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Penny Arcade - PATV - You’re Gonna Love It – Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link
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Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - PATV - You’re Gonna Love It – Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link
This week Khoo shows his age old disappointment in Zelda II to two youngin's, Erik and Jamie.
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Thankfully, there weren't too many jumping puzzles. Being able to fight well was far more important than being able to jump well.
edit: holy shit, they thought they beat the palace but they never found the boss ahahaha
Nah, I don't think that analogy holds up at all. Mario 1 to Mario 2 was still going from platformer to platformer. They just added a bunch of lift/throw mechanics and played with the jump physics in the character selection. But it was still a sidescrolling platformer. (But obviously the American Mario 2 was not originally a Mario game, but was a reskin of a game called Doki Doki Panic. The actual Mario 2 was very similar to Mario 1 but much more difficult. Nintendo had more success with the reskinned Mario... maybe that informed their decision to mess with Zelda II?)
It would be more like taking Zombies Ate My Neighbors and turning it into a more Contra like game. (But a very mediocre one.)
I will say this: the shielding mechanic was an interesting idea for its time, but that's as much as I can really say.
I'm surprised that no one except Robert appeared to be aware that Ganon has always been a pig monster. Even at one point they say, "He wasn't a pig in Ocarina. He was just a dude." BUT WAIT. When he is a dude in OoT, he is "Ganondorf", but after you beat his dude form, the castle is destroyed, and he (in epic boss battle fashion) goes into his final form, where he is just "Ganon", which is a giant pig demon type monster. (A little bit harder to make out in OoT since he is so shadowy.)
He is also "just a dude" when you first fight him in Twilight Princess, but then he turns into a huge charging boar demon thing, i.e. pig.
Ganon does not actually turn into a pig in Windwaker, but "puppet ganon" still has the pig qualities.
It's like Ganondorf is the man, and Ganon is his evil pig spirit animal essence.
Edit: Also, yay Jamie.
The departure from the top-down view was a little tough to get used to, but it didn't destroy the game for me. The combat system was very difficult. At FIRST. But once you put together the down-thrust and the up-thrust along with the spells it gets a lot more fun to play. You can't really judge this specific game in the first hour. Or the first 4. You need to push through this part, which believe it or not is pretty necessary. It establishes the weird sort of baseline that you get to move away from as you progress through experience levels and add skills. But if you aren't a retro-gamer, or you didn't grow up with this specific set of games, the first hour will feel like pulling teeth.
You remember me
I think they just looked at the success of Castlevania and thought that was a good way to try to make a Zelda game. Metroid had proven very popular too, also a side scroller with non linear exploration. Castlevania was probably the big influence though, since it also had the 3 life system and a bar for hp. The original Mega man would even be released the same year as Zelda 2, it just was not a time for top down view games.
At least it had an actual magic system, and it didn't rely entirely on trial and error finding of hidden things or having a guide. There are tons of NPCs in the 2nd game that give you hints without even asking for rupees. I can't tell you how much time I spent farming up bombs, walking into walls, and waiting on the candle's cooldown in the first game just to try to blow up and burn every square just to make basic progress. Then I had to memorize what revealed the spot and exactly where on the screen. The first game even lets you choose between increasing max health and restoring your hp to full, with no explanation of what either item will do or warning that the choice is permanent. Then once you beat the first game, you find out you didn't actually beat it because you have to beat it with your name set to Zelda. I felt trolled, even more so when I got to the lost woods.
You're just being persnickety. Look at his design in Twilight Princess, where he is even down on all fours:
There's no denying that he used to look *even more* like a pig in the early games than in the later games, but there is also no denying that he has always been portrayed as having porcine features to some degree, in at least one of his forms.
Also note that I never said he was a literal pig. He is a monster (or demon) that is piggish.
Also they are just really bad at playing a sidescroller. I played this in the late 80s as a 5-7 year old and then again probably 10 years ago and I didn't have nearly as much trouble either time as these two did. Their timing was horrible.
The bald guy looks surprised this question is being asked and you can sort of tell even he knows admitting to not playing one of the most iconic video games is probably not good for your gaming credentials. Either the girl plays it off cooler or, and I'm goin' with Occam on this one, she more likely doesn't care or see it as something that matters.
