Ocarina of Time’s Metacritic Crown Challenged Over Flawed Scoring

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has maintained its position as the most critically acclaimed video game ever made according to Metacritic, holding a nearly flawless score of 99 since its 1998 Nintendo 64 debut. However, a meticulous investigation by Did You Know Gaming has fundamentally challenged the legitimacy of that score, arguing that Metacritic’s calculation methodology contains significant errors that should result in the classic adventure dropping to 98—a change that would strip it of its unambiguous top ranking.

How Metacritic Aggregates Reviews

Since its 2001 founding, Metacritic has functioned as the internet’s central hub for consolidated critical reviews across film, music, and video games. The platform compiles numerical scores from approved publications—professional websites, magazines, newspapers, and critics of recognized standing—then averages them into a single 0-100 score. This aggregation carries substantial industry influence, historically affecting developer compensation contracts tied to review performance and shaping public perception of which games deserve historical significance.

For Ocarina of Time, Metacritic faced a unique challenge: the game predates the website’s existence by three years. Nevertheless, the aggregator compiled 22 contemporary reviews from the 1998 release period, drawing from early internet outlets like IGN, the Canadian television program Electric Playground, and Famitsu magazine, which notably awarded it one of their exceptionally rare perfect scores. This diverse source pool seemed to justify the game’s exceptional 99 rating.

DYKG’s Systematic Investigation

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Did You Know Gaming approached the question not by disputing Ocarina of Time’s quality or applying modern critical standards, but by examining whether Metacritic followed its own stated protocols. Rather than attributing malice, DYKG acknowledged that hunting through decades of back issues from multiple publications represents genuine archival difficulty. However, the channel’s findings reveal inconsistencies that constitute calculation errors under Metacritic’s own methodology.

Missing Reviews from Major Publications

DYKG’s first discovery involved incomplete source coverage. Metacritic’s standard practice requires including scores from an established canon of approved publications. For a 1998-era game, this should encompass Game Informer and Nintendo Power, the official Nintendo publication. Metacritic included perfect scores from EGM and GamePro but entirely omitted Game Informer. Nintendo Power’s review appeared in the calculation, but only its score of 95—a notable deduction from perfection that weighted the average downward.

This selective sourcing raises questions about consistency in methodology. Metacritic included some magazine reviews from the same era while excluding others without documented justification. While the aggregator’s archivists may have lacked access to certain back issues initially, DYKG points out that over twenty-five years have passed without correction, despite having modern access to these publications.

Non-Standard Review Inclusions

The second methodological problem involved the types of content Metacritic accepted into its averaging. Beyond traditional numerical scores, Metacritic included reviews that merely described Ocarina of Time as “perfect” without assigning specific numbers. Additionally, retrospective pieces written well after the game’s 1998 release were incorporated into the calculation, lacking the contemporaneous critical context that typically defines Metacritic’s core methodology.

DYKG’s concern centers on protocol consistency. If Metacritic’s standards require numerical scores and exclude retrospective analyses from its aggregation formula, then including them for Ocarina of Time represents a deviation from established procedure. This is not a subjective disagreement about the game’s merit but a technical question about whether Metacritic applied its own rules uniformly across all entries.

Comparative Analysis with Soulcalibur

To ensure fairness and eliminate potential bias, DYKG performed identical fact-checking on Soulcalibur, another pre-Metacritic game that currently holds a 98 score. Despite uncovering similar inconsistencies in how Soulcalibur’s reviews were sourced and weighted, DYKG’s recalculation still arrived at Metacritic’s published 98 score. This verification demonstrates that DYKG’s methodology is rigorous and consistent rather than selectively targeting Ocarina of Time, and that different scores can sometimes withstand scrutiny while others cannot.

The Recalculation and Its Ranking Consequences

When DYKG recalculated Ocarina of Time’s score using a corrected review pool and excluding non-standard submissions, the result was 97.6. Under Metacritic’s stated rounding protocol, which rounds 97.6 upward, the score should be 98—not 99. While a single-point reduction appears minor in isolation, the consequence within Metacritic’s ranking structure is dramatic.

A score of 98 would immediately displace Ocarina of Time from its singular position at the platform’s summit. Instead, it would join a four-way tie including Grand Theft Auto IV, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Soulcalibur, all currently listed at 98. Ocarina of Time would retain its place among an elite tier of critically celebrated games, but it would no longer claim unambiguous supremacy as “the best game ever” according to critical aggregation. This distinction matters significantly within gaming culture, where Metacritic scores function as historical markers and rankings drive industry conversations.

Guinness Records and Historical Implications

Beyond Metacritic’s rankings, Ocarina of Time holds Guinness World Records partly justified by its critical aggregation supremacy. Should Metacritic correct the score to 98, the supporting evidence underlying those official records would technically become inaccurate. DYKG emphasizes that no malice or intentional manipulation drove the error—archival research from the 1990s proved genuinely difficult, and mistakes were made in good faith. Nevertheless, the mathematical reality persists regardless of intent or effort expended.

Review Aggregation in Gaming Culture

The DYKG findings raise broader questions about how much authority review aggregators deserve within gaming culture. Metacritic functions as convenient numerical shorthand for critical consensus, influencing purchasing decisions, developer contracts, and historical narrative. Yet this investigation demonstrates that even gaming’s most prominent titles can carry aggregated scores that collapse under methodological scrutiny.

Historically, some studios tied developer bonuses directly to Metacritic targets, making calculation errors more than academic exercises—they represented genuine financial consequences. While this practice has become less common, the principle remains relevant. The inconsistencies DYKG documented are not subjective quality disputes but procedural questions about whether Metacritic’s own standards were applied with consistency and rigor.