My Grandma Got Me Through the Water Temple. She Would’ve Loved the Ocarina of Time Remake

For a while it was the NES. I’d shoot ducks until I got bored, and I hated Mario because it was too hard. What I really remember fondly was watching Mémère play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past after she upgraded to the SNES. She’d tell me who she was fighting and why, and following along felt like having one of my favorite people read me a book. When it was my turn to play, I’d just charge up Link’s sword and mow every blade of grass I could find. Then I’d go looking for chickens. Then I’d ask what she had for snacks. She always had good snacks for me.

By the Nintendo 64 era, Mémère had moved into an apartment in a house my uncle owned. He lived on the first floor, she lived on the second, and my cousin lived on the third. Most Saturday nights, the whole family would get together. While the adults played cards (always Pitch, if you’re curious), my brother and I would drift between floors. Grand Theft Auto or Dynasty Warriors on the first? Dino Crisis, horror movies, or kung fu flicks on the third? Nope. For me, it was usually Ocarina of Time with Mémère on the second floor.

I can still picture her lying sideways on her bed with that plain gray controller in her hands. The TV was only a few feet away, and the N64 sat right on the corner of the dresser beside it. By then, I had my own N64, and I was always excited to tell her where I had been and which Spiritual Stones or Medallions I still needed. I usually brough my own cartridge over, and she’d help me through a part I was stuck on. Yes, including the Water Temple. I remember being in awe when she showed me how to get the Fire Arrows at Lake Hylia. How was I supposed to know you could shoot the sun? And when the skeletons rose from the ground at night in Hyrule Field, I’d hand over the controller and cower behind her as she challenged them head-on.

Mémère owned a beat-up copy of Prima’s official strategy guide. With it, she’d played through the whole game and found every heart piece. Then she did it two more times. When she finished the third file, she went back to the first slot and started over. I have no idea how many times my grandmother beat Ocarina of Time, but it was probably more than you have. All three of her save files always had the same name: Adeline.

I thought it was kind of weird. I didn’t know anybody named Adeline. I asked her about it a few times, and she always told me to ask my mother. When I was finally old enough to hear the answer, I cried. Adeline was Mémère’s first daughter, the only sibling older than my mom. She died from complications related to spina bifida when she was only a few years old. My mom’s three younger siblings were either too young to remember her or hadn’t been born by the time she died. My mother and grandmother were the only ones who could tell me much about “Addy,” and they rarely talked about her.

I’d spent all those Saturday nights watching Mémère play, asking her questions about practically everything on the screen. I could ask her how to get through the Water Temple, and she’d walk me through it. When I asked her about Adeline, she didn’t answer. And every time she started a new game, she typed in her daughter’s name again.

I bought her Majora’s Mask once. She told me she’d played it, though I’m still not sure how far she got. All she had to say about it was that it was “just not the same.” That alone made me pretty sad about the whole thing, and it made me rethink Mémère’s whole Zelda ritual. Even though she never really talked about it, she was thinking about her lost daughter every single day as she ventured into Hyrule to fight the growing darkness and defeat Ganondorf. She was content with that same adventure, replayed endlessly. A lot of people might argue that Ocarina of Time is just that good. Mémère would certainly say there’s nothing else like it.

That’s what makes the remake’s release on the Nintendo Switch 2 feel so bittersweet. Mémère died back in 2017 at the age of 70, but not before my brother had his first daughter, a child he named Adalyne. During one of the last times I visited Mémère, she still had that same dusty old N64 next to her TV. My mother told me that Mémère “talked” to Addy every day. I wondered if Mémère meant she was playing Ocarina of Time. Maybe all of these complicated memories help explain why I’ve never been a huge fan of the Zelda franchise at large. Yes, I’ve played over a hundred hours between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. They’re excellent in many ways. But I can’t stand the fragile weapons and the clunky feel of combat. I also don’t like how they tend to, even unconsciously, make me a little bit sad.

If Mémère were still alive today, what would she think of the remake? Would she shed a tear seeing her beloved video game lovingly remade in such a beautiful way? She was always shockingly savvy for her generation when it came to technology. Though I’d probably have to hook the Switch 2 up to the TV for her. (Her eyesight was always fairly bad). Honestly, it makes me almost happy that I don’t have a Switch 2 myself to experience the new Ocarina of Time, because even just thinking about it makes me emotional. If she were still alive, I’d probably have tried harder to go out of my way to get the console and game just so we could game together.

I do know one thing: If I ever do get around to it, I know exactly what I’ll name Link.