Topic: 2013/01: The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64) - Peardian

[JonLeung]

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Peardian's The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64) maps.

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is one of those games that really shouldn't need an introduction.  Certainly by now everyone knows of this epic adventure game where Link travels between the present and future to save the land of Hyrule from the evil Ganondorf.  And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go grab a Nintendo 64 (or a GameCube or a 3DS) and play this game right now.  Make it your New Year's resolution to get this under your belt.  Oh, but if you do need help, by all means, come back here and take a look at Peardian's maps.

This game's map set is the 100th to be honoured as Maps Of The Month!  (That is, if you don't count the five April Fools' joke maps.)  For this milestone, I absolutely had to recognize maps like these!  Not only is The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time recognized as one of the greatest video games of all time, but these maps are just straight-up amazing.  While the vast majority of the maps on this site are from sprite/tile-based games, these are polygonal maps.  Peardian is a pioneer in the mapping of polygonal games, having been previously recognized for mapping Paper Mario and teaching N64 mapping techniques in our forums.  Since polygonal maps depend on perspective, he's been kind enough to render us maps from both a top view and a side view.  From Kokiri Forest to the Temple Of Time to Ganon's Castle, you'll never get lose in Hyrule again.  Even the infamous Water Temple doesn't seem so difficult now!  Mapping everything twice is no easy feat, and took Peardian two years to fully map the quintessential N64 adventure game!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping one of the greatest games of all time, Peardian's The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for January 2013.

[Peardian]

Thank you for the honor! Mapping this game taught me a lot about working with 3D, and it's an experience I really enjoyed.


Part of my New Year's resolution is to start working on the Master Quest dungeon maps as soon as possible. I was hoping to get it done sooner, but other things took my attention. With any luck, I'll have them all done in a few months!

[Grizzly]

I only got up to the part after the big whale "dungeon" (Jabu-Jabu's Belly) when I played Ocarina Of Time in the past. So I never had the fun of time traveling in the game. I didn't even know that it's part of the game. I really should replay it

These maps are very special because they show that even newer or the newest 3D games can be mapped with the right tools (no screenshot pasting possible here). Most games do not really use the third dimension thoroughly so it can be displayed fine on a 2D orthographic/axonometric projection map with minor trade-offs ((half)invisible walls in one direction). Exceptions are games like Super Mario Galaxy, Prey, Gex 3D or Descent where there's no clearly defined "up" direction in many areas.

[Rew]

At last! And very well deserved.

And I'm definitely looking forward to the Master Quest maps. (And Majora's Mask. And the remaining bonus levels of Yoshi's Island GBA, etc. )

@Grizzly: Yeah, you definitely owe it to yourself to finish. The game gets even better after Jabu-Jabu's Belly.

[JonLeung]

Over a year later, and people are noticing this now...good job, Peardian!

GoNintendo.com - Random Time! - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time isometric maps
Kotaku - The Water Temple Doesn't Seem Difficult In These Ocarina of Time Maps
Fuck Yeah Hyrule - cool extruded views of Ocarina Of Time maps
Reddit - Impressive Ocarina of Time Maps (link to full set in first reply)

[Peardian]

Only now? Go figure.

[Rew]

Pretty soon, they'll have Majora's Mask maps to look forward to as well.

[JonLeung]

Some more love from Kotaku:
Kotaku - Here Are Some Isometric Ocarina Of Time Maps

This was posted yesterday evening - funnily enough, my next YouTube video on the "JonLeung1" channel is finally specifically about VGMaps, and the writer of that Kotaku post, Luke Plunkett, chose almost exactly the ones I initially chose to be in the video when I was editing it, also yesterday evening (though I have since changed the selections).  Look forward to that video either tonight or this weekend.

Of all the promotion I do of this web site, that fact that we have almost 40,000 maps seems to pale in comparison to the simple fact that we have Ocarina Of Time maps, which continue to bring in viewers in droves.  Thanks again, Peardian!

[JonLeung]

Peardian's maps are still loved and utilized!  They appear in this recent video at 3:00.