Ocarina of Time is a Horror Game!

[SpiritOfTheHero]

So, I'm back from the grave again, and this time with a post talking about the horror roots and gothic aesthetics of Ocarina of Time (1998). I originally wrote this on a new blog I cultivated a few days ago. I attempted to share this on Discord but no seemed interested, so I am switching gears and posting it here because I really want to share my thoughts with everyone here. Without further ado, here we go!​

A strange admission is in declaring that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) is a horror game. The E-rating is a beguiling rating because this game is an intense and grotesque presentation of the gothic. Link must battle skeletons, zombies, monsters, and evil magicians in this epic Medieval-like adventure.​

The Ambience of Castle Town

The events of Ocarina of Time are an inherent complication for every Legend of Zelda enthusiast out there, but suffice to say the story of the game sees you (as Link) fighting to liberate a Hyrule ravaged by evil. The dystopian tone of Hyrule during Link's adulthood is ever-present. Castle Town is dark, decrepit, devoid of citizens, and crawling with Redeads (the zombies). The ambience is chilling and haunting, there is only the sound of an eternal evil wind emanating from Ganon's Castle. The malevolence is physical and detectable by the player. As a child, I was profoundly unsettled and wary of Castle Town the instant I exited the Temple of Time as an adult. The meandering Redeads with their inhuman groaning and their ability to sap the vitality from Link was horrifying.

Link and the Undead
A surprising number of the enemy types in this game are actually undead. Redeads, of course, Poes (ghosts), Stalfos (undead skeletal warriors), Gibdos (not to be confused with Redeads), Stalchilds, and Phantom Ganon. All of these enemies are variations of common literary supernatural beings, and their inclusion in Ocarina of Time is an essential facet of Link's psychology. As the Hero of Time, Link is the Bearer of the Triforce of Courage; the Triforce of Courage is a divine manifestation of the goddess, Farore. As its recipient, Link is imbued with the highest pinnacle of bravery that is possible. So, why is this crucial to the horror aesthetics of Ocarina of Time?
​

I underestimated that boy. No... it was not the boy I underestimated, it was the Triforce of Courage. - Ganondorf

Courage necessitates Fear
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines courage as the "mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty." Link must feel afraid as he traverses Hyrule's elaborate dungeons, battles undead hordes, and defeats supernatural monsters. The Hero of Time appears fearless, but remember... he is the Bearer of the Triforce of Courage, not the Triforce of Fearlessness. It is necessary for Link to have courage because he is always in mortal danger. Horror is the grotesque, and Ocarina of Time is rife with these embodiments of the uncanny. The Redead is vaguely human-like but its grotesqueness taps into these primitive phobias of the unknown. Who or what cultivated this undead being? Does a Redead have a conscience; what drives this zombified creature? Link must surely be pondering the same thing as a high-pitched shriek paralyzes his being!
A player encounters a Redead for the first time....

The Shadow Temple
​

The epitome of horror in Ocarina of Time rests in the Shadow Temple, where Link must venture into the heart of the undead itself. Within its ominous walls rests frightful, grotesque monsters and beings cultivated by darkness. Optical illusions run amok in the Shadow Temple in an exercise of phantasmagoria. Link's courage is at its most vital in what is officially considered the 6th dungeon. Dungeon is an interesting word, of course. What does it mean? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this word as "a dark usually underground prison or vault." The Online Etymology Dictionary furthers attests that it came from the French donjon, meaning "great tower of a castle." Castles, of course, are a common staple of the gothic. Ergo, the presentation of the dungeon in Ocarina of Time must be influenced by the gothic. The Shadow Temple is also nestled at the heart of a cemetery in Kakariko Village, so its relationship with death is intimate and proximate. It could very well be - owing to theory more than concrete evidence - that Kakariko's wandering corrupt souls are located in the Shadow Temple. In its way, the dungeon is an elaborate necropolis (city of the dead) with a demon as its head.

Closing Thoughts
What do you think? Do you agree that Ocarina of Time is a horror game after reading this post? Why or why not? I believe Ocarina of Time is a gothic presentation, one that presents the grotesque and the malevolent to terrifying and horrifying effect.

