The One About Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

Christmas ‘98, I was 7 years old. Didn’t have a GameBoy, up to that point in my life all my gaming was purely Super Nintendo and N64 and I was still hyped with my N64 from the last year or so. We went to visit grandparents on my mom’s side first. I unwrapped Pokémon Blue and Yellow as two of my gifts. Score. Absolute hype. But I had no GameBoy. Cue immense anticipation – I was, hopefully, going to get a GameBoy either that night or tomorrow morning. There was no way they were getting me games and not a GameBoy.

We went to see my grandparents on my dad’s side after that, and there I not only got my first GameBoy, a purple Color, but Link’s Awakening DX and Ocarina of Time (which had only come out a month prior), my first Zelda games. I had freaked out about Ocarina of Time since seeing a commercial for it before the Rugrats movie and how cool it looked (being that 3D/N64 games were still brand new to the world). I don’t think I ever heard of Link’s Awakening before that night though. I clearly remember going nuts because the back of OoT’s box confirmed that yes, you could indeed ride a horse.

So it was a mix of gifts, but to this day that remains the most vivid Christmas memory I have, and possibly the most influential having had 25 years of life to reflect on it. Awesome night. —phazonphazoff