A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time: 7 Years That Defined a Generation

On November 21st, separated by exactly seven years, Nintendo released two of the most celebrated games in history — A Link to the Past in 1991 and Ocarina of Time in 1998 — and the symmetry was no accident. The interval between them mirrored the seven-year time-jump at the heart of Ocarina of Time itself, a design choice that collapsed the boundary between a game's story and the lived experience of the people playing it. Together, these two titles trace the arc of an entire medium's coming-of-age, and of a generation that grew up alongside it.