 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| NEW DRAFT by Jhoh Creebul, Witch Toucher O_O 04/03/2008, 12:39pm PDT | ||||
 |
 |
|||
THE ZELDA SERIES
The Legend of Zelda: I downloaded the rom and some gamefaqs and focused on beating this game a year ago or something while I was waiting for HL2ep1 or after I quit wow once or some shit. It turns out the game is still fun even today. The combat is pretty decent for a NES launch title [OR WHENEVER THIS GAME CAME OUT -Jaw], the graphics and sound were effective (that is what we call old and aged shit that was cool back in the day). Of course having a fully illustrated gamefaq and the ability to save states cuts down on a shitload of the time wasted and various other impossible things in the game, but Zelda 1 actually has fewer "total bullshit" moments than you might think. Especially compared to Zelda 2. I might only be saying that because I never finished the game on the original cart (I basically got the white sword and beat the second dungeon and then quit, but I was also playing on a friend's NES at the time) and I used saved states to cheat at the gambling minan gaem. The game is more enjoyable when you can just fling 255 money units at the super mega armor ring before lvl 2. Also unlike zelda 2, the fucking items you get will actually help you play the game instead of being required for one fuckass puzzle you can't progress past without (fucking raft). 
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: Boy they FUCKED!!!!!!!!!!! this one up. >:( This really could've been a good game, even changing shit up to be a side scrolling adventure, with an overhead world separate from the actual game's action, which I believe was a precursor to the Final Fantasy style of random encounters. This wasn't inherently bad, especially since it was like the first game to ever do this. They also added a leveling up system with experience points you get from every enemy, aside from the couple odd enemy types that don't give you experience and in fact reduce your experience if they hit you (which is a tad GAY). Unfortunately this game is unplayable without a walkthrough or strategy guide due to its ridiculous esoteric puzzles which involve doing shit you could probably never guess in a billion years (so........ esoteric then, like I JUST SAID). I just looked up esoteric in the dictionary and the definition fits quite well actually. JUST LIKE MY DICK, HEH 8) Anyway, they got rid of the boomerang in this game. I don't know if that's a bad sign, but this is the only Zelda game that's sort of generally viewed as the shitty one, and it's also the only one with no boomerang. Also it's the only one with jumping over instant fucking kill pits while enemies jump fucking AT YOU so your jumps fuck up. Then they put limited lives in, so you lose a few of your lives easily on some fuckin bullshit jumping pit shit, and it's game fuck you. In the future Zelda games they nerfed this a ton where you'd jump into water before you had the ability to swim, and it would just teleport you back to land with some health missing, which is of course the purpose of having a health bar, to penalize you when you fuck up, not to just FUCKING LOOK PRETTY UP THERE and have absolutely no bearing on your survivability if you're just doing to be instantly killed by a ridiculous amount of hazards. The last two bosses will fuckin eat up 40% of your health in just one hit so they can kill you in a fuckin second just like Pete from Ray and Pete's Shut Up Little Man Adventures. It's sort of clear that the sword fighting system seen in future games was trying to be invented here, where you had your shield out in front of you, and you could block and attack low by ducking, and block high by standing normally. Trying to fight those fuckin Ironknuckle dudes like this is just impossible though, they'll shove their swords right up your ASS!!!!!!!!!! as you try to juggle duck with stand duck stand duck stand duck stand over and over for like 5 minutes just fighting one dude. If you do it with the block/stab system, which only sort of worked, and then later in the game there will be tons of enemies that can just blast right through your shield so who cares. The real way you're supposed to kill Ironknuckles is just by jumping and stabbing at their eye level, which is a lot faster and less sword fighty. So yeah, the main problem with this game is that it's too fuckin hard, and the hardness comes mostly from how they threw away a lot of the conventions of the first game, with natural exploration and doodling around the world, and turned it all into shit you just had to look up in Nintendo Power to get through. Perhaps if they made it a little more Contray, delete all the gay bottomless instant kill pits, and let you go up places with jumping that doesn't require a spell cast every time you change screens fuckin BOOLSHIT. Or really, the Metroid and Castlevania sequels ended up perfecting this style of play, where you side scroll through areas and power yourself up with leveling up and finding upgrades and such. 
