As a guy that hasn't played a Zelda game since Link to the Past (worshiped it as a boy) and whatever the game boy game was that turned out to be a dream (and pissed me off) I feel the burning desire to contribute almost-uselessly to this thread.
I think the girl in the OP's image *is* the sword. Think Bleach meets Zelda.
Look at her, her cloak is wavy like a katana and she is metallic in color.
Don't worry, the later ones don't really stack up if you grew up with the originals. A lot has changed. It's one of those gaps where everything changed in the N64/PS1 era. If you really liked the old ones, it's often better not to dabble in some of the newer stuff.
That is if you hate fun and don't have an open mind.
Fun damages small animals and makes me grow fur on my palms.
No really tho, I tried the one for Wii (Twilight Princess?) but the 3d-ness of it killed the puzzle fun for me. It went from awesome dungeon crawling to WoW without the other players.
Dungeon Crawling? Eh?
OoT is basically LttP in 3D. Maybe some more sidequests and cut scenes, but it's the same formula.
Except LttP's world size makes OoT feel like a backyard. The only sizable portion of OoT was Hyrule Field. Everything else was claustrophobic.
As this is my house, I hereby hold the objective truth:
Majora's Mask is at #1 Why?
For the sheer brass balls of it. High-concept stuff, executed near flawlessly. Best emotional investment by far of almost any game ever made whilst at no time being hammy. Look at a FF love story and then look at Kafei and Anju and tell me which is the more sincere, more true, more touching.
The overworld was occasionally a little barren, esp. Termina field itself, and the music got stale very quickly (really guys, just one main theme?). Some also found the time restraints half-legitimately not to their taste. But the atmosphere was second to none and the recycling of character models actually - unexpectedly - worked.
Ocarina of Time ties with Link to the Past for second place.
Really tough choice. OoT is the natural contender for top dog. Even now it retains its majesty and mystery and feels fresh no matter how many times you've booted it up. It is almost a perfect game. Jabu Jabu navigational errors aside there is pretty much nothing wrong with it. The only reason it gets nudged into number 2 is because it stuck to fairly orthodoxy Zelda. That's fine, but I think we should pay respect to the risks MM took. OoT is the best of its kind, but MM really is a unique experience.
Link to the Past gets joint second place because it is perhaps the best 2D game ever made. It crammed in a huge amount of character to every screen and really rewarded curious and adventurous minds. It was also the last Zelda to be actually pretty hard, most notably in the realm of combat.
Twilight Princess heads up third place. Why? The understated menace of the empty world is mistaken by some for laziness. It's not laziness. If the developers were lazy then they wouldn't have made the goodness-knows-how-many NPCs that populate the game, especially the ones that don't even matter in Hyrule Town itself. TP is a game set in a decaying world.
This Zelda excels in dungeon design and has some of the best puzzles of the series. It also made efforts - perhaps insufficient - to restore that sense of scale and adventure that was in LTTP that was slightly lost in the transition to 3D. It also increased the difficulty of the combat a little, if not by much. Some accuse it of being too orthodox but I just don't buy it. Sure, it's a love letter to OOT, and I think everyone knows that, but it had enough character of its own to be distinct. Its brooding, gothic tone was something pretty compelling. That the story tapered off somewhat is one of the game's few weaknesses.
Links Awakening ties with the Oracle games and Wind Waker for fourth.
LA is a beautifully realized concept and really the spiritual precursor to MM. It stumbles a little; the narrative sometimes can't really support itself. The dungeons are also a little run of the mill at times. The overworld is pretty good.
The Oracle games are very, very good. The only reason they're not placed above LA and WW is because, being Capcom, something just feels fundamentally un-Nintendo-y about it. That spark is missing, that little somethin' somethin' that is the trait of Nintendo games.
Wind Waker was disappointing. A decent story trails off until a good climax that is let down by being over far too damn soon (I beat the final boss so quickly that I thought something was wrong). A poorly-executed stealth section is no fun at all near the beginning. Some fights are thrown in more or less at random (Shadow Gannon, lookin' at you). But the real let-down of WW is that it's brainlessly easy and the gaping holes where dungeons should have been was painful. Completing WW doesn't really bring you any sense of achievement, because what was so hard about it? It feld like Zelda for Kids, and not just because of the art style.
Minish Cap was very disappointing, and I haven't played Hourglass or Spirit Tracks (who has two thumbs and no stylus?).
MM is the only game I own twice and I haven't even beaten it once. I think I'd need someone to be next to me, guiding me through it, to get me to actually play it.
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KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
Zelda II suffers the same problem I have with Metroid II.
Everything looks so freaking similar that I have no clue where I'm at. Why there wasn't a map, I'll never know.
How so? Were you playing the crappy japanese version where every dungeon looked identical? :P
I'm specifically talking about Zelda II's dungeons. The towns were fine, and of course the overworld. But as soon as I got to the second elevator of the second dungeon (the first one is very straight forward) I was as lost as Speed Racer's shit.
Zelda II suffers the same problem I have with Metroid II.
Everything looks so freaking similar that I have no clue where I'm at. Why there wasn't a map, I'll never know.
How so? Were you playing the crappy japanese version where every dungeon looked identical? :P
I'm specifically talking about Zelda II's dungeons. The towns were fine, and of course the overworld. But as soon as I got to the second elevator of the second dungeon (the first one is very straight forward) I was as lost as Speed Racer's shit.
I know, in the japanese version of Zelda II, all dungeons used the exact same tileset (the one from palace one) and the same two palettes alternated (gray of palace 1, and the teal of palace 2). Hence my comment about everything looking the same
Honestly tho I never really had a problem getting lost in those dungeons (maybe some of the later ones when I was a kid, but I've played the game so much that it's all muscle memory at this point ). They didn't usually duplicate rooms in the *same* dungeon as far as I recall (sometimes they did but they were usually good about putting different monsters in them or something so you could tell). But I dunno. There were generally only a few ways to go, so if you got lost, do something like go through the rooms on each floor until you find a key or something, then go backtrack to a locked door. The game loved to lock off large parts of each dungeon
Zelda II suffers the same problem I have with Metroid II.
Everything looks so freaking similar that I have no clue where I'm at. Why there wasn't a map, I'll never know.
How so? Were you playing the crappy japanese version where every dungeon looked identical? :P
I'm specifically talking about Zelda II's dungeons. The towns were fine, and of course the overworld. But as soon as I got to the second elevator of the second dungeon (the first one is very straight forward) I was as lost as Speed Racer's shit.
I know, in the japanese version of Zelda II, all dungeons used the exact same tileset (the one from palace one) and the same two palettes alternated (gray of palace 1, and the teal of palace 2). Hence my comment about everything looking the same
Honestly tho I never really had a problem getting lost in those dungeons (maybe some of the later ones when I was a kid, but I've played the game so much that it's all muscle memory at this point ). They didn't usually duplicate rooms in the *same* dungeon as far as I recall (sometimes they did but they were usually good about putting different monsters in them or something so you could tell). But I dunno. There were generally only a few ways to go, so if you got lost, do something like go through the rooms on each floor until you find a key or something, then go backtrack to a locked door. The game loved to lock off large parts of each dungeon
I can see what he means. You have to keep track of all the elevators and multiple floors in the later dungeons, so it can get confusing. Not to mention the secret walls that you can walk through.
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KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Even the elevators were fine, until they started going to 3+ different floors.
Okay so ya'll inspired me to do some wiki reading on the zelda series.
A few points:
1. I haz no gamecube nor gamecube manipulation devices
2. I (as mentioned previously) adored LttP as a mere cub but disliked (at least the first hour of?) TP.
That said, what I'm seeing is four swords adventure on my wii looks (at least from SSs) like the second coming of LttP and Oot looks much crappier.
Maybe I'm letting my preference for sprites over poorly done (by today's standards, I'm sure it was great at the time) 3d cell shading? Is this something that I should be forcing myself to ignore because the game quality is so high?
FSA is incredibly fun if you have a friend or more to play with, which unfortunately would require a few GBAs and link cables. Playing it alone would rob yourself of the potential fun to be honest.
FSA is incredibly fun if you have a friend or more to play with, which unfortunately would require a few GBAs and link cables. Playing it alone would rob yourself of the potential fun to be honest.
Well I'm married and the Mrs. has taken a liking to playing the more "fun oriented" [read: SMG1-2] games with me. Its possible I could make this happen.
I take it you have to join multiple DS's (I currently have 0) tho, you can't just hook up two controllers to a Wii?
I will give Oot a try just for you guys, because I love you big pile of silly geese. Also, before doing so, should I give TP another chance or just shelve/sell it?
FSA is incredibly fun if you have a friend or more to play with, which unfortunately would require a few GBAs and link cables. Playing it alone would rob yourself of the potential fun to be honest.
Well I'm married and the Mrs. has taken a liking to playing the more "fun oriented" [read: SMG1-2] games with me. Its possible I could make this happen.
I take it you have to join multiple DS's (I currently have 0) tho, you can't just hook up two controllers to a Wii?
I will give Oot a try just for you guys, because I love you big pile of silly geese. Also, before doing so, should I give TP another chance or just shelve/sell it?
Bad news time. FSA requires a Gamecube and two or more GBAs for multiplayer. DS and Wii don't have the required connections.
FSA plays fine single-player. You do miss out on the opportunity to screw over other players for no real benefit, though, which the game has been meticulously crafted to enable and encourage you to do. It's filled with multiple chests in a row, dead ends, keys that reward the player who used them, and limited equipment availability, meaning that if you're fast enough, you can screw the other players out of getting treasure or tools. And that's not even considering the ability to set other people on fire or throw them in pits.
The game pretty much alternates between sections that consist of everyone attempting to screw each other over, and sections that require the people who just finished screwing each other over to cooperate.
I will check it out. Is it wii friendly or will I need another console?
You can either get it from Virtual Console ($10), or probably easily find a copy of the Gamecube port (which will play on a Wii) at a used game place. The Gamecube version was the "Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition" - it was packaged with all new Gamecubes for a long time so it should be easy to find used I'd think - plus you get Majora's Mask and Zelda 1 & 2 with it (as well as a Wind Waker demo)
There is also a version that was the Wind Waker pre-order bonus which includes the somewhat lame Master Quest (basically it's Ocarina of Time with remixed dungeons, most of which are kind of dumb), but that one's going to be rarer and probably more expensive, and does *not* include Zelda 1, 2, and Majora's Mask....
The Virtual Console version is probably better emulated (and could be played with the Classic Controller, rather than requiring a GameCube controller - though you get no rumble), but the GameCube version has the other games and will probably be cheaper in the long run (esp. if you don't need to buy a GC controller).
He has absolutely zero presence though. When you have a good villain, you should feel his menace at all times, even when he's not directly confronting you. In OoT, during the first half of the game you're moving right on Ganondorf's heels, he's just a step ahead of you until he manages to manipulate you into opening up the temple of time for him. In the second half Hyrule has gone to hell and everywhere you go you can see how Ganondorf has tainted the once happy and charming world you knew as a child, even though he doesn't actually show up again until the very end. MM's a similar situation, where Majora and Skull Kid have completely ruined the country, and you have to fight to slowly drive back their influence. During WW we know from the start that Ganon is building up his power, and the narrative hammers it home that unless you act quickly he'll be too strong to defeat.
Eh. His presence petered out between the Forest Temple and the endgame in OoT, and WW was never able to make me feel like he was a threat when he was offscreen.
OoT's final dungeon was tucked away a bit, so the only time you really get a good look at it is when you approach. That worked in its own way, but the way the shielded castle can be seen from most places in Hyrule Field established a constant sense of looming danger for me.
All that doesn't really matter, though; TP Ganondorf's awesome character design endears him to me regardless of his other flaws. Samurai-robe WW Ganon was cool too, but I'm a total sucker for super-intricate baroque design, and I'd stare at all the gold trim on TP Ganon's armor all day even if he showed up after the end credits rolled.
Even the elevators were fine, until they started going to 3+ different floors.
Example:
And thats only the 2nd dungeon.
That's easy though. There are only three ways you can go from the first elevator, one of which is blocked by a locked door. The other two being dead ends that provide keys. You get the two keys, then go through the locked door. Next elevator only has two ways to go, one of which is blocked by blocks that can only be destroyed with the power glove. Go the other way, get the power glove, and break the blocks. After that, it's pretty much a strait shot to the boss, minus one tiny stop for an extra key. The dungeon is really pretty linear. Like I said, they love to lock out large parts of the dungeon. It's just a matter of systematically eliminating all possible routes.
Also, Wii supports the link cable, doesn't it? I suppose I've never tried but the thing just fits into the Gamecube controller slot, I can't imagine it wouldn't work. You do need GBAs though, that's the downside. It's a shame too, because they were used pretty damn poorly in that game IMO (basically required for entering caves, that's it). Anyways, I posted that link because I was thinking about how they would copy New SMB's "return to retro" and realized they already did it, four players and all
The final boss in WW is set up brilliantly. The entire game was built towards a clash between our hero and the antagonist. Coupled with the entire ocean gushing down it's nothing short of epic.
In TP, the final boss shows up out of nowhere, says a few lines we've all heard before and transports to an open plain that has nothing to do with the rest of the game.
I'm sorry, but you have terrible tastes. No nostalgia in the world would detract from this fact.
WW builds up, well, yes, but the actual fight is badly designed and unsatisfying.
TP's has a lot more depth.
I'm talking about game design here, not story.
No zelda has a story worth bothering to analyse, except possibly MM.
This is 100% nonsense right here.
None of the stories in the Zelda games are James Joyce, obviously. But just because there's "nothing worth bothering to analyze" doesn't suddenly mean that the story doesn't matter.
No matter how banal and simplistic, the story carries an important role in a game. It provides context to your actions and infuses the gameplay with emotional significance. Even if you don't have enough to write out a 10-page essay, the story is an important element because it evokes emotion. Gameplay can evoke emotion too, but generally it's limited to only a few, like triumph and frustration.
Perfect example. Consider the ending of MGS3, where you have to kill The Boss. The gameplay there is incredibly simple: push a single button, and you win the mini-game. Stripped of the story surrounding that moment, the scene isn't anything at all. But because of the emotion evoked by the narrative, and what we know about the relationship between these two characters, it becomes a heavily charged moment. A lot of players hesitate at first.
I picked that example because it's the simplest and most obvious I can think of, but I'm sure it doesn't count for some reason or that MGS3's ridiculous story is somehow "worth bothering to analyze" so let's go back to Zelda. In OoT, you spend the first chunk of the game seeing Hyrule as a fairly idyllic place. Then Ganon gets the triforce and everything goes to shit. You spend the bulk of the game exploring the ravaged remnants of Link's childhood, interacting with all the people that Ganondorf has fucked over. What's worse, you're powerless to help. The best you can hope to do is ensure that, eventually, things will be alright again. You can allow the new Deku sapling to grow, but who knows how long before it can actually protect the forest. You can kill Morpha, but Zora's Domain remains frozen over. So, after seeing all the shit that Ganon has pulled, it's time to fight him. You fight him with the knowledge that he's the one that's done all this, who's killed or traumatized all those kind people that helped you on your journey when you were a child. It adds meaning to your actions and gives you a reason to hate that character other than because "he's the bad guy."
WW's a somewhat different story. Most of the bad things that you see in that game aren't directly the work of Ganon. If it's your first Zelda, all you know about this guy is that he was once powerful and evil enough that the gods saw fit to bury him under an ocean of water, and that somehow he's survived and is working to reclaim his former glory. He's kidnapping young girls, and he kidnapped your sister, because one of them might possibly be a key player in a conflict they don't know anything about. You face him halfway through hand it's a complete joke. He had the power and the will to slaughter you then and there, and you only survive because of dumb luck. He's a scary guy, and the main sources of exposition all constantly warn you that he will fuck shit up if you let him. Then, at the end, you get to him, and you see another side of this villain that's been menacing you the entire time. He's tired, and old, and desperate to win a fight that he's been predestined to lose over and over for all eternity. In the end he's not even interested in conquering Hyrule. He's suicidal, and wants to kill every element of legend, Zelda and Hyrule, along with himself, so that he can finally rest. You're not fighting to protect the people on the surface in the end, they'll all be fine. You're fighting to protect yourself and to protect Zelda, two children who this lunatic wants to murder. The impact of the fight doesn't come from the gameplay, because like you said, it's fairly simple. It comes from the fact that, if the narrative has done its job right, you've become attached to Tetra/Zelda and want to save her. In a way it almost serves the story that the fight's so easy, because it's a reversal of your previous encounter, and drives home the notion that your character was really just the tool fate uses to deal Ganon his umpteenth crushing defeat. With all his power and skill, Ganon can't match up to a small boy, because the cosmos has decided that he's to be its bitch until the end of time.
In both cases, the story's simplistic but it serves to provide motivation beyond the desire to overcome the challenge of the game, and both sequences would be FAR less evocative and meaningful if I was just dropped into Ganon's tower at random with no context and told to have at it.
Which is, incidentally, almost exactly what TP does.
Also the earlier sections of TP are the best parts so if those don't hook you the later bits definitely won't.
He said the first hour, which consists of a slice of farm town life and the worst fishing controls in any game ever. I don't think you even go wolf in the first hour, let alone the first dungeon.
The final boss in WW is set up brilliantly. The entire game was built towards a clash between our hero and the antagonist. Coupled with the entire ocean gushing down it's nothing short of epic.
In TP, the final boss shows up out of nowhere, says a few lines we've all heard before and transports to an open plain that has nothing to do with the rest of the game.
I'm sorry, but you have terrible tastes. No nostalgia in the world would detract from this fact.
WW builds up, well, yes, but the actual fight is badly designed and unsatisfying.
TP's has a lot more depth.
I'm talking about game design here, not story.
No zelda has a story worth bothering to analyse, except possibly MM.
This is 100% nonsense right here.
None of the stories in the Zelda games are James Joyce, obviously. But just because there's "nothing worth bothering to analyze" doesn't suddenly mean that the story doesn't matter.
No matter how banal and simplistic, the story carries an important role in a game. It provides context to your actions and infuses the gameplay with emotional significance. Even if you don't have enough to write out a 10-page essay, the story is an important element because it evokes emotion. Gameplay can evoke emotion too, but generally it's limited to only a few, like triumph and frustration.
Perfect example. Consider the ending of MGS3, where you have to kill The Boss. The gameplay there is incredibly simple: push a single button, and you win the mini-game. Stripped of the story surrounding that moment, the scene isn't anything at all. But because of the emotion evoked by the narrative, and what we know about the relationship between these two characters, it becomes a heavily charged moment. A lot of players hesitate at first.
I picked that example because it's the simplest and most obvious I can think of, but I'm sure it doesn't count for some reason or that MGS3's ridiculous story is somehow "worth bothering to analyze" so let's go back to Zelda. In OoT, you spend the first chunk of the game seeing Hyrule as a fairly idyllic place. Then Ganon gets the triforce and everything goes to shit. You spend the bulk of the game exploring the ravaged remnants of Link's childhood, interacting with all the people that Ganondorf has fucked over. What's worse, you're powerless to help. The best you can hope to do is ensure that, eventually, things will be alright again. You can allow the new Deku sapling to grow, but who knows how long before it can actually protect the forest. You can kill Morpha, but Zora's Domain remains frozen over. So, after seeing all the shit that Ganon has pulled, it's time to fight him. You fight him with the knowledge that he's the one that's done all this, who's killed or traumatized all those kind people that helped you on your journey when you were a child. It adds meaning to your actions and gives you a reason to hate that character other than because "he's the bad guy."
WW's a somewhat different story. Most of the bad things that you see in that game aren't directly the work of Ganon. If it's your first Zelda, all you know about this guy is that he was once powerful and evil enough that the gods saw fit to bury him under an ocean of water, and that somehow he's survived and is working to reclaim his former glory. He's kidnapping young girls, and he kidnapped your sister, because one of them might possibly be a key player in a conflict they don't know anything about. You face him halfway through hand it's a complete joke. He had the power and the will to slaughter you then and there, and you only survive because of dumb luck. He's a scary guy, and the main sources of exposition all constantly warn you that he will fuck shit up if you let him. Then, at the end, you get to him, and you see another side of this villain that's been menacing you the entire time. He's tired, and old, and desperate to win a fight that he's been predestined to lose over and over for all eternity. In the end he's not even interested in conquering Hyrule. He's suicidal, and wants to kill every element of legend, Zelda and Hyrule, along with himself, so that he can finally rest. You're not fighting to protect the people on the surface in the end, they'll all be fine. You're fighting to protect yourself and to protect Zelda, two children who this lunatic wants to murder. The impact of the fight doesn't come from the gameplay, because like you said, it's fairly simple. It comes from the fact that, if the narrative has done its job right, you've become attached to Tetra/Zelda and want to save her. In a way it almost serves the story that the fight's so easy, because it's a reversal of your previous encounter, and drives home the notion that your character was really just the tool fate uses to deal Ganon his umpteenth crushing defeat. With all his power and skill, Ganon can't match up to a small boy, because the cosmos has decided that he's to be its bitch until the end of time.
In both cases, the story's simplistic but it serves to provide motivation beyond the desire to overcome the challenge of the game, and both sequences would be FAR less evocative and meaningful if I was just dropped into Ganon's tower at random with no context and told to have at it.
Which is, incidentally, almost exactly what TP does.
you can have a dark world without turning into a wolf
i mean bunny Link was cute but I was pretty happy when I got to play true Link
So it's just cosmetics then? Considering wolf Link actually controlled better than normal Link due to his extra speed.
At the cost of being a wolf and all of the quadrupedal, completely unarmed suckiness that entails.
You mean completely as powerful as when you have a sword?
I guess you don't get to use arrows and such, but it's designed so you don't need them in wolf form.
You're much less powerful, to the point where you can cheese the wolf section of the Ganondorf fight by changing back to human while he's down. Your damage is reasonably scaled to the fact that you're biting things instead of hitting them with sharp pieces of metal.
You generally never want to take the wolf form into real combat unless you're forced to.
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Except LttP's world size makes OoT feel like a backyard. The only sizable portion of OoT was Hyrule Field. Everything else was claustrophobic.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Majora's Mask is at #1
Why?
For the sheer brass balls of it. High-concept stuff, executed near flawlessly. Best emotional investment by far of almost any game ever made whilst at no time being hammy. Look at a FF love story and then look at Kafei and Anju and tell me which is the more sincere, more true, more touching.
The overworld was occasionally a little barren, esp. Termina field itself, and the music got stale very quickly (really guys, just one main theme?). Some also found the time restraints half-legitimately not to their taste. But the atmosphere was second to none and the recycling of character models actually - unexpectedly - worked.
Ocarina of Time ties with Link to the Past for second place.
Really tough choice. OoT is the natural contender for top dog. Even now it retains its majesty and mystery and feels fresh no matter how many times you've booted it up. It is almost a perfect game. Jabu Jabu navigational errors aside there is pretty much nothing wrong with it. The only reason it gets nudged into number 2 is because it stuck to fairly orthodoxy Zelda. That's fine, but I think we should pay respect to the risks MM took. OoT is the best of its kind, but MM really is a unique experience.
Link to the Past gets joint second place because it is perhaps the best 2D game ever made. It crammed in a huge amount of character to every screen and really rewarded curious and adventurous minds. It was also the last Zelda to be actually pretty hard, most notably in the realm of combat.
Twilight Princess heads up third place. Why? The understated menace of the empty world is mistaken by some for laziness. It's not laziness. If the developers were lazy then they wouldn't have made the goodness-knows-how-many NPCs that populate the game, especially the ones that don't even matter in Hyrule Town itself. TP is a game set in a decaying world.
This Zelda excels in dungeon design and has some of the best puzzles of the series. It also made efforts - perhaps insufficient - to restore that sense of scale and adventure that was in LTTP that was slightly lost in the transition to 3D. It also increased the difficulty of the combat a little, if not by much. Some accuse it of being too orthodox but I just don't buy it. Sure, it's a love letter to OOT, and I think everyone knows that, but it had enough character of its own to be distinct. Its brooding, gothic tone was something pretty compelling. That the story tapered off somewhat is one of the game's few weaknesses.
Links Awakening ties with the Oracle games and Wind Waker for fourth.
LA is a beautifully realized concept and really the spiritual precursor to MM. It stumbles a little; the narrative sometimes can't really support itself. The dungeons are also a little run of the mill at times. The overworld is pretty good.
The Oracle games are very, very good. The only reason they're not placed above LA and WW is because, being Capcom, something just feels fundamentally un-Nintendo-y about it. That spark is missing, that little somethin' somethin' that is the trait of Nintendo games.
Wind Waker was disappointing. A decent story trails off until a good climax that is let down by being over far too damn soon (I beat the final boss so quickly that I thought something was wrong). A poorly-executed stealth section is no fun at all near the beginning. Some fights are thrown in more or less at random (Shadow Gannon, lookin' at you). But the real let-down of WW is that it's brainlessly easy and the gaping holes where dungeons should have been was painful. Completing WW doesn't really bring you any sense of achievement, because what was so hard about it? It feld like Zelda for Kids, and not just because of the art style.
Minish Cap was very disappointing, and I haven't played Hourglass or Spirit Tracks (who has two thumbs and no stylus?).
So sayeth I.
^ this. Link's Awakening is up there with my favorites (and it is a hell of a lot better than the Oracle games)
Of course, Zelda II is my absolute favorite, which I realize makes me weird
take me now
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Everything looks so freaking similar that I have no clue where I'm at. Why there wasn't a map, I'll never know.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
but I can forgive some flaws
http://www.audioentropy.com/
How so? Were you playing the crappy japanese version where every dungeon looked identical? :P
I'm specifically talking about Zelda II's dungeons. The towns were fine, and of course the overworld. But as soon as I got to the second elevator of the second dungeon (the first one is very straight forward) I was as lost as Speed Racer's shit.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Get in line.
I know, in the japanese version of Zelda II, all dungeons used the exact same tileset (the one from palace one) and the same two palettes alternated (gray of palace 1, and the teal of palace 2). Hence my comment about everything looking the same
Honestly tho I never really had a problem getting lost in those dungeons (maybe some of the later ones when I was a kid, but I've played the game so much that it's all muscle memory at this point
I can see what he means. You have to keep track of all the elevators and multiple floors in the later dungeons, so it can get confusing. Not to mention the secret walls that you can walk through.
Example:
And thats only the 2nd dungeon.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
A few points:
1. I haz no gamecube nor gamecube manipulation devices
2. I (as mentioned previously) adored LttP as a mere cub but disliked (at least the first hour of?) TP.
That said, what I'm seeing is four swords adventure on my wii looks (at least from SSs) like the second coming of LttP and Oot looks much crappier.
Maybe I'm letting my preference for sprites over poorly done (by today's standards, I'm sure it was great at the time) 3d cell shading? Is this something that I should be forcing myself to ignore because the game quality is so high?
it is pretty fun though
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Well I'm married and the Mrs. has taken a liking to playing the more "fun oriented" [read: SMG1-2] games with me. Its possible I could make this happen.
I take it you have to join multiple DS's (I currently have 0) tho, you can't just hook up two controllers to a Wii?
I will give Oot a try just for you guys, because I love you big pile of silly geese. Also, before doing so, should I give TP another chance or just shelve/sell it?
Also the earlier sections of TP are the best parts so if those don't hook you the later bits definitely won't.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Bad news time. FSA requires a Gamecube and two or more GBAs for multiplayer. DS and Wii don't have the required connections.
edit: basically
The game pretty much alternates between sections that consist of everyone attempting to screw each other over, and sections that require the people who just finished screwing each other over to cooperate.
Actually the OoT/OoT Masterquest pre-order disc is much cheaper than the 4-in-1 disc.
I've got a bad case of lovin' you.
Eh. His presence petered out between the Forest Temple and the endgame in OoT, and WW was never able to make me feel like he was a threat when he was offscreen.
OoT's final dungeon was tucked away a bit, so the only time you really get a good look at it is when you approach. That worked in its own way, but the way the shielded castle can be seen from most places in Hyrule Field established a constant sense of looming danger for me.
All that doesn't really matter, though; TP Ganondorf's awesome character design endears him to me regardless of his other flaws. Samurai-robe WW Ganon was cool too, but I'm a total sucker for super-intricate baroque design, and I'd stare at all the gold trim on TP Ganon's armor all day even if he showed up after the end credits rolled.
That's easy though. There are only three ways you can go from the first elevator, one of which is blocked by a locked door. The other two being dead ends that provide keys. You get the two keys, then go through the locked door. Next elevator only has two ways to go, one of which is blocked by blocks that can only be destroyed with the power glove. Go the other way, get the power glove, and break the blocks. After that, it's pretty much a strait shot to the boss, minus one tiny stop for an extra key. The dungeon is really pretty linear. Like I said, they love to lock out large parts of the dungeon. It's just a matter of systematically eliminating all possible routes.
Also, Wii supports the link cable, doesn't it? I suppose I've never tried but the thing just fits into the Gamecube controller slot, I can't imagine it wouldn't work. You do need GBAs though, that's the downside. It's a shame too, because they were used pretty damn poorly in that game IMO (basically required for entering caves, that's it). Anyways, I posted that link because I was thinking about how they would copy New SMB's "return to retro" and realized they already did it, four players and all
This is 100% nonsense right here.
None of the stories in the Zelda games are James Joyce, obviously. But just because there's "nothing worth bothering to analyze" doesn't suddenly mean that the story doesn't matter.
No matter how banal and simplistic, the story carries an important role in a game. It provides context to your actions and infuses the gameplay with emotional significance. Even if you don't have enough to write out a 10-page essay, the story is an important element because it evokes emotion. Gameplay can evoke emotion too, but generally it's limited to only a few, like triumph and frustration.
Perfect example. Consider the ending of MGS3, where you have to kill The Boss. The gameplay there is incredibly simple: push a single button, and you win the mini-game. Stripped of the story surrounding that moment, the scene isn't anything at all. But because of the emotion evoked by the narrative, and what we know about the relationship between these two characters, it becomes a heavily charged moment. A lot of players hesitate at first.
I picked that example because it's the simplest and most obvious I can think of, but I'm sure it doesn't count for some reason or that MGS3's ridiculous story is somehow "worth bothering to analyze" so let's go back to Zelda. In OoT, you spend the first chunk of the game seeing Hyrule as a fairly idyllic place. Then Ganon gets the triforce and everything goes to shit. You spend the bulk of the game exploring the ravaged remnants of Link's childhood, interacting with all the people that Ganondorf has fucked over. What's worse, you're powerless to help. The best you can hope to do is ensure that, eventually, things will be alright again. You can allow the new Deku sapling to grow, but who knows how long before it can actually protect the forest. You can kill Morpha, but Zora's Domain remains frozen over. So, after seeing all the shit that Ganon has pulled, it's time to fight him. You fight him with the knowledge that he's the one that's done all this, who's killed or traumatized all those kind people that helped you on your journey when you were a child. It adds meaning to your actions and gives you a reason to hate that character other than because "he's the bad guy."
WW's a somewhat different story. Most of the bad things that you see in that game aren't directly the work of Ganon. If it's your first Zelda, all you know about this guy is that he was once powerful and evil enough that the gods saw fit to bury him under an ocean of water, and that somehow he's survived and is working to reclaim his former glory. He's kidnapping young girls, and he kidnapped your sister, because one of them might possibly be a key player in a conflict they don't know anything about. You face him halfway through hand it's a complete joke. He had the power and the will to slaughter you then and there, and you only survive because of dumb luck. He's a scary guy, and the main sources of exposition all constantly warn you that he will fuck shit up if you let him. Then, at the end, you get to him, and you see another side of this villain that's been menacing you the entire time. He's tired, and old, and desperate to win a fight that he's been predestined to lose over and over for all eternity. In the end he's not even interested in conquering Hyrule. He's suicidal, and wants to kill every element of legend, Zelda and Hyrule, along with himself, so that he can finally rest. You're not fighting to protect the people on the surface in the end, they'll all be fine. You're fighting to protect yourself and to protect Zelda, two children who this lunatic wants to murder. The impact of the fight doesn't come from the gameplay, because like you said, it's fairly simple. It comes from the fact that, if the narrative has done its job right, you've become attached to Tetra/Zelda and want to save her. In a way it almost serves the story that the fight's so easy, because it's a reversal of your previous encounter, and drives home the notion that your character was really just the tool fate uses to deal Ganon his umpteenth crushing defeat. With all his power and skill, Ganon can't match up to a small boy, because the cosmos has decided that he's to be its bitch until the end of time.
In both cases, the story's simplistic but it serves to provide motivation beyond the desire to overcome the challenge of the game, and both sequences would be FAR less evocative and meaningful if I was just dropped into Ganon's tower at random with no context and told to have at it.
Which is, incidentally, almost exactly what TP does.
tldr: you are a big dumb poophead.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
He said the first hour, which consists of a slice of farm town life and the worst fishing controls in any game ever. I don't think you even go wolf in the first hour, let alone the first dungeon.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I really hope they stay away from things like that in the future.
Yeah, none of that dark world/light world duality that's made every Zelda that featured it a huge success. Nothing like LttP or Ages/Seasons or OoT.
i mean bunny Link was cute but I was pretty happy when I got to play true Link
Bam.
So it's just cosmetics then? Considering wolf Link actually controlled better than normal Link due to his extra speed.
At the cost of being a wolf and all of the quadrupedal, completely unarmed suckiness that entails.
You mean completely as powerful as when you have a sword?
I guess you don't get to use arrows and such, but it's designed so you don't need them in wolf form.
"Quadrupedal" as a complaint does show what you mean though...all cosmetic.
I do mind that I found most of the wolf sections to be boring.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
You're much less powerful, to the point where you can cheese the wolf section of the Ganondorf fight by changing back to human while he's down. Your damage is reasonably scaled to the fact that you're biting things instead of hitting them with sharp pieces of metal.
You generally never want to take the wolf form into real combat unless you're forced to.