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Released for the Nintendo 64 on April, 19 2023 by Jinnosuke9,
Col0Korn, & Shoopey,
The Legend of Zelda: The Sealed Palace is a complete rom hack
sequel to 1998's Ocarina of Time
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In 2023, I played through the newly released
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. I
enjoyed the game,
reviewed it and gave it a ten. Later that year, for the fourth or fifth time, I played through the Nintendo
64's
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and
reviewed it for its 25th anniversary. It should go without saying that I also gave that game a perfect score.
However, something strange stood out after that
Ocarina of Time playthrough. Despite giving both
games perfect scores, I could not get over the fact that I enjoyed
Ocarina of Time FAR more. I was ready to play it another ten times after
I finished it. Every time I sat down to play it, I'd make a batch of cookies or
something. It just felt right. It just feels right. The way the story integrates into the game.
The way the world is just the right size. The way everything feels intuitive.
The way the player can explore to nearly their heart's content, but must follow
the game's linear story to progress through the game. I started to realize that
I must have a preference for older games. Looking at my game logs from the past
few years, I realized that I in fact heavily leaned toward older games...and I've only
really played a new game if it features my favorite Nintendo characters.
Thankfully, a group of modders have ensured that even if I somehow play every
older game, there will be "new" old games to play into perpetuity, because now there are new
Zelda, Mario, and more games available for the Nintendo 64. I received 2023's
The Legend of Zelda: The Sealed Palace as a Christmas gift last year, and I've played through it as my
first Nintendo 64 mod experience. How is it?
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| The title screen is legit. I love the twist on the color scheme. |
It's immediately apparent that the three modders responsible for
The Sealed Palace, Jinnosuke9, Col0Korn, & Shoopey, wanted it to
feel like a real new Zelda game for the Nintendo 64. The game begins with some
memorable music and a title screen featuring a camera roving over an in-game
landscape like the 64's previous official titles,
Ocarina of Time and
Majora's Mask.
There's nothing as memorable as Link riding across a sunrise horizon on his
horse, but the quality of the opening screen still stands out. This game is a
mod of
Ocarina of Time (but requires the Expansion Pak), and from the title screen,
the name entry and game file screen is the same as from Nintendo's stellar 1998 title. Once a
name is selected and a new game started, the player takes over as child Link
(but as whatever they've named him...I went with the old standby..."Ace"), who
is behind bars in the dungeon of Hyrule Castle.
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| When the player returns to the castle as an adult, it's a little different |
Through text we find that Link's forest village has been burned to the
ground and he and the leader of his adopted people, the Kokori, have been
imprisoned.
The Sealed Palace's story is unfortunately not its strong suit. It's essentially
just a vague twist on
Ocarina of Time's story. Eventually, Link finds from
Princess Zelda that he must collect three spiritual stones. It's then revealed
that he's been tricked, this time by the evil Gerudo witches, Kotake and
Koume (yes, the two witches from
Ocarina of Time), into reviving Ganon.
This is extremely similar to the storyline from
Ocarina, and gives the
game an excuse to spend the first 1/3 of the game with Young Link and the next
2/3 with Adult Link, just like in
Ocarina. It's not clear if this
storyline is happening right after
Ocarina happened or instead of
Ocarina. There's also none of
Ocarina's showmanship, as the cutscenes
here are pretty much just dialogue from someone offscreen telling Link what is
happening. This makes it confusing when Link interacts with the Sages after he
beats each Temple as an adult, and they seem to be introducing themselves as if
they've never seen him before. Frankly, the story here is a mess, and it
is
The Sealed Palace's liability, even when it tries to tie into newer games like
Skyward Sword.
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| Pictured: The Sealed Palace's story |
As off as the story feels, just about everything else in
The Sealed Palace feels right. The Hyrule here is just about as large as
the one in
Ocarina, but the modders have designed all new environments.
There are twists on previous environments like the Lost Woods, Castle Town, and
Lon Lon Ranch, but these locations are far different than in
Ocarina. There are
also many, many totally new environments, like a gorge, a twisted,
half-submerged mine, massive bluffs near the ocean, a seaside fishing village,
and a dilapidated mountaintop mansion (a nod to
Twilight Princess), among others. All of these environments look great.
