I am a fan but I didn't get an N64 until it was off the market for a few years and by then the Zelda games were out of my price range so I never really got a chance to play that one, but it does sound good.

A good example of what I am talking about when it comes to little touches making you care more can been seen the first time I played Mass Effect 2. In the first game there are two paper thin NPCs that only exist to give you very basic information about the hub world, I talked to them and didn't think any more about it. In Mass Effect 2 there is a quick sub plot where you have to talk to someone who you never see again, but it turns out she is the mother of the two NPCs from the first game and they died during the events of the climax of the first game, and it has really messed her up. I ended up feeling so bad about that, I ended up stopping my Mass Effect 2 game just so I could go back and replay the whole of ME1 just to be sure I had not missed a chance to save them when there was no bonus for doing this and they were just two information NPCs, still because I saw their deaths effecting another character I went searching for a way to save them. I would love to see more of that sort of thing in future games.