The battle against Ganondorf at the top of his castle in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time is one of the greatest moments in the history of video games, with its music and stained glass windows giving players a sense of atmosphere we had never experienced before. It felt like we were actually there … but what if we could be?
YouTube user and developer Aklar_45 asked himself that question, which led to him creating the climactic fight in virtual reality for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Designed in Unreal Engine 4, the battle looks exactly like it’s supposed to, with fairy Navi hovering above your head and the floor under your feet divided into several blocks.
Once the action, starts, you can almost let muscle memory take over from playing the old Nintendo 64 or 3DS versions. Ganondorf sends a ball of energy at your head, and you must smack it back at him like you’re playing Hyrule’s most dangerous tennis match. Once Ganondorf slips up, you shoot him with an arrow before leaping across the gap in the floor and slicing him several times.
The demonstration ends at the conclusion of this section of the fight, but if you want to see the true ending to Ocarina of time, he has also created the beast-form Ganon fight in virtual reality. In high-definition, the monster is quite a bit more terrifying than his cube-like form on older systems, and the ring of fire surrounding the battlefield looks fantastic — you can even see Zelda standing behind it, waiting for her chance to assist Link and seal away Ganon forever. It’s like we’re in 1998 all over again.
Aklar_45 has done a number of other Zelda boss battles in Unreal Engine 4, including VR battles and traditional third-person fights. They’re all just as impressive as the Ganondorf fight, and it has us excited for what Nintendo might do if it opts to make a more traditional Zelda title instead of a direct Breath of the Wild follow-up. If you want to try the Ganondorf fight out for yourself, you can grab it through Google Drive here.
