Ocarina of Time took its "throne" during a time when gaming was still in its enfancy. When a lot of new kinds of mechanics were still figured out. It managed to take that seat because it was the first of its kind do to this so well on that scale.
But my take is that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are better games than Ocarina of Time, because they control better and play better while using the same kind of game design. The rest is standard Zelda tropes that have been pretty much the same since the first game. The only thing I think Ocarina of Time still did better than most other Zelda games that followed is the story, but that's because I'm a sucker for time travel tales. That being said, Skyward Sword does give it a challenge.
Ocarina of Time may have been groundbreaking when it first came out, during a time when not every types of game had been attempted in 3D. These days, such things aren't going to happen on that kind of scale. That being said, Ocarina of Time has aged rather poorly from a game mechanics point of view. Sure, it introduced some that have now been adopted in one way or another by other games. But these have been polished and improved quite a bit over the course of the last two decades. The game's worst offender when compared to the games that came after it are the controls. They just ruin the game for me. They had that effect back then on the N64, they had that effect on the 3DS version, and the same applies to any other version I played. It may deserve its place in gaming's hall of fame, but to say it is still the uncontested best by today's standards is utterly ludicrous. Much better games have come out since then, some of them in the Zelda franchise itself.
Also, an endless amount of this:
| S.T.A.G.E. said: Oot came out in a time when what it was doing was novel. People forget that review scores are a reflection of the time period and not a basis for all time. |
