Ocarina of Time 3D: Playing the Ocarina

During my hands on experience with Ocarina of Time 3D, one of the gameplay changes that had been considerably upgraded is how you go about playing the actual Ocarina instrument. In the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube versions, you had assigned the Ocarina to one of the ‘C’ buttons, memorized one of the songs, and had to play it. If at any point you forgot how to play one of the songs, you could go into the start menu to see what the correct notes were. Well, some of that has been changed and it’s now significantly easier and more fluid.

First off, one of the big changes with the controls is that the Ocarina is no longer an equippable item. For the 3DS, there are four slots where you can equip some of the items that you’ve collected, but you won’t have to waste one of the slots on the Ocarina. Instead, the instrument has its own spot at the bottom-left part of the touch screen. Once you tap the touch screen button, Link will pull out his Ocarina. The bottom screen will now display an actual Ocarina and it will show buttons, Y, X, A, L, and R. At this point you can play the Ocarina by pressing any of these five buttons on your controller, or even by pressing any of the buttons on the touch screen.

During my playthrough of the Water Temple, I came to a point where I had to play Zelda’s Lullaby. Of course, given my past Zelda experience, I pulled out the Ocarina, and instinctively tried ‘Y, X, A’ because that was in the same button formation as ‘Left, Up, Right’ would be on the Nintendo 64. Unfortunately that didn’t work out and I quickly tried other combinations for a few moments. Instead of continuing to guess and check, one of the Nintendo representatives pointed out that I could click the musical signature button at the bottom-right part of the touch screen and this will pop up all of the various songs that I know.

There are 12 songs that you’ll learn as part of the main quest, with the Scarecrow’s Song being the custom 13th song. If you have learned a song already, a small tablet will appear in one of the 12 spots, showing the song name and its proper notes. If you don’t know a song yet, a single colored note will be in its place. You can scroll through the menu on the bottom-screen to find whatever song you are looking for. While looking at the notes on the bottom-screen, you can just play the notes using the buttons on the controller. Remember, the top-screen is still in the actual gameplay, so the notes you play will effect your quest. What this means is, you won’t be required to memorize the actual button sequences as you can always just pull it up from your menu without even stopping the flow of gameplay.

Overall, the new control scheme for the Ocarina of Time is still pretty much the same, but different in all the right ways. Much like most of the game, the upgraded menu system that the game has just makes things so much faster and easier. While the Nintendo 64 version had a nice menu system, so much time had to be spent throughout the entire quest just going to the start menu, looking what you are trying to find, equipping an item or piece of equipment, and then getting back to the gameplay. With Ocarina of Time 3D, there is virtually no pause time in which you’ll have to stop gameplay. Maps can be viewed on the bottom screen, the Ocarina is always equipped, and you now have four items of inventory to place items. No more pausing every few moments to equip a new weapon, no pausing to change the iron boots, and no pausing to looking at how to play an Ocarina song. It’s all right there in the easy to access bottom-touch screen and improves on the games presentation tremendously.

Ocarina of Time 3D is set to release here in the United States on June 19th, with release dates of June 16th and 17th in Japan and Europe. Here at Zelda Dungeon, we’ll be continuing our coverage up until the games release. We still have some more goodies to talk about in regards to my hands on experience, so be sure to stay tuned. Until then, be sure to voice your thoughts in the comments below.

~~~Previous Ocarina of Time 3D Updates~~~
Ocarina of Time 3D: Uber Master Quest
Ocarina of Time 3D: Boss Challenge
Ocarina of Time 3D: Visions
Ocarina of Time 3D: Water Temple Detailed
Ocarina of Time 3D: New Artwork, Screnshots
Ocarina of Time 3D: Master Quest Footage
Ocarina of Time 3D: First Review Gives a 93%
Ocarina of Time 3D: Water Temple Footage

Related: Ocarina of Time 3D Walkthrough