travel to first city > get out of habit of playing Zelda in sleep-deprived travel and recovery days > stall out > pick game back up same day we started playing Dark Souls III again and wow the games do not mesh > oh well > travel to other city again, can’t play Dark Souls while here > tl;dr finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
My liveblog from ~50% to the end: game events, Navi as mechanic, time travel???, so much metadata, Gerudo are the very best, cyclical narrative are fascinating and I wish I wanted to play the other games, etc.; it is very long!
me:
hello dark Link is in this one
1) this is the 1.5 things i was not really spoiled for (in context of Ocarina) 2) oh my god i have so much fanart of this scene
what a well-done sequence! really subtle and eerie effects/use of reflection and clever combat and
like not skillful combat at all
“don’t lock on, try and sort of flail until you get around him then stab his butt wildly”
but pretty and the fade-out is really effective!
so much really good subtextual-to-the-point-of-not-existing narrative; fights with shadow selves are best trope?? i looked at that art again and! it v good! i remember finding this dynamic compelling even before familiar with canon in any way!
but it’s not explored, just, “you could explore this yourself, if you want”
me:
where is Link keep iron boots when not wear
that they don’t effect his weight
just curious
Missy:
don’t ask
they magic
also
it really amuses me that your biggest connection to OoT is
“i have sexy pics of Link and dark Link”
me:
what is the logic of traveling BACK to kid Link??? (there is no logic, i know, i know)
“you picked up the sword and were too young for it so we incubated you until ready” implies that
Kingdom Hearts-esque
he grew up in the jar, time passed but he wasn’t there for it
but then no! and he can go back! and
i get it would be awful to put collectables/shortcuts and then be like ARBITRARY UNPREDICTABLE CUT-OFF POINT
being able to pop back is polite; and having offered that, tying it into plot is clever
but
……..how???? it work?
[future Juu: Spirit Temple is best dungeon b/c it makes the time travel mechanic part of the core gameplay, aka the dungeons; but the time travel still fails to make sense, here or there or in the ending. maybe I read too much into chrysalis imagery b/c of my KH background? but the original wording, “we put you in sacred realm until you growed up,” just conflicts hugely with everything else time travel does in this game]
Missy:
in the room with the rolly boulders
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
GODDAMIT NAVI
I GET WE NEED TO AVOID THE BOULDERS YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL ABOUT THEM NONSTOP
hey navi. you don’t like getting squished. i don’t like getting squished. HOW ABOUT YOU STOP SAYING HEY SO I DON’T JUST SQUISH YOU.
me:
i am so 50/50 on why everyone found Navi so annoying
i have this strong “it not her fault” feel
“it the limit of her programing”
Missy:
normally she fine
but sometimes
HEY HEY HEY HEY
me:
some of [the boy’s] retro game adventures in the time before waypoints are… interesting
like it’s super immersive which is great
more active exploration, less “mindlessly follow waypoint”
but they forget that in the samey-textured-fucking-identical-rooms you just … can’t pathfind naturally
i come away with this really strong sense of “oh that’s why we handhold” when actually! we could handhold less now that we can have unrecycled textures/assets and rooms that aren’t just boxes!
but you still spend the whole time (in retro games) wishing for
a waypoint or a fucking HUD or anything in the world that tells you how go where
[examples of retro games that fit this matrix: the original Thief series, the original Deus Ex]
and i feel like Navi is that
“in such a sprawling and potentially non-linear game, player needs an aid”
Missy:
esp when
HEY WHERE DO I GO?
HEY HEY LISTEN
sorta useful
me:
yeah she's good for "how to begin next dungeon" stuff
but for stuff like "what do these magic seeds do" "chickens????" she useless
and then she breaks out the advice for "DID YOU KNOW BOULDER MAKE THE SQUISH"
thanks navi, i had guessed
Missy:
hehe
yahh
me:
there’s actually--and, let us still preserve my overall ehhhhhhhhh opinion of Undertale, but--there’s a great sort of hat-tip to that trope
when helper NPC interrupts you while doing a puzzle so that you are forced to “fail” it
(need to push three buttons; NPC: “I’ll help you with timing!!”; reminder re: timing forces you to fail timing lol)
god aren’t vidya games cool
they’re like 50% experience/feelings/narrative and 50% mechanics/game design
it’s so interesting!!! i have feelings!!!!
me:
Bongo Bongo actually fav boss so far WITH savestates
without, probably hell
but with, save stating becomes another mechanic, another move to time, like saving after stunning second hand so i can make sure eye of truth + counter eye + dmg, and then reset to save state if i miss one of those steps which happens a lot
pacing great with savestates, very tense
without, probably just ragey
Missy:
yes
and yes
[future Juu: this became a consistent theme. I started using save states to avoid the constant walking back each time I returned to the game, but they universally made combat feel more strategic and dependent on my actions, and less flaily and dependent on ehhh controls]
me:
hello yes the Gerudo are extremely interesting
is very Amazons
Missy:
yes
except Ganondork
me:
like in any single-sex society, even those created by feminists (Joanna Russ, Nicola Griffith) i want more interrogation of sex=gender, how gender binary works when part of the binary is super unrepresented, characters forgoing binary entirely, etc.
esp. interesting here b/c they 1) do have very rare males 2) have contact with non-Gerudo men, so they’re exposed to a gender binary, but how does that impact their culture
“occasionally a man and then he becomes king of everything” is super icky for obvious reasons
but i wonder what the on-the-ground view of that is, like, they have their own leadership roles, 100 years is a long time to be periodically self-sustaining, does the average citizen even care
is it a figurehead monarchy “they just wear the pretty crown and look important; meanwhile, we rule ourselves” system
fucked up every cycle that Ganandorf shows up to be ~evil~
me:
obviously they do enough breeding outside their race to sustain it, but their culture is actually pretty self-contained/even xenophobic, so
how does culture sharing work, how does race work???? Gerudo have distinct skin tone, but are breeding with whiter people presumably a lot, what does mixed race look like??? or b/c ~magic~ is that not a thing, are the daughters all just Gerudo
wiki says we unno if they have contact with bio fathers, is there any cultural sharing???
what does Gerudo family unit look like; j/k it’s a “a lesbian and her extended lesbian family”
Missy:
Keep in mind
Historically speaking
*every* Gerudo male in known history is Ganondork
Following every game
And every timeline
So the king of everything may not be so much icky political as Gerudo + triforce of power = Ganon king of Gerudo/evil = harbinger of end of world and Hyrule reset
me:
so, Dark Souls-like, we’re sort of stuck in a timeline/event loop, looking at same sort of events in different times/iterations
(maybe it’s a reverse Jesus, like, they had this prophecy indefinitely but it didn’t effect daily life, but when it’s realized via Ganon we begin a sort of cycle of the game series)
Missy:
Most interesting bits there are the Twilight Princess stuff
Where the n64 Link is a shade waiting for end of world to pass on his knowledge before disappearing
Because yeah--Ganon loop seems like public Gerudo knowledge
But Link loop is less talked about. The hero of time is just the legend
me:
i’m sort of mad that aesthetic/the plot is just hero’s journey/here have the same narrative 2023842 times makes me not want to play others
while iterated narrative is such a great trope and does make me want to care
Missy:
Zelda future is open world
The narrative is apparently partially taking back seat
So the future lore from Twilight Princess would be tasty for you (esp. since Hyrule is bigger and more history has been written)
But then the open world of BotW is a different allure. You write your own story etc
me:
but open world just so ……………tired
the dumb shit one can do in BotW is interesting, i just
i like, you know, a narrative or sense of purpose
me:
i finish Ocarina i have questions
so Zelda sends him back to original time, everyone happy in future, life beautiful, sages together & everyone seems to know what’s occurred or at least that evil gone now
child Link shows up at temple, Navi is like bye bitch, child Link goes to see child Zelda
does he tell her to not fuck up > Ganondorf doesn’t come to power in new alternate timeline????
b/c either she’s like, hey, i know you want to be an adult now, but time to be a child and live through the reign of terror until future you saves shit, OR
they’re alternate timelining it and everything sages etc did won’t really exist, so why so long an epilogue focused on them
either way the time travel still doesn’t make sense since all the sword does is pop Link in chrysalis until old enough to use it??????/
Missy:
Ocarina -> timeline split
the adult saved timeline is the one that leads to Wind Waker, i think
tl;dr Link saves world and then goes poof oops
me:
“Regardless, Ocarina of Time has always been one of the centerpoint games in the chronology, with the events at the end of the game, where Zelda sends Link back to his youth, splitting the timeline.” (source)
okay
okay that’s a thing
Missy:
yeah
so Twilight Princess is the other branch
me:
Zelda: still fucking things up sorta
gj Zelda
she is the center of everything isn’t she, i guess, like, thus the title
Missy:
yes she is
Ganon-Link-Zelda
triforce
me:
“When the official timeline was revealed in Hyrule Historia, the placement of Ocarina of Time in the series was revealed to be of even greater value, as the events of the game actually split the series’s timeline into three branches.” (ibid.)
Missy:
oh yeah
third branch
we fucked up branch
as in you lose to Ganondork
and then.. snes game?
me:
god i love iterated narratives it really is a pity i don’t care about the worldbuilding (except lesbians obvs.) and also characters and also aesthetic and also hero’s journey and also gameplay
“Link is sent back to his childhood, leaving this branch without a Hero, as told in the prologue to The Wind Waker. Ganondorf eventually overcomes the Sages’ seal and attempts to take over Hyrule, but with no Hero to face the evil,” GJ ZELDA JEEZE
like tbf, Link telling Zelda > child timeline is also Link’s fault
and Link failing to defeat Ganon > grimdark timeline is also him
so he is central, triforce, etcetc
but Zelda is actually interesting
and Link is mostly fridge horror
so, shrug
that said, it some good fridge horror
i propose alternate timeline for another fanfic i never gon’ write
child Link almost warns Zelda, goes, wait, what about timeline shit, nvm, decides to just wait it out
seven years of increasing darkness
watching bad shit pile up
actually seeing it from the ground instead of in summary, it worse than he thought, “i done fucked up”
Missy:
do a triforce swap
Ganon comes out with wisdom
Zelda has power
Link still courage
me:
Ganon wisdom = grimest dark
b/c he would be smart enough to succeed
wisdom is power really, it’s more effective longterm than brute force
then Hyrule rip
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