There are two kinds of people in this country: those who think *The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* is the greatest video game ever made, and those who think *Ocarina of Time* is the greatest video game ever made but have to bring up *Majora's Mask* every eleven seconds to feel something.
Both groups are currently at war on the internet, and neither side is winning.
The latest skirmish started, as these things do, with a stranger on a forum posting a tier list.
Within hours, grown adults with mortgages were arguing about whether the Water Temple is a masterpiece of design or a war crime.
For the uninitiated—hello, welcome, please touch grass—*Ocarina of Time* dropped on the Nintendo 64 back in 1998 and basically wrote the instruction manual for every 3D adventure game that followed.
Z-targeting, the ocarina itself, the time-travel gimmick that made you feel like a genius at age nine?
It's the *Citizen Kane* of video games, except people actually rewatch it, usually via a questionable emulator at 2 a.m.
Nintendo re-released it on the 3DS in 2011 with nicer textures and a slightly less soul-crushing Water Temple, and then did the cruelest thing imaginable: it put the original behind a subscription paywall on the Switch.
Nothing says "cherished childhood memory" like a recurring charge and a server that's down on a Tuesday.
The game is old enough to run for Congress.
The camera is held together by prayer and 1998 technology.
Listen!" like a smoke detector with a personal vendetta.
And yet people will defend it to the death against games with better graphics, better combat, and fewer talking swords.
Because it hit at exactly the right age for an entire generation who now have bad backs and opinions.
It's not nostalgia—it's a hostage situation, and the hostage is your inner child holding a fake ocarina made of plastic.
It's about whether you can admit something you loved as a kid has aged like milk in a hot car.
I just don't need to write a 4,000-word essay about how a texture-mapped horse is a narrative triumph.
Meanwhile, Nintendo sits back, sells you the same game for the fourth time, and laughs all the way to the bank in a language you'll never hear because they don't do Directs anymore, apparently. **The Verdict:** It's a great game, it's a flawed game, and arguing about it in 2024 is peak internet brain.
Final Thoughts
Just please, for the love of everything, stop ranking the temples.