Ocarina of Time: Nintendo 3DS Link to rekindle Zelda Ukulele Tunes

Yesterday, June 20,2011, Nintendo released “Ocarina of Time” for the Nintendo 3DS.

I had no knowledge of this until after a visit to the local Best Buy store where I had an unplanned interaction with the  3DS.

One of its amazing features was its entire AR (augmented reality) capability.  You experience AR when a 2D flat piece of cardboard with an image of  Link (the hero of  Zelda) was placed on a flat surface.  Aiming the external camera lens of the 3DS at the card, you then watched on the screen of the 3DS as a yellow box appeared, the lid opened, and the character Link crawled out of the box.   He wielded his sword, and you could then direct him to run and charge around the surface beside the card.

Perhaps you have seen this before?  I hadn’t.  What is amazing is this is a toy.  A game.  We talk of incorporating AR into distance education — but I do wonder why.

During my time with the 3DS and the attendant who was enjoying showing the features of the 3DS, several people  asked the attendant  where the new release of the 3DS version of “Ocarina of Time” was located.  Apparently there were 3,000 copies made for release in the US and it looked like ten of them were at this store.

One of the attractions to the 3DS version of the game — afterall it was intially made for the Nintendo 64 and released in 1998 (Wikipedia) — was that you could use this release of the game to order a free version of the Soundtrack.  The offer, however, ends tonight at midnight.  If you’re interested, head over to Club Nintendo.

How can you resist free GOOD music that probably makes you remember good times playing Zelda?

This year is also the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda — you can read an interview with Kondo from the Sound Group for Mario and Zelda music.  With this release of 3DS Ocarina and the soon-to-be released “Skyward Sword” for the Wii, I’d expect a rekindling of interest in playing Zelda music on the ukulele.  Afterall, it’s timeless, this music.

This led me to search for Ukulele Zelda music online.

1. Fingerstyle Ukulele Tab for Song of Healing from Majoras Mask.  Download this and you get a midi file, Tabledit file, and GP5 for your Tab Toolkit on your iPhone.  Thanks to Stamen47 who has posted several ukulele versions of favorite game tunes in gp5 format.
2. ShadowFlare’s Ukulele Tab for “Saria’s Song” and more
3. Watch Yayatsumura’s version below of “Song of Storms” on the ukulele
4. The post wouldn’t be complete without Heather playing the Ocarina for Ocarina of Time