Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Sounds Significantly Better Than the Original

Yesterday at 21:00 Comment Views: 1

Switchboard is Polygon’s weekly Nintendo newsletter. It goes out to subscribers on Thursdays and appears on the site on Saturdays. Subscribe here.

Nintendo is still firmly committed to physical games. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it made headlines this week when a Nintendo executive in Latin America said so in passing. Bill van Zyll pointed out that fans clearly love physical releases. He added that the company had just launched a new console, the Switch 2, that takes cartridges. The remarks only count as news because Sony recently said it will stop manufacturing physical PlayStation games in 2028. Still, it’s nice to hear.

Nintendo is a family-focused company with deep roots in toy retail. A much larger share of its sales happens in physical stores than for any rival, so the stance is practical, if a little dull. It also has more to lose than most. Memory chip prices keep climbing, so Switch cartridges almost certainly cost far more to produce than Blu-ray discs. That’s why most third-party publishers have turned to game-key cards, which are little more than empty shells. For its own games, Nintendo still puts the entire game on the cartridge, whatever the cost.

Where Nintendo spends its money shows what it values. It rarely lavishes huge budgets on development, because it doesn’t think showy graphics add enough fun to justify the price. Heavier graphics would also eat up more of those pricey gigabytes. Yet it will pay to fit the whole Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, due next month, onto a cartridge, because that is simply the better way to play. Picture being nine years old on Christmas morning. You unwrap the game, slide it into your Switch 2, and then have to wait for a download. That would be unacceptable.

The first hands-on previews of the Ocarina remake went live this week. Polygon’s Michael McWhertor described it as quick, tightly streamlined, and polished enough to feel completely new. Nintendo’s priorities show here too.

Nintendo has returned to this game before, but this time is different.

The 3DS release, Ocarina of Time 3D, went to an outside studio, Grezzo. So did the attractive but sluggish 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening. The 2026 Ocarina looks to be in the hands of one of Nintendo’s prized internal teams, unlike the Star Fox remake from the same N64 era, and it shows. Previewers praised the lush visuals, but they also stressed how smooth and responsive it feels. That fixes the biggest long-standing flaw in one of Nintendo’s best games. The original N64 version crawls along at 20 frames per second, and you can feel it.

Nintendo leans on remakes to fill out its release calendar for the same cynical reasons as every other publisher. New games are risky, and fresh ideas are scarce. Here, though, Nintendo also seems to have seen a chance to make a classic meaningfully better. As with its first-party cartridges, it refused to cut corners. This is about legacy and brand reputation, and Nintendo cares about little else more.

eShop game of the week: Ratatan

Patapon is a PlayStation Portable cult favorite, a rhythm-action game about a column of tiny marching warriors. Some of its original creators have now reworked it as a roguelike spiritual successor. The pieces don’t fully fit together, but it’s a potent hit of nostalgia all the same.

Nintendo Classics game of the week: Castlevania: Bloodlines

The excellent Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse arrives on Switch this week, which makes it a good time to revisit this half-forgotten Sega Genesis entry. It isn’t the Castlevania most people know. It’s a polished, technically impressive take on the straightforward action of the NES originals.

Nintendo Music track of the week: “Guru-Guru’s Song” from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

The direct sequel to Ocarina of Time has an eerie, funhouse-mirror feel. This carnival-style reworking of the “Song of Storms” melody captures it perfectly, as if a circus organ-grinder and their monkey were playing it.