Now, let us get one thing straight. Nothing about video games matters. Not in the way finding water on Mars matters, yes? So we can say very easily that video games now occupy a societal sphere much more closely linked to other subjects of little to no intellectual value. I do not believe this has always been. This is a new trend that has taken video games from a relatively unique position in the world and thus hard to understand for outsiders. To a not unique position in the world. Let me elaborate, before if I talked about video games at school(primary school) I'd get mixed looks of shock and disgust EXCEPT for the couple of goofy kids in the class with me. I don't doubt schools are different now. Hell, I see students at University left and right with video game references, new and old(you're 16 in 2015 and you played and loved Mario Bros. 3 so much you're wearing the shirt of it? I don't fucking think so.), and they are NOT the goofy kids. Is this good? Sounds good. Diversity is what makes any idea or concept strong. But lets go back a step. Who are these people who have found the love of gaming? What does it mean to be a "gamer" anymore?
Hell, I asked one of my female co-workers if she liked video games and she said, "Yeah of course, who doesn't ?" My entire 8th grade class, for one. I didn't say that. I asked oh yeah what genre is your favorite? she responded "What is a genre?"(she is 19, kids aren't smart) I can go further and reveal that the video game(only one) she loves is Candy Crush, but it's likely you knew that since the beginning of this. I will stop there and we can look at the problem. Can you see it?
If you guessed her gender then I'll give you points for being sexist and sticking to your guns but its not what is wrong here. Now I have someone next to me who believes they are a gamer for playing that highly-marketable trash. If I too then say I am a gamer am I not basically agreeing with her decision? That Candy Crush is a video game, certainly it is a game on a video monitor of a sort. It is not however even remotely close to what people in 1991 might call a video game. In fact, some purists(myself) would go as far as to say that a game designed to make money is only a game so far as the quarter machines at the markets are a game. Sure, you always win, there is tension and maybe some luck/skill involved if you get one that takes 4 quarters(more money equals more entertainment? that's what they would lead us to believe) and then...you win!..or if you don't then put in more money!(i ended it with a prepositional phrase and if you complain, i'll put ya in a maze faster than the torment's lady of pain!)
I feel that the above description describes so many games nowadays, I just had to take a breath. Every MMO, free or not, is designed to make money. Remember when it was kinda "hardcore" to talk about EverQuest and the simple lunacy that made it great? Well, it certainly was designed to make money. But it was for many the only option if you wanted a pretty legitimate fantasy experience without dice and the physical obligation of all parties involved. AND THEN World of WarCraft streamlined the ever loving shit out of the MMO. Things were looking up. But, then this sort of reverse diaspora began to occur. People, with their individual ideologies tempered by the societal smith, saw the dollars, the paper that had yet to be STACKED to the ceiling. And here is what happened, marketing. Someone said, it's great that we are attracting the people who ALREADY like elves, orcs and humans but we need more MONEY. So, we need more consumers, to get that our game has to be more convenient so more people will like it. I know, you probably would disagree and violently shove me away even as I tell you these dear secrets. I will right here beg you to really think about a lot of your favorite video games and tell me if they don't all have some aspect in common. Sure you might say, "Oh, Internet guy, you must not be talking about me, I play all games, in fact I'm playing Tales of Vesperia and when I get done I'll play CoD." Can you tell me the plot of ToV? I beat that game twice and it is still the highest level malarkey. The battle system is fun though.
See, the marketing guys are good, real good. They know you, as the common man, are a slave to the impulses of your brain's chemistry. Do you ever imagine yourself beating someone up, maybe he cut you off and you think "Man, I don't normally hurt people but I'd beat the hell out of that guy." and then you proceed to the fantasy of you standing up to this guy and kicking him and his 3 friends asses. It probably made you feel good to just THINK that. We want to hurt others, its in humans always, but we also really want to win. Mr. and Mrs. Marketing know this. That's why games with SUCH piss-poor storytelling dominate the market. Because its all about that gritty need to brutalize others; verbally, physically, metaphorically and especially spiritually, that will sell games. That's why RPGs even have a battle system. I mean, really ask yourself, can you fit ANY of the random encounters from Final Fantasy 7 into the narrative of the story line? Even when you fight Shinra troops in the Shinra building they are not wearing the same uniforms as the NPCs you see. Sometimes, during the part where you infiltrate Shinra headquarters you'll fight robotic guards alongside the escaped experiments they are no doubt meant to secure.
It doesn't make any sense, but marketing doesn't have to, it just needs to make money. Would Final Fantasy 7 have been as critically acclaimed without the battle system? Would fans even consider it a proper Final Fantasy title? Hell no, because of marketing and societal trends. Are humans scared of the unknown? Fuck, yes they are. By putting your video game into an established archetype people can make the decision to buy it much easier. This rule is the same for all concepts. The easier something is to do, the more people will do it, and it becomes much less unique. They really don't care about you or me. The big-wigs, the money makers.
One fact to take to heart: People with more money are worth more to people.
Fun theory: If you play a lot of video games you might not have a lot of money, being a fucking loser and all, so the more games you play the less money you make and the less important you are to people.
Next time someone says they're a gamer around you fucking challenge that shit, in my experience most of them are fronting hard. Take'em down a notch.
TL;DR
When I see people who have the audacity to show up on a major video gaming website and have no idea what the original Legend of Zelda was like to play, I just am happy that I know the answer. Marketing. I have to assume this or that someone somewhere who has some old gamer blood actually thought these people were legit by any stretch of the imagination. Fuck that.
As an 8 year old I was able to figure out this game, how it works on my own like the roads and the enemies. None of this was difficult or unclear. This just shows me never to watch any of the other videos.
RockMonkey: I wonder if the controller was kinda wonky. They seemed to have issues even going up and down on the overworld, indicating the D-pad was a bit stiff or something.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
*edit - snark removed
Also where was the boss fight? I wanted to see them getting repeatedly wasted by the horse. Taking down the knight was hi-larious. In fact, you guys should force them to play through the whole game. I need this. For science.
I love how a thing that always happens in internet video game talk is
Player A: Ugh. I really don't like this game.
Player B: Nah, disliking this game is impossible. Are you even a real gamer? What you really dislike is how much you suck at it. If you were any good at this game (like moi), you'd realize how good it is.
Also, not everyone has time to play the entire back catalog of the entire history of video games. Some people have families and lives.
An unforgiving game if ever there was one; whether or not that's a bad thing is up to the player.
Pins!
But Tube...
Sometimes a game can be a really good game but a really bad sequel.
See: Chrono Cross
It was hard, I was born in 1983, and I think I played this game around 6 or 7 years old, with my parents. We were never able to beat the game, the last dungeon is really really hard. I played though the whole game and beat it one summer when I was 16 or 17, and found it fairly easy at that point. But I did need to use an FAQ to get though the last dungeon, again it's pretty insane, not sure how any average player is supposed to beat that without some guidance.
I enjoyed seeing how much trouble you they had with this game, made me feel like a bad ass since I remember when I was 16 it feeling pretty easy. ...Except the last dungeon.
Also yes, the game manual had full color artwork and did all of the story and game mechanics explanation for the game, and would have really helped with the confusion. It was about 50 pages, and the first 14 or so were story. You should check it out. (and if you guys play another NES game, you should remember to check out the game manual in the future, games where not designed to be picked up and payed with out first reading though the manual back then, they either had not invited training you as you played yet, or couldn't for some reason...)
http://www.kasuto.net/zelda2.php?main=zelda2/z2graphical_manual.html
I'm a little concerned you would have had just as much trouble playing though the first zelda if you didn't check out the manual first.
You mean that latest AAA-Studio microtransaction-plagued-season-pass-diseased huge title that was hyped for a year?
I guess that's... impressive?
It was nice for the story stuff, though.
I remember him as a pig because I watched a lot of this:
The reminder that Ganondorf was NOT a man-pig took me by surprise.
Being kinda shitty at the game I ended up AFK leveling the game with an Autofire NES Max controller and then going off to play lego while Link repeat killed slimes or something.
As others have also somewhat said, I think you're being highly, unfairly selective. Why not have someone who's not played Zelda 1 try that, too? (Or bloody Megaman 1 or 2!). Z1 is arguably harder than Z2 in many places. Plus, these games are of their era: what might look like 'bullshit bad design' nowadays hadn't been established as such then, and most kids just put up with harsh things like the pitch-black rooms (Z1 has them too) or the unforgiving jumping sections. Well, some kids; certainly not Mr Grumpy in the middle of the couch there. :P (nor me; I played Z2 on Gamecube)
A decent tip for progressing with Zelda2 is to just chill out and realise that up/down means 'blocking at 2 heights'; there's no timing to the knights' sword swings, you just have to watch for the wind-up animation, stop wildly mashing 'attack', and just let it block.
More good NES games played by people unused to NES games would be pretty entertaining actually, although it really seemed as though your Dpad isn't working quite right, which obviously wouldn't help anything if that were the case.
What compelled me to post all this was: Robert, are you *really* complaining *that* strongly because Nintendo innovated and tried something new and different? Because that is why we can't have nice things.