Finally, after many laborious hours and frantic changes to the game, Nintendo launched
Ocarina of Time
on a whopping 32MB cartridge, jam-packed with 32-bit (pseudo) color
textured environments, intelligent enemies, rich and complex dungeons,
and lots of interesting characters to interact with, not to mention
some very enjoyable cutscene sequences. All of our prior glimpses
of the game were through sneak peeks with IGN, Nintendo Power, and some
of the more obscure media outlets. But finally, Nintendo released
the trailer commercial in the U.S., which we can now see again thanks
to the magic of YouTube!
The game was first released in Japan on November 21st, 1998. Two
days later, it came out in the United States. It was nearly a
month later that the PAL version was released, though in time for
Christmas with a release date at December 18. While the U.S. and
Japan enjoyed having a golden cartridge for all of the first shipments,
most of the other countries did not share that luxury (with the
exception of Australia).
In addition to that,
Ocarina of Time
had a lot of revisions made to it throughout its lifetime. Most
of these were minor patches that fixed some of the glitches in the
game, while some were console ports (the Gamecube and iQue ports,
mainly) and some were dungeon remakes (
Ura in Japan, Master Quest everywhere else).
In order of release:
Version: 1.0
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Region: NTSC (Japan/USA)
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System: N64
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Initial
release for the N64. Came as a gold cartridge. Some gray
cartridges have this version as well, though it is comparatively
rare. Virtually all ROM sites distribute this version.
Suffers from the 'No Name' glitch in the Beta Quest unless you have
Japanese mode on.
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Version: 1.1
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Region: NTSC (Japan/USA)
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System: N64
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Second
release for the N64, came out as soon as it filled the shelves.
Predominantly found in gray cartridges, this version is the most
commonly found. Also suffers from the 'No Name' glitch in the
Beta Quest. No longer has the first "fishing pole" or "Final
Ganon" lose-the-Master-Sword tricks in it, though there are still some
techniques that let you get rid of it without resorting to the
Gameshark.
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Version: 1.0
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Region: PAL (Europe/Aus.)
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System: N64
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Initial
release for Europe and Australian markets. Though similar to 1.1,
it contains different translations and has some bug fixes. It
does not suffer from the 'No Name' glitch, as the languages all share
the same character palette. The most common version in the
European markets.
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Version: 1.2
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Region: NTSC (Japan/USA)
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System: N64
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Last
release for the N64 in this region. Didn't hit the shelves until
pretty much 1999, so it's much less commonly found. This version
of the game no longer contains the Japanese text and plays the same as
the first PAL release.
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Version: 1.1
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Region: PAL (Europe/Aus.)
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System: N64
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Similar
to the previous version, but with a few bug fixes. The
differences are pretty subtle between 1.0 PAL and 1.1 PAL, and for the
most part you'll never encounter them except, of course, when using the
Gameshark.
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Version: 1.1 (Japan), 1.3 (USA)
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Region: NTSC (Japan/USA)
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System: GCN
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Released
several months earlier in Japan, this version was essentially a port of
the 1.2 game to the GameCube (Japanese text was added back in for the
Japanese release, but not the American). Also contained some
minor bug fixes, but also had some occasional glitches due to the
emulator the GameCube used.
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Version: 2.0
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Region: NTSC (Japan/USA)
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System: GCN
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Released
simultaneously with version 1.1/1.3. Identical to version 1.1
(Japan) or 1.3 (USA) with the only difference being the layout of the
dungeons. While challenging to some, it lacks many of the
promised features that Nintendo made for the N64DD expansion and most
likely is a quick hack. To explain this even better: we can not
only make our own Master Quests, but we can make better ones.
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Version: 1.2
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Region: PAL (Europe/Aus.)
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System: GCN
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A
port of the 1.1 PAL version to the GameCube. The only changes
made were a couple bug fixes, some coloring changes of the interface,
and some changes to the dialogue to accurately describe the controller
scheme for the GameCube. Also suffered from emulation glitches.
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Version: 2.0
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Region: PAL (Europe/Aus.)
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System: GCN
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Virtually identical to the USA release.
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Version: 2.0b
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Region: Unknown (USA/PAL)
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System: GCN
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This
unofficial release occurred at some point on the Internet, containing a
debugger's version of the Master Quest. It features numerous
debugging tools, including the ever-popular Map Select and nifty Debug
Camera utilities, and additional secret debugging tools accessible only
with the Gameshark. Also includes several test maps, some of
which appear to be dungeons from the early parts of Ocarina of Time's
development. Has never appeared in cartridge form but can be
uploaded to Doctor V64jr and CD64 units, though you had to remove
Hyrule Field and excess padding in order for it to fit in the 32MB RAM
the units used.
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Ocarina of Time is considered by many to be one of the greatest
video games ever produced in the 20th century, although some contend
that Final Fantasy 7 deserved that position. While we at ZSO
refrain from comment on this minor debate, we think they're both pretty
darn good.
