ZeldaVR Ports The NES Original To First-Person Oculus Rift

Zelda games shall be forever gripped close to Nintendo's chest, but remakes, demakes and homages frequently turn up on the shores of PC gaming. Zelda VR aims to re-build The Legend of Zelda - yeah, the original, top-down, NES Zelda - for virtual reality headsets.

An early build is available to download now, and I've had a go in a video below.

Yeah, we could have posted about this a few days ago, but I wanted to have a go of it first. Look, I don't even babble incoherently over the video:

Pretty greens and blues! So pretty.

It's also a pretty early version of the game, featuring only a few enemy types and some early areas. You can walk down into a cave to receive your sword at the start of your adventure though, and if you've any nostalgic bone in your body, seeing that in 3D will tickle it. Also it turns out that Zelda was kind of a first-person shooter in disguise? Maybe all games are.

Or maybe we name our genres based on camera perspectives and that's really dumb.

I've been playing around with the Rift again over the past week, and I'm more convinced than ever that it's a big deal. ZeldaVR is downloaded via VirtualReality.io, a tool which provides an VR-designed interface for downloading games, apps and other prototypes. There are a few experiences on there that are similarly worth trying, including Titans of Space, which takes you on a guided tour of our solar system. Nothing quite conveys the awesome scale of Rigel than having to crane your neck back just to see its edge.

VirtualReality.io can be downloaded from here, and Zelda VR is easily found within.