^I have it on my list.
On Ocarina, I’m intrigued to see the proper reveal. I completed it again about two years ago, probably for the sixth or seventh time since 1998, so it’s still very fresh in my mind.
I HOPE it isn’t a fully faithful remake. I think that would be a mistake. Ocarina pushed every boundary of the time and squeezed everything possible out of the hardware available. It’s still astoundingly good, but a proper remake shouldn’t constrain itself in the same way. If it’s just high-fidelity graphics with the same-sized map and everything recreated almost exactly, I’d find that disappointing.
It should absolutely follow all the major beats of Ocarina, but reimagine and expand things rather than faithfully recreating everything 1:1.
I’ve played quite a few throwback JRPGs like Chained Echoes and Sea of Stars, and they’re very good, but some of the MAGIC of the games that inspired them, like FF6 and Chrono Trigger, is missing. Those games were pushing against the absolute limits of what was available at the time, and a lot of their innovation came out of finding ways around those limits.
When modern games recreate the exact same systems and scope, they’re no longer doing it because of hardware constraints. They’re recreating the solutions to problems that no longer exist, and something gets lost in translation.
The Ocarina remake shouldn’t fall into that trap. A new coat of paint isn’t enough.
That doesn’t mean Hyrule should suddenly become a BotW-style open world or anything drastic like that. That would obviously be the wrong direction. But I do hope it’s an expanded, curated version of Ocarina rather than just the same game with expensive graphics.
I have a feeling it will be.