The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[a] is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in November 1998 and in PAL regions the following month. Ocarina of Time is the first game in The Legend of Zelda series with 3D graphics.

It was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD), led by five directors including Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi, produced by series co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto, and written by Kensuke Tanabe. Veteran Zelda series composer Koji Kondo created the soundtrack. The player controls Link in the fantasy land of Hyrule on a quest to stop the evil King Ganondorf, traveling through time and navigating dungeons and an overworld. The game introduced features such as a target lock system and context-sensitive buttons that have become commonplace in 3D adventure games. The player must learn to play multiple songs on an ocarina to progress.

Ocarina of Time received high praise from critics and consumers alike and won several awards and accolades, regarding its visuals, sound, gameplay, soundtrack and writing. It has been ranked by several publications as the greatest video game of all time, and is the highest rated game of all time on the review aggregator Metacritic. It was a commercial success, with over seven million copies sold worldwide. In the United States, it received more than three times as many pre-orders as any other game at the time, and was the best-selling game of 1998 in the country.

A direct sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, was released in 2000. Since then, Ocarina of Time has been re-released on all Nintendo home consoles and the iQue Player in China. An enhanced version of the game for the Nintendo 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, was released in 2011. Master Quest, an alternate version of the game including new puzzles and increased difficulty, is included in one of the GameCube releases and in the 3D version.