7. Swordless Link (Ocarina of Time)
Ocarina of Time is arguably the most significant game of its generation. Its a game that will have special meaning for me for the rest of my life. It came out at the perfect time for me to experience it. The games one and only flaw is that it ended. You could come to a point in Ocarina of Time where every item had been collected, every cave explored, and every side quest completed. Then, someone discovered the Swordless Link glitch. This opened the game up to a whole new realm of exploratory possibility. Potential for new discoveries became limitless when people learned that, by saving and then resetting the game after Ganon knocks the Master Sword out of Links hand in the final battle, Link would begin on restart at the bottom of the castle still without the sword. This small discovery led to
all kinds of amazing tricks. Suddenly, C-button items could be used while on the horse, Epona. This enabled Link to fire the Longshot, use bottles, and perform stunts the games physics engine tries very hard to prevent in the normal game. Link could float in the air and travel through walls and barricades. Many of the textures in Hyrule became corrupted or changed. And it all happened because Link left the sword of evils bane back at the castle. Part of what makes this particular trick so significant is its timing. With the internet rising in popularity in the late 90s, everyone with both a Nintendo 64 and a computer knew about the Swordless Link trick. Gamers on forums everywhere shared their own experiences and, in a way, it became an early internet meme. Zelda and Ganon must be getting impatient while Link is out doing all that fooling around.