#just finished the deku tree dungeon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

44gamez · 5 months

Text

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the anti-Breath of the Wild

There have been few moments as iconic, through the beginning part of 3D gaming, as the primary time Hyperlink stepped onto Hyrule Subject in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was 1998, and video games like Virtua Racing, Doom, Descent, and Nintendo’s personal Tremendous Mario 64 had already made epochal strides in graphics expertise and the chances of 3D area. However this was one thing else. After finishing the tutorial part of the sport and navigating its first dungeon, Contained in the Nice Deku Tree, Hyperlink leaves the shut, misty confines of Kokiri Forest, walks by means of a tunnel, and steps out the opposite aspect. The sudden, expansive flowering of the world of Hyrule round him is breathtaking. There’s a rolling plain, citadel spires behind a wall, a hilltop farm, the brooding summit of Loss of life Mountain. There are sightlines to locations which may be dozens of hours of gameplay away. Ocarina’s Hyrule Subject — previewed so elegantly within the recreation’s quiet, elegiac menu display — was not a technical first, and was achieved with a specific amount of smoke and mirrors. But it surely was maybe essentially the most powerfully persuasive translation but of the coded iconography of a 2D recreation into the realism of a 3D one; it turned a map right into a panorama. It hummed with promise, scale, and a romantic sense of journey, and created a world that felt huge but temptingly inside attain.

Picture: Nintendo That second distilled the promise of what would finally change into the dominant type of each action-adventure and role-playing video games within the 3D period: open-world video games. But it will be nearly 19 years earlier than the Zelda sequence itself totally embraced open-world recreation design with Breath of the Wild. Regardless of Ocarina’s outsized affect on the following twenty years of recreation design, the Zelda sequence adopted a parallel path till 2017. Returning to this revered basic in 2023 — for the primary time, personally, since Breath of the Wild exploded the Legend of Zelda custom — it’s gorgeous how totally different it feels. It’s the important thing textual content of what you may name Zelda’s second period (the pre-Breath of the Wild 3D video games), and to a big extent it outlined all of them — even these just like the sunny, seaborne The Wind Waker that wriggled as arduous as they may to get out from underneath its shadow. Ocarina of Time was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, main a group of youthful administrators that included present Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma. Miyamoto’s imaginative and prescient was of a classy, filigree, deeply authored recreation that might be as intricate because it was expansive. For Miyamoto, transferring into 3D area wasn’t about letting the participant run riot over an enormous space. It was an invite to look nearer, to get into the cracks, to actually study the atmosphere.

Picture: Nintendo So Ocarina of Time unfolds like an epic, three-dimensional Metroidvania. You discover its world of Hyrule in a looping, backtracking means that's nonlinear, however guided by a dense community of paths, locks, and keys — in addition to by rumors and tales. Hyperlink’s development is measured not in stat will increase however within the regular acquisition of recent instruments that stretch the participant’s energy over the atmosphere. Progressively, you study to govern not simply area and materials however time itself, turning day into evening or striding throughout the years. And each single new device or energy is an invite to return and comb over the world as soon as once more, continuously cross-referencing it in opposition to your increasing toolset. What can I attain now? The place can I'm going? Or when? That is doubly true as soon as Hyperlink learns the Music of Time that permits him to step between sunlit current and darkish future. As in A Hyperlink to the Previous earlier than it, Ocarina of Time duties the participant with flicking forwards and backwards between twinned worlds, fastidiously learning the variations of their landscapes, and searching for out the wormholes of trigger and impact between them. Hyperlink’s private transformation as he strikes forwards and backwards between wild childhood and rangy maturity offers this time-travel mechanic a poignant, intimate dimension: Each time you play the Music of Time, it feels such as you depart part of your self behind.

Picture: Nintendo

Picture: Nintendo Responding to this intricately conceived area, Ocarina of Time’s gameplay is closely laden with puzzles and secrets and techniques. Fight is dramatic and impactful, however surprisingly sparse. The sport is outlined by its 11 fabulous and forbidding dungeons — darkish, dense, and knotty labyrinths that pushed Miyamoto’s exploration of 3D area to its restrict. Generally, Ocarina pushes previous that restrict in a sequence of unforgettable, dreamlike, unattainable areas: the damp, natural cavities of Jabu-Jabu’s Stomach; the chamber of work out of which Phantom Ganon fees within the Forest Temple; the intense, fogbound limbo within the Water Temple the place Hyperlink confronts his personal darkish shadow. These dungeons dominate Ocarina of Time, and never simply since you spend a lot of the sport inside them. In a means, the sport is one big dungeon, stuffed with traps, mysteries, secret doorways, and mazes, just like the Misplaced Woods. For almost 20 years, each mainline 3D Zelda that adopted Ocarina of Time was made in its picture, however none of them fairly managed the natural density of its design. They’re all good video games, however all of them really feel extra compartmentalized, by some means: Majora’s Masks with its looping, clockwork diorama; The Wind Waker with its busy islands and empty sea; Twilight Princess with its robust narrative present; Skyward Sword with its discrete pocket universes, visited from above.

Picture: Nintendo It wasn’t till Breath of the Wild that the Zelda sequence dared break from Ocarina’s template. Nintendo could have been late to the open-world occasion, however don’t underestimate the bravery it took to trash the foundations written for a title that also frequently tops lists of the very best video games of all time. In Breath of the Wild — and much more so in its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom — the panorama is a contiguous wilderness the place obstacles happen naturally and occasions appear to unfold with none script. Hyperlink has lots of the instruments he’ll want at first, and the participant’s ingenuity is exercised as a lot in improvised responses to a teeming world as in unpicking the options to fastidiously constructed riddles. Dungeons, and the handfuls of micro-dungeon-like shrines, are usually not the dominant observe of the design. Relatively, they’re punctuation marks breaking apart the freewheeling exploration that actually defines the expertise. It seems that, to get again to the way in which Ocarina of Time made us really feel, it was essential to reject nearly all the things about it. That’s a technique you realize it's a masterpiece. One other is that it nonetheless resists imitation, even by Nintendo itself. Ocarina gave us a profoundly influential imaginative and prescient of the place gaming might go, however a particular and singular path to that vacation spot. 1 / 4-century later, it’s nonetheless in a category of 1. Join the publication Patch Notes A weekly roundup of the very best issues from Polygon Source link Read the full article

#antiBreath #Legend #Ocarina #time #Wild #Zelda

0 notes

alissaming · 1 year

Text

Top Ten Favorite Legend of Zelda Games

Since I'm huge Legend of Zelda fan, I decided to do my personal top ten Legend of Zelda games. I'll even briefly go into why. Some quick rules on this. Some are the same from my last top ten. In fact, most are. If it's basically the same game with a different name, with no real gameplay differences, it'll be considered the same level. I must have at least played the game, though finishing is not required, as I sometimes have trouble finishing games like this due to my playstyle frequently getting me killed. I will do another honorable mentions, and I may even eventually talk about the game that isn't making even the honorable mentions that I've played. No, Zelda 1, 2, and 3 will not be making this list as I've never played them.

10. Oracle of Season/Ages It's basically the same game, but one has time travel. You're saving either Nayru or Din, and defeating the badguy. I think one's supposed to come after the other and the two complement each other some how, but they're still basically the same game. And it's really easy to accidently do something wrong and make the game unplayable without starting over.

9. Minish Cap. There's a reason this game made it this low. Despite it being actually a fun game with a fun concept, there's Ezlo, the cursed mage/person that will be Link's very annoying hat for the whole game. Ezlo is supposed to be your Navi of the game. He's supposed to give helpful hints, but he doesn't. Instead he says the same stuff over and over and over like "go to this area." And you go to the area and all he says is to go to the area. So no real clues on what to do. Ugh.

8. Majora's Mask. So before I get a ton of hate on the placement of this game, it has nothing to do with the graphics. I tend to greatly dislike games with time crunches, so the three day time limit always stressed me out, even though I could rewind whenever I wanted. I was always afraid that I wasn't going to get to where I needed to go and get even one area done in three days.

7. Twilight Princess. This is another good game with lots of good game play, but while I really like it, I like other games more. Actually, I think if not for the occasionally really dark colors, it would be a lot more enjoyable. But it's really dark, even in Hyrule proper.

6. Skyward Sword. So this game, I actually debated putting higher because the story is amazing, the graphics are incredible, the music is wonderful, and the friendship between Link and Zelda is very believable, unlike Minish Cap where Zelda just kinda declares us friends and we just kinda go along with it. Unfortunately, while I tend ot like Fi, I agree she can be extremely annoying. Add to that inconsistent controls, and difficulty aiming, and you can see why the game made it so low.

5. Link Between Worlds. Alright, you could argue that Link to the past also goes here, because it's kinda the same idea, just one Link travels between worlds and the other travels through time. However, while they seem to have a similar idea, I'm not sure I'd agree that they're basically the same game with a different play style. For one thing, there seems to be a new villain intent on releasing Gannon. Though he claims he only seeks beauty. The other world is an alternate reality of Hyrule called Lorule where everything is opposite of Hyrule. Everyone's unpleasant, the hero is a coward and they have no Triforce, so their world is falling apart and losing hope. Ravio is a fun character, and his shop makes it possible to take on the dungeons for the princesses in whatever order you want, though his stuff is super expensive, even to rent. I highly recommend you buy ASAP.

4. Ocarina of Time. This is the first Legend of Zelda game I ever played. And when I was very young (I think 10 or so) I could not get past Goma, the spider boss of the Deku tree. Yeah, seriously. Now, I can beat the game no problem. The updaged graphics in the 3DS version are actually much more appealing, the music is good, and it's just a good game. You feel close to most, if not all the major side characters and truly dislike Gannondorf, like a proper villain.

3. Breath of the Wild. This is the most recent Legend of Zelda game, aside from the Warriors games. The graphics are beautiful, and the world is fun to explore. The main reason it's not higher is the weapons and shields. They all break, and you can only carry so many. Heck, even the Master Sword can break if you use it against what the game classifies as the "wrong enemies" though in the case of the Master Sword breakage isn't permanent, it just needs to recharge then it's back. But it is a bit ridiculous that the most iconic sword of the Legend of Zelda franchise can break. Everything else? Sure, as long as some of the stronger swords take longer.

2. Wind Waker. This game is gorgeous. I mean, for an obviously cell shaded games. The story is really good and sailing the seas is SO much fun. The music is wonderful. It's too bad the final boss is so hard to beat

Now before I reveal the top Legend of Zelda game, here are the honorable mentions. Link to the Past, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.

Link's Awakening. Yes, it's just a dream, but that's the point of the game. And honestly the updated release for the Switch was so much fun. It really played into the dream aspect with the characters looking like toys rather than real people, the edges of the screen being slightly blurry, and it really makes you feel bad for doing what you're doing. I love this game, becasue it really makes you feel the consequenses of your actions. Throughout the game, the enemies are constantly telling you that if you wake the Wind Fish, which is the only way to escape the island, you will destroy the island and kill everyone living there. Monsters will include you, as they seem to believe you are a figment of the Wind Fish's imagination. You have a choice here. Keep playing and destroy everything on this island, including the poeple you met here, or don't and be stuck on the island in a dream. The ending is really heartbreaking too. This is one game where I really don't blame the monsters at all. This is their home, and they know they'll effectively die when the Wind Fish wakes up. No wonder they're all unhappy when you come to wake it up.

1 note · View note

ssatoritendou · 3 years

Text

Dragon Queen

Pairing: bakugou/reader

katsuki bakugou

Word count: 2.3k

+ summary: You and your siblings are orphans, you were the oldest and needed to take care of them. You didn’t think it was wrong from stealing from the Prince soon to be King would be bad.

Genre: Medieval AU; fluff

Warning: Cursing, suggestive content

"Shitty Hair where is my fucking sword!?” Prince Bakugou yelled across the room. "I don't know. Check the throne room or the dungeon." Kirishima yelled back. "This like the 18th fucking thing that's gone missing." "Bakugou man your mom needs you in the throne room." "Tell the Hag I'm not interested. I just want to travel to have those Princess sluts at my feet." Bakugou argued back. "Listen to me, you tell that Brat that he will get his ass down here now!” The angry Queen yelled from the throne room. "Hmph." The prince grabbed his cloak and walked downstairs. He was met with Kirishima at the bottom of the stairs opening his mouth to say something.”I heard, Kirishima get your shit together and wait outside. I'll be out in no time." "But Baku-" "Just do it. And be in a position so we can get out of here." He walked into the throne room, the Princesses his mother picked for him were ogling him again. "Not a chance in hell Hag. I will marry when I want to. When I do it will be someone I choose and certainly not a princess or of high standing.” He said with spite in staring directly into the Princesses eyes. Of course, He knew she wouldn't accept his terms. "Katsuki, you need to be married. You will be coronated soon to become the next King ever since your father died. Our kingdom needs-" "I'm leaving and when I come back I will come back with a bride and if not you can pick one I will marry. Shitty Hair let's go." He hopped onto Kirishima and left the island.

"So Bakugou where are we off to? Raid some pirates, tavern hopping, or-" "I need to find my sword. We are going to the trade market. It's worth a lot of money. Any sad sack that stole my sword would know that." "Weren't we just there?" "Exactly Shitty Hair. We got back yesterday drunk off our asses and someone must have stolen it off of me. When we got home we slept it off. We have been there multiple times and each time something of mine went missing. Find the robber and deal with him and then...I have to find a bride." "Bakugou how are you going to find a bride?" "I DON"T KNOW SHITTY HAIR!"

"If it isn't the Great Dragon King and his pet again. Two days in a row. What brings you in today?" "Did you see anybody hanging around me and the dragon?" "Mainly just girls. All wanting to be queen. No one out of the ordinary to me." The bartender responded. “Damnit.” He said frustrated. “Shitty hair let's go to the market." The pair was wandering around for a while before Kirishima said something. "Bakugou isn't that your knife?" "Which one dumbass? This a table full of knives and swords." "That one with the emerald stone. I remember it because you threw it at Prince Shoto when he beat you in a sword fight." "Oh yeah. Hey, where'd ya get this?" "This type of knife here is a rare silver and gold plated base with a jewel stone in crested in the handle." "I'm not looking to buy it! I want to know who gave it to you to sell so they could get some profit!" Bakugou lunged forward and had the man in his hands. "Bakugou-" "Shut it Kirishima!" "I can't tell you she kill me and her little minions too." "It's either me or her. Right now who are you more afraid of?" "She lives in the forest with other children. She steals from out of towners." "Did she give you a sword?" "No. I haven't seen her in weeks. No one here has. She sells to all of us and we give her 20% of the profit." "Thanks. Here's some cash. Alright, Shitty Hair we are going to the woods."

"_____ we are going to the stream.”Your little sisters said. "Ok bring b/n with you two. The last time you two went you nearly fell in and were taken by the current." “Ok, we promise. See you for dinner." The two little girls left with b/n. You lived in the woods with other orphans. You were the oldest and had to take care of them. Your orphanage was destroyed and you couldn't leave them behind. You also had to find a way to provide for them. You had come up with a plan to take care of everyone. Stealing from out of towners, selling it to merchants, and getting some profit back wouldn't be so bad. Some of their quirks were a little frightening and so was yours. No one dared to cross your family in fear of their lives. "_____ I found that berry plant again. I thought it would make a great side dish tonight.” Your little brother said to you. "That's perfect, g/n. You go and wash them and b/n is preparing the meat and I'm preparing the salad. g/n and g/n are baking. And I believe b/n is chopping wood." "Alright. Cool, where did you get the sword?" He gestured to the shiny sword sitting on the dinner table. "I was about to ask that question myself?" You turned to see a man on a dragon with b/n and the twins. 'GOD he is attractive.- Hold up children endanger because hot man is holding them captive. Must fight girly instants.' "Hey put them down this instant!" "Oh, I will once I get back what was stolen from me." "I didn't steal it. I permanently borrowed it. Put those kids down or suffer the consequences." "Oh, what are little children and a shitty girl going to do?" “b/n do it now." b/n put his hand in the dragon activating his quirk. The dragon turned back to a person. Then g/n opened a portal for them to hit the ground safely. She also made a portal for the men and transported them to the ground. Her sister went over to them and knocked them out. "What do we do with them now _____?" "Well, I guess they are joining us for dinner," You smirked.

"Look who joined us finally _____!" b/n cheered next to me. Bakugou awoke out of his slumber and he was being held captive by a boy with branches coming out of his neck. "Let me go! You have no clue what I'm capable of!" “b/n don't need to aggravate the little firecracker. King Bakugou right? Can't activate your quirk if I have someone that can cancel it out for you." The shitty girl was pouring everyone a drink. "What is King Aizawa here or something?" "Hehehe, no no I'm not related to him. I'm flattered though." Your younger brother laughed. "I just came to get my sword back." "No can do. Sword can catch me and my siblings a pretty penny or more. We need it to survive you are a King get another one." "It has value to me." "I'll have to think about it over dinner. Kirishima is the roast done?" You turned your head to Kirishima as he was explaining to a set of twin girls how to cook meat. "What the fuck Shitty Hair!?" "Language!" The group yelled at the angry blonde. "Hey, Bakugou man. They were very nice to me and I offered to help cook." "How the hell am I supposed to eat?" He gestured to the tree branches around him. "I'll feed you." The shitty girl smiled. "I rather starve." "You really want the sword back you should pay nice with _____. I'm b/n by the way. It's very nice to meet you King Bakugou." "Whatever." "Fine then starve." b/n said with annoyance in his tone. "You don't need to be rude, b/n. I guess he doesn't really value this sword." "Wait...Fine, you can feed me." He grumbled. "I have never seen him cave like that," Kirishima whispered to you. "I have that effect on cocky men." "EH, YOU HA-" "You shouldn't really yell at me. Kirishima has been lovely to us and but I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him and you too. I might have to teach a lesson on manners. And I'm not afraid to get violent." She smiled an evil smile that looked innocent. Bakugou felt something in his chest...thump...thump. 'Nope, not a chance in hell! I rather spend the day with Deku and listen to him talk about Knight All Might.' "Ok kids go wash your hands and then we will feast." "Um _____ can you bring me the soap and water?" "Of course. " You brought the items over to the boy that was holding Bakugou with the branches. She helped him wash his hands. "Bakugou what would you like on your plate?" "Everything." You gathered a plate for him. "We only have water. Once we had wine but someone here drank it all." You glared at your brother holding him. "I thought it was prune juice." "Sure." "Wasn't fun either with you messing with the gravity." "Hehe." She giggled. "Ok open up." She brought the fork to the stubborn male's mouth and he began to slowly eat his food.

You fed him before you fed yourself. And when everybody was finished for dinner there was almost nothing left for you. It didn’t bother you though. But it bothers Bakugou. He began thinking ‘I wished I hadn't eaten so much. I wanted her to have everything she needed.’ "You were good at dinner Bakugou. You can let him go b/n. We are going to negotiate. Bring everybody inside." The boy rolled his eyes and let Bakugou go and brought everybody inside the small cabin. "So how much are you willing to pay for the sword?" "I never asked your name?" "_____. I ask again how much?" "_____ this sword was given to me by my father as a gift. He died a couple of months ago due to old age and not taking care of his body. I couldn't put a price on it." "Do you or do you not want it back?" "You don't seem to care it's a gift from my father?" "Why should I? We live in free territory land, a trading stop for all kingdoms we are ruled by no one. He wasn't my king. And parents have little value to me. Mine gave me up, only people to ever care about me are those kids and myself." "How about a deal for the sword?" "A deal? I just want money." You stated bluntly. "I want to marry you." "What?" "You can be the queen of my land, rule with me, have everything you want. The brats can come too. I think they could grow on me." He was down on one knee holding your hand. He looked up at you to see you blushing. "Why me? I'm just some commoner and I'm sure there are Princesses that are a better candidate-" Katsuki placed his lips on you gently. "Have you ever met a Princess?" He laughed. "You think I would want to marry that type of girl?" "You would probably kill the Princess you marry." "Haha. Then let's go tell the troops we're leaving."

“b/n are you sure it's working?" His sister asked him. "Yes, I use it all the time when _____ is talking about new places to steal. Now hush." He was still connected to the plant life around the cabin and could listen to what was going on. "I want to marry you." "What?" "You can be the queen of my land, rule with me, have everything you want. The brats can come too. I think they could grow on me." "Have you ever met a Princess?" there was a slight chuckle. "You think I would want to marry that type of girl?" "You would probably kill the Princess you marry." "Haha. Then let's go tell the troops we're leaving." "We are moving to the castle!" He screamed in excitement. "Damnit! b/n I was going to tell you that. Stop listening in that is very rude." _____ scolded him again. "Sorry. Couldn't help it." "You are going to marry this hot head?" Kirishima said. "Watch it Shitty Hair." The king warned. "Thank you, Thank you so much. That means he does have a heart in there somewhere." He was on his knees sobbing to _____. "Pull yourself together Dumbass."

The group arrived back at the castle with _____ and all of ‘her brats’ as Katsuki put it. "Mother I found a bride!" "Yeah right what wench did you pay to set this thing off for a year before you actually marry her?" "_____ my love please come in." You walked into the throne room and your siblings trailing behind you with Kirishima. "Katsuki she is beautiful...Wait what's with the brats?" "They are my siblings, your majesty. We were orphans and I took them in and provided for them myself." "How so?" "Permanently borrowing things and selling them for a profit." "You don't need to make it sound fancy _____. She stole and threaten merchants to give her a profit after they sold it." Bakugou said bluntly. "Ha, yeah that's what I did. It was easy with cocky men like Katsuki over here." "I'm not cocky!" "Yes, you are." You and his mother said at the same time. You two looked at each other and laughed. "Don't you dare laugh at my expanse you Hag!" "Katsuki don't raise your voice at your mother that is very rude." "She is your wife. Quick Kirishima get the priest." "Hag, I want her to have a grand wedding and everybody to be invited. In every kingdom. Even dumbass Icy-Hot's kingdom.” He held you close to my waist and dipped her down and this time he planted a forceful kiss upon you. You went weak in the knees and fell right into Bakugou. He picked you up and rushed you out of the throne room. "Kirishima, show the brats the castle. We will be back down tomorrow morning." He smiled seductively at you. "Katsuki! Not in front of the kids and isn't against royal rules to be with your betrothed before your wedding day?" "You are looking at the royal rule-breaker here, my little thief. Besides you have to be punished for stealing my property. You have to please your King."

#mha xreader #mha x reader #mha #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #bakugou katuski x reader #bnha katsuki x reader #katsukibakugou #bnha bakugo katsuki #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader

46 notes · View notes

sibyl-of-space · 4 years

Text

Finished a binge re-play of Ocarina of Time (3D) for the first time in a very, very long time. Long-winded thoughts below.

Disclaimer: I played the original n64 version (red blood Ganondorf and all) ad NAUSEUM as a kid. It was by far in my top 3 most-played video games, and if you all know me you know that I don’t play a lot of video games, I play the same few over and over and over and become obsessed with them. As such, OoT is not new to me. I also played the 3D version once before, but it was over the course of several years when I was in college and that was a no-lens-of-truth run for the heck of it. I have not touched either since though, so this is the freshest eyes I’ve had on the game since I was probably about 6-7 years old seeing it for the first time. Do keep in mind though that I already knew virtually all the easter eggs and secrets and story and progression and had a vague recollection of the vast majority of dungeon concepts/puzzles before going in, because this game was my entire world for many formative years.

This game has really excellent dungeons. I ranked them below because I was inspired by my friend ML’s ranking (in fact a desire to rank them myself is what caused me to binge replay this in the first place), but honestly I found all of them engaging. My least favorite was ice cavern but even ice cavern has a really cool atmosphere and an interesting concept, it’s just a bit tedious and bottle management gameplay is not particularly fun to me.

1. Spirit Temple - unlike Shadow which uses invisible walls as a mechanic to trick you, Spirit subverts every single mechanic and puzzle you've encountered so far to really throw you. It's extremely clever. The ambience and overall design is also just excellent.

2. Forest Temple - gameplay wise it is fine but as the first adult temple it REALLY sets the scale and tone for the latter portion of your adventure; the vibe in this temple is just so fucking cool. The sacred forest meadow honestly does come off as sacred, ancient, and haunted but in an ethereal way as opposed to a spooky way. Ooh, I love it.

3. Ganon's Tower - the concept is excellent and the execution is solid, the medallion portion is interesting but the gauntlet up to Ganondorf with increasingly loud organ music and hallways filled with bats and just cool fights and great atmosphere makes this one of the sickest final dungeons I can think of. I was starting to be like "eh maybe the medallion rooms are a bit underwhelming" and then I got hit with the fakeout room in Light that just won me over with how cheeky it was. All the medallion rooms felt a bit like Spirit temple with how they played with expectations, which (ironically?) made the spirit portion actually the least good.

4. Gerudo Fortress - I'm counting mini dungeons and the whole espionage thing is just SO much fun. Break into a thieves’ hideout, jump across rooftops and shoot people with your bow to sneak past them?? WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE?????

5. Water Temple - okay I gotta say this replay really sold me on water temple. It's a cool concept and a fantastic atmosphere, and 3DS quality of life changes (boot swap ease of access + very clearly visually marked water level change rooms) made me actually thoroughly enjoy playing it. Also Dark Link is rightfully hailed as one of the coolest, if not the coolest, miniboss(es) in the game, so extra points there.

6. Bottom of the Well - Shadow's invisible wall mechanic is much more interesting when you can't see through them and everything is a potential trap. Falling down to the basement does get frustrating but that room where you light torches to open coffins and a FLOATING GIBDO EMERGES makes up for it, holy crap. Shadow Temple is underwhelming because Bottom of the Well already did what it tries to do but better.

7. Dodongo's Cavern - hey man I like blowing up dinosaurs this dungeon is just solid 0 complaints

8. Fire Temple - Fire Temple is also solid I just a) am so used to the original music that this version feels empty and lacking atmosphere by comparison, and b) find the above temples cooler. Shout out to dragon whack-a-mole boss fight though.

9. Shadow Temple - this suffers from being the only temple I really had completely memorized (I think my weenie friends* must have made me beat it for them as kids) so playing it this time was really just going through the motions; it didn’t get the chance to win me over because I remembered all of it and nothing particularly stuck out to me as being super clever. The boat ride, however, is sick as hell.

(*disclaimer: I was also a weenie. Shadow Temple scared the absolute pants off of me. But I clearly played it enough times that the entire thing was etched into my memory regardless, so.)

10. Deku Tree - does its job as tutorial dungeon, nice atmosphere, thats about all there is to say.

11. Jabu-Jabu's Belly - redeeming feature is using Ruto as a projectile. Throwing her at the ceiling switches will never not be hilarious. Honestly not a bad dungeon, merely gross and I like the other ones better.

12. Ice Cavern - I used to dread Ice Cavern; this time around I just found it tedious. The atmosphere is successful - it really feels cold and chilling - but not appealing enough to make up for it being dull and kind of annoying. Has the potential to be really cool if the blue fire were used in a more interesting way than “fill your bottles and dump them elsewhere.”

BUT, I feel it would be a complete disservice to my younger self and my younger self’s reasons for playing this game so much, if I focus completely on dungeons and disproportionately on gameplay in a review. Because while gameplay is a huge reason I kept going back to it (hard to want to go back to a game if it isn't fun to play), that’s not what made me love it so much, and a replay has given me fresher eyes to enjoy everything else it has to offer.

Ocarina of Time creates a world and a story that I deeply cared about, and revisiting as an adult, I find if anything I have more take-aways than I did previously. I have always really enjoyed coming-of-age narratives when done well, and this is a coming-of-age narrative done REMARKABLY well. You see dumb bratty kids doing dumb bratty kid things and then see the mature people they’ve grown into 7 years later; the game does not make the mistake of projecting a personality onto a voiceless protagonist, but it does imply a narrative arc for him (and you) regardless just through how strong and cool and awesome you get by the end and all the rad shit you’ve accomplished over the course of the game. It manages to very, very successfully make its story about other characters who DO have personalities, but also make you as the blank slate mc cool guy hero very much have a part in that story that feels very earned and satisfying.

Link doesn’t have a personality. You can project whatever the hell you want onto him or nothing at all. Ocarina of Time makes that *work*, because it doesn’t try to frame him as either ~adult in a child’s body~ or ~child in adult’s body~, it just lets you experience the literal growth from a kid who has to jump to reach ledges and has to thwack things twice with a slingshot and tiny sword, to an adult who can LAUNCH MASSIVE PILLARS INTO THE AIR and one-shot previously difficult enemies, and interpret that however you will. I think the most powerful example of this is going back in time again after doing several adult temples, and entering the bottom of the well, where you see enemies you’ve previously only encountered as an adult, and feel confident that you can tackle them as a child, too.

I really love these kinds of narratives. Where the growth of the main character is purely in the sense of you as the player becoming more adept and stronger, and the context of the story makes that mean something, but the game doesn’t try and pretend the avatar itself has a 3-dimensional personality.

I also think the balance between narrative and gameplay is excellent once it hits its groove. The beginning is very hand-holdy (Navi taught me how to open a door after I had already opened a door elsewhere because she’s scripted to do it at a specific door even though you can technically get to a later one first. lol), and I very firmly believe that with Saria’s Song as a device that lets you seek advice when you want to, it is completely unnecessary to have Navi yell at you what she thinks you should be doing. That said, the game doesn’t stop you from doing whatever the hell you want, and the number and depth of dungeons makes exploring and killing stuff by FAR the meat of the game, over the story. There is a suggested dungeon order, but you have some freedom if you’d rather do them a bit out of order, and there is a LOT of fun side stuff you can do and get rewarded for.

Most of that side stuff is an excellent way to highlight the humor in this game. If you beat Malon’s horse race record she mails a literal fucking cow to your house. Your house in Kokiri Forest. You just show up and there is a fucking cow in your house. That is the funniest thing that has ever happened in a game in the history of forever, sorry. You can race the running man, and all of the other sidequests in the game make you think there is a beatable goal you’ll be rewarded for, and the fucker just goes “lol good try but I beat you by one second. :)” You can blow up the Gossip Stones and they turn into rocketships and launch into space. After you beat the game, and have a really poignant moment with Princess Zelda where she sends you back in time, there is a completely out of nowhere dance party featuring the entire cast in celebration. The game does not try to explain this. It just gives you a dance party, and after such a bittersweet finale and such a fun and engaging game, a no-context dance party is exactly what it needs. A line o Gerudo doing the can-can? Thank you, yes please.

There is SO much that this game does not feel any need to justify in-game, that it simply puts in there because it is fun or cool or both, and I appreciate that so much. There are easter eggs out the butt (still haven’t bothered catching the Hylian Loach and I have still NEVER found the sinking lure despite following every guide in existence). Most of the temples imply some sort of greater history that is not even the slightest bit touched on. It has a very cohesive “core” game that has a start-to-finish suggested progression and a matching narrative, and it has absolute mountains of random shit outside of that it in no way pretends to justify. It explains just enough to give it ground to stand on, but no more, leaving you with more questions than answers. That ambiguity drove me nuts as a kid, but now, I think it’s also why I kept coming back. I wanted answers the game wouldn’t give me so I felt compelled to try and find them myself.

Ocarina of Time’s ending is incredible in ways I am just now able to appreciate. First of all, Zelda is like “I’m gonna send you back in time now” and pulls up the Ocarina and instead of playing the Song of Time which everything in the game implies she should, she plays Zelda’s Lullaby and hesitates just enough on the last note as you are sent back in the past - oof, that’s a good moment. The entire game you’re told about how the Kokiri can’t survive outside of the forest and suddenly they’re at Lon Lon Ranch having a dance party. You walk away from the Master Sword and seal it back in the temple, but nonsensically are then able to meet Zelda in her garden as if nothing had happened, meaning she sent you back so far it erased not just the adult timeline but also everything you accomplished as a child too? So many questions, but the fact that it does not even bother to answer them and just leaves you with such an open-ended image of you and Zelda as kids, calling back to that very early moment after the first dungeon in the game, and you can interpret for yourself what exactly that means.

I’m getting rambly (HAHA as if I’m ever not) so I should wrap this up shortly. Ocarina of Time’s ending is why I am so vehemently opposed to the concept of a ~Zelda Timeline~. The ending is nonsensical if you try to apply concrete logic to it. This game proposes ideas and makes me feel a certain way about them and the ending succeeds in providing just enough closure to make me satisfied and just enough open-ness that makes me want to keep coming back to it to experience it again. It’s not an open-and-shut piece of history of a fake world, it’s a really remarkable journey thats ambiguity is what allows it to feel so very magical.

Ooh boy I can’t wait to replay MM again, but that is a game I’ve never stopped playing, so it’ll be anything but fresh. It hits different right after completing OoT, though. The only way to follow up on a story like Ocarina of Time is to be even MORE batshit, ambiguous, and loose with your definition of how time works.

#analyses #ocarina of time #i have a LOT of thoughts it is very long

1 note · View note

brushstrokesapocalyptic · 5 years

Photo

The Legend of Asriel PART 2 | THE LOST CAVERNS

two companions try not to get too horribly lost.

Chara leads Frisk to the alternative route they spoke about. According to them, they can use it to cut weeks of arduous hiking through the desert down to less than a day. It’s also significantly more dangerous and hard to find than the regular route, but both problems are more-or-less mitigated by the fact that Chara remembers perfectly well how to get through!

...Well, they thought they remembered. They really should’ve expected a place called the Lost Caverns to be a little hard to navigate. Welcome to the first dungeon!

As one might be able to guess, this place is basically just the Lost Woods but underground. I could spin a whole tale about why and how the magical forest migrated into an intricate cave system but honestly, it’s zelda. Locations arbitrarily moving around between games is par for the course.

All that aside, it’s really not that different from how it’s traditionally depicted. Thick, magical fog makes it hard to keep directions straight, and despite Chara’s best efforts to remember their own trek through the cavern they keep hitting dead ends and landing right back where they started as if the paths are changing when they’re not looking.

With some very intense trial-and-error they eventually find their way to a section of the cavern that’s a little less clouded with fog. They’re just about to sit down for a breather when Frisk notices a strange figure with a flower mask, and the figure notices them.

[ID: A two-panel comic. In the first panel, Frisk and Chara are looking up at someone sitting on the edge of a ledge, wearing a flower mask. Flowey notices them as well. The second panel is a closeup on Flowey, showing more details; the mask has a smiling, jagged mouth, and there are cords wrapped all around their forearms and lower legs. In the second panel, Flowey is speaking. “Howdy!” End Description.]

“What is that, a Skull Kid?“ Chara wonders aloud, squinting up at Flowey. Frisk glances between them, unsure exactly what’s going on, then tentatively waves at the mystery flower person. He laughs and leaps down from his perch.

[ID: Another two-panel comic. In the first panel, Flowey drops down in front of Frisk, looking interested. Frisk has their sword drawn and looks uncertain. In the second, Flowey has circled around behind Frisk, and looks a little too eager. Frisk’s head is turned to keep their eyes on him, and has raised their sword. End Description.]

Flowey circles Frisk a couple times, being all friendly and intruding on their personal space. "What’s a little desert kid doing all lost in the Caverns alone? Did ya take a wrong turn?” Chara attempts to point out that they’re not alone, but Flowey doesn’t hear them, and when they go to grab his shoulder their hand passes right through.

It’s at about this point that Frisk gets tired of letting this weird stranger poke them. They push him away, giving Chara a pained look and signing “I have no idea what this guy is saying.” Chara is quick on the uptake and tells them Flowey’s curious about how they got here.

What follows is a short back and forth with Chara playing interpreter to Flowey’s curiosity while Frisk writes out their replies in a small notebook they carry for exactly this sort of situation. Frisk tells him they’re looking to take a shortcut from the desert to Hyrule Field, leaving out exactly why that is. Flowey is impressed that they managed to get this far without a guide and offers to help them find their way around.

Frisk is ready to accept his help, but Chara catches their hand as they go to write. It’s a little awkward trying to write by holding your hand over someone else’s, but Chara manages to at least somewhat legibly write, “Who are you?”

Flowey laughs again. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

Chara is supremely unimpressed with that non-answer. They have a rapid-fire silent argument with Frisk over whether to trust him, and Frisk manages to convince them to give the guy a chance. He’s the only hope they’ve got at the moment.

Flowey just watches, eyebrow raised, until Frisk finally turns back to him and gives a firm nod. He doesn’t comment on all the signing, just leaps back up to the roots and calls for them to follow.

It’s not easy, considering the guy is almost unnaturally fast and able to leap from root to root without breaking a sweat. After a while, Chara starts to suspect he’s just leading them in circles, and that suspicion doesn’t go away when he simply vanishes in the blink of an eye, leaving Frisk surrounded on all sides by swirling fog with no idea which way he went.

Chara refuses to panic, though, taking their hand and leading them further in the direction they were already heading in. They’re back to trial and error, but eventually they manage to find their way to... another dead end, but this one has some kind of ribbon hanging from a branch... root... tree... thing.

[ID: A four-panel comic. In the first panel, Frisk is looking up at a ribbon dangling down from a small tree. There are a multitude of question marks and arrows pointing towards the ribbon. In the second panel, Frisk pulls down on the ribbon with enough force to bend the tree down. In the third panel, the ribbon comes free, the hook at the end hitting Frisk upside the head. In the fourth panel, Frisk holds up the combination grappling hook/ribbon up with one hand in the typical zelda style, but they have their other hand on their head and there are stars swirling around it. A pair of speech bubbles read: “You got the Ribbon Grapple! (you might want to get that bump looked at.)” End Description.]

After confirming Frisk probably doesn’t have a concussion, Chara identifies their new toy as a weirdly fancy grappling hook. Like really, a rope would’ve worked fine, did they need to use ribbon? No wonder it was just tangled in some tree, whatever adventurer lost it clearly had no sense.

Whatever the case, it’s Frisk’s now!

The grappling hook opens up some paths that previously appeared to be dead ends, using it to swing from stray roots and branches to reach new heights. It’s much smoother sailing from there, and soon they can practically taste freedom.

And then Flowey reappears, expressing surprise they managed to get all the way here. “I thought for sure you’d’ve been way too lost by now! D’you have some other guide or something?”

Chara says some very colorful words in an impressive array of ancient languages, to the point where it’s a shame the only person who could potentially hear them is deaf. “I told you he was bad news,” they tell Frisk. Frisk gives them a flat stare.

Flowey announces that if they’re not gonna get lost like a good little child, he might as well kill them the old-fashioned way. By which he means, he kicks awake a huge-ass golden Deku Baba and leaves it to eat Frisk, then ollies on outie.

[ID: A sketch with simple color added underneath depicting a massive plant-like monster. It has a head resembling a golden flower but with teeth and meaty flesh on the inside of the petals, and the rest of its body is composed of a mess of writhing green vines. Frisk is visible near the bottom of the image, they’re only about as tall as one of the vines is thick. The background is blurry and vague, but is intended to convey an overgrown cave. End Description.]

A boss fight ensues. Listen, I’m not here to design a video game, forgive me if I don’t have anything more detailed than that written up. Zelda Tradition states that the Ribbon Grapple be involved in it somehow but that’s about it.

What matters is that after Frisk gets done weeding this garden and Chara finds that indeed, Flowey is nowhere to be seen, they finish their climb to the surface and taste sweet, sweet sunshine. And then...!

