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.

It took me 35 hours to beat and I did not one side quest (I did look for goddess cubes) because they are have always been kind of pointless, to me at least, to beating the game. A side note to that, I wish I had did some side quests to get more bottles because more bottles would of helped a lot in this game.

I must say Zelda is one of my favorite series, I’ve played every game during their original releases. Skyward Sword does a few things that are the best in the series, and some things that are the worst in the series.

Best:

Dungeons

puzzles

challenge/difficulty

stuff to buy with rupees 

bosses

mini-bosses

pre-dungeon stuff*
There is this part where you obtain a small key in a certain way. Simple but very cool “Only Nintendo” moment.

*There are a few exceptions here that will be hit or completely miss with some players. Like the swimming for music notes part. That part is complete trash, partly because the point it comes in the game and mostly the controls. But, for the most part I thought the variety was refreshing.

Worst:

Navi-like helper (Fi)

The amount of hand holding and repeating stuff that stops the game dead in its tracks. Basically, unnecessary padding *

Music (its great, but not catchy like you would expect from a Zelda game)

Overworld; while mostly fine in the context of the game, it makes the seamlessness this series is known for non-existant.

NPC quirkyness

Villain

*Sometimes you are reminded in three different ways via cutscene, NPC, and Fi. But then a few times you get the classic LoZ/LA/LttP puzzle hint that is vague and cryptic that tests if you were paying attention; 30 hours ago in one case lol. I love the latter because it’s classic Zelda. Otherwise, some stuff truly does pad the game, even though it can still be considered fun. An example would be the Silent Realm with an explanation each time and a reminder when you picked up an item you have already gotten. But I think Nintendo made this game with their non-hardcore Wii audience in mind because it would be less annoying to someone who plays games 2 hours a week as oppose to 8 hour a day stretches.


About controls:
Now the controls are mostly fine if you have an optimal setup for them. The intro may be a little too long for veteran Zelda players, but they had to make it that way because they are forcing a new control on everybody. You are suppose to take your time and play around with it. With that in mind the intro is fine and certainly better than Twilight Princess.

Swimming is ass. It works until you get in a narrow space and need to turn. The jumping out of water onto a platform is stupid most of the time. Phil will hate this, I think. The music note part especially.

The game is really challenging though. Most of the game I was running around with 1 to 4 hearts because I got wrecked. Not Dark Souls difficulty of course, but challenging enough to keep you on your toes. That reminds me of another thing. Drop rates for hearts, rupees, and arrows are low in this game. So collecting rupees is fun because there is stuff to spend them on they will actually help you out like potions. Can’t wait to play the harder difficulty where enemies do more damage and there are no heart drops to save your ass. The boss rush in the harder difficulty will be insane.

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.

That had to be the most creative ways to obtain a small key in any of the Zelda games! It’s one of those simple things that hits you a moment later and you can’t help but note how freakin cool it was.

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.

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.