Out of Nintendo's vast library of games, there are a few mainstay franchises that will presumably never end. Nintendo can't seem to stay away from these iconic titles for long, and fans eat them up every time. Super Mario 64 is one for sure, and the original Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue are other big examples. Counting assorted digital and mini-console releases, the original Super Mario Bros. may top them all. However, with rumors starting up of it receiving another release on the Switch, it seems like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is gradually clawing its way to the top of this list.

This brings to mind another industry giant that has come up over and over again through the years: Bethesda's legendary The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Sporting releases on every console that came out since it did initially, Skyrim has been a part of mainstream gaming culture for over a decade. It could be argued that Bethesda would not be what it is today if not for the game’s runaway success. It's not hard to draw parallels between these two fantasy epics, and doing so can even help one understand just what makes these games such timeless classics.

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A New Take On An Old Adventure

green clad link fighting evil man

The Elder Scrolls and The Legend of Zelda have both been around for a long time. The original Zelda adventure came out in 1987, early in video game history. Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls: Arena came out in 1994 for the MS-DOS, during the era when 2D sprites were commonly used in 3D areas like Doom. Both games set each respective series off on a path; in The Elder Scrolls' case, it was as a first-person fantasy action RPG with a wide variety of character builds. In Zelda's case, it was as a cryptic pseudo-open-world adventure. While these first titles are much more compact and archaic than later games, they're still recognizable as the first games in their series.

Both franchises did a lot of growing from there, even before Skyrim and Ocarina of Time came along. The Elder Scrolls made the jump to true 3D graphics, and built up the open world around the player. Zelda, meanwhile, experimented settling on a top-down, dungeon-crawling style for the famous A Link to the Past. Ocarina of Time marked Zelda's jump to 3D, and it was quite a jump indeed. While Skyrim is the natural evolution from the Elder Scrolls games before it, Ocarina of Time felt like such a massive leap forward that it's still fondly remembered by fans as one of the most influential games ever made, and one of the most important in Nintendo's library.

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Go Anywhere, Do Anything

Another prominent link between Ocarina of Time and Skyrim is how they let players explore an exhaustively detailed open world (or "open field," in Zelda's case — the N64 could render huge levels, but not a true open world). Adventuring across a large, fleshed-out world was a familiar feeling to fans of both franchises, but Ocarina and Skyrim really made the structure shine. Hyrule Field was a stunning display of graphical power and detailed map design for it's time, and all of the little nooks and crannies made it feel truly special.

Skyrim was, again, a natural extension of the lands that had been made before it, but it definitely felt huge once players were able to start walking freely in it. Thanks to the design work put into it the game's immersive open world, that feeling took a long time to subside.

It wasn't just the size of these games' worlds that wowed players, but what could be done in them as well. The amount of secrets and side attractions available in both games were stunning, and still impress to this day. Zelda had its assorted minigames, holes in the ground, side quests, and a huge cast of unique NPCs to interact with. Skyrim also had plenty of side quests, some involved enough to feel like main quests. That's not even getting into the potential for players in cooking, smithing, alchemy, enchanting, and all manner of activities in between quests. The potential content for invested players was staggering in each title, and fans still talk about each today.

legend of zelda ocarina of time

Perhaps the most significant link between the two games, aside from being released so many times, is their impact on video games as a whole. Ocarina of Time and Skyrim have inspired countless games. In fact, Skyrim is arguably one of the games responsible for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild going open world, due to being part of the wave of successful 7th-generation open-world games that shaped the AAA game industry. Most games don’t have the budget to copy the scope of these games, but the feel of a 3D Zelda dungeon, as well as Z-targeting, is familiar to many a gamer.

Plus, there are occasional games that do put in the extra effort to be a truly Zelda-like adventure, such as Darksiders 1 and Okami. Of course, it bears mentioning that Ocarina of Time and Skyrim had an enormous impact on comparable games from development efforts that came afterwards, like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Fallout 4.

However, for all the effects Skyrim and Ocarina of Time have had on officially released games, they have had untold more in fan projects. The modding and speedrunning communities for both games are alive and well, and have been for years. At this point, randomizers, visual mods, and even new games have been made for both titles. The games have been torn to shreds, with a sort of “where there’s a will, there’s a way” mentality pervading speedruns and challenge runs.

While this goes without saying, the gaming community at large is still bringing both titles up in major discussions on game impact and the best games of all time. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim have had an equivalent presence in the video game industry for years, and it’s unlikely that their influence will be diminished any time soon — especially if they keep showing up on new consoles.

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