Author's Note: This is a three-minute read, so as short as it sounds, it actually took me a couple of days to cobble all of this together, so I would appreciate any feedback or discussion. It's not often that I post on here, but when I do... I hope it's with stimulating content. This is not a theory post, this is a general "what I think" post, so I hope it is posted in the right channel. You are welcome to ignore this, if you like, but I enjoy sharing my thoughts and knowledge with others. If you have read this far, then I hope it was an invigorating session, and if you are hooked, why not check out my blog down below? I've got three other posts just like this.

My Blog

 

[Thrix]

Very glad to see someone else write about this. I wouldn't call it a horror game but it's definitely horror-adjacent. To me Oot has always had this dark fairytale feel. The kind that contains both fantasy and wonder, but also really disturbing things (often implied in some way). I will say though, that Kakariko is just short of being a Lovecraft story. Add some crazy villagers in a cult and you'd be all set. I definitely miss this darker fairytale style in Zelda. There's also the whole thing about children getting lost in the forest and turning into Skull kids, as well as adults turning into Stalfos.

What makes Oot really work is how it presents this world without making all of it a main focus in your quest. The lost woods are cursed but we never see anything directly, the redeads of castle town imply things not shown. The whole deal with the well and Shadow Temple tying into a darker side of the Sheikah and royal family, stemming from an era of war. If the game ever called too much direct attention to any of these things it would've lessened their impact. The fact that it's all just there, waiting to be found. It's all just part of the world and not necessarily important to your main quest. It always made Hyrule feel like a real place. There's history there, sometimes dark and tragic.

I'm pretty sure Oot is the game that taught me to be brave in the face of scary things. I was only 9 when it came out and I still vividly remember my first encounter with the redeads in the royal family's tomb. It was the first time I had ever felt genuine fear while playing a video game. I think forcing Link, and by extension the player, to face actually dark, scary and adult things tie expertly into the theme of growing up. Sometimes, as children, we see or hear things we shouldn't. Things we can't fully grasp. Once we grow up the world seems bleaker and darker, yet when we look back on fond childhood memories we see how that darkness had always been there just beneath the surface. The graveyard is young Link's first run in with something darker. The adult section recontextualizes his childhood home into something disturbing, and the world turns dark and bleak. Yet when Link goes back to his childhood, the well serves as that reminder that the world was always a dark and grim place, we just didn't fully grasp it with the mind of a child. How the theme of growing up is portrayed in the story, world building, music and mechanics is outside of the scope for this thread though.

Suffice to say. Claiming that Oot shaped my tastes in horror, is an understatement. The fact that it's allowed to just exist, or just be implied, and serve as a contrast to the rest of the adventure. It makes it all hit so much harder than in any horror game I've played since.

 

[SpiritOfTheHero]

Very glad to see someone else write about this. I wouldn't call it a horror game but it's definitely horror-adjacent. To me Oot has always had this dark fairytale feel. The kind that contains both fantasy and wonder, but also really disturbing things (often implied in some way). I will say though, that Kakariko is just short of being a Lovecraft story. Add some crazy villagers in a cult and you'd be all set. I definitely miss this darker fairytale style in Zelda. There's also the whole thing about children getting lost in the forest and turning into Skull kids, as well as adults turning into Stalfos.

What makes Oot really work is how it presents this world without making all of it a main focus in your quest. The lost woods are cursed but we never see anything directly, the redeads of castle town imply things not shown. The whole deal with the well and Shadow Temple tying into a darker side of the Sheikah and royal family, stemming from an era of war. If the game ever called too much direct attention to any of these things it would've lessened their impact. The fact that it's all just there, waiting to be found. It's all just part of the world and not necessarily important to your main quest. It always made Hyrule feel like a real place. There's history there, sometimes dark and tragic.

I'm pretty sure Oot is the game that taught me to be brave in the face of scary things. I was only 9 when it came out and I still vividly remember my first encounter with the redeads in the royal family's tomb. It was the first time I had ever felt genuine fear while playing a video game. I think forcing Link, and by extension the player, to face actually dark, scary and adult things tie expertly into the theme of growing up. Sometimes, as children, we see or hear things we shouldn't. Things we can't fully grasp. Once we grow up the world seems bleaker and darker, yet when we look back on fond childhood memories we see how that darkness had always been there just beneath the surface. The graveyard is young Link's first run in with something darker. The adult section recontextualizes his childhood home into something disturbing, and the world turns dark and bleak. Yet when Link goes back to his childhood, the well serves as that reminder that the world was always a dark and grim place, we just didn't fully grasp it with the mind of a child. How the theme of growing up is portrayed in the story, world building, music and mechanics is outside of the scope for this thread though.