[Next Part] [Index]

#loz ut #loz #undertale #legend of zelda #i am an excellent artist #my writing #incidentally! if anyone has questions about like. worldbuilding. or just things in general. i'll be happy to answer!#i can't cram every single thought i have on the au in these largely plot-focused main posts #i obviously won't answer horribly spoilery things #but please! feel free to ask for more details or even just crack jokes! i crave human interaction!#if you're not sure if something counts as a spoiler feel free to ask it anyway! i'll probably give an obtuse non-answer #but it'll still be fun for me

28 notes · View notes

windskull · 5 years

Text

Hello all the lovely people out there that have been following The Heart of a Hero.

As I promised before, I said that I would write up a bit on how I have approached this adaptation, and likely how I’ll be approaching Majora’s Mask, if I end up doing an adaptation of it down the road.

At the time of writing this, I have finished drafting up through chapter eleven, which takes me through the end of Dodongo’s Cavern. As such, anything referenced directly here will only be up through that portion.

The first thing that i had to do was actually decide to make a adaptation. Originally, Thoah started out as just an au idea, based on something I had seen while looking at stuff related to Hyrule Warriors and the Zelda Encyclopedia. Somewhere, I don’t remember where, I saw a wild theory that, as an alternative to the “Link is dead” theory, that he was in the process of becoming a skull kid because he did not have Navi to guide him.

I did not care for that theory, but the idea of Link being a skull kid intrigued me. So I sat down and started doodling some designs for fun and imagined up an AU.

At the time, I had been planning to draw a Windwaker AU comic involving skull kid existing in the windwaker timeline in the forbidden woods, finding Link, and following him around the ocean for the majority of the rest of the game. (I still may write a little about this after the heart of a hero is done, but not a full fic. I may also release the three pages I drew at some point if I meet a certain view/kudos goal. Maybe 1000 AO3 views or 100 kudos, whichever comes first?)

I ended up enjoying the idea and the idea and design so much that The Heart of a Hero ended up happening.

So now I can actually get into hows of my creation process behind the fic.

It is worth mentioning that I had read one fic adaptation of a game at that point to completion (Sonic Adventure), and another one for Majora’s Mask that I quit reading. At one time I started to write my own Sonic Adventure 2 novelization, and considered writing a novelization of Kirby Planet Robobot in the anime verse, but neither of those ever got very far.

It is also worth mentioning that although I have finished Ocarina of Time (and Majora’s Mask). I have never gone through and done a full completion of either, I’ve never finished every side quest.

So before I ever began writing, I sat down and watched a 100% play-through of OOT. (Specifically, for those curious, I watched Masaeanella’s master quest playthrough.) By doing this, it gave me a chance to go through all the game’s main material and decide what quests I might want to include in the story.

Then I replayed the game myself, taking my time and thinking “What about this would be different if Link was a Skull Kid.” For one of the more obvious things, it makes him significantly more susceptible to fire, as is heavily touched on in the Dodongo’s Cavern arc. But in lesser things, it makes people - especially those outside of the forest - more wary of him, something that is starting to develop into a bit of a character arc for him.

His change in species also has an effect on how he acts around other people, and as a result, changes some of the sidequests that are brought up, such as his run-in at the Happy Mask shop. Because of his mischevious nature, he never goes through that fetch quest, but he still has an interaction, and ends up stealing instead of selling.

Perhaps the most interesting portion that I’m looking forward to writing is the seven year skip, and how being sealed that long is going to be handled, considering he is an eternal child that will never get bigger or grow older. I already have that planned out, and look forward to how people react when I reach it!

But the process doesn’t stop there, because at that point, I have only just finally laid the groundwork and begun writing. But memory is not perfect. So as I’m writing, and as I’m wanting to describe these areas, I am looking at let’s plays and playing through the game again, giving me a chance to look at the areas so I can describe them better. Especially dungeons.

Once I write a batch of chapters, usually half of an arc or a full arc I go back and start editing. I try to write in half or whole arcs so as to hopefully not forget anything.

One of the hardest things of writing is the dungeons. I want to write them so that they’re recognizable (Oh, this is that room) without just writing straight through it and explaining every puzzle. I want to cut out some of the unnecessary fluff that would be a chore to write and read. A good example of this is the part in the Deku Tree, where Link and Skull Kid find the slingshot at the base of the vines (where the dungeon map is in the game) without having to go all the way to a dead end room, only to have to backtrack again.

Some areas, both in and out of dungeons are changed very little. Others are changed a lot. The deku tree is something that did not change much, beyond the reaction of the Deku scrubs to Link and Skull Kid. On the other side, Dodongo’s Cavern is changed up a lot, due to Link’s much more flamable body. There’s going to be a lot of things changed in the adult portion of the timeline. The areas I’m looking forward to the most are the Gerudo hideout and Spirit Temple.

That’s everything I wanted to cover at this point in time. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way and I’ll try to answer.

2 notes · View notes

burstfrenemy · 2 years

Text

Week #16 Wrap-Up - The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time 3D

The Zelda series is a lifelong favorite of mine, especially the early 2D, top-down ones. I've only actually finished one of time (Twilight Princess). Although I've never finished it, A Link to the Past (LttP), released in 1991, may be my all-time favorite game, regardless.

This week, playing the 3DS remaster of 1998's Ocarina of Time (OoT) I was struck by how similar those two games are. It's not surprising, I suppose, since there were no console Zelda games released between them. in LttP, Link starts in a confined area (outside Hyrule Castle) and has to overcome a literal dungeon before gaining access to the broader overworld. In OoT, Link is confined to his village and can't access the overworld until he rids the Deku Tree of a giant spider. Compared to what is visible on-screen exiting the sanctuary on LttP, the overworld reveal in OoT was jaw-dropping. There are huge tracts of prairie, a central ranch, a roaring river, a volcano, and the castle itself. These geographical features aren't all that different from earlier Zelda maps, but the shift to 3D was done truly astounding to a 15 year old like me.

This week, over twenty years later, the mechanical similarities between the two games really stood out. In OoT, you're still collecting rupies by smashing pots and mowing the grass with your sword. You're still noticing cracked areas of wall, wishing you had a bomb bag. The enemies are carryovers too, like the obnoxious bats and moving statues.

What sets Ocarina of Time apart, even more so than the shift to 3D, is its music. The tunes are just perfect - especially the Lost Woods theme. And Link is a full-on bard in this game. The player is expected to learn tunes and play them every step of the way. Songs open doors, change the weather, summon your horse, and probably a lot more.

I say "probably" because I didn't get terribly far - another busy week of work, another fun-filled weekend, with Christmas quickly approaching and the usual distractions. Sadly, I only made it to Zora's Domain, after completing the second dungeon. That's about where I left the game 20 years ago! Princess Ruto will have to wait to be rescued from Jabu Jabu's belly a little while longer.

0 notes

only-by-the-stars · 6 years

Text

more Wind Waker notes:

- the Deku tree saying that when he saw Link’s clothes he felt the longing for an age gone by made me ;____;

- yes, I do use guides, mostly so I don’t miss sidequests (the other 1% is the rare time when I get absolutely positively stuck in a dungeon--I prefer solving those puzzles myself--and those times during Majora’s Mask when I was running low on time and needed to finish the place FAST). I hate missing sidequests. old RPGs gave me issues, y’all. so, I’ve been collecting figurines! it is oddly addictive!

- best minigame in the series award goes to that hilarious Battleship one on Windfall. I fucking loved that just for the sound effects <3

- the Forbidden Forest was fun, if a bit annoying at times purely because I hate peahats, but oh man. oh man. fucking. fucking Kalle Demos. WHY. I HATED THAT. SO ANNOYING.

- on the other hand, I LOVE how the boomerang works in this game!!! multiple targets is AWESOME.

- I also like flying on my Deku leaf, reminds me of the Deku mask in Majora’s Mask

- I can’t stress enough how much I love the art style. it’s so bright and colorful and cute, and I would say that I can’t believe the game is so old given how good it still looks, but I’m actually NOT surprised, lol, this is one of the reasons I’ve always preferred more stylized graphics to those that try to be more realistic. plus Link is so expressive and adorable!!! I love when I run away from enemies and he looks over his shoulder and it looks like he’s giving them a dirty look. my precious child <3

- speaking of cute, I love the little Koroks <3

- I actually don’t mind the sailing? The controls can be a little wonky sometimes, but overall I definitely don’t hate it like some people apparently did. it’s a LOT better than in Suikoden IV, which had a similar “everything is islands and you must sail from place to place” world map. but it also had random encounters, and I HATE random encounters. they are the bane of my existence when playing RPGs. I like Suikoden IV more than most of the fandom does, but that was really irritating at times. so this is better by default.

- I’m also enjoying the lighter feel to this in general. I loved the hell out of Majora’s Mask, but I really didn’t want to follow the literal doom and gloom of it up with another game as heavy/dark, I need to change up moods and this is a good game for it. overall, I’m having a blast!

6 notes · View notes

attackingstarfish · 6 years

Text

Just finished LoZ: Wind Waker...

I normally never post, but I recently wrapped up Wind Waker HD (Yes, I’m late to the party), and it is so far removed from the usual Zelda fare that I just had to compile my thoughts. And if I’m compiling my thoughts, I might as well yell them into the void.

You will have to show me physical proof that Wind Waker is not Ocarina of Time from the Opposite Dimension, where windows are the primary means of entering your house and people worship at the altar of Hello Games, because despite me being almost exactly as satisfied with Wind Waker HD as I was with Ocarina of Time 3D, the greatest sources of joy are flipped with the biggest annoyances between the two games.

Yay!

Breath of the Wild had won me over in part because the entire world felt cohesive; you could go anywhere on the map without having to encounter a single loading screen, and I had no idea Wind Waker did the same thing. The Great Sea is a vast trove of trees, pirates, and treasure, with the occasional giant squid attack or salutation from the Flying Dutchman. Each of the 49 segments contains an island that is often unique in purpose, and you’re very rarely sent to a specific island for a specific item by a specific character. Instead, the entire overworld becomes open to you as soon as you grab your sail on Windfall Island, and you have a literal sea of knowledge before you as the 49 fish that serve as your guidebook to the game take their places.

A couple of islands start off closed, unable to be reached until you get the Iron Boots or the Bow or the Hulk Hogan suplex manual, but that’s it as far as what you can’t reach, and the squares of ocean containing even these islands can be reached as early as any other zone, fish and all. The fish are easy to spot, splashing around near their respective region’s landmass, and to reward taking to initiative to explore, a surprising amount of what they tell you can be put to use immediately, like the location of the all-new extra-fast wind-changing sail the remake’s added to speed up travel. Good thing, too, because there’s a point where travel time stops being buildup and becomes padding, especially when you have to dance a round of Hands Up every time you want to change direction. Later in the game, when you’re better equipped, you could stop by one of those islands you couldn’t figure out earlier on, and figure out what to do with just one more trip around the border. Nothing pops up on your map to indicate that suddenly you’re able to access anything new, and your boat doesn’t wonder whether the eastmost pillar on island A7 has met any nice hookshot targets lately. The game trusts that you can navigate the uses for your gear yourself, which I value. Fewer tutorials, more expectations.

Even the story serves the game’s hands-off attitude. Ocarina starts with Link going into the Deku Tree to purge it of some unspecified evil (What exactly does Gohma do in there, anyway?) before coming out to be told of his fate to kill a man he has never met before and become Hyrule’s savior. Link takes up the mantle in that game only because the gods who have not and will never make a proper appearance want him to do it. Meanwhile, Wind Waker opens with Link putting on the green tunic to make his grandmother happy for a day, right before his sister, who clearly adores him, gets kidnapped by a giant bird, and he teams up with pirates to sneak into a fortress and rescue her but instead gets bitch-slapped by Ganondorf, who turns out to own the place and the bird. In addition to being awesome because pirates kick ass, Link’s introduction to the man who wants him dead feels a lot more natural here, and Ganondorf doesn’t even come into the plot for real until the second half of the game. Link’s got a sister to save, and everything he’ll do to accomplish that goal will demonstrate him to be worthy of the Master Sword, which itself seems to prefer this organic sort of journey, seeing as the Link who set out to get the Master Sword from the beginning ended up locked in solitary confinement by the thing while it allowed the man it was created to kill to instead take over the world. Evidently the Master Sword is a strong, independent blade beholden to no one who can’t think for themselves, and anyone who disagrees can spend some quality time with the nice old man who loves to talk and talk and talk and talk.

The characters in Wind Waker feel more on the dynamic side than Ocarina’s. At first I was a bit surprised that i felt that way considering Ocarina had you view two very different versions of Hyrule, but Ocarina’s characters either don’t change in personality much between time periods or don’t make an appearance in one of the two at all. Talon’s still lazy in the future, the carpenters are still idiots, the Lake Hylia scientist is still mad, the Kokiri of course don’t change at all, you see none of the Zoras after their caves are frozen over, etc. Not to mention Ganondorf, who doesn’t get much beyond “evil Gerudo thief king who wants to take over the world because of reasons,” even if he gets a bit further than many movie/game villains and is able to demonstrate exactly what he’d do while in charge and why he’s so dangerous. Wind Waker, meanwhile, has even a fair few one-off characters with their own tiny arcs. Mila goes from stuck-up rich kid to poor as dirt and struggling to adapt, so out of her element that she resorts to stealing money from her new boss until Link catches her and helps her stay true to herself in the future. Maggie’s father starts out so desperate for Link to save his daughter that he will annoyingly stop you in your tracks every time he so much as glimpses you and repeat his pleas for help, but after Maggie is returned home and he strikes it rich through no deed of his own, he decides everyone else is beneath him and starts bitching at Link, the Rito postman, and anyone who thinks repeatedly boasting about your own fabulous wealth makes for poor dinner conversation. Even Ganondorf himself is given more than a simple desire to take over Hyrule this time around, as his belief that the rest of the kingdom deserves to suffer the way the Gerudo suffered in the desert is brought to light.

Boo!

Part of the reason I liked the dungeons in Ocarina of Time so much is that they had a way of coming full circle at the end, or even a smaller full circle in the middle. You’d come across something at the beginning, go “Huh, that looks cool,” then move on. An hour later, BOOM, payoff, and likely in a way you didn’t even expect. The web serving as the floor in the Deku Tree and the blue stone head at the back of Dodongo’s Cavern come to mind. Plus, there were often open rooms that allowed you to get a handle on where everything else was relative to you, and gaze upon areas you’ll visit once you find the Hookshot or Hover Boots. Wind Waker’s dungeons are the antithesis of the rest of the game, they’re cramped and, for the first half of the game, overly linear. Dragon Roost never musters up much more challenge than “kill enemy in front of you, go through door in front of you, repeat,” a far cry from the wall-climbing around the first half of the Deku Tree. Re-hydrating the bombs to get into the place is arguably as clever as you get with it, which for me is the perfect representation of the amount of thought that went into everything surrounding the dungeons vs. the amount of thought that went into the dungeons. And aside from those spinning leaf wheels in Forbidden Woods that wouldn’t know what a wind was if they were fired for incompetence and forced to spend the rest of their lives at its mercy, this is best illustrated during the teamwork-based dungeons with Medli and Makar toward the end of the game .

Considering how often you have to switch between characters to set up a Mirror Shield reflect or to hit a switch or to plant a seed or because you got hit fucking once, it would’ve been nice not to have to do half the Macarena every time you want to switch to your companion’s viewpoint. It also would’ve been nice if the controls of your partners didn’t make me want to offer them to the Floormasters. That said, Medli wasn’t awful. Yes, her flight was a bit hard to direct, there was no way to halt her Link-bearing glide without throwing her, and the number of times you had to hop on the Wind Waker was a pain, but the irritation was diminished when lot of her roles involved standing still and shining light while you played as the character the game actually put work into handling. Plus, my wave of enthusiasm from the first moment I walked under a spotlight while carrying her and saw the light reflect lasted me quite a ways into the dungeon, so my memories of the Earth Temple are okay enough.

On the other hand, Makar. (I still call him Oaki, which should indicate how memorable Makar’s character is) When flying with Medli, all that was required was good aim when leaping off any ledge you were leaving, whether she was on her own or supporting Link. Makar has to fly in patterns more complex than straight lines, so naturally his controls are twice as stupid. You have to repeatedly press A to fly, speeding up or slowing down your button presses to increase or decrease the amount of lift as you go. Button mashing as a recurring mechanic, yay. Its imprecise nature becomes worse when the vertical nature of the dungeon’s biggest room has Makar rack up a ton of momentum from the amount of rising and falling he’ll be doing, leaving you struggling to adjust your frequency to keep up, with aerial endurance that makes you wonder how the Korok seed-spreading ritual has not led them to extinction by mass drowning. Fortunately, there’s a giant fan you can activate at the bottom of the room to blow yourself upward and kill any chance you have at forward progress. You’d think that being able to coast to the top of everything would be a good thing, but being in the fan’s range of “anywhere” causes Makar to eschew any direction that isn’t straight up (as his flight meter drains!), when running out of flight power has the same effect but downwards. If that wind catches you while you’re trying to cross the room, you’re left to watch as Makar is frozen in place while his energy drains to zero, wait for the fan to stop, fall several stories to the bottom of the room, and walk about two feet toward where you want to go before the fan activates again and restarts the cycle. And that’s assuming one of the many flying enemies doesn’t brush Makar and throw the camera back behind a Link who’s attempting to keep calm by doing the wave.

The combat took some getting used to. Ocarina’s combat was fine; it was easy to tell what you were in range to hit, and timing your swings properly could get shield-wielding enemies like Stalfos in a loop where continually accurate shots would finish them in seconds. In Wind Waker, Link’s attacks don’t reach quite as far as his sword would indicate; you’d think the gods would make sure their magical evil-smiting blade is most capable at the end that goes in the King of Evil, but I guess not. “Just The Tip” is a no-no with these monsters, so it’s either impale them in full or let them dominate you.

Meanwhile, you have two options for your targeting system, and they both suck. You either hold down L as long as you want to keep an enemy targeted, which before long will cause your left index finger to rebel against its draconian master, or press the button once to start targeting and press it again to target a different enemy, leaving you with no way to stop targeting the enemies and put an arrow in the switch. This wasn’t that big a deal in Ocarina, since Link had a wider vertical range with the bow and there were never many enemies hounding you when there was another immediate objective to complete, but in Wind Waker, you can expect a rainbow of respawning Chu’s to ambush you around the clock. It sours a lot of dungeons and dungeon-themed areas for me. That’s why the Wind Waker experience was so surprising; the dungeons were a slog to get through and felt less like a collection of clever puzzle ideas suiting each region’s theme and more like an obligation to throw in because it’s Zelda, yet everything surrounding them felt engaging and intriguing enough to make me want to keep playing and find out what happened to everyone.

(Tower of the Gods was pretty cool, too.)

#legend of zelda #wind waker #zelda wind waker #link #zelda

1 note · View note

tuxedobowser25 · 6 years

Text

Finished Master Quest on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D! It was fun to finally play through the remixed dungeons I wanted to play since I first saw that pre-order disc for the original Wind Waker.

Deku Tree: was a game of caution, because of double damage, three quick hits in succession and its game over. i love the added attempts to burn up your deku sheild.

Dodongo’s Cavern: has you do the first half of the dungeon in reverse, going up then down to reach the Bomb treasure chest that young Link is just barely too short to reach, there’s a clever trap room that tries to convince you to get the deku shield out with some fire keese just out of your initial view. There’s also a lot of graves added giving it a creepy abandoned mine feel.

Jabu Jabu’s Belly: Mooooooooo. There’s a whole lotta cows added. The mooooos add to the background. They don’t seem to mind they’re.....attached to the walls, or used as slingshot switches.....one is even chilling in some digestive acid. You can even still get milk from them via Epona’s Song for an extra wtf. Also Jump Scare Like Likes, and you only really need Princess Ruto once or twice

Fire Temple: Iron Knuckles get introduced in Master Quest here when if you haven’t picked up any pieces of hearts besides boss heart containers you can get 1 shot by them since they do eight(!) hearts of damage.

