The Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Is the Best-Reviewed Game of the Year by Far

Critics hail the return of the 'greatest game ever'

Nintendo has been deluged with rave reviews for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, its Switch 2 remake of the classic 1998 adventure.

Defined by reverence for the original and admiration for Nintendo's careful redrafting of it, Ocarina of Time's reviews are the strongest any game has received so far in 2026 — and by some distance, too. It currently has a rating of 96 on the review aggregation site Metacritic, and 95 on OpenCritic.

That's a little short of the near-perfect 99 enjoyed by the Nintendo 64 original on Metacritic, but two points ahead of the 94 awarded to Ocarina of Time 3D, the game's last significant re-release, from 2011.

Most critics have a few quibbles, noting inconsistencies in the art style, or some updates that are less welcome than others. But the consensus is that the remake has made the aging masterpiece much easier to enjoy while chiming resonantly with its themes of change and the passage of time.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time reviews call it a masterpiece

"Nintendo’s modern Zelda team have turned one of the best games of the 1990s into one of the best games of the 2020s, and made time-travellers out of us all," The Guardian's Keza MacDonald wrote in her five-star review. Like many (but not all) reviewers, MacDonald, a passionate fan of the original, found herself won over by the game's divisive art style, which she called "not so much realistic as hyperreal," and the new cutscenes which "brought out the latent epic drama in a previously sparse tale."

"Despite all of this new sheen, Ocarina of Time retains its understated melancholy," MacDonald wrote. "There is an essential tragedy to this tale about a boy hero whose childhood is stolen by an evil king. It is a dark fairytale that begins with a nightmare and the death of a forest god, sometimes scary and, like all children’s tales that stand the test of time, totally unpatronising."

In another five-star review, Eurogamer's Christian Donlan admits he "kind of dreaded having to slog through an echoing, once-great game and summon a thousand words of measured reverence afterwards," but was struck by enjoyable and revived it felt. Donlan found that the game had gained in visual majesty in some areas and lost its distinctiveness in others: "You could also occasionally be forgiven for wondering if you'd stepped into one of a dozen third-person Unreal games in development at the moment," he wrote. "It's pleasant to look at, but it sometimes doesn't look specifically like Zelda anymore." But he had nothing but praise for "quietly transformative" gameplay tweaks that mean the game "now races along at an astonishing clip."

Above all, Donlan found that playing this remake of a thirty-year-old game which is itself about the passage of time only increased its power. "Was it always this good? Were the dungeons always so complex and challenging, but also so playful, so coherent?" he asked. "It's impossible for me to say at this point. This is Ocarina as it's always been, as timeless and intricate, but it also has a vibrancy and clarity that makes it feel like it was just created last Wednesday."

From a purely technical perspective, Digital Foundry's William Judd judged the Ocarina of Time remake to be "of incredible quality, delivering a surprisingly dark, atmospheric experience that fully leverages Switch 2 hardware while still honouring the timeless structure of the original masterpiece." Performance is transformative, too. "While the N64 original operated at a conservative 20fps, the Switch 2 remake targets and holds a fluid 60," Judd wrote. "Frame delivery remains exceptionally consistent across both docked and handheld modes, providing an effortlessly smooth experience. This dramatic leap in fluidity greatly improves action sequences, platforming timing, and general exploration throughout Hyrule."

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio said that the remake only underlines the greatness of the original game, and the way its age works in its favor. "What immediately stands out about Ocarina of Time next to modern games — even modern Zelda games — is how not a moment feels wasted," he wrote. "Every side-quest, minigame, or hidden grotto feels bespoke, like it was sculpted to contain one memorable secret. [...] No two activities feel like the result of designers copying and pasting assets throughout the world just to fill a game with more hour-eating busy work. It stands in proud contrast to modern adventure games that do so much less with so much more."

Colantonio concluded: "I’ve spent the better part of my life hearing people repeat the claim that Ocarina of Time is the greatest game of all time. At some point, it starts to lose all meaning, like saying The Beatles are the best band of all time based solely on an accepted cultural consensus. But the Switch 2 remake reminds us why Ocarina of Time earned that accolade in the first place."

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is released exclusively for Switch 2 on Nov. 5.