The modders use code from the original game, along with the expansion pak, to
create some beautiful looking areas. Graphically,
The Sealed Palace is mostly a triumph. The enemies
and NPC's that populate these environments are taken from
Ocarina. They
look as good as they did there. As stated, the story is the weak point here, and
I'll throw the character work into that. too The story is not the reason to play
this game, though, nor are the characters. The nostalgia certainly helps, the
new environments help, but there's one major factor here, one incredibly
powerful pro that demands any huge
Ocarina fan play this game: the
dungeons/temples.
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| It may not have the near spiritual heft of the Fire Temple in Ocarina, but The Sealed Palace's version is incredibly good. |
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| The use of architecture in the temples is incredibly fun |
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| Yep, it's these guys again |
Like in
Ocarina, young Link must traverse three main dungeons and adult
Link five, with many mini-dungeons in-between and one massive dungeon that
brings in elements of all the previous ones at the end. While the dungeons are
analogous to their
Ocarina counterparts, these are all completely
different monsters. The dungeons here may, for instance, revolve around the same element, ala
water or fire, but the design and implementation is completely different for
each. Granted the main item found in each dungeon is generally the same, and the
final boss is always the same, though sometimes in a redesigned room with new
obstacles, but the dungeons themselves are all new.
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| Even the graveyard is completely redesigned |
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| Castle Town is huge here, much larger than in the original game, and The Sealed Palace's central location |
Frankly, the average dungeon in
The Sealed Palace is better
designed than the average dungeon in
Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo needs to
hire Jinnosuke9, Col0Korn, & Shoopey and get them to help design the
dungeons in the new Zelda game. Granted, these dungeons have different rhythms
than the ones in
Ocarina. but once the player gets used to those rhythms, these
dungeons are awesome. What do I mean by different rhythms? For starters,
platforming is far more of a gameplay element here. The player will have to do a
LOT more jumping, and as the game goes along, these jumps require pinpoint
accuracy.
The Sealed Palace's version of The Shadow Temple, The Church
Catacombs, might as well be the Zelda version of
Super Mario 64's Tick Tock
Clock...and it's awesome! Another element is having an eagle eye for detail. I
ran around the last leg of this game's version of The Forest Temple for an hour
before I realized there was a target I needed to shoot with an arrow, hidden
behind a hole in a wall, partially covered with vines. While I was frustrated at
the time, I started looking for things like this in the later dungeons...and
finding them gave me an incredible sense of satisfaction.
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| As did climbing to the top of the mast of the ship, one of the game's many cool new environments |
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| Hey, this place looks familiar, only...different |
Thankfully, the control scheme from
Ocarina of Time is ported over
exactly. It's just as tight as it is in that game. All of the items come over,
and they all work just as well. Nintendo already put in the work for that in the late
90s. The modders wisely stay out of their way with those elements here.
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| The target lock-on combat system that changed video games still works like a charm |
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| Though sometimes I like to get a little chaotic and just wing it... |
Like in
Ocarina there are also side quests and things to collect.
There are again 100 Skulltula to hunt down. There are again a huge smattering of
heart pieces to find. There are several bottles. There's an awesome giant and
powerful Bigorron Sword. There are plenty of extra things to do. The game's main quest is
already 20 plus hours long, easily full length. With these extras added on,
there's plenty to do for quite a while. I should also mention the music. It's
obviously not up to the level of Koji Kondo's work, whose most important pieces
reappear here. However, the majority of this music, including the ocarina songs, are new, and they are quite good. I was impressed.
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| Finding a heart piece never loses its satisfaction factor |
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| You even get a horse again, though this time it's Mido, instead of Epona. Also, the time still changes. The sun sets, the sun rises, and you can learn a song to control it all. |
Overall, I had a great experience returning to this new version of
Hyrule.
The Sealed Palace may be flawed, particularly when it comes to its
storytelling and characters, but when it comes to expanding the
Ocarina of Time
experience on the Nintendo 64, particularly in new environments and incredible
new dungeons, it's a blast. While the game can be played on a computer, I think
the way I played it is best: on a cartridge (Google it) on the Nintendo 64!
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