Some bow puzzles could be solved in MQ by using Din’s fire to light torches then just roll really fast within the range of the next torch. Unfortunately there is a bow puzzle that does require the bow later on but because the dungeon now gives you the boss key and hammer super early I just used the bomb jump boost glitch to reach the door after attempting it only seeing it used in speedruns before lol

Ice Cavern: You’ll get attacked by sudden boulders a lot The White Wolfos has been downgraded to a regular enemy replaced with a lone staflos. Crystal switches hiding with the ice, or underneath the ice is clever. Though on a N64 or 3DS resolution one of them is like a few pixels visible under the floor lol

Forest Temple: A Stalfos here, a staflos there, you know it didn’t feel too different yet at the same time it did. There was that floating path of song of time blocks that was new tho. The actual courtyard sections are locked initially and are explored later on.

Water Temple: Ironically easier (reverse psychology!) lol You get the dungeon map, compass, and even the longshot almost right away, and I managed to clear the dungeon with entire sections of it unexplored. A lizaflos attacked me underwater where I couldn’t attack it. Also the dungeon designers were probably like, “You get a staflos, they get a staflos, EVERYONE GETS A STAFLOS!” (drops three staflos in a room against you)

Beneath the Well: Most of the invisible things are oddly removed, Dead Hand is reduced to guarding the compass. Only one small key is needed to get to a necessary room but if you guess the wrong door you’ll have to find a different one. The Boss Key is surrounded by Redeads on a floor with a wallmaster, make sure to take out the wallmaster before you get to the chest or else you can get stunlocked by 4/5 redeads then grabbed by the wallmaster sometimes with a redead still eating your brains out. Note: Redeads can stun you if you try to use Din’s Fire and can hurt you, you are not safe once you touch the item button lol

Gerudo’s Training Ground: There are exactly three keys now, its moreso a game of figuring out where the Ice Arrow chest is when it spawns, the lava room with silver rupees is now real annoying because the pillars light back up on fire quickly sending Link falling into the lava. There is a chest where you get a green rupee and the game uses the text from the Market Minigame calling you a loser lol

Spirit Temple: Getting a key as an Adult in the first visit then using it a kid is a nice concept, but the reverse later on feels like padding since it forces you to time travel an additional time just to quickly grab a key in an already visited room. Using the Song of the time with quick timing is a unique idea for a puzzle. There are two really cool unique puzzle rooms where you have to use an Iron Knuckle’s ax to break some thrones, and a dungeon room with a Moblin finally not in the forest meadow maze where you have to sing the various regular ocarina songs but unfortunately they’re completely optional, only for gold skullwalltulas which feels like wasted potential.

Shadow Temple: This is probably the least changed dungeon, there are some areas that feel easier actually, the floormasters in the invisible wall maze replaced with blue skulls talk about a nerf, fighting a Dead Hand using Deku Flowers is really unique and ....also completely optional and wasted potential bleh.

Ganon’s Castle: The castle throws you an iron knuckle immediately. The gauntlets switched trial locations,small keys found in one trial have to be used to unlock doors in others, and here they finally use that manipulate an iron knuckle to destroy some blocks for you thing that was optional in Spirit Temple. Ganon’s Tower sadly isn’t changed any besides enemies doing double damage but it was fun to use my bomb strat against two iron knuckles at once.

#ocarina of time #the legend of zelda #master quest

1 note · View note

piffcreations · 5 years

Photo

Fandom Day 17:I have been a Legend of Zelda fan since I was kid. My first game was Ocarina of Time and I still remember my first time playing it. My dad had just finished the Deku Tree and had just stepped onto Hyrule Field. My aunt came over to ask for some help on her computer so Dad just put the game down and didn't think anything of it. When the sun went down the Stalchild came out and started attacking Link and I panicked because we only have 4 hearts at the time and they were killing him. I had played Super Mario 64 a little so I knew how to work the controller, I remember asking Dad what to do and he told me to press the red Start button but I couldn't do the easy thing. I ended up running back into the Woods and that was my first time playing Zelda. We never had the Gamecube growing up but we got the Wii around the time it came out and we got Twlight Princess for the Wii. I really like the art style of the game unlike the other Zelda games. I always found it funny how some fans like the Cat eye Link better but I have always liked the more realistic Link look. I like how Dark the game was, I enjoyed the Music, the puzzles, the Dungeons, and the bosses. There are definely flaws with the game but overall I would say that Twlight Princess is my favourite Legend of Zelda game #legendofzelda #twlightprincess #wolflink #midna #moonlight #castle #hyrulefield https://www.instagram.com/p/BqSnymrnhHN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=c8fq3y8d959p

#legendofzelda #twlightprincess #wolflink #midna #moonlight #castle #hyrulefield

0 notes

ggdeku · 7 years

Text

Breath of the Wild final impressions

As I watched the credits roll on Breath of the Wild I was conflicted. The game had been a ton of fun, a fresh new take on the series while also being a great open-world game in its own right. But despite enjoying my time with it, I ultimately felt very dissapointed.

Breath of the Wild is not a bad game, far from it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t get what I wanted. In their quest to mix up the “Zelda formula” and bring a new structure to the series, the developers left too much behind. Resulting in a good, but ultimately unfulfilling game.

Ask any fan of the series what their favorite entry is and you’ll get a different answer every time. The draw and appeal of Zelda is so varied that fans often disagree as to what elements are most valuable to them. One of the biggest draws for me has been the design of the dungeons themselves. It’s not just about the individual puzzles in each room, but the way these puzzle rooms are connected to make the dungeon a puzzle itself. Zelda dungeons are at their best when they require the player to understand the architecture and mechanics of the space and make it fun to unravel both the individual puzzles and the overall dungeon itself.

For a deeper examination of the way Nintendo designs these structures, I highly recommend watching Mark Brown’s Boss Keys youtube series. Brown talks about each game in the series and analyzes the way dungeons are designed. This series was very influential for me and helped solidify my thoughts on this topic. I recommend the Majora’s Mask video as it perfectly explains why I love that game.

With BotW, Nintendo very clearly targeted the strengths and design values of the very first entry in the series. An open space where the player has agency to make their own decisions about where to go and what to do. With no predetermined narrative-based path, you can do what you want, when you want. However, in achieving this goal, the pacing and tight design of the Zelda series is mostly pushed aside in favor of player freedom.

Without a strong narrative path, the developers used the shrines as an incentive for players to explore. The 120 shrines mostly use the game mechanics and player abilities very well, but were also responsible for 120 moments of stinging disappointment. Every time I finished one, I felt unsatisfied because it was just one puzzle unconnected to a greater scheme of interlocking rooms or challenges. While completing shrines I often thought about how much more I would have enjoyed the puzzle if it had been connected to the last 20 shrines I finished.

There are several combat challenge shrines, but they aren’t the most interesting or rewarding things to complete. Even the simple change of reducing the overall amount of shrines to make each one the equivalent of two puzzles and a combat room would have done wonders to the game. That change would make discovery and completion of the shrines more meaningful.

The overall quality of the shrines made the feeling even worse because with individual puzzles that strong, a solid, interconnected design would have probably lead to some of the best dungeons in the series.

The aesthetics of the shrines are all the same. The same music and visuals 120 times. I think that does a disservice to the variety of puzzles they feature, in addition to being boring after the first 20. Even simple themes like forest, ice, fire, wind, fortress, etc. would be a great way to mix up the visuals of these challenges.

Shrines at the beginning of the game look identical to shrines you will find many hours into your adventure.

And then there are the Divine Beasts. They are the closest thing this game has to a traditional Zelda dungeon, because they are much larger than shrines, feature a short series of puzzles and end with a boss.

They share very little with the established "dungeon” forumla, but one aspect they do share with their predecessors is an important one, encouraging an understanding of the structure’s architecture. Each beast requires you to understand and manipulate the movement of the structure in order to activate five switches and fight a boss.The moving and twisting beats are impressive, but the actual goals within them leave a lot to be desired.

Not only are they much shorter than the dungeons of previous Zelda games, they all have the same objective of activating a few switches. Repeated objectives and simple physics puzzles get boring fast. After you complete one beast you have seen everything they can do.

None of the beasts provide the same feeling as a good Zelda dungeon, unraveling and fighting your way through a tightly wound knot of individual and interconnected puzzles rooms and gaining an understanding of the continuous layout of a piece of architecture. They are far too simple in their individual and overall puzzle design and feature very little combat, other than the bosses. Much like the shrines, the Divine Beasts are not bad, but they are a weak attempt at making sure something resembling a Zelda tradition remained in the game.

The beasts also have the same problem as the shrines in terms of aesthetics. They are all located in beautiful, distinct locations in the world, but the beasts themselves share the same theming (which isn’t very different from the shrines).

As someone who greatly values the traditional Zelda dungeon, this disappointment with BotW’s alternatives hit me hard. No one makes games like Zelda. No one makes Zelda-like dungeons. After waiting six years for the next 3D game in the series it sucks to be disappointed in this way.

It’s not just the dungeons, but the progression in complexity that I miss. The way the dungeon design builds from the Great Deku tree to the Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time, or from Woodfall to Stone Tower Temple in Majora’s Mask is amazing. That hasn't been a part of Zelda in many years.

This was also one of my biggest problem with A Link Between Worlds. That game had traditional Zelda dungeons, but because the player could tackle them mostly out of order they all felt as if they were each designed to be the first dungeon. The game lost any sense of progression in complexity with dungeons that would be lucky if they lasted more than a couple minutes.

However, this game’s best moments are not the attempts to translate the dungeon format to a new structure. BotW’s strength is the open-world and sense of discovery. These were strongest for me in the first half of the game, when the majority of the world was a still a mystery.

Discovering shrines in the first half of the game was exciting, and solving the tiny Korok seed puzzles hidden throughout the world provided a unique distraction. The Korok seeds are so plentiful (900!) that you can always find enough to increase your inventory, but I felt that their implementation did more to help the developers fill up their massive world rather than create a good mechanic for the player. It’s just another meaningless collectible.

