While Nintendo might not have made mention of Ocarina of Time’s 25th anniversary this year, gamers around the world certainly did not forget. Often hailed by many as the crown jewel of the Zelda series and even touted as far as one of the greatest games of all time, our beloved Ocarina of Time has finally reached the quarter-centennial milestone. (And yes, that makes a lot of us at Zelda Universe feel old!) Even though the first 3D Zelda’s polygonal 64-bit edges might be showing a few extra wrinkles these days, the game’s groundbreaking mechanics and nostalgic story is still rock solid, and many of its elements can be seen and felt in the Zelda games that came afterward. It’s almost as if the game itself has been preserved in time by its namesake instrument, carrying on a legendary legacy for generations in the future.
Granted, I may digress. But I’m sure plenty of other fans can share the sentiment. They did indeed, in a splendid spectacle online with their various remarkable talents. Hundreds of fans shared a colorful plethora of fan art inspired by Ocarina of Time. Others expressed musical tributes of songs from the game with live recorded instruments. And then the world was graced with an Unreal Engine 5 animated production of Castle Town by RwanLink, a self-taught animator from France. That’s when the internet blew up.
Believe it or not, it took RwanLink four months and over 600 hours to passionately produce the whole thing by himself, including the art direction, camera work, and the design for over 30 characters! The only help he received was the background music for Castle Town provided by MOSIK, and a little visual inspiration from Studio Ghibli. That’s it.
RwanLink also shared through his X account some greater insight on his character models, his thought process for the backgrounds, and more fascinating information that reveals how he made Castle Town come to life. He’s nothing short of a Renaissance man in the Zelda community. According to RwanLink, he did not initially plan for the project to be this grand in scale. It was meant to be a side project and nothing more.
“I started a new project in August with a new art direction, something small, a 3-4 day project on the side. But I had so much fun that now it will have its own dedicated video,” RwanLink posted on September 6. “There are already 10 different characters created and 3 environments! I can’t wait to show you more!”
By November, that ‘small project’ morphed into a full-scale 20 minute production. Figuring the timing was just right, RwanLink decided to release it on Ocarina of Time’s anniversary. To date, it has received more than 985,000 views on YouTube at the time of the writing, close to one million. Take a look at the phenomenon for yourself in the video link above. Time flies when you’re having fun.
