Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of Nintendo’s best-looking games
Here’s what makes the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake one of Nintendo’s best-looking games yet
Posted on September 27, 2026 by Ethan in Features, Switch 2
Unless you count Nintendo Switch Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is looking to be Nintendo’s last big game for 2026. It’s certainly not a bad start to Nintendo Switch 2’s second year – especially considering that heavy-hitters like Mario, Smash Bros. and Animal Crossing are almost certainly all in development.
When the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake first leaked earlier this year, I was a little bit curious. Would this just be Ocarina of Time 3D upscaled to HD with slightly more detailed models? As it turns out, that’s not the case at all. In hindsight, it makes sense – Ocarina of Time is often called the greatest game of all time, and while that’s definitely subjective, what is not subjective is that it’s one of the most important games Nintendo’s ever made. It’s great to see, then, that Ocarina of Time’s art style is unlike anything we’ve ever seen from a Nintendo game before.
Looking at the environments, Zelda: Ocarina of Time is even more detailed than Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – and by a considerable margin. Everything comes together so beautifully here, and it doesn’t take more than a second to come to the conclusion that this really is one of the most detailed games Nintendo has ever made. We’ve never seen this many dynamic blades of grass in a Nintendo game, anyway!
It isn’t just the natural landscapes that look great. Hyrule Castle Town is packed full of charm and details as well, and it’s a full 3D space for the first time ever rather than being stuck at fixed camera angles. Everyone I’ve seen is pretty much in agreement that the environments in Ocarina of Time look fantastic. It’s the characters that people are understandably more split on.
At first glance, Ocarina of Time might look like it has a somewhat realistic art style. But take a closer look at the characters, and you’ll find that Nintendo actually hasn’t really opted for realism here at all. Earlier this month, Takaya Imamura of Star Fox fame pointed out that the characters in the remake resemble puppets, which references Shigeru Miyamoto’s apparent love for puppet theater. Taking an even closer look, you can absolutely see the resemblance – some fans have pointed out that Link and Zelda almost look as though they’re made of porcelain, which almost makes them look like dressed-up dolls with extremely detailed clothes. It’s also important to note, though, that a lot of the screenshots going around of Link and Zelda take place in scenes where it’s raining outside, and the rain effect in this game definitely makes them shiny. That’s not how they’ll always look in-game, however.
For the most part, the characters in this game look pretty good. If you take a look at Zelda up above, she’s definitely some pretty good evidence for the puppet theater inspiration. That said, footage of her and Link meeting for the first time has been circling the internet lately, and something about the scene does look a little bit off to me. In the scene, Zelda turns around, surprised, and asks Link who he is. I think the issue here is that Zelda doesn’t really make a surprised face at all, and keeps a neutral expression – which winds up not really matching the energy of her voice line. The new art style makes young Link and Zelda look a lot more like children than their Nintendo 64 and 3DS counterparts – their faces are much larger, for instance. This also means that young Link and adult Link look even more different from each other, which I think makes the game’s famous timeskip more impactful because there’s an even clearer difference between the Links. It really hammers home that Link had to sleep for seven years in order to be old enough to be the Hero of Time.
Speaking of which, Link’s clothes are incredibly detailed – much more so than other characters. It might look jarring at first, but I actually feel like this reflects well on his character too. Link’s tunic is woven from grass and leaves and such, which are the only things the Kokiri have available in the forest. The Hylians have access to advanced fabrics, which, ironically, makes their clothes look simpler. But if you take a look at Link in the big picture – we’ve seen his adventure in Ocarina of Time, then Majora’s Mask, and what happens to him in Twilight Princess. He’s an outcast from the very beginning – he is a Hylian, but he wasn’t raised as one. He was raised as a Kokiri, and even among them he’s an outcast due to not having a fairy and eventually having to leave the forest. Even after his adventures are finished, nobody remembers him as a hero. Indeed, even after saving everyone from disaster twice, Link is still an outcast late into his life. And I think making him look so much different than everyone else in the game really helps sell that.
In fact, the whole Ocarina of Time graphics debate reminds me of something very similar that happened recently. When the Star Fox Direct took place earlier this year, I was expecting another Star Fox 64 retelling with a cartoony art style – just one more detailed than Star Fox Zero on Wii U. The second the Star Fox remake appeared on-screen, I remember asking myself, “what even is this?” If I had to pick an art style for the next Star Fox, I would never have picked an ultra-realistic, super-detailed one.
At first, I really wasn’t a fan of the new Star Fox crew designs. Still, I wound up buying the game and playing it for 50 hours, clearing all of the content it had to offer. While I was playing, I realized something odd – these graphics actually were really impressive. Somehow, seeing a screenshot of them didn’t properly reflect how they worked in-game, how they moved around, interacted with others, and matched the detailed environments. By the end of my time with the game, the graphics won me over after all. I’m still not the biggest fan of how short the Star Fox crew’s legs are – Fox especially feels like his knees are way too low – but the graphics do work in the context of the game. I’m not sure this art style would work too well for a Star Fox Adventures-type game, but who knows.
The point being, Ocarina of Time and Star Fox both seem like they’re high-budget remakes of some of Nintendo’s best titles. Both of them feature graphics much more advanced than we’re used to in Nintendo titles, and I know that Star Fox’s visuals, while odd at first, did wind up winning me over. From screenshots alone, I like Ocarina of Time’s art style more than the one in Star Fox. Like I mentioned earlier, the only thing that doesn’t seem quite right is character faces here and there, but on the whole, this looks to be an extremely visually impressive remake. I’m keeping an open mind, too – I think it’s very possible that once I play the game for a while and see everything in motion how it was intended, I’ll come to appreciate it even more.
Choosing these art directions for Ocarina of Time and Star Fox is interesting on Nintendo’s part. It makes it more likely that these remakes will be remembered years and years from now, because they made bold choices that you wouldn’t think would work on paper. Star Fox with individually rendered fur? Zelda based on dressed-up dolls? They sound crazy in theory, but when you watch gameplay, it somehow works out.
It’s also important to note that almost every single Zelda game has had a controversy around its art style. It started with The Wind Waker way back when, and now it’s aged beautifully. Though to a lesser extent, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and Breath of the Wild all had art style controversies as well. The Zelda team doesn’t stick to one visual style. If they did, the Zelda games would get bland pretty quickly. Giving each one a distinct visual identity makes them more memorable and easy to identify at a quick glance. That being said, I’m completely on board with a Majora’s Mask remake in this same art style. The porcelain-doll look could really lean into creepy vibes for that game, and I’d love to see what they cook up.
What do you think of the Ocarina of Time remake’s art style? Do you think it looks amazing, or do you think the character models need some work? Let us know in the comments down below.
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