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OoT Zelink my beloved ♥️
#Replaying oot on my 3DS#I love what these two got going on#You can't tell me Link isn't in love with herrrr#Even when she was disguised as Sheik he always kind of KNEW I just know it#They're both super hot too they deserve eachother#doodles rants#Tloz#Oot#tloz oot#zelink
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The first time you played Ocarina of Time, did you figure out how to get these cuccos in Kakariko Village by yourself, or did you have to use a guide?
Reblog for a wider sample ✌️
#zelda#legend of zelda#legend of zelda ocarina of time#ocarina of time#tloz#loz#oot#cuccos#cucco lady#lost cuccos#a talking cat#i want to know because eddie is replaying oot for the first time and struggled to remember how to get these#and said he needed a guide the first time#and so did i#also using 3d screenshots bc those are the ones zelda dungeon had and i dont feel like pulling 64 shots from my switch rn
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Now that you've mentioned it, I'm curious how'd you'd rank the Zelda games minigames from best to worst
That would be entirely too many minigames to do individually, especially from memory since I haven't played most of these games in years. I can go by individual title though, ignoring the ones that don't have minigames in the usual sense (the NES games, both Four Swords games, Tri Force Heroes) and also Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom because I never actually played the latter and because my frustrations with both are on a much deeper conceptual level. I do recall BotW having some obnoxious minigames though, involving horses I believe. I'm not counting as well any minigames that offer only minor rewards that don't contribute to 100% completion, because those can be safely ignored.
Rating is out of 10 based on how obnoxious they are, with 1 being perfectly manageable and 10 being so annoying that they actively discourage me from replaying those games.
A Link to the Past - 2/10
The only really notable ones are the treasure chest game and the digging game, both of which are pure RNG and thus can be save-scummed. They're also in the Dark World so you shouldn't be strapped for money when you play them which is nice.
Link's Awakening - 1/10 for the original/DX, 4/10 for the Switch
On the Game Boy (Color) the fishing, crane, and river rapids games are all simple one-and-done affairs if you know what you're doing. The Switch remake however adds a bunch of new mechanics and rewards to all of them which makes them more annoying and time-consuming. There are rare fish to save-scum for, a realistic physics engine to make the crane more finicky, and a rapids race that requires precise maneuvering to get its best stuff. I'm not counting the Chamber Dungeons as a minigame because that's basically a separate mode unto itself...and also because they're usually pretty fun.
Ocarina of Time - 8/10
Not off to a great start for 3D Zelda. The gravedigging "tour" is pure luck, Bombchu bowling is also RNG-reliant, the treasure chest game is only not a nightmare because you can cheese it later on with the Lens of Truth, and the shooting challenges are serviceable at best. It's the fishing hole that truly lands OoT this score though, because it's the perfect storm of awful: partially luck-based, finicky mechanics, and actually physically painful at times on account of how hard and for how long you have to hold the analog stick to reel the big fish in. Oh, and you have to beat it twice, and the second time is harder!
Majora's Mask - 3/10
Surprisingly manageable and even fun in places, like the beaver races and the shooting galleries even if they require perfect scores. The horse and Goron races have issues with rubber band AI, the hitboxes in some of Honey and Darling's games can be stingy, the treasure chest game is (again) mostly RNG...but MM somehow makes all of these not so bad in their own ways, perhaps to compensate for the constant stress of the ticking clock. If I had to pick a worst one it might be the jumping minigame in Great Bay, because it takes a while to reach and the camera is liable to screw you over. The dog race is mostly luck-based, but at least it takes very little time and can be somewhat cheesed with the Mask of Truth. I am absolutely not counting the fishing hole added in the 3DS remake, because it's not required for 100% and because screw fishing in particular.
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons - 6/10
Sort of unfair lumping them together since Ages has all the really bad ones, but these two have always been a package deal. The baseball game is hard to get down precisely and also has a fair amount of RNG, the seed shooter game also requires some exact shots, and while both have dancing minigames Ages is the only one that takes into account timing. Making all this worse are the Oracle games' randomized ring system...plus a whole lot of randomized other things (Maple, Gasha trees) that aren't exactly minigames but still make these titles really annoying to revisit. Huh...I just noticed that "Gasha" sounds like "gacha"; were gacha games even a thing in 2001, or were Nintendo and Capcom just extremely ahead of the curve?
The Wind Waker - 5/10
Has some real nuisances, like the battleship game (RNG), the Flight Control Platform (precision gliding), and sword training (endurance). Much like my feelings on BotW however, it's not really the minigames that make me dread replaying WW so much as its various other headaches - many of which were addressed in the HD remake, granted, but they're still there.
The Minish Cap - 2/10
Another one where it's not really about the minigames. The only mandatory one I can even recall was catching cuccos, and a lot of that comes down to item progression later in the game. Kinstones are the real pain in MC, but even they're not so tough to find that you have to rely on minigames to get them.
Twilight Princess - 2/10
Same rating as MC, but for very different reasons. For me it's quite similar to MM in that there are a bunch of minigames but most of them are either inoffensive or actively enjoyable, and without the in-game time limit they're less stressful too. Snow sledding, popping balloons, the Clawshot cage games...all pretty fun. The only ones that stick out in my mind as not great are either quickly handled (goat wrangling, sumo wrestling) or are just boring (bombing pots on the river). Note however that this ranking would have been higher if I'd gone solely off my initial impressions from the Wii version. Having played the Gamecube and later HD versions afterward, I can safely say that, as always, motion controls make everything worse.
Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks - 9/10
The touch screen controls are bad enough, but I can distinctly recall both of these games also having some downright awful minigames. Hourglass has fishing and a merciless shooting gallery, Tracks has the whip race and the pirate shooting game, and both have stuff like another WW-style training endurance test and randomized part prizes making everything worse. I have very few good memories of either of these games, honestly; all their good bits get drowned out by the clunky controls and the miserable optional content.
Skyward Sword - 7/10
Again, motion controls suck - but at least the HD remaster fixed most of that, and in both versions a good number of the minigames are optional even by my standards. There are still some extremely bothersome ones here though. Fun Fun Island is very much not, the minecart race isn't the most responsive and the pumpkin shooting game can be very grating until you nail the exact way to (sort of) cheese it. I actually switched this ranking with OoT's as I was writing this, because I remembered how much losing the motion controls redeems the experience of this game. Still by no means a favorite, but at least I want to come back to it sometimes now.
A Link Between Worlds - 5/10 normally, 10/10 if you count the giant cucco
Fittingly, it's LttP but more of it - including more annoyances. There's still the RNG-dependent ones, but there's also now a racing game that requires some fairly precise movements as well as a finicky baseball game. The rupee-gathering games are now more about having a stopwatch on hand, but phones can cover that. The cucco-dodging game is a real pain and bumped the rating up a full point, but note that I am never in my life attempting to survive for 1000 seconds (that's over sixteen and a half minutes!) to get the giant cucco in the end credits. Even completionists have to know where to draw the line.
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As I age and replay through the Zelda games I realize that I have opinions on them that aren't always the popular ones, so I'll just rate them here and explain later.
At the very bottom of my list is the games that I have barely played and are just there.
Zelda 2 and Phantom Hourglass, I played them once years ago and for like two hours max.
Next is one the only zelda game I hate! Triforce Heros, I hate it that's my review of it. It's one of the only games I have played that replaying it worsened my opinion off it. I did not finish it on my rerun.
OoT(3DS), it's low on the list and I will not apologize for it. Not a big fan of it. Getting Epona always piss me off, the forest temple always annoy me and the gold skulltula quest is not worth finishing.
The wild Era of Zelda (BotW & TotK). It's not that I don't like them It's that they don't feel like zelda games. But overall I do like them but less than the rest.
Wind Waker(GameCube), love it but it as it's problems. It would be higher but it's a bit too grindy and at time stupidly difficult for no reasons (looking at you Orca, like really 500 hit for one heart piece?!), and puppet Ganon is horid.
A Link between worlds, it's great! I did not enjoy it the first time but I was also not good at games then. I got it when it released played through it in one go and didn't touch it for years (until last year) and after replaying it I really liked it, but some of the mini games leave to be desired.
Skyward Sword, I have both versions and I love them both! I will say it the motions controls were quite good and the side quests were fine, no there isn't too many side quests. The part I did not like was Demise fight I didn't understood how it worked but love Girahim.
Hyrule Warrior's (DE), I have played all three versions, I have played and replayed this game so many time and I never get tired. Love Volga the most out of the new characters (I'm a dragon person, like I have a collection of dragon statues and plushies) and Wizro the least.
Majora's Mask(3DS), I LOVE MM, it's my favorite one, I just need to hear the music to want to play it again and I will play it again. I always 100% it, the quests are just so good and the story is also really good and weird. But fuck Snowhead temple it's always the one temple I'm not exited to replay. I always forget the Ikanna well.
I am currently replaying TP I'll give my thoughts on it when I'm done with it. And I'll make post to go in depth on my thoughts on the other games too.
#the legend of zelda#twilight princess#hyrule warriors#ocarina of time#majora's mask#a link between worlds#skyward sword#breath of the wild#tears of the kingdom#wind waker#triforce heroes
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you know i wouldn't consider Ocarina of Time one of my top fave Zeldas. and i still hold the belief that people who consider it The Greatest Zelda of All Time while valid in their opinion are kinda overhyping it. but it's an incredibly beautiful little game and i'm really glad that i took the time to replay it with the 3DS version. it was super nice to revisit it as an adult that's way more familiar with the series and can really get the fullest out of OoT because of that. :)
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A LINK TO THE PAST!!!! I love and adore this game so much. I love and adore my little pink son he's so sweet despite witnessing some fucked up things. This is one of my favorite spreads, I love the color combination I chose plus the stickers are really cute :').
I bought two different sticker sheets: The pixel inventory stickers are by Comstock Cafe The chibi/character collection is by Pashmakshop
Writing typed below!
Rating: 8.5 Played: Fa 2022 Port: SNES Switch Online
Comments
I am so glad the switch has save points
I love that Ravio is dressed as dark world link, also glad I played ALBW first!
Harder to figure out in between dungeon objectives
I love how this is the game that is the origin of human Ganon
The game is a lot more cryptic than intuitive
Flute boy is so dark but also so interesting
Moldorm was so annoying
oh Link is the last of the Hylian knights
yay new decrease damage armor! idk why the hat isn't also blue
i think turtle rock island was at the lake in ALBW ... interesting
when you start the game, why do you start with 1/2 health?
I'm still surprised the 7 sages were originally the 7 maidens
i hate ