Weekly Famitsu · #519 · The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Seven years after introducing its four-reviewer scoring system, Japan's most influential games magazine finally awarded a perfect 40 out of 40 — to Ocarina of Time, creating a benchmark of prestige that endures to this day.
Weekly Famitsu, first published in 1986, is the most institutionally powerful games magazine in Japan, and its verdicts have long carried commercial weight that Western publications can only envy. In 1991 it introduced the scoring format that would define it: the "Cross Review," in which four critics each independently rate a game from 1 to 10, producing an aggregate score out of 40. The system was designed to blunt individual bias, and its practical effect was to make a perfect score almost impossible — all four reviewers had to be unreserved in their enthusiasm. For seven years, no game achieved it. Then, in issue #519, published on 27 November 1998, Famitsu awarded its first perfect 40/40 to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Four reviewers, four tens. It was an unprecedented editorial statement — the magazine's way of saying that Nintendo's first 3D Zelda was not merely excellent but flawless, a game against which everything else would be measured. The scarcity of the honour is what gives it force. As of 2025, only around thirty games have ever received a 40/40 in nearly four decades of Famitsu reviews — a rate of roughly one every eighteen months across an industry publishing thousands of titles a year. Achieving the score became a marketing event in itself, reported worldwide and printed on Japanese box art, and the announcement of a new 40 remains a genuine piece of industry news. Ocarina of Time's place as the first recipient has become inseparable from its reputation as one of the greatest games ever made. The score arrived alongside near-universal Western acclaim, and the convergence of Japanese and international critical opinion helped cement the game's canonical status almost immediately upon release. For a magazine whose influence rests on the perceived rigour of its judgements, holding back the perfect score for seven years and then spending it on Ocarina of Time was a decision that defined both the game and the institution.
Establishing the 40/40 as gaming's rarest and most prestigious review score by withholding it for seven years and finally awarding it to Ocarina of Time.
Famitsu's scoring format, introduced in 1991, has four critics independently rate each game from 1 to 10, summing to a maximum of 40. The design was intended to temper individual bias, but its more significant consequence was to make perfection extraordinarily difficult — a 40 requires that not one of four reviewers harbours a single reservation. That structural hurdle is precisely why the score carries such weight: it cannot be the enthusiasm of a lone advocate. Seven years passed after the system's debut before any game cleared the bar, and only around thirty have managed it since, making the 40/40 arguably the scarcest prestige marker in games criticism.
Awarding the first perfect score to Ocarina of Time in November 1998 was an editorial statement with immediate consequences. The 40/40 was reported internationally, printed on Japanese packaging, and treated as genuine industry news — a pattern that has held for every subsequent perfect score. It also converged with overwhelming Western acclaim to lock in Ocarina of Time's canonical status almost from the moment of release, giving the game a critical consensus across both hemispheres that few titles ever achieve. For Famitsu, spending its long-hoarded first 40 on this particular game defined the institution as much as the game, and the score remains a benchmark the industry still watches for.