The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It released in Japan and North America in late 1998 and in Europe shortly after. It was the first Zelda game to use 3D graphics, following the 2D entries on the NES, SNES, and Game Boy.

Players control Link across the land of Hyrule as he moves between his childhood and an adult future to stop Ganondorf from seizing the Triforce. The game introduced several systems that became standard in 3D action games. Z-targeting locks the camera and Link's aim onto an enemy or object, and context-sensitive controls change a single button's function based on the situation. Time is a core mechanic: the ocarina lets Link play songs that warp him between locations, shift day to night, and move between the two time periods.

The game was directed by a team at Nintendo that included Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma, with music by Koji Kondo. It was widely praised on release and is regularly cited in discussions of the most influential games ever made.

A second quest with remixed dungeons, known as Master Quest, was produced for the GameCube and later bundled with the handheld version. Nintendo released an enhanced port, Ocarina of Time 3D, for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. The original Nintendo 64 release has also been the subject of an extensive fan decompilation project, which has enabled native PC ports and close study of the game's code.