Ocarina of Time

HHyrule has just come out of a civil war. During it, a dying Hylian woman left her baby son with the Great Deku Tree in Kokiri Forest, where he grew up as Link among children who never grow old. The Deku Tree, cursed by Ganondorf, warns Link of a man from the desert who wants the Triforce. At Hyrule Castle Link meets Princess Zelda, who has dreamed of the same danger. They set out to gather the three Spiritual Stones that open the Door of Time.

Behind the Door of Time is the Master Sword from Skyward Sword, kept in the Temple of Time as the key to the Sacred Realm. Drawing it seals Link away for seven years. In that time Ganondorf takes the Triforce. It splits into its three pieces. Only the Triforce of Power stays with him. Rauru, the Sage of Light, greets the adult Link, who then wakes the other Sages, among them Saria, Darunia and Ruto, with help from Sheik, a Sheikah.

Many of its places and peoples return in later games: Kakariko Village, which Impa of the Sheikah opened to ordinary people; Lake Hylia; the Zora of Zora's Domain; the Gorons of Death Mountain; the Gerudo, among whom one man is born every hundred years; and the Kokiri, who have become the Koroks by The Wind Waker. Ganondorf's guardians, the witches Twinrova, appear again in the Oracle games.

Nintendo's timeline branches at the end of Ocarina of Time. In the branch where Link is defeated, Ganon takes the whole Triforce and the Sages seal him in the Sacred Realm, which leads to A Link to the Past. Where Link wins, Ganondorf is sealed and Zelda sends Link back to his childhood. The adult timeline continues in the Hyrule he leaves, which now has no hero. The child timeline follows Link back to his own time, where he warns the royal family.