Life and Death According to Zelda :)

OMG OMG OMG! Dark Souls PC trailers. Have I mentioned that I am totally in love with this game and after playing through the game again this weekend it is officially my number 1 on my list of favorite games of all time; knocking down Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past to the number 2 spot. Defiantly will be buying this game again on PC. The new bosses is a bonus.

Why do I love Dark Souls so much? It hit all the right notes. It’s what the Legend of Zelda used to be before Ocarina of Time (OOT is 3rd on my list).

Zelda used to be a game with an opened world waiting to be explored. There was a sense of mystery as to what would be around the corner (or next screen as it scrolled). In the original Zelda games you could travel in any direction and the world would just unfold. One could get lost in the world and uncover dangerous dungeons and perilous caves. There was a minimalistic plot as you were just dropped in the middle of the adventure. It was up to you to explore the world and uncover mysteries in order to figure out how to achieve the goals of the quest. Zelda was once among the most challenging games of the time, especially Zelda II.

After Ocarina of Time the Legend of Zelda series became a gated story-driven experience. What you can and can’t do became a directed experience based on how far you advanced the story. So places and locations designated as totally off limits because the story says you can’t go there yet.

Sure, in the originals item collection was a big factor to allowing you to explore new places just as much as it is now. However, the originals never gated off entire areas at a time with a wall of black fog. The originals never had large open areas with nothing going on. In the original Zelda games every place had something going on whether it was enemy placement, secret caves, underground passages and NPCs with strange requests.

I love the Zelda series. It’s is my favorite series. However, I just miss the stuff that made the 2D games great that have been left out or diminished in the 3D incarnations. Being able obtain certain items at any point in the game that serves to vary things up in subsequent playthroughs is one. Most of these items required you to go out your way, more importantly explore, to find them. You had to be observant and have knowledge of how the game’s mechanics works.

One example is the Ice Rod in A Link to the Past. The Ice Rod is hidden in a cave that is quite off the path of your objectives and is necessary for a boss near the end of the game. However, you can obtain this item before then and with some experimentation (exploring the mechanics of the game) one will find out it makes a much earlier boss significantly easier. With further experimentation you will find it can be used in combination with another item to aid you further. Now that’s depth in gameplay!

Th average player will use the Ice Rod as intended, to beat the boss it needs to be used on. The smart play will find new uses for the item. However, the reason there is depth here is because the game rewards the smart player for finding that new way of using the item. That’s brilliant game design! The original Zelda games had alternative paths and alternative uses for items if one could find them. One could do certain dungeons before others and “sequence break.”

This is certainly missing from recent Zelda games. Sure the dungeons and puzzles are still brilliant. But there is only one way to do things in the current outings. It’s really missing that level depth that smart players will find and then tell their friends about.

When Link to the Past came out it was fun to talk about at school, secrets I found and shared with friends and ones they shared with me. There’s hardly any that of that stuff in the recent games. I am not really including Ocarina of Time and Major’s Mask as part of this because they had their secrets. Ocarina did have Skulltula, which was very rewarding, and the ability to deflect Phantom Ganon’s energy ball with the Bottle. And Major’s Mask was all about exploring and figuring out and finding secrets based on the whole Day cycle mechanic. But, Ocarina is when I first noticed a lot of things I loved about the older Zelda games were missing; namely challenge.

The original Legend of Zelda was a tough game. Zelda II was even harder. A Link to the Past was technically easier than it’s predecessors but still offered challenging enemies and bosses that you would die on.

So why am I talking about Zelda in relation to to Dark Souls? As I mentioned above, it what Zelda used to be. It has all those traits I mentioned that is missing from current Zelda games. It’s a pure video game experience which is very rare in this age of gaming. There is nothing like it, yet it hits the same notes I experienced when playing the Zelda games for the first time when they came out. Much how there was nothing like the Legend of Zelda games when each came out (up to Ocarina of Time) there is nothing like Dark Souls. Indeed the foundation of Dark Souls was laid out in Demon’s Souls, but most would agree that Dark Soul is it’s own unique beast.

What I like about Dark Souls is it’s a video game first and knows it. It’s modern with all the old school video game sensibilities, 8-bit and 16-bit era. It does not get bogged down in scripted cutscenes, dialogue, story and quick time events. It’s a pure game and a hardcore one at that. Very hard to come by a game like that these days.