Suffice to say. Claiming that Oot shaped my tastes in horror, is an understatement. The fact that it's allowed to just exist, or just be implied, and serve as a contrast to the rest of the adventure. It makes it all hit so much harder than in any horror game I've played since.

First, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and elegant response. It is interesting that you call OoT horror-adjacent, but I can understand why you would. Your mention of the dark fairytale or fantasy reminds me of this ROM hack for OoT called "Dark Hyrule Fantasy," which puts a Lovecraftian, gothic spin on things. I have been meaning to try it out but I cannot get the ROM hack to play on my emulator. I never thought to imagine crazy villagers from a cult in Kakariko Village, but you are certainly correct, there is a Lovecraft vibe there. These are precisely the aspects and themes of the game which made me conceive the idea that this game is a horror game. It deals with a lot of unsettling, shocking or otherwise revulsive things such as lost children turning into Skull Kids or corrupted souls becoming Redeads. This game was pretty hardcore back in its day because minutes before Link opens the Door of Time, you can find a dying Hylian soldier. When you examine him, Navi says, "He's not moving anymore..." implying that the man is dead.

I played OoT a couple of years after its release, I believe in 2001, because I was born four years prior to its release. My scariest encounter in OoT was actually the Wallmasters. I remembered exploring the Forest Temple and seeing a shadow descend on me before a giant hand swooped down and took me high into the darkness of the ceiling. When I was booted back to the entrance of the Temple, I had to sit there in shock wondering what that was. Needless to say, when I reentered the same room I had been exploring, I was incredibly cautious and moved quickly to the next room. I didn't stop to explore. That was my fear encouraging my productivity. I also agree that Hyrule felt/feels like a real place. There is a dark history to the land and the politics feel very impactful to the kingdom, such as the Great Hylian Civil War that broke out. It says something particularly gritty that Link should be an orphan and already associated with death at a young age, it is one of the darkest entries to series after Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess. And yes, I always liked how the world became this bleak and dystopian setting during Link's adulthood. Everywhere you went, the land was brimming with curses and evil, and the skies were cast ominously the closer you went to Hyrule Castle.

I truly think that OoT was my first horror game as well.​

 

[BloodyKun]

Being my first Zelda game, and being so used to stuff like Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Pokemon etc., it was definitely a stark contrast at least in later parts of the game. I would say Majora’s Mask is darker in tone, but OoT does have much more violent implications and straight up blood and all. It really made me wonder how they would reconcile the Sheikah’s past when we knew they’d show up in Breath of the Wild again…turns out very little. I’m fine with the Yiga but if they weren’t such comic relief, I think it would have been more interesting to go into how they were basically Hyrule’s interrogators, and the current Sheikah had more a thing of renouncing their ways and atonement - probably even mirror that with the Gerudo and how they are moving toward not being so closed off from other cultures, while we’re at it.

I feel the times sure have changed in many ways since then, huh? I don’t feel Zelda has to be ultra gritty or anything, it’s all fine to be family oriented and the deeper stuff can be conveyed without being spelled out most of the time. But sometimes it does get a little frustrating when it feels like they thought they should censor themselves, or worse when the localization team oversteps boundaries to cover up something that’s fine in Japanese culture or otherwise.

My brother and I played GTA early on, even managed to get a copy of San Andreas when the whole hot coffee thing happened and they were in talks of making it AO. But I think there’s a real difference between that and something like No More Heroes - my introduction to the world of Grasshopper and Suda51. A lot of it is over the top to be funny, really, but there’s also a level of brutality to it that is just not there in your usual GTA game outside of that infamous torture mission in 5.

So when I found out Japan and Europe got censored versions I found it incredibly silly. I even somehow forgot about laws specifically about dismemberment until the RE2 remake came out, but I feel at least there it was a lot closer to what they wanted to show.

