Ocarina of Time NSO Port Fixes Criticized Water Temple Bug

Fans of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will notice a change when they play the game on Nintendo Switch Online: the infamous Water Temple graphical bug has been fixed. Emulation is tricky, and Nintendo has faced criticism before for lackluster ports of its past titles. When it comes to beloved classics, gamers remember every detail, and are quick to speak out if anything looks different from how they remember it.

Ocarina of Time launched with the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, and gamers were quick to point out that the version playable on Switch appeared to be an inferior port. Of the four different releases of Ocarina of Time, the newest version is considered by many to be the worst due to a number of bugs and glitches, including noticeable input lag and missing graphics. Considering that the game first released over twenty years ago, it’s strange that the newest version of it had these issues. However, recent developments suggest that the team at Nintendo has been working to correct some of these errors.

A report from Kotaku cites a pair of dataminers who provide evidence to suggest that an often-criticized bug where the building and tree in the Shadow Link fight don’t reflect has been fixed, at least slightly. According to the dataminers, the reflections are now present in that room, though the fog, another key feature that was left out of the Switch port, is still absent. Also, the water appears more translucent now, though there is a scrolling water texture layer that is more noticeable on the Switch version of the game than it was on previous versions. So, this appears to be a fix by degrees, possibly with more on the way.

This doesn’t fully fix all of the game’s graphical bugs, though, or replace everything missing from Ocarina of Time‘s NSO port. The aforementioned fog issue extends beyond that one room to other areas of the game, including Kokiri Forest, making those places quite a bit less mysterious. One of the dataminers explains that Nintendo Switch Online removed some graphical functionality from the Wii U Virtual console emulator on which it’s based, and that that’s likely what accounts for the missing graphics gamers remember from past versions of Ocarina of Time. Luckily, this change brings the Switch version of the game a little more in line with what fans expect from it.

Gamers have had a wide range of reactions to Nintendo Switch Online since its launch, with many criticizing newfound bugs in classic games like Ocarina. Nintendo has promised to provide a better experience with the service, and this change to Ocarina of Timesuggests that the company is following through on that promise. Maybe more classics will soon get renovations, making them just as good as fans remember. That remains to be seen.

Source: Kotaku

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