You are Zelda's...
November 26, 2013 3:38 PM   Subscribe

 
Your poor old uncle said 'Zelda is your...'. The best part of this is that I could load the game on my phone to check it. Looks like a meaty post: off to read!
posted by ersatz at 3:46 PM on November 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Shit. Thanks for clarifying!
posted by timshel at 3:48 PM on November 26, 2013


Confession: I have never seen Blade Runner.

Only tangentially related to the thread, I know. I just realized talking with a friend who was wearing a Zelda shirt that for all I know about the film from the volumes I have read about it, I have never actually seen it.
posted by mediocre at 4:00 PM on November 26, 2013


Nintendo just released a direct sequel to A Link to the Past for the 3DS. I was kind of wary because their portable Zelda games have recently been very mediocre, but this one is getting really good reviews. I just wish I wasn't already in the middle of so many games already...

I liked A Link to the Past but my favorite Zelda will always be Link's Awakening. It's the only one that had a story that I actually got into.
posted by zixyer at 4:07 PM on November 26, 2013


Soejima: In the beginning, there were only dungeons without an overworld.
I like how portentous that sounds.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:08 PM on November 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


The unfortunate part about the A Link to the Past sequel is that moving from 2D pixel art to 3D polygons means it's kind of ugly. I understand why they did it, but yuck.
posted by 2bucksplus at 4:09 PM on November 26, 2013


Actually, I am quite fond of the artwork in A Link to the Past. It reminds me of Super Nintendo, I guess, probably my favourite Nintendo platform. I love that game and recently introduced it to my son.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:14 PM on November 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think pixel art will always look better than 3D polygons, and A Link to the Past has some of my favorite pixel art of any game.

I agree that A Link Between Worlds doesn't look the greatest, but they made some compromises on the level of detail to make it a 60 fps game. Apparently it looks pretty good in motion, but not so much in screenshots.
posted by zixyer at 4:21 PM on November 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


ersatz: "Your poor old uncle said 'Zelda is your...'."

Yeah, but if it's any consolation, "You are Zelda's…" is a far more accurate (and thus less misleading) translation.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:21 PM on November 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm back after reading the links (and playing a bit of Spelunky). ALTTP took 2 years to plan and one to produce and I think this chimes with what the program director says:

Nakago: I’m the program director, Nakago. Beyond the obvious selling points, I think this game’s forte is that there’s nothing throughout the whole game that’s been overlooked. It’s very dense and very complete.

I remember that having the guards drawn to the sounds of battle seemed very smart. I knew that Bow Wows were made for Zelda, but not that these spinning fire bars from Mario were also made for Zelda.

And for the scoop of the interview: Kondo: …I’m really proud of the chicken noises.

As we all are.

Nintendo just released a direct sequel to A Link to the Past for the 3DS. I was kind of wary because their portable Zelda games have recently been very mediocre

I swear that DS game where Link is a train driver is actually fun. The Minish Cap was very good if you didn't mind sidequests and that Wind Waker sequel was a bit bland and had that dungeon you had to complete again and again. The final boss fight was brilliant, but I have no idea how the implementation of that repeating dungeon got through Nintendo's playtesters.

Also, OP you are in London, so you win the prestigious 1 Free Beer by ersatz award since you posted this in November and it can't compete for best post.
posted by ersatz at 4:59 PM on November 26, 2013


So, ya gotta be blood type A if you want to hang with Miyamoto, eh?
posted by umberto at 5:01 PM on November 26, 2013


ersatz: "I swear that DS game where Link is a train driver is actually fun."

I am vehemently opposed to anyone who refers to it as anything other than The Legend of Zelda: Soul Train.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:37 PM on November 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


When you hit the walls with your sword, they normally make a “ting ting” sound, but walls that can be broken make a hollow sound.

I always wondered why Link can do this. If I recall correctly, you can tap the walls with your sword by charging up for a spin attack and walking into a wall before releasing the button.

Having spent many hours in the original Legend of Zelda randomly torching shrubs and bombing cliffsides while hoping to find secrets, I can see why they opted to make secrets visually obvious.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:07 PM on November 26, 2013


Oh geez Target's selling a fancy Triforce 3DS XL bundle with A Link Between Worlds on Black Friday for $150. I might have to break my flawless Black Friday sale avoidance streak and get my first current-gen handheld since the Game Gear.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:09 PM on November 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


But on the other hand, there is something to be said (and in the past, I've certainly said it) for making secrets more obscure, especially if they aren't necessary to advance in the game. There is a school of thought that goes that adding those cracks to bombable walls is the beginning of the decline of the Zelda series. That might be going a little far (or maybe it isn't there are certainly times when I feel that way), but it remains that the original game certainly has a lot more interesting and optional things to find, and it doesn't feel as much like there's a designer back there dropping hints.
posted by JHarris at 6:16 PM on November 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


The original game was also helped by being pre-Internet, because that plus the hidden secrets meant amazing playground lore. All those kids claiming they found some incredible secret and giving elaborate (and inevitably false) directions on how to find the right tile to bomb or bush to burn.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:22 PM on November 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Tezuka: Aside from the map zoom, there weren’t too many things that showed off the capabilities of the Super Nintendo. I would’ve liked to have done something a little more shocking.


I guess it goes to show that I'm the end, it's not that important to whizbang it up with some platform-specific feature.
posted by ignignokt at 7:00 PM on November 26, 2013


The original game was also helped by being pre-Internet, because that plus the hidden secrets meant amazing playground lore. All those kids claiming they found some incredible secret and giving elaborate (and inevitably false) directions on how to find the right tile to bomb or bush to burn.