I also recall thinking the Halo games were extremely tame. I don’t recall which one got a teen rating, but people were worried a bit about it, and here I am thinking that they never seem to show much blood or on screen deaths as it is. Reach might be the one that comes closest, but their armor is so bulky that they feel more like action figures getting broken than humans dying.

I don’t know if I should mention any TotK stuff, maybe some still haven’t played yet, but I’ll just say…some stuff worked, some stuff didn’t, but one of the larger elements is just me being afraid of the dark in particular. I’m the type who can play through Shadows of the Damned, maybe even an actual horror game, but others like Outer Wilds or Subnautica or even Abzu had me noping. Finished that last one, but just barely.

 

[SpiritOfTheHero]

Being my first Zelda game, and being so used to stuff like Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Pokemon etc., it was definitely a stark contrast at least in later parts of the game. I would say Majora’s Mask is darker in tone, but OoT does have much more violent implications and straight up blood and all. It really made me wonder how they would reconcile the Sheikah’s past when we knew they’d show up in Breath of the Wild again…turns out very little. I’m fine with the Yiga but if they weren’t such comic relief, I think it would have been more interesting to go into how they were basically Hyrule’s interrogators, and the current Sheikah had more a thing of renouncing their ways and atonement - probably even mirror that with the Gerudo and how they are moving toward not being so closed off from other cultures, while we’re at it.

I feel the times sure have changed in many ways since then, huh? I don’t feel Zelda has to be ultra gritty or anything, it’s all fine to be family oriented and the deeper stuff can be conveyed without being spelled out most of the time. But sometimes it does get a little frustrating when it feels like they thought they should censor themselves, or worse when the localization team oversteps boundaries to cover up something that’s fine in Japanese culture or otherwise.

My brother and I played GTA early on, even managed to get a copy of San Andreas when the whole hot coffee thing happened and they were in talks of making it AO. But I think there’s a real difference between that and something like No More Heroes - my introduction to the world of Grasshopper and Suda51. A lot of it is over the top to be funny, really, but there’s also a level of brutality to it that is just not there in your usual GTA game outside of that infamous torture mission in 5.

So when I found out Japan and Europe got censored versions I found it incredibly silly. I even somehow forgot about laws specifically about dismemberment until the RE2 remake came out, but I feel at least there it was a lot closer to what they wanted to show.

I also recall thinking the Halo games were extremely tame. I don’t recall which one got a teen rating, but people were worried a bit about it, and here I am thinking that they never seem to show much blood or on screen deaths as it is. Reach might be the one that comes closest, but their armor is so bulky that they feel more like action figures getting broken than humans dying.

I don’t know if I should mention any TotK stuff, maybe some still haven’t played yet, but I’ll just say…some stuff worked, some stuff didn’t, but one of the larger elements is just me being afraid of the dark in particular. I’m the type who can play through Shadows of the Damned, maybe even an actual horror game, but others like Outer Wilds or Subnautica or even Abzu had me noping. Finished that last one, but just barely.

Yeah, same here. OoT was also my first Zelda game, and I was playing that in tandem with Super Mario 64, Perfect Dark, and other N64 titles at the time, although the console itself had essentially obsoleted by the time I hopped on in 2001. I do agree that Majora's Mask is darker in tone, it at least feels more... apocalyptic in ways that OoT never did, but I think that's because it was post-apocalyptic or dystopian. Funnily enough, Legend of Zelda was primarily dystopian in its heyday, like I was playing A Link to the Past (got far but still need to finish it) a couple of summers ago and I was immediately drawn in by how dystopian Hyrule gets when it's absorbed into the Dark World.

Does Zelda have to be gritty and dystopian? Well, not necessarily, as you said, but I think those have been my favourite entries compared to the lighthearted ones. Even Breath of the Wild was dystopian, wasn't it? You had a land ravaged by Calamity Ganon for 100 years and a hero who barely remembered who he was or what his purpose was. That itself speaks volumes because the art style (just like in Wind Waker) is a stark contrast to the tones and themes themselves. You could have some dark underlying themes but your art direction is cel-shaded, which conveys something considerably more lighthearted than what it actually is at its heart. There's probably a good word to describe this, but I'll just call it... the art-theme contrast.

