Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.
The moment Link pulls the Master Sword from its pedestal, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time makes saving Hyrule feel considerably less like a childhood adventure. Seven years disappear, familiar places become hostile, and returning home offers little comfort. Those are the moments that make Nintendo’s 1998 classic worth revisiting, even when you know exactly what is waiting outside the Temple of Time.
For the Nintendo Switch 2 remake, the challenge is getting players to feel that loss again while making the adventure work for people approaching it for the first time. Affection for the original can only carry a remake so far, especially when newcomers have no nostalgic attachment to wrestling with an old camera or repeatedly opening a menu to change their boots.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s remake has debuted with a 96 Metascore, making it the highest-rated game of 2026 so far. That puts it three points behind the Nintendo 64 original’s record-setting 99, but with a much larger pool of critics: 80 reviews compared with the original’s 22. It also surpasses Ocarina of Time 3D, which earned a 94 on Nintendo 3DS.
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
The reviews give returning players reasons to come back beyond seeing familiar locations with new graphics. GamesRadar+ awarded the remake five stars, with Anna Koselke calling it “a remake for the ages.” Meanwhile, TechRadar’s review highlights how freely Link moves through those spaces, thanks to the added jump and dash controls and a camera players can rotate themselves. Exploring Kokiri Forest comes with a different sense of freedom when moving around it requires less negotiation with the controls.
Nintendo confirms that the remake adds dedicated movement commands and right-stick camera control. Those changes matter for players coming from Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, whose expectations of controlling Link are very different from what the Nintendo 64 offered. They make the older adventure easier to enter while preserving its more directed progression through dungeons, equipment upgrades, and carefully constructed puzzles. And yes, the Water Temple gets some help. Reviews from TechRadar and Destructoid specifically note the ability to equip and remove the Iron Boots through the D-pad. Anyone who remembers interrupting the action to manage those boots will understand why that deserves attention. The dungeon can challenge your understanding of its changing water levels without making every equipment change another interruption.
The praise comes with a useful reservation for veterans. RPG Site found that Link’s expanded movement and the streamlined experience made stretches easier than remembered, and criticized the absence of a Hero Mode or Master Quest option. Players hoping for a tougher return should keep that in mind. For newcomers, however, the reviews suggest an inviting way to discover why this particular version of Hyrule has stayed with people for 28 years.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time releases November 5 exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.
