Ever since it was officially confirmed, one of the biggest changes I knew (and hoped) would be made to the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2 would be an overhaul of its inventory management system. The original N64 classic’s inventory management was infamous for being an enormous headache, because it required players to manually equip and unequip inventory items by first pausing the game, navigating to the inventory menu, and then making the necessary changes from there. Because Ocarina of Time eventually gives players quite a few items to manage—from the ocarina itself to iron boots and tunics—this can all eventually feel like busy work, not to mention how immersion-breaking it can actually be.
Fortunately, as I mentioned, the Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2 has actually fixed that issue by replacing the original N64 inventory management system with Breath of the Wild‘s. Rather than requiring players to open the menu first and then sort through it just to equip the items that they need, players can now simply pull up a wheel where they can scroll through their items and equip what they need from there. This system has proven effective in the past, with Breath of the Wild, then its successor, Tears of the Kingdom, and even the Princess Zelda-led spin-off Echoes of Wisdom. However, despite how convenient it will be now to equip items in the Ocarina of Time remake, it is actually a bit of a tradeoff. While equipping items will be easier in the remake, actually using them is now less convenient on the Switch 2 than it was on the Nintendo 64—thanks to the C buttons, believe it or not.
Ocarina of Time’s C Buttons Gave the N64 Version One Inventory Advantage the Remake Doesn’t Have
I know it might sound strange, claiming that the original N64 version of Ocarina of Time actually has an advantage over the remake due to the N64 controller’s C buttons, but if you were there, and if you saw the footage of the remake’s gameplay in action during the Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Direct, then you already know what I’m talking about. Specifically, based on what we saw during the big gameplay reveal for the Ocarina of Time remake, it’s only possible to equip one item at a time. Yes, the wheel makes it much easier to equip items during gameplay, but that also means players can only use one item at a time before needing to bring the wheel up again in order to change to a different item.
See, the advantage the original Ocarina of Time had over the remake is that the C buttons actually allowed players to have three items equipped at once. Even with having to suffer through the inventory management system, it still wasn’t all that bad when you consider the fact that you could still have three items equipped at one time. With that, yes, you would still need to change items somewhat regularly, but you could still have three items equipped at once that would suit you for whatever activity you were doing. For example, if you were running a specific dungeon in the original Ocarina of Time that you knew would require you to use three different items, you could have them equipped throughout the entire dungeon.
The Ocarina of Time remake, on the other hand, doesn’t come with that advantage. During the Zelda 40th anniversary Direct, when the gameplay for the remake was shown off, the new inventory management system is given a brief moment to shine, but the top-right corner of the screen shows that only one item can be equipped at a time. In other words, the management system itself might have been improved, but the efficiency of actually using items in the remake may have received a downgrade. Now, instead of equipping three items at once by occasionally navigating the messy menu of the original Ocarina of Time, players have a more seamless way of equipping and unequipping items, but they also may need to pull up the wheel more often than they did the original N64 menu.
The advantage the original Ocarina of Time had over the remake is that the C buttons actually allowed players to have three items equipped at once.
It’s interesting, because the N64’s C buttons have been given such a bad rap over the years, and I won’t argue that it has been unreasonable. They were one of Nintendo’s more interesting ideas for a console, and they certainly worked for the time. In fact, they’re technically still present in some Switch 2 games today, only in a very different form thanks to the right analog stick and the extra buttons modern controllers have afforded Nintendo. But Ocarina of Time is also a pretty good reminder that those C buttons weren’t entirely a product of awkward N64 controller design. For this particular game, they served a very practical purpose.
More importantly, they meant the player could prepare for whatever they were about to do. If I knew I was heading into an area where I would regularly need the Hookshot, bow, and ocarina, I could assign all three and largely forget about the inventory menu until something else came up. The remake’s Breath of the Wild-like item wheel removes most of the friction involved in changing equipment, but it also seems to make changing equipment something players will need to do much more often.
Ocarina of Time’s New Inventory Might Be Better Without Being More Efficient
Now, I don’t think any of this necessarily makes the remake’s system worse overall. If I had to choose between the two, I’d still take the wheel, if only because stopping the game to dig through the original inventory has aged considerably worse than the C-button shortcuts themselves. It’s just interesting that modernizing one half of the system has apparently meant sacrificing something the original N64 classic actually handled pretty well.
There also seems to be room for Nintendo to have both. The Switch 2 certainly isn’t short on buttons, so allowing players to assign a few favorite items to shortcuts while leaving the wheel available for everything else would preserve the convenience of the remake without losing the N64 version’s biggest advantage. Unless Nintendo has another solution it hasn’t shown yet, though, Ocarina of Time‘s inventory overhaul looks like a genuine upgrade with one surprisingly old-fashioned tradeoff attached to it.
- Released
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November 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Everyone 10+ / Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
