The 1998 cartridge

Wikipedia's article on the 1998 game records a Metacritic 99 and about 7.6 million copies sold worldwide. The NTSC presentation targets around 20 frames per second at 320 by 240; PAL timing and output differ. Lock-on is the Z button. Link hops on his own when he reaches a ledge, so there is no separate jump to rebind. Master Quest is absent; that rearranged quest arrived later as a 2002 and 2003 GameCube bonus, not in the black cartridge.

If a walkthrough tells you to press a jump button or to open a free camera with the right stick, it was written for the Switch 2 remake. On the N64 those inputs do not exist. The dungeon bones — three spiritual stones, then the medallions — are the same story, which is why an old map still helps, while a boss video filmed in 2026 will show different animation and a different button prompt.

Where to play it now without guessing a shop price: a cartridge you already own, or the Nintendo 64 library inside Switch Online, which is a separate page because Nintendo warns that the simulation can differ from the hardware. I am not listing a dollar amount for a used cart.