I think it's a decent addition to the zelda series. not the best, not the worst, here's my review for those interested:
OOT did fill in a few holes in the story, though I was a bit disappointed at the ending.
(SPOILER)
Yes, they imprisoned ganon in the dark realm by destroying him blah blah blah whatever, but what i was very unhappy with was the fact that no detail was given in his demise. IE: Ganon dies much the same way in OOT as he did in LTTP, the only difference being, in OOT ganon retains the triforce of power, (the other two peices remain with link and zelda) and in LTTP, somehow ganon loses that triforce (and somehow the triforce of wisdom was extricated from zelda, I don't remember reading much detail on these little holes in the story
) and Link was able to form the True Force and make his wish of peace with his 'balanced' heart.
This doesn't make sense really... From OOT we see that link and zelda both have their respective peices. well, from the timelines i've seen, hundreds of years pass before LTTP takes place, so what...does having a triforce peice imbedded in your (hand) body make you immortal????? Yeah OKAY. >=|
And even though OOT happens before LTTP, OOT was made on the 64 bit system, therefore SHOULDN'T there have been more capabilities added? The inventory of items you had in LTTP seemed awesome, and unique, and each played its part in certain situations, whether to find another item, or proceed in a dungeon, or simply to increase the combat capability of link. I found the magic cape to be just spiffy tricking pesky guards and raining devastation on the octoroks.
Speaking of inventory: In OOT, we have the advent of the ice arrow (presumably the replacement of the 'ice rod' from LTTP) which, by my calculations was a pitiful reward for passing the gerudo's training ground, bearing in mind that the arrows themselves are not integral to the main story, and mostly a waste of time.
True, in LTTP, the three medallions could be considered useless.... OH WAIT, two of those medallions are used to open dungeons
in OOT, I was fairly disappointed, there were no upgrades for the master sword. You receive the golden gauntlets at ganon's castle (gee, thanks game. I would have found that more entertaining, say, eight dungeons ago.) whereas in LTTP, you're not at your full potential by the last dungeon, but the number of upgrades and abilities you possess make 16-bit link look like the terminator beside 64-bit link.
Unfortunately, thanks to education, I'm now raising concerns with how link is able to freely 'travel' 7 years forward and backward in time. The story was neglectful to specify the scope of this 'time travel'. Not that I wanted a game with over 9000 link paradoxes running around and finally ending up at the pedestal to the master sword, but a little inventive explanation to put the scientist in me at ease would have been lovely without having explanations thrown at me 'Oh well it's magic, chris, its perfect every time.' Psh, if it was so perfect how'd it let ganon have the triforce then? herp derp, the argument goes on for days thanks to nintendo's wonderful lack of foresight.
Also, I can understand a tutorial at the start of the game to get the user up and running. But HAVING A TUTORIAL FOLLOW YOU THROUGH THE ENTIRE FREAKING GAME? did anyone want to shoot that long-winded owl as much as I did? Not offering an option to disable kaepora gaebora was very bad form, nintendo. very bad form.
So taking all things into account, OOT was innovative in that it was first person, and 3-D. that's about it. generally speaking, it has left as many holes in the story as the others did, the game play was pretty much identical, if not slightly worse, than previous titles, and really wasn't satisfying enough to get me to purchase another zelda title since. Realistically, that's a group of lazy developers who really could have made a legendary gamer-oriented title, but really just decided to stick with the lesson plan and churn out a generic game. *shrug* that's life, i guess.