While exploration is incentivized by shrines and Korok seeds, the best discoveries were villages and towns. BotW has the best towns in any Zelda game hands down. They all have a unique atmosphere, great music, and are occupied by memorable NPCs that seem to run on a Majora’s Mask-like schedule. Discovering and entering Hateno Village at dawn was one of my all-time favorite video game moments.

Once I had explored the world, found all the villages, and unlocked each section of the map, I realized that the only thing left to find were shrines and seeds. With Korok seeds cast aside as meaningless collectibles, looking for shrines quickly stopped being interesting as I knew the only thing I could find would only instill the same sense of longing for “real dungeons” that I had experienced dozens of times before.

Thankfully, many of the sidequests to find the shrines were some of the best moments of the game, taking the unique and interesting puzzles and bringing them onto the actual world map. But aside from those quests I did not find much fun in exploring the world. I wanted to avoid combat most of the time because I didn't want any of my weapons to break and the standard enemies often had worse gear than what I was carrying. Exploring for exploration’s sake does not interest me. I’ve never really been the kind of player that messes around in the open world games without a purpose.

The lack of enemy diversity throughout the world was very surprising. BotW has a strangely small variety of enemies. Zelda’s famous cast of monsters is mostly absent this time around as Link is left to fight standard and large sized Bokoblins and Lizalfos for most of the game. Fighting the same enemies over and over again started to bore me near the end of my playtime and I found it strange Nintendo left out so many different types monsters such as Like-Likes, Darknuts, Stalfos, Leevers, etc. It really doesn’t help the copy and pasted feel of many enemy encounters when the combat barely changes in hour one compared to hour 100.

I did like that they addressed the common complaint of combat difficulty. The enemies here actually put up a fight and provide for some tough encounters that require quick thinking and good reflexes. However, they also included two mechanics that trivialize the combat: Flurry Rush and parries.

Once I discovered how easy it is to abuse and activate the time slowing effects of Flurry Rush and parrying, the enemies were no longer a threat. The window to activate the Flurry Rush is so large that I often found myself triggering it when I wanted to back flip or sidestep for movement purposes.

The combat itself felt a little stiff as well. The way Link stops moving when he swings his sword felt abrupt and his canned combos felt too automated. When you attack, Link will perform a simple combo string. In past games, the direction and type of attack could vary depending on your input. Link’s moves would actually be based on player input. I missed the choice of horizontal and vertical slashes, a sword thrust, and a crouch stab from behind a shield, among other moves.

The runes were cool, but I did not use them very often during combat. The combat sandbox in general felt a little underwhelming, mostly because Stasis, Magnesis, and Cryonis are the only unique abilities Link gets.

The addition of infinite bombs seems like a carry over from ALBW’s item system, but don’t add much to the game. Infinite bombs are incredibly easy to abuse and are often more effective than arrows. I still think Wind Waker and the N64 games have the best combat sandboxes as they have a wide array of items and abilities without any overpowered dodges or parrying.

Because of the lack of unique items and abilities, the sense of progression is stunted. Link doesn’t gain access to new areas with the acquisition of tools that allows him to interact with the world and enemies in a different way. You get your rune abilities at the beginning and that is it. You are stuck making water platforms and moving metal objects for the rest of the game. I’ve always felt Zelda was better off closer to the Metroidvania style of design than an open world style, and BotW only reaffirms that opinion. BotW loses the moments of realization that your newly acquired abilities/items/information can be used in an earlier area to access something new, or recontextualize something you thought you had a handle on.

Link’s various armor sets also exemplify the grindy nature of this open world by requiring you to farm items to upgrade equipment. This is probably the most standard open world aspect of the game and one that is just not worth engaging in.

I also wanted to touch on the story and characters, which is another element that I feel is important to the series (even if many disagree). Because of the open design, the story was pushed out of the players way for the most part. Unfortunately this led to a bunch of underdeveloped characters I never cared about. The hints into each Champion’s history and relationships with other characters was intriguing, but we never got anything more than simple archetypes. It would have been great to see longer story quests build up to the divine beasts.

One of the biggest story fumbles were the memories. While some were interesting they often added so little and often felt pointless. They gave us scraps of characterization for Zelda and that’s it. As for timeline stuff, the game is so vague that it doesn’t really matter (and I’m a Zelda timeline lover).

There are no memorable characters. We get interactions between the various champions and Zelda in flashbacks, but learn almost nothing about them, their personal histories, or see them grow or change in any meaningful way.

Games like Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask have you meet characters that have arcs, relationships, and goals. Players watch the characters grow and change. They inform the plot while growing along with the overall narrative. You see each character receive closure to their own storylines alongside the main narrative.

There is no plot in BotW. You wake up and are told to kill Ganon. If you defeat the Divine Beats you get to see more of Link’s lost memory, but all of that happened in the past, and you know that the four primary characters are already dead. Their fate is known before the player is even introduced to them.

There is no sense of urgency or danger. In Majora’s Mask you can see how Skull Kid’s meddling and the threat of the falling moon have negatively impacted every single one of the residents of Termina. The Deku Swamp’s water has been poisoned, the Gorons are frozen over, the sea temperature has risen and Lulu’s eggs Zora eggs have been stolen by pirates, the Ikana researcher has been turned into a zombie and the land has been cursed to keep the undead from dying completely. In Breath of the Wild, none of the people are in any danger. No one is scared of the obvious and inevitable return of Ganon. After the calamity life went on, the fall of an entire civilization didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the existing citizenry of Hyrule.

For a series that receives such massive amounts of praise, I don’t think Nintendo can keep on barely scraping by in the story and lore department. Nintendo should put more time and effort into a stronger focus on the narrative for this series. It’s a shame when the peak of storytelling in your franchise was over a decade ago (even though Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker were great).

I enjoyed my time with BotW immensely in the first 20 to 30 hours, but once I had a consistent understanding of the world and mechanics, I started to pick apart all the little things that I didn’t like, and it really hurt my enjoyment of the game.

What makes it hard for me is reading other Zelda fans’ impressions stating this is the best game in the series and that they hope Zelda never goes back to the way it was before. This series can and has done more. It has provided interesting worlds, memorable characters, unique and inventive puzzles and challenges that have stayed with me for years. When I think of BotW I just remember all of the things I didn’t like. I just think about how I can’t see myself ever returning to this game in the same way I do to almost every other game in the series.

It makes me sad because the traditional, more linear Zelda formula, despite some bad design decisions in the later games, still provides a valuable experience and is responsible for more than a handful of my favorite video games of all time.

DLC UPDATE: I really liked the Champion’s Ballad DLC just because of the shrine and Divine Beast. The new shrines were some of the best in the game, and the new divine beast was by far the best. The boss at the end was a unique challenge and is one of my favorite moments in BotW, it felt like an important event in a way that almost nothing else did in the base game.

#the legend of zelda #zelda #link #nintendo #nintendo switch #wii u #nintendo wii u #kass #urbosa #mipha #daruk #revali #open world #ocarina of time #majora's mask #wind waker

6 notes · View notes

thecaroliner · 7 years

Text

I finished BOTW. Major spoilers down below

HOOOO BOY THIS WAS A GOOD GAME. I'll start with my complaints first. Things I didn't enjoy about the game and things that were left completely unexplained or open ended. 1. Not enough dungeons. This is purely a personal preference for me. But I don't do side quests, at least not in my first play through of a game. I'm too impatient to finish the story to do any side quests!! And I know that the side quests and shrines were supposed to take up a lot of the game, so it makes sense that there would only be 4 dungeons. But you can just finish them so fast!! Personally I would've liked it if Link and Zelda had their own Divine Beasts. Again, just preference. 2. Link's amnesia is never explained. Unless it was by a NPC somewhere and I missed it. It's just like, okay, he was asleep for 100 years and lost all his memories for some reason. Guess we're just gonna roll with it. I guess it's similar to TP where they never explained exactly WHY Link became a wolf (yeah I know it was in the prophecy that the hero would take the form of a beast, but again, why?). Ah well. 3. They never explained the Master Sword being rusted and banged up. It's the frickin Master Sword for crying out loud, it doesn't get banged up!! 4. The memory flashbacks were a bit odd how they just jumped around. I feel like there were some gaps that still needed to be filled in. Like how in the 3rd memory I think where Zelda and Link are headed to Goron City, she was all happy and fine. A few memories later she wanted nothing to do with Link. Weird. 5. No reunion for Zelda and her father!! We saw his spirit along with the other Champions watching over the two of them, but then they disappeared. Zelda and her dad were on really bad terms. They really left that storyline open ended, although I guess that adds to the sadness of the overall story. 6. No explanation as to how Zelda survived the 100 years. Even one of the NPCs says "Princess Zelda?! She's survived this whole time? How?" Yeah, no explanation for that. Unless I missed it. 7. WHAT DID ZELDA WANNA TELL LINK?! The Deku Tree wouldn't pass along the message because he thought Zelda should tell him herself. BUT SHE DIDN'T (I'm assuming it was "I love you" or something, but WE NEVER FOUND OUT) 8. This isn't so much a complaint but I really wish that we had known more about Link's past and how he came to be Zelda's appointed knight? She mentioned his father was one. I wanna know his backstory! Overall, I think this is definitely the best Zelda game yet. With two of the best Link and Zelda incarnations we've seen (although I think Skyward Link and Zelda will always be my favorites). The voice acting also really added a lot, it's so much more memorable and emotional than reading a text box. It makes me wonder how they'll handle the next big Zelda game. On the one hand, I really want them to go back to the open, realistic world but at the same time BOTW was so special, that if the next game did that it would seem like it's not as special anymore? Idk. I guess it will depend on the feedback they get. I would definitely like a slightly more linear gameplay (not to the extent of say, Skyward Sword) but again that's my personal preference. This story was a sad one. But the end really left you feeling hopeful for the future, although I think Zelda and Link are going to have tough times ahead of them, being the only people the other has. I'd give this game a solid 8 or 8.5 out of 10.

#botw #botw spoilers #breath of the wild #breath of the wild spoilers #loz #loz spoilers

6 notes · View notes