Oh god. You know, it's sad, but video games from my childhood are one of the few things that I miss so bad it hurts.
posted by stoneandstar at 10:01 PM on November 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


Oh god. You know, it's sad, but video games from my childhood are one of the few things that I miss so bad it hurts.

Same here. I can't think too much about lying on my bed as a kid with my Mario & Zelda sheets and drawing creatures from NES manuals in my school notebooks without this aching feeling of a lost sense of "home".

My favorite childhood video game memory was a summer week spent getting intensely into Battle of Olympus with a friend. We each had a copy, and we were pretty much keeping pace with each other, only taking breaks to call each other and nerd out about the past few hours of gameplay. I think the last time that "play for hours and then gush breathlessly on the phone" thing happened for me was Shadows of the Empire.

I always thought Battle of Olympus was hugely underrated and deserved to be remembered as one of the classics of the NES era, it was a Zelda II clone but differentiated itself enough to stand apart, it had Castlevania-like elements, some ideas here and there that would only come to the Zelda series years later, and the kind of epic feel that only the best NES adventure titles had - Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metroid, Castlevania, Kid Icarus.

It was diabolically hard in places, even more so than Zelda II could be, but back then that usually just meant I'd be glued to it until I could beat it, as long as the difficulty wasn't due to broken controls - nowadays I don't have the same patience for overly-difficult games, but I don't know if I've changed or something about the games has. It seems like in older games the difficulty was less about fast-twitch reaction times and more about strategy and paying attention to enemy movement and attack patterns, and it felt a little like dancing when you got in the zone, but nowadays increased difficulty is usually all about split-second timing and feels a little like DDR - the difference between dancing and a game about dancing.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:39 AM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


I remember what a thrill I felt when I killed the Boss and realized I had a whole new game with a quirkier puzzle. (I used to make maps on graph paper to help keep me oriented...I didn't trust the map room.)

My son was about five then, and Zelda was his first serious puzzle. His Mario Bro series was more like a playground romp.
posted by mule98J at 12:08 PM on November 27, 2013


A Link Between Worlds is really, really good. If you haven't seen it in 3D- only seen it in 2D video/screenshot- arrange to see it in 3D at a demo unit or with a friend's copy. The difference between the graphics in 2D and 3D is night and day. The game was very, very much made to be played in 3D and doesn't look right otherwise.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:00 PM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


Missed the fancy Zelda 3DS but I wasn't going to wait in that crazy Black Friday line for nothing, so I snagged a regular 3DS at the same sale price and bought the new Zelda off the eStore when I got home - and it's so good so far. All those reviews weren't kidding. And yeah, it looks waaay better in 3D than the screenshots would lead you to believe, and the way a sense of depth is such a big part of the feel of the design means it's not just 3D for 3D's sake.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:52 PM on November 28, 2013


RonButNotStupid: "I always wondered why Link can do this. If I recall correctly, you can tap the walls with your sword by charging up for a spin attack and walking into a wall before releasing the button."

Not all bombable areas have visible rubble telegraphing "bomb me." You could say that the visibly obvious ones are about teaching the player that bombs can not only hurt enemies, but destroy some walls. There are others that are only detectable via acoustics / deduction. Going back to 1986 style 'candle every tree you see' secrets are basically a lottery, and therefore something of a step backwards in game design.
posted by pwnguin at 6:43 PM on November 30, 2013


I disagree pwnguin, but my disagreement is more along the lines that there should be more subtle ways of cluing in secrets. Checking every square is the fallback of last resort.

Actually, there are some things that make finding secrets easier in the original Zelda than you represent. Often it's a significant tree or rock that can be burnt/bombed, and there's never more than one secret on each screen.

I believe there are a handful of non-marked bomb walls in Link to the Past, but I tried looking for one I thought I found a while back (on the outer wall of the level below the boss in Hera's Tower) and didn't find it, so I'm not sure if I misremembered it. I do know there is at least one bomb wall that doesn't register as hollow when tapped with the sword -- the one in the small building in the southwest corner of Kakariko Village.

One of the guiding stars I use in my recognition of the usefulness of this kind of design is classic D&D adventures, where if you read them, there are often all kinds of cool hidden things that most players will never find, there specifically to reward the small number of players who look. This kind of thing is woefully lacking in video game design, partly because of the ubiquity of FAQs, but also because players have gotten it into their head that they have to "100%" the game to truly complete it.
posted by JHarris at 6:57 PM on November 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I got A Link Between Worlds on Thursday and I'm loving it.

It's obvious that Aonuma took a lot of the criticisms of recent Zelda games to heart. There's pretty much no handholding. You can go almost anywhere very early in the game, and you can complete most of the dungeons in any order. There aren't huge plot-dumping cutscenes. It's even possible to miss some details if you don't talk to the people who you obviously should be talking to at that point in the story (which I think is great). And I think streamlining the item system really did a lot to make the dungeons less formulaic.

There are a couple things I don't like. I wish they had gotten Koizumi to write the scenario for this one. He's the only one that has ever achieved the ideal tone for a Zelda game (for me). This one has a lot of story elements and characters that feel like they don't belong. I hope Nintendo gives him more plot driven projects in the future. The writing for Mario Galaxy and Link's Awakening was some of the best that Nintendo's ever done, and it's a shame to put him on games like 3D World that have no story.

I also can't believe how awkward item switching is, especially on a system with a touch screen, which should make it very simple. I'm loathe to play backseat UI designer, because I'm sure they had reasons for doing it the way they did, but the interaction for assigning items should only take two taps: 1) touch button icon on screen 2) touch item to assign. You wouldn't even need to pause the game.

The interface that they provide instead takes three screen taps and a button press, and it pauses the game. They also have an alternate interface that doesn't pause the game, but it's even more awkward.
posted by zixyer at 12:41 AM on December 1, 2013 [4 favorites]


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