With Oculus Rift on the horizon and modern filmmaking techniques infusing gaming, all eyes are on virtual reality and 3-D. But one group of fans is taking a beloved game forward into the past, giving the Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a gloriously old-school 2-D look.
The project uses original graphics and audio along with 2-D Zelda artwork, sprites, animations, and sounds largely taken from Link's Super Nintendo outing A Link to the Past. It's still a work in progress—the team estimates it's 10 percent of the way through—but you can download a playable version of the game's opening.
Ten percent may not seem like much, but it's impressive considering the scope and scale of the project, especially for a team with just a handful of people. Ocarina of Time is a huge game, and porting it to 2-D means essentially building a new game from scratch. New cut scenes are being animated, enemy A.I. programmed, and *Ocarina'*s famous and time-honored songs re-recorded as 16-bit chiptunes.
Download the demo to explore a 2-D recreation of Kokiri Forest. Unfortunately Mido still blocks the path to the Great Deku Tree until you've secured a sword and shield, and the path to those is blocked off by the developers. With any luck, Nintendo won't shut the project down and we'll one day play the entirety of Ocarina of Time in 2-D.