The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past: This was probably the best game ever made when it came out. This might've been the first game with real atmosphere from like weather and shit. I remember playing a preview of this at some SNES games thing at the mall where they were previewing upcoming SNES games, such as Zelda 3 and Contra 3(!!!!!!!!!!!), and it was like holy shit. The beginning of Zelda 3 starts off with you jumping out of your house, and it's all rainy and storming outside, with sort of washed out muted music that implied adventure and sneaking around and potential danger. Back then that was enough to actually immerse you in the game. IT'S LIKE IT'S FOR REAL. Previous to that, the closest you'd get to immersion like that is in Super Mario Bros 3 in world 3 when you'd take the boat out to the isolated part of the water where there were just tiny islands, and listen to the music, which seemed tropical and yet waterful. Zelda kept it up with the dark world, and the dungeons that were so big that they'd actually take you back outside and then in again, and you'd collect tons of pieces of gear that again helped you play the game and weren't just required for singular puzzles like shitty assfuck Zelduh 2. Meanwhile, the environments were still pretty atmospheric even later into the game, with the use of what are now very simple fog effects, or areas that look windy, and such and such. The really excellent music contributed. I remember in the normal world, when you get the flippers, you can swim under the bridge to the sleeping guy who gives you a bottle. I wished there were more adventures involving hanging out under the bridge, like if you could catch fish or fuckin shit I don't know. I must've played this game for months though, because it was not only a huge game but was constantly fascinating and showing new original shit. But of course that is just my personal experience. If you've never played this game yourself, and just now went out and played it for the first time, you probably won't feel anything like this. 
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Adds jumping! 
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Much like Mario bringing games into the third dimension with polygons and third person perspective jumpan advenchurrrrs, Zelda 64 brought the 3D world type things into a huge world that you could flop around in, solving puzzles and fighting dudes, but all next gen loyk. The sword fighting system that they apparently wanted to incorporate into the game since Zelda 2 was made real in this game by giving you a button for blocking with your shield, while you just automatically lock on to enemies and circle around them chopping at will. By Wind Waker they had mastered this system and turned almost every fight into a sort of real sword fight. This was also probably THE most atmospheric game at the time, partially because it had the best graphics in game history as soon as it came out. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Does not allow saving. Unplayable. Also, you spend most of the game not as Link but as the deku seed kid version or some shit, or whatever masks you're wearing. I don't get it. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons: Capcom games. We already played Link's Awakening. Trying to squeeze the last life out of the Gameboy/Gameboy Color before the handhelds all go next gen. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker: Awesome cartoony. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Already wrote a review of this or something. It's good but incredibly huge amount of those "get this item to clear the obstacles first" puzzles, all over the place, at the beginning of the game. Which can have its own appeal. Also your hat shrinks you down and you can run around giant bookshelves and have adventures in tiny land. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: 8.8. 
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: A direct sequel to Wind Waker, where they replace sailing with a boat that actually fawkin drives. Uses the touchscreen exclusively, which is fine for everything EXCEPT doing rolls. They want you to draw circles on the edge of the screen to roll, and so as I run around Link will start rolling for no fucking reason, EVEN THOUGH I AM NOT MAKING ANY CIRCLES AT ALL. Anyway, the boat riding is much better and more streamlined, and you can actually fire your cannon WHILE MOVING. Woaaaaaaaa. This is a pretty fun game and Zelday all the way. The temple they make you keep having to return to does suck, especially because they add puzzles you can't get through yet without specific items, and yet you'll be staring at them thinking, am I supposed to do something with this yet? And the timer keeps running out and fuckin invincible enemies are running after you and your life starts draining and shit fuck YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crystalis: WOA THIS GAME IS AWESOME. 
 |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
