I fully expected we’d still be arguing about Link’s face by now, because when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake first debuted, the new art style split opinion right down the middle, and plenty of fans wondered whether Nintendo had binned the look of one of the most loved adventures ever made. Those fears eased the more we saw, and when Nintendo finally revealed what its Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake looks like on Switch 2, it began to convert even the harshest critics.
Now, the first hands-on previews are out, and the conversation has moved on. Journalists got an hour or two wandering Kokiri Forest, the Great Deku Tree, Castle Town and the Forest Temple, and the general feeling is that this is a lot more than a fresh coat of paint on the 1998 classic, with new controls, richer environments, extra dialogue, voiced cutscenes and fixes for some of the creakier bits of the original, even if not everybody is sold on every change.
01. It looks much better than the reveal suggested
Pretty much every preview agrees. The new Hyrule keeps the shapes and colours of the N64 original but rebuilds all of it with far more detail, and Nintendo Life’s Gavin Lane loved the little environmental touches, from the grain in the wood and foliage to the stitching on Link’s tunic, while GamesRadar+ reckons the softer, warmer art direction works a lot better in motion than it did in that first reveal.
The lighting gets praise, and the Forest Temple gets pools of sunlight, deep shadow, drifting mist, and wooden corridors you could stare at for ages, so places feel different rather than just sharper. Some people have spotted shimmering in close-up footage of hair and foliage, which is worth keeping an eye on, but plenty of doubters seem to have come round.
02. It’s a proper remake, not an HD remaster
Nintendo could have upscaled the 3DS version and called it a day, and clearly didn’t. The environments have been rebuilt, the camera updated, and familiar areas given new touches, with Castle Town now feeling connected rather than like the string of fixed-camera spaces we remember.
The broad layout is still what you’d expect, so you’ll know exactly where you found the Kokiri Sword and where the Deku Tree and Forest Temple sit, and VGC’s Chris Scullion came away feeling the appeal of the original had survived while the clunkiness that lingered in the 3DS version had been smoothed off. Nobody’s turning this into Breath of the Wild, which is the point.
03. Link finally has a jump button
It sounds minor, but in the original, Link hopped automatically off certain ledges, which was clever for its time and a pain when you were lining up something fiddly. Now there’s a dedicated button, and you decide when to leap, but Nintendo Life says it takes some getting used to, especially mid-fight, when years of muscle memory will have you reaching for the old way. Don’t expect Link to start scaling every wall in sight, mind you, because exploration is still the structured, Ocarina kind.
04. Combat is smoother, and your thumbs will need retraining
Z-targeting is still there, so locking on and waiting for an opening is still how fights work, which should put anyone who feared Nintendo would swap the paced encounters for something more frantic at ease. The jump button changes jump attacks: you now jump and then swing instead of doing it in one go, and veterans will fumble that for a while. The bigger gain is the move to 60fps, and VGC points out the original ran at 20, so dodging and reacting to enemies feels far more responsive than it ever did on N64.
05. Items and the map have caught up with the modern era
Anyone who remembers pausing the game repeatedly to swap boots in the Water Temple will understand why this matters. You can now switch equipment quickly without sitting through the old pause-menu animation, so the bow, Hookshot, and potions are far less of a faff, and the on-screen map makes it easier to track where you are and which rooms you’ve done.
You also get different HUD options, including a minimal one and one that turns the HUD off completely, which suits both the modern-conveniences crowd and the cinematic-purist crowd. The Water Temple will still test your patience, but at least the boots are less of a chore.
06. Castle Town might be the biggest surprise
You’d expect the dungeons to get the biggest changes, but it’s the town that seems to have had the most thoughtful overhaul. In the original, the market and its backstreets felt like separate spaces, with fixed camera angles hiding what the hardware couldn’t do; now the centre, shops, and alleys all connect, and you can rotate the camera freely.
It’s livelier too, with more detailed surroundings and extra dialogue, and characters will chat to Link as he walks past instead of waiting for him to start every conversation. GamesRadar+ also spotted new backstreets and a fleshed-out layout, plus the famously bearded man in the market, who can now point Link to another character by using his beard as a sort of tracking device, daft and brilliant in equal measure.
07. The cutscenes are voiced, and people are split
This is the one that’ll keep getting argued about until the full game lands. Cutscenes feature voice acting, including Navi and the Great Deku Tree; Ganondorf gets his own lines, and Link stays silent.
Some people love hearing the characters speak because it brings the game closer to modern Zelda, while others find the performances a bit cartoonish compared with the atmosphere they remember, and early Reddit threads are split between both camps, with a few comparing the English voices to an anime dub. It isn’t a fully voiced RPG, mind you; ordinary conversations still rely on text, and the voices are reserved for selected scenes.
08. The Forest Temple is properly creepy now
The overhaul isn’t just about prettier scenery, and the Forest Temple is the best example so far, with dark wooden corridors, heavy shadow, stained-glass windows, and shafts of sunlight that make it feel more unsettling than the stark original. GamesRadar+ was especially taken with the lighting, and The Verge’s preview said much the same about how the visuals make the temple scarier.
Ocarina was never a horror game, but its dungeons were always a bit eerie, and the music and ghostly encounters here are some of the most memorable in the series, so leaning into that makes sense. All that detail can backfire, too, because Kotaku pointed to a preview account of a player missing an important key chest simply because the room was too busy to look at.
09. The puzzles and pacing are largely untouched
For longtime fans, the most reassuring thing is that the dungeon layouts, puzzle solutions and progression all seem faithful to the original. Don’t go in expecting Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, because Ocarina’s dungeons focus on keys, locked doors, backtracking, and figuring out where a newly found item fits on the bigger map.
The game tweaks enemies and encounters, and the new movement options will change how you approach a few situations, but nothing suggests a radical redesign. Nobody can say yet whether that slower, more deliberate structure will land with players raised on modern Zelda, and a couple of hours isn't enough to judge every dungeon.
10. Fans are warming up, with a few reservations
The mood has shifted a lot since the reveal. On Reddit, some people who were unsure about the art style say the new footage has won them over, while others are excited to play with modern controls and a few extra details. The voice acting is divisive; some aren’t convinced by the new dialogue, veterans will have to adjust to the jump button, and Navi’s extra commentary has people wondering whether the remake sometimes explains things the visuals already make obvious.
These are previews, not reviews, so we still don’t know how the changes hold up over the whole adventure, how it runs in handheld mode, or what else Nintendo is keeping back. Either way, Nintendo clearly took this seriously and revisited how Ocarina of Time feels to play instead of just updating the graphics, which could make it a lot more than a nostalgia trip for anyone who played it in 1998.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on 5 November, 2026.
