27 years after its release,The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Timeis still the highest-rated game ever on Metacritic, with a score of 99 - but it might be time for that to change.Ocarina of Timereally needs no introduction, but I’ll give it one anyway: released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64, it was groundbreaking in its open-world structure, its 3D graphics, and its time-traveling story. It’s known today as an innovator, having introduced and helped popularize several important gameplay concepts that have since become industry standards in adventure games today.
Soit’s hardly a surprise thatOcarina of Timeis so highly rated. It was immensely popular in its day, and, through its re-releases on the GameCube, 3DS,and Switch via NSO, it’s remained so throughout the almost thirty years since its release. It tops many a “greatest games of all time” list on its own merits, not only on the strength of its all-time high Metacritic score. But even so, the gaming industry (and the gaming journalism industry) has come a long way sinceOcarina of Time, and, as good as it is, it may be time for us to crown a new ruler.
Ocarina Of Time Was A Groundbreaking Game
Zelda As An Innovator
It’s not that I thinkOcarina of Time’s perception as one of the greatest games of all time is unearned, I say, looking at the replica ocarina sitting on my desk at this very moment. On the contrary,Ocarina of Timeis one of the greatest games of all time, and I don’t say that out of nostalgia or even appreciation for it - I say that because of what it’s done for the gaming industry.
Ocarina of Timewas the first of many 3DZeldagames- without it, there’s noMajora’s Mask, noWind Waker, noTwlight Princess, noBreath of the Wild. It basically pioneered the kind of persistent open-world gameplay thatZeldais commonly associated with today, and it’s an excellent example of that.OOT’s world still feels huge and full of possibility today, even on my millionth playthrough, knowing where every single secret is hidden.
Besides that,it literally invented one or two game mechanics of its own: Z-targeting, or enemy lock-on, is now in just about every action RPG, while context-sensitive buttons are an important part of pretty much every modern game.
Ocarina Of Time Holds The #1 Spot On Metacritic
The Best Game Of All Time, According To Ranking
Ocarina of Timewas the most anticipated game of 1998, and it lived up to the hype: it got rave reviews from almost every single outlet, andstill sits pretty at a 99 onMetacritic. That puts it at the top of Metacritic’s Best Games of All Time ranking, with the highest aggregate score ever received by a video game on the website.
That’s nothing to sneeze at: anything over a 90 on Metacritic is impressive, andOcarina of Timeis just one point off of a perfect score, a feat that’s yet to be achieved by any other game on the platform. It’s followed closely bySoulCalibur- the Dreamcast original - which comes just short at a 98.
In 2025, Is Ocarina Of Time Still The Best Game Of All Time?
Other Games Have Claims To Fame
A lot of great games have come out sinceOcarina of Time. Many of them have their own valid claims to Best Game of All Time, and, although many of them make Metacritic’s top ten,not one of them has managed to dethroneOOT- but are they really deserving? Let’s look at two more recent entries in the hall of fame to decide.
Red Dead Redemption 2is one that comes upa lot. It’s praised for its world-class storytelling, its lifelike graphics, its varied and detailed gameplay, et cetera. Reviews may have been hindered by its sometimes-stiff controls, but it has that much in common withOOT. It did, however, release in a bit of a buggy state - somethingOOTcouldn’t afford before the age of the day-one patch.
RDR2was, upon release, considered one of the greatest achievements in gaming to date. It was, and still is, incredibly impressive, but as excellent as it is, it hasn’t been anywhere near as immersive asOOT. It’s iterating on common mechanics that came before it: horseback riding, snap-on shooting, and hunting. It executes these things incredibly well, butit hasn’t had an impact on many open-world games since, which is one thing that setsOcarina of Timeapart.
Another contender - staying within theZeldaseries here - isBreath of the Wild. Released in 2017 as a launch title for the Switch,BOTWcompletely reinvents the 3DZeldaformula, using a more modern open-world design. UnlikeRDR2, it’s been massively influential on open-world games that followed it - evenElden Ringtakes a few cues fromBOTW.
But to me,its reliance on a more mainstream open-world map makes it a weaker entry in theZeldaseries.OOT’s intensely themed dungeons, its small-yet-condensed world, are actually among its strengths.BOTWfails to match these, opting instead for the kind of done-to-death open-world fluff that seems beneath mainlineZelda.
It’s Time For A New GOAT
But What Can Beat Ocarina Of Time?
So maybeOOTdoes deserve the top spot - even if you can’t say it’s the best game of all time, you have to admit it’s among the most groundbreaking and influential. Butthe rest of the top ten gets a little unusual, to say the least.GTA 4comes in at number three, butSan Andreasis nowhere to be found. BothSuper Mario Galaxygames sit at the fourth and fifth spots, but there’s noMario 64, noSunshine, no 2DMarioat all.GTA 5- beloved on its release, but today considered one of the series' weaker entries - rounds it out in the tenth place.
Other games and series that you might naturally expect to have a place in the top ten are completely missing: there’s noFinal Fantasy, no FromSoft, noChrono Trigger, noMario Kart,Resident Evil, orPokémon. I’ll admit that these franchises are all a little more divisive, with limited appeal to much smaller demographics, but even so, it’s weird that the top ten list is dominated by three different series, and two of them are Nintendo’s flagship properties.
Breath of the Wildis also on Metacritic’s top ten list, with a score of 97.
And really,I do thinkOcarina of Timeis better than most of these games. It’s more original and did more for the gaming industry than modern contenders to the title, likeBreath of the WildorRed Dead Redemption 2. And, speaking from my own personal experience here, I get a lot more enjoyment out of it than I do both of those games combined.
ButI’d still prefer to see a little more diversity, a little more volatility in Metacritic’s top-ten list. Even if new games only topped it for a couple of days before less-positive late reviews came in, it’d be more interesting, and speak better to the way Metacritic collects and aggregates data.
You might say that speaks to the consistent quality of Nintendo’s first-party output over the years, and to some extent, it does. But it’s also a consequence of the data Metacritic usesto calculate its scores.OOT’s 99 Metascore is based on just 22 critic reviews.Death Stranding 2’s Metascoreis derived from a whopping 123 - over five times as many asOOT. That may be because more reviews in 1998 were printed, or because the gaming journalism space just wasn’t as big then as it is today. But it’s still created a seemingly insurmountable problem for newer games.
The issue is thatthese older games are locked into high positions on Metacritic’s top-ten ranking due to their relatively low sample sizes. Newer games are reviewed by bigger batches of critics, with a more diverse range of opinions, so they’re unlikely to live up. If any game has a chance, it’sGTA 6, but the years of hype and delays have created seemingly impossible expectations for it. In the end, I suspect it’ll be a while before anything comes along to dethroneThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time- but it’s already long overdue.
