Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Remake’s Dedicated Jump Button Is Good, Actually

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake looks to be a mostly faithful modernization of the classic game, with a few quality-of-life tweaks and updated visuals to make it play like a modern game. One of the more controversial of these is the addition of a jump button, which the original game famously lacked. But now having gotten hands-on with the remake, I can say that the addition of a jump is a good change, and Ocarina is better for it. Ocarina was designed without a jump button, and to be clear, the addition of one doesn't transform this into a platformer. Based on my limited experience, the need to jump is occasional and often simple, just clearing small gaps. This geometry was never created to ask you to handle complex jumping challenges and the remake doesn't appear to have any intention of changing that. My demo covered the beginning of the game in Kokiri Forest and into the Deku Tree, first exploring Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle Town, and some of the Forest Temple with adult Link. The jump button made it feel more natural to hop across streams in Kokiri Forest, and to clear the small boulder challenge to obtain Link's first sword. In Hyrule Field, I was able to freel…

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