The thing about Japan and other Asian countries surrounding it, is that censorship has always been pervasive. I remember hearing that Halo: Combat Evolved was censored in China way back in the day (of course, I learned this like a couple of years ago), so I am not surprised to hear that Japan is censoring games, even their own. Capcom even got rid of most of the gore in RE3R but strangely brought it back for the recent RE4R (which is an awesome game, by the way). I think the Halo to get a T-rating was the sequel, which consequently may have had something to do with Halo 1's censorship in China. Halo 3 was back to that M-rating, however. Still, it wasn't Doom or Wolfenstein, so I do think it was kinda tame, although Halo 1 dropped the ball and became a horror game like halfway through when the Flood came around.

I could never play Subnautica, by the way. I've got pretty extreme thalassophobia.

 

[Thrix]

I'm curious about what everyone's take on the 3DS remakes are. Majora's Mask 3D is definitely divisive with all of its changes but that's not what I'm referring to. What I mean is the feel and atmosphere of the games. There's no denying that they look better in terms of detail, polygons and matching the intended art style. Yet when I play Oot3D I find that some of its original feel and atmosphere is gone. It's too...clean and bright. The extra detail in the environments highlight their simplicity in a way that feels more artificial and emptier than the N64 version.

There's more grit and personality to the older textures that make areas feel more lived in. The fog, a result of technical limitations, adds so much more to the ambiance. Since the horror aspects are so central to Oot and MM, I sincerely feel like we lost something in the newer versions. Not to mention how they cleaned up the well and dead hand.

 

[BloodyKun]

That’s true, quite a number of the games feel pretty dystopian, more than I’ve realized. And I don’t mind that, either, as, like you say, the art styles reflect something else - I feel in many ways this supports a more hopeful message than Fallout or Dark Souls, just to name a few. In either BotW or WW, life finds a way to go on, even in the face of what seems like complete disaster.

As for the graphics in the 3DS remakes…I didn’t see it before but I can see what you mean. However, I do think overall, for OoT at least, it brought out the more whimsical side of the art style, unfortunate as it is that some of the darker elements are toned down. MM on the other hand, well, it’s my least favorite remake in the series for quite a few reasons, one of those being to not bother changing the assets at all. Perhaps it might have been harder to pull off on 3DS hardware but I was hoping for more of the sharp, black shading shown in the official art. I suppose at least they’ve got the strangely vibrant color contrast.

 

[SpiritOfTheHero]

I'm curious about what everyone's take on the 3DS remakes are. Majora's Mask 3D is definitely divisive with all of its changes but that's not what I'm referring to. What I mean is the feel and atmosphere of the games. There's no denying that they look better in terms of detail, polygons and matching the intended art style. Yet when I play Oot3D I find that some of its original feel and atmosphere is gone. It's too...clean and bright. The extra detail in the environments highlight their simplicity in a way that feels more artificial and emptier than the N64 version.
View attachment 71243
There's more grit and personality to the older textures that make areas feel more lived in. The fog, a result of technical limitations, adds so much more to the ambiance. Since the horror aspects are so central to Oot and MM, I sincerely feel like we lost something in the newer versions. Not to mention how they cleaned up the well and dead hand.

I played the 3DS remake of OoT back in high school, when the 3DS was sorta hot off the presses. I have a much younger cousin who was playing it at the time, he must have been... like 9 or 10, and I was 17 or so. Anyway, OoT is a pretty hard game for a kid, so I used to help him beat the dungeons. My impressions of it at the time were that the graphics were nice and crisp, but I lamented the loss of the grittier colour palette of the N64/GameCube remaster port. One thing I really liked was being able to switch out items, weapons and gear without having to pause the game. So, I agree, I think the N64 version has more flair and charisma to it, but my favourite version is the GameCube because it has Master Quest, and improved frame rates. Otherwise, the graphics and art style of the game remain relatively unchanged, only slightly enhanced.

That’s true, quite a number of the games feel pretty dystopian, more than I’ve realized. And I don’t mind that, either, as, like you say, the art styles reflect something else - I feel in many ways this supports a more hopeful message than Fallout or Dark Souls, just to name a few. In either BotW or WW, life finds a way to go on, even in the face of what seems like complete disaster.

