A few weeks ago, I finished a replay of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, a classic Nintendo game from nearly twenty-five years ago. This game was part of the backdrop to many, many people’s childhoods, mine included. I’ve been a Zelda girl for a long time, from watching my older brothers play when I was a young girl, to replaying old favorites now. My most recent play-through of Ocarina of Time has reminded me of two things: how much I love this game, and how annoying I find time-travel paradoxes.
Ocarina of Time’s plot hinges on a key time-travel mechanic. After completing a few dungeons as a young Link, you travel seven years into the future through the power of the Master Sword. You can switch back and forth between the past and future later on in the story and actually have to for the plot to progress at certain points. Generally, it’s a pretty decent mechanic that adds to the story overall. However, there’s a specific instance of its usage in the game that irks me.
Time travel can be a difficult story device to use. Especially in projects like Ocarina of Time, it’s easy for plot holes to develop. The nuances and implications of time travel can easily surpass the scope of the relatively simple plot. Unfortunately, this happens in Ocarina of Time near the end of the game. Several events surrounding the Shadow Temple and Kakariko Village require you to travel back and forth in time, creating an annoying paradox.
These events are necessary to the plot (and required for you to complete the game). In Kakariko Village, you can find a strange man in the room below the windmill playing a music box in time with the spinning of the mill. Adult Link finds him angrily playing a song, which he teaches you. He tells you about a kid who came and played that song to him on an ocarina, which messed up the windmill, the well, and everything else in the world. This is your cue to go back in time, play that song, and then access a small dungeon in the now-dry well to get a crucial item for progressing further. You are the kid he was talking about, making this a paradox and plot hole that you cannot progress past without doing.
Personally, I find this very frustrating. The game is so good overall and attempts (often successfully) to answer its own questions otherwise. This makes the game both interesting and logically consistent, which I believe is part of why Ocarina of Time has remained so popular. Unfortunately, I find that the forced paradox takes me out of the immersion of the game. All I’m left thinking about is how I only went back in time to play the Song of Storms because I’d already done so, and once I’ve gotten to that point, it’s all I can think about.
In my eyes, this is a good example of why you have to be careful with time travel because it can get complicated easily and end up with unintended consequences that take away from the game overall. Zelda games are somewhat notorious for being spotty when it comes to plot and storyline, and this is one of the biggest instances of this spottiness in this particular game.
Do I still think Ocarina of Time is incredible and worth the hype? Absolutely. Still, I would be lying if I didn’t say that the Well paradox didn’t sour it somewhat for me. With the plot being so relatively simple, I feel like this issue could have been easily avoided. Overall, though, it’s a fairly small issue I have with an otherwise incredible game that I would recommend wholeheartedly to anyone new to the series.
