Right before Thanksgiving 1998, I was beyond excited for Ocarina of Time, or "Zelda 64" as everyone around me called it back then, and so were many of my friends and family members. It was my senior year of high school, and I was still working at a Taco Bell at the time. I had reserved the game at a local KayBee Toys, and it was due to come out, like, the day before Thanksgiving if I'm remembering correctly. They gave me a T-shirt as a preorder bonus, which I was wearing that Wednesday after school when I went to pick it up, taking my brother along for the ride.
I picked the game up excitedly, and my brother was reading the manual out loud in my car as I drove home via the gas station to get a huge soda. We were ready to go, and I called a few friends over to see and try it.
There were seriously 8 people crammed into my little 10 x 10 bedroom when I turned on my N64. That cinematic memory of the fairy Navi flying through the village made me think this was going to be the game I'd be calling my favorite forever. Then, I started to play.
By the the time I'd crawled around to get my equipment, gone through the Deku Tree, and started going through Hyrule field, I was bored out of my mind, and in severe denial about it. Maybe it was the fact that one of the people from school on my bed was a girl I was super into, I figured, so after awhile I decided to save and start passing the controller around.
When it came back around to me after having found an excuse to sit all but on top of that girl at the time (hey, I was a kid with a crush), I did one more dungeon, and found myself getting irritated again. This was going to be the best game ever made, and I'd been telling everyone that for months.
The weekend was an awesome blur of hanging out, bouncing back and forth between houses with that group of friends, playing board and video games, eating, and watching movies, all while pining away over a girl and trying to like Ocarina of Time. I barely slept all weekend, even working a couple of shifts in the middle of it all. It was one of those magical, blurry whirlwinds that you look back on so fondly...
Except for Zelda. I kept playing as much as I could stomach until Christmas, when I got a Playstation. I put in that demo with the opening area of Metal Gear Solid, which put into sharp relief just how much fun I wasn't having with Zelda.
I look back on that time and smile, and it was great, but Ocarina of Time, I hate. I've tried to do it again at least 10 times, most recently this summer. The game will always have the strange distinction of being a game I remember fondly, but have never liked.