As for the graphics in the 3DS remakes…I didn’t see it before but I can see what you mean. However, I do think overall, for OoT at least, it brought out the more whimsical side of the art style, unfortunate as it is that some of the darker elements are toned down. MM on the other hand, well, it’s my least favorite remake in the series for quite a few reasons, one of those being to not bother changing the assets at all. Perhaps it might have been harder to pull off on 3DS hardware but I was hoping for more of the sharp, black shading shown in the official art. I suppose at least they’ve got the strangely vibrant color contrast.

Yeah, true. Although, I sorta struggle to define Wind Waker as dystopian, but I suppose it is, in its own aspects, because it's depicting a kingdom that was swallowed whole by a never-ending flood, like a world-ending event. In a way, it's a Biblical reference to Noah's Flood or Deluge. I haven't ever truly compared WW to the Old Testament, but it has some similarities. Otherwise, I think the world in Wind Waker has, more or less, recovered and prospered in the face of what was once adversity. The descendants of these ancient Hylians lived on or evolved... I'm still scratching my head at how Zoras became Rito, but now Breath of the Wild is stating differently (?).

I never played the remake of Majora's Mask, but the art-theme contrast inevitably masks the grittier nature of the game itself. The box cover art, with its vibrancy, would mislead a person into thinking the game will be whimsical and full of silly but fun puns, and then you realize that in three days the world will end. Pretty dark stuff. I guess in that sense, the art-theme contrast helps to strengthen the helpless nature of everything you. The remake art style lulls you into that false sense of bravado first, and then you find out how wrong you are second. Overall, though, I always thought OoT was a better game than MM because I could never acclimate myself to the sense of urgency that this game instilled. You're always on a timer with this game, and despite having the ability to slow time or revert it, you still feel like you have to hasten. It's effective, but when you complete a dungeon and positively affect the landscape around it, a quick time revert changes it back. It makes your accomplishments feel superficial.

 

[Dizzi]

i remeber getting scared in the well cuz i only saw the skulltas legs thought it was different baddie... and queen gohma i had to get my bro tp help!!! this was on the N64 btw...

 

[SpiritOfTheHero]

i remeber getting scared in the well cuz i only saw the skulltas legs thought it was different baddie... and queen gohma i had to get my bro tp help!!! this was on the N64 btw...

Oh, yeah! I have arachnophobia, so Skulltulas are a definite no-no for me. It doesn't beat that time a Wallmaster yoinked me into the ceiling at the Forest Temple, though. Can you imagine just seeing a shadow cast over you, not knowing what it is or what will happen, only to see a massive hand grab and take you away into the darkness? Christ, that was a shocker!

I think a lot of us take for granted how grotesque and terrifying the enemies are in Legend of Zelda. The Like-Likes, for example, are basically giant masses of conscious sand and they swallow you whole. They might as well digest you as well, and do other freaky stuff, which I won't mention for moderation reasons.

 

[Dizzi]

ohh Ellen from Outside Xtra shes got Arachnophobia so she cant do Skyrim!! and they did a couple of vids where she had to assess the scary spiders...

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

While some of its monsters certainly feel horrific, Ocarina of Time just doesn't have the resource throttling that horror games usually employ to ratchet tension up. You're far too powerful for anything to really be scary.

 

[SpiritOfTheHero]

While some of its monsters certainly feel horrific, Ocarina of Time just doesn't have the resource throttling that horror games usually employ to ratchet tension up. You're far too powerful for anything to really be scary.

I actually wrote a separate blog explaining the differences between horror and terror. You may have seen that in this post, I used keywords, such as "grotesque." It seems that horror has become a catch-all term to describe "scary" but it wasn't used this way initially, as when you read old gothic stories, authors always differentiated "horror" and "fear."

Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) actually uses "fright" and "horror" in a single sentence to describe a character's feelings. So, my point is that Ocarina of Time doesn't have to be a scary game to be a horror game. It's a horror game because the enemies are grotesque ergo horrific.

Of course, you are free to disagree with my point. I just thought it was prudent to explain the difference between horror and terror, since the latter is technically the association of scary and fear.