Zelda, Ocarina of Time HD Minecraft Texture Pack (32 x 32)
The Zelda franchise is one of the most well loved gaming franchises of all time, if not the most loved franchise of all time. It's not surprising then, that Zelda themed texture packs pop up more often than embarrassing cold sores. I've looked at several Zelda themed texture packs, but I've never bothered to review any of them, because to be honest, a lot of them don't really pass muster. There will often be a couple of elements reminiscent of the game, but when you actually compare the graphics in the texture pack to the graphics in a Zelda game, there's just no comparison.
This texture pack is different, perhaps because it set its sights squarely on Ocarina of Time, which just happens to be my favorite Zelda title. A great deal of time and effort has clearly gone in to matching texture pack textures to the actual OOT textures and as a result, one really does feel as if one has stepped into an alternate Hyrule.
The water textures especially impressed me because they look so very much like the water textures in the original game. With a bit of smooth stone next to them, one is instantly reminded of the task of sneaking into Hyrule Castle at the beginning of Ocarina of Time, exploiting blind spots that didn't seem to make all that much sense at first. The ladders could have been ripped directly from OOT, that's how realistic they are, and I'd be lying if I didn't say they made me want to build a tree house immediately. Ores are shown as rupees, which is a nice touch.
This texture pack has already been used to create several representations of locations in Ocarina of Time, including the entire land of Hyrule. Watch the video below to see just how close the textures have been taken to the original game textures. (The only niggling persnickety thing I would say here is that it would probably work better if the grass textures were created so that grass extends most, if not all the way down the side of the blocks, this creating the effect of rolling hills of grass and not ridges of dirt every which way one looks.)
Glitches and Bugs
One glitch I did notice was that placing blocks made the game crash. That's sort of a major issue, but it only arises if you try to use the old MC Patcher to install the texture pack. I downloaded the beta of the new patcher, which is far superior to the old patcher because it enables one to switch between texture packs of various resolutions in the texture packs file and it worked just fine, so if you have crashing issues or black screens, try using the new, beta version of Xau's MC Patcher.
Another glitch that you'll probably see is that the dirt might have a solid green side instead of a nice dirty one. This is because you're using fancy graphics. Change to 'fast' to make everything work properly.)
Those issues aside, this is definitely the Zelda texture pack to download if you're having nostalgic cravings for simpler times, when the only villan one really had to worry about was a pointy nosed Gerudo King named Ganondorf.
