r/ZeldaOoT

If yall interested you can play it here: https://www.n-puzzle.com/en/nintendoku

what do you value most in video games? Some value gameplay. some value story. some value graphics. me? the thing I value most in a video game is WHIMSY. Ocarina of time hides many nonsensical moments of pure whimsy, but few come close to the whimsy of playing music for the FABULOUS FIVE FROGGISH TENORS!

these frogs reward link with rupees and heart pieces when he plays the Ocarina, which somehow causes the frogs to grow. once completed, you can play a butterfly eating mini game with them. these guys weren't the first musical frogs in the zelda franchise, that honor goes to wart from super mario bros 2 when he appeared in Link's awakening, but the Fabulous five froggish tenors still take the reward for being the first 3D frogs. it's just a shame link had to kill one of their relatives in order to make eyedrops.

like most characters in Ocarina of time, Majora's mask would give the frogs terminaian counterparts in the form of... "the frog choir". huh, that's not as great a name as "the fabulous five froggish tenors", but they're basically the same frogs anyway. scattered across the land of termina, one side quest requires link to travel the world in search of the missing members of the frog choir.

(hey, listen! switch to the other image now)

but oh no, what's this? 2 of the frogs have turned... EVIL! meet gecko, a frog monster found in both the woodfall temple and the great bay temple. gecko doesn't fight on its own, summoning either a snapping turtle or a bunch of jelly blobs to battle link. what could have turned the innocent members of the frog choir into the evil gecko? ... well, we don't actually know. the game never tells you. but we can probably take an educated guess and say Skull kid/majora did it to cause trouble.

Majora's mask is equal parts whimsical and Nightmare inducing. taking the silly singing frogs and turning them into monsters... how cruel! but at least defeating Gecko turns them back into their frog form.

while today's subject was an example of Friendly Ocarina of time characters being turned twisted and evil in Majora's mask, tomorrow we shall do the opposite: Major Antagonists from Ocarina of time turned into friendly NPCs in Majora's mask. can you guess who tomorrow's subjects are? get it right and the frogs will sing a song for you.

Kokiri Emerald, Goron’s Ruby and Zora’s Sapphire with flowers and leaves as filler. One year healed.

normally when selecting an enemy to talk about, I choose them because I am quite fond of that enemy, or at the very least I find them weird and interesting to talk about. that changes today. this is an enemy I actively hate.

the game calls these things "Shell blades", but it doesn't matter what they name them: this is just a clam. a GOD DAMN CLAM!

first off, you only encounter them when you're underwater, so already they're off to a bad start. water levels in videos games are known for being terrible, and the water dungeons in legend of zelda are no exception. at least in Majora's mask you can turn into zora link, but in Ocarina of time, being underwater means you're wearing the iron boots. those stupid boots that make you slow.

then the god damn clam shows up. it opens its mouth showing you it's weak point, so you take out your hook shot, but uh oh, it's already closed its mouth and is doing its dumb little short hop attack. dealing with one of these things is bad enough, but if there's more than one of them, consider my day ruined.

like most Ocarina of time enemies, the God Damn clams returned in Majora's mask. but funnily enough, Majora's mask 3D actually removed some of them, as they no longer appear in the pirate's fortress. I've said it before and I'll say it again: never let anyone tell you that Majora's mask 3D is a bad remake. it has 20% less clams!

Playing OoT Remake in handheld mode will remind me of playing the remastered version on the 3ds. More then a decade ago (2011) I remember playing OoT on the 3ds and really found it amazing to play my most favourite game that i had played all the time during my childhood in the 90s, then many years later you can actually play OoT on a handheld gaming device. I was completely amazed, but with the QOL improvements, I was so impressed and really enjoyed my time playing it again.

Fast forward to present times 2026, and the full remake is coming out less than a month away. I have been thinking how amazing it's going to be to play this in handheld mode. It will bring back those memories of playing this on the 3ds but it will be 100 times better with this remake.

On my 2nd playthrough, I will definitely be playing in handheld mode, but on the 1st playthrough I will be playing it on my 32 inch gaming (IPS Screen) Monitor.

The Screen quality is pretty damn good on the Switch 2.

I was in my 20s when the remastered 3ds version came out in 2011, even through the 3ds remastered is not as nostalgia as playing the original N64 as a child back in the 90s. The 3ds came out 15 years ago more then a decade ago and can't help to feel a bit nostalgic of playing it now. So playing the remake of OoT on the Switch 2 in Handheld Mode will bring those nostalgic memories back when playing this on my 3ds back more then a decade ago.

I would advise you to definitely play it in handheld mode, especially if you have ever played the 3ds remastered version.