the light magical motifs in the game’s composition, the almost Disney-like sheen is removed, and reality has set in. That empty feeling I was feeling on long evenings in my bedroom was being envisioned in the form of this graveyard.

Once in the temple, we navigate it by using the Lens of Truth. A puzzle mechanic that reveals invisible walls, platforms, and hidden enemies. As a child who was grieving, adults often tried to shield me from certain aspects of the pain and loss we as a family were going through. I was not allowed to go to my own father’s funeral, for example, as my family felt it would be too much for me to take in and comprehend.

A tool such as the Lens of Truth paints the world of the temple it is part of as that very shielding put around me as a child. The whispers behind closed doors, the ability to stop me going to events such as my father’s own funeral, all to avoid the truth they feel I wouldn’t understand.

The Shadow Temple embodied that lonely and at times scary process of confronting the reality I was now living. Once deep in the temple, you must cross an underground river on a ghostly ship (what I now see as a nod to crossing the Styx with Charon, something other games in more recent times such as Spiritfarer have also been influenced by). It is a dark journey of sorrow, far away from the light and innocence of the Kokiri Forest.

As a temple and a journey, this wasn’t just a level or puzzle in a game; it was a window into the fears of death and abandonment I was feeling.

After surviving the Shadow Temple and continuing on to awaken the remaining sages, the final turning point in Ocarina’s story is of course the confrontation of Ganondorf at his castle. When Link finally confronts Ganon, the villain of this piece reveals the tragic truth of the game’s timeline: that the opening of the Sacred Realm allowed the evil that drowned Hyrule to exist. The fantasy of being able to rewrite the past, to fix the pain that you are enduring in such a way, is obliterated in an instant.

It is at this point that you as the gamer, and myself at seven years old in my room, come to accept the painful realisation that no matter how much you wish you could turn back the clock, some doors cannot be un-opened. After the defeating of Ganondorf and the destruction of his castle, you realise that this victory does not bring back the dead, it only clears the fog that once shielded you so that you can see what is left.

At the very end of the story, the adult sages (who at this point also include childhood friends such as Saria and Ruto) inform Link that they must stay behind in their sacred duties, and that Navi, the fairy who has been your companion throughout this journey, must also leave. For a child who has already experienced such profound abandonment, this departure is bittersweet agony. My seven-year-old self was taught a lesson, that sometimes the companions who help us grow and survive, the people in our lives that we love and hold close, cannot stay with us forever.

Princess Zelda during this conclusion uses the Ocarina of Time to send Link back to his original childhood, restoring those lost years before he ever pulled the Master Sword out of the stone in the Temple of Time. However, this is not some magic reset where nothing had happened. Link returns to his childhood remembering all that happened. He retains the memories, the resilience, and the wisdom of someone who not only saved the world, but grew as a person. A person who now, due to not having Navi by his side, could no longer return to the forest, and was therefore still left outside of his fractured innocent childhood.

As the credits rolled on this game, everything clicked into place. I could not live in the past; I had to understand that no matter how much we would love to turn the clocks back and regain what we have lost, life does not work that way. And that, while these people and events may have gone, the memories have not.

When I was older, many years later, my mother told me of how it took almost a year for me to speak about my father after his death. It was only one day after school, that my teacher at the time rang my mother and told her that that lunchtime I went to her and finally spoke about my dad. I can not be 100% certain, but it would make sense to me that the closure of the story in Ocarina of Time was what gave me the motivation to move forward myself and be open about how I was feeling.

Ocarina of Time is the most significant and poignant piece of storytelling to have ever happened to me, and perhaps it resonates so deeply with many of you reading this because, in our own private ways, we are all just trying to navigate the spaces left behind by what we've lost.

Despite the fact I lost my dad to suicide three decades ago, the statistics around male suicide in 2026 have sadly not improved. In the UK, suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50, who consistently account for roughly three-quarters of all suicide deaths in the country.

While a lot of work has gone into making people aware of these numbers and the quiet pain many endure throughout their life, I feel as someone who has experienced the loss of someone significant to suicide that there is more we can all do to try and lower the numbers these statistics frighteningly tell us. We need to talk, and more importantly, as men, we need to talk to one another. The more we open these conversations up and make them normal, the more we can listen, understand, and be present.

If you or someone you know is struggling or needs guidance on how to support someone else, free and confidential help is available 24/7. In the UK, you can call the Samaritans at 116 123 or contact CALM (The Campaign Against Living Miserably) via live chat and WhatsApp.