Update 10\/5\/2026 4:46 p.m.:\u00a0Welp, as has been pointed out to me, apparently this mod\u2019s code was written by genAI, specifically Claude. The article exists now, no takesy-backsies, so I\u2019m leaving it intact below as a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n
This was on me and I should have caught it, but I do feel it\u2019s worth pointing out here how insidious this stuff can be. This information wasn\u2019t disclosed anywhere obvious at all. I didn\u2019t see it in any other articles I read about the game, or any of the social media posts or YouTube videos I watched. There isn\u2019t an official website anywhere that might have such a thing mentioned. I even searched for \u201cgenAI\u201d in the Discord and found nothing. I eventually saw a mention of it, about 200 comments down on a YouTube video, and found the discussion buried deep in the modding Discord when I searched for \u201cvibe coded.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s getting harder and harder to write about fan projects if you care about this issue, because of this exact sort of thing, and I\u2019ll honestly probably just be doing less of it as a result. Anyway, I\u2019m genuinely sorry to folks who have read my work for a long time and know how I feel about this sort of thing who felt misled by this. It\u2019s certainly got me on even more of a defensive than I already was going forward.<\/p>\n
Original story continues below:<\/p>\n
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is out next month, and that\u2019s giving us lots of excuses to think about all the weird, funny, and unique quirks of the nearly 30-year-old original. I\u2019ve written about its weird characters<\/a> and how great the Gerudo Valley theme is<\/a> already, but today a YouTube recommendation introduced me to a romhack of the original Ocarina of Time that\u2019s one of the most clever commitments to a pun I\u2019ve seen in a while.<\/p>\n Introducing\u2026Soccerina of Time:<\/p>\n Ha ha, yeah! That\u2019s the cast of Ocarina of Time playing soccer! This is a romhack developed by shonj352 that takes place in the game world of Ocarina of Time\u00a0and lets you pick from eight different teams made up of Ocarina characters and then, well, do this! The teams have great names like Kakariko City, Zora United, and Kokiri FC. And there are different fields to play on, too, such as the one above in Kokiri Forest and this one in Gerudo Town:<\/p>\n I love the way all these little guys run around so goofily. There are some pretty clever animations in here too, such as the one shown above where a player gets injured and two others carry them off on a stretcher. God, Dampe in the goal is cracking me up, as is seeing the construction workers scurry across the field like that. Incredible stuff.<\/p>\n Apparently there are other features, too, beyond just little scrimmage games, like a character creator mode, a league mode, selectable difficulty options, and a manager mode where you just control player tactics instead of individual team members. And the most recent patch notes include some bizarre stuff like \u201ctrial and jail systems,\u201d \u201cnew career ending injuries,\u201d and even custom music. What\u2026what can you go to jail for?!<\/p>\n