Found some of my old games in a box. Good times. Now got to find my N64 and Snes. Thinking about playing some Final Fantasy 3 (yeah I know it’s FF6) at least.

Mostly when you consider the challenging puzzles along with the combat. Not to mention heart drop rate is very low in this game. Yeah at the final boss, and I have to go back to town to bring proper equipment and potions. Never thought I would ever have to do that in a Zelda game.

Hero mode seems like its going to be a pain in the ass. Can’t wait!

Geez! Took me a while to beat him. Have not fought a boss this tough in a Zelda game since A Link to the Past. I think this boss was harder though.

I was so doubtful after the first few hours, but man does it pick up.

They are fantastic! To anyone that says they don’t work is out of their freakin mind.

My first impressions of Skyward Sword after two hours. More later when I play further.

I just spent 10 minutes rolling pots across the floor! LOL! Loving the motion controls.

It comes with the silly Wii-mote condom attached.

My body is ready!

Cowboys vs Redskins! LOL naw! The next installment of Zelda comes out tomorrow. I will be playing mostly all day, and doing some videos for my youtube channel. Most likely first impressions of each new area, maybe Heart piece and Goddess Cube locations. Originally was going to do a full playthrough, but that crap takes too long and everybody on youtube does playthroughs anyway.

Not to mention playthroughs do not pay that much on youtube unless you spam a crap load of videos. Not to mention the copyright issues if you are not doing constant commentary; and there will be lulls.  But really, who actually sits there and watches someone play through an entire game that he or she should be playing themselves?

What pays on youtube is to make content out of the game footage that no one else is doing, which is tricky.

I’ve done only two videos so far for Skyrim and made some money because it got waaaaaaaay more views than my all playthrough videos combined. So yeah 100+ videos at 15 minutes each which accumulate to an entire game playthrough is not worth it. Especially when compared to a single 2 minute video that can achieve far greater success.

Speaking of Skyrim and youtube, I should be working on my next video. I have to finish my outline, then film and commentate more gameplay. But, I have Zelda on the brain to the point I have not had the urge to play some more Skyrim.

I guess I’ll try to chip away at that.

Link does the moonwalk! Skyward Sword glitch.

For PC or Mac.

Basically after beating Skyward Sword you are able to start a second playthrough that is a lot harder. I’m very excited about this. I will record a full playthrough of this and upload to youtube.

A full normal mode playthough just does not seem as interesting to me since most people will be playing the game in that mode anyway. I will still capture any interesting side quests or heart container locations as well as first impressions of the game.

• Enemies do double damage
• There are no heart drops or heart flowers (unless you have a particular medal equipped which gives you a very small chance of getting a heart drop)
• The Sheikah Stone gives you all the hint clips from the beginning
• A bunch of NPCs acknowledge the fact that you’re playing in Hero Mode and let you skip certain tutorials/explanations

Good stuff though. Especially about the double damage and no heart drops. If you do not already know, Skyward Sword enemies take off a minimum of one heart damage. This is unlike in past 3D Zelda games where enemies would deal a quarter to a half heart of damage. The damage dealt to Link in Skyward Sword is so much greater than previous Zelda games that you start out with 6 hearts instead of the standard 3. The minimum health was changed to keep the early game balanced and feel the same as earlier Zelda games, but also allow the game to remain somewhat of a challenge as you gain more heart containers.

One of the problem of enemies taking a quarter heart of damage in past Zelda games is, while the early game felt fine in difficulty, the later parts became trivial at about 12+ hearts. Thus there is no incentive of getting 20 hearts, unless you are a completionist or beating Cave of Ordeals in Twilight Princess.

Also, there is no ability to pause the action via opening menus like in past Zelda games. Selecting items and potions in your inventory is done in real time.

Speaking of potions, the game does not freeze enemies during the drink animation. Therefore, drinking a potion is risky because you are venerable to enemy attacks.

There is an item upgrade system and potion crafting in Skyward System, so this Hero Mode could prove to add quite amount more depth and replay value to the game.

There is so much potential in hero mode to make it more challenging. For example, since there is no heart drops, you could do a one heart (take damage until you are at one heart) and no potion challenge with no deaths. Stuff like that.

Can’t wait. Skyrim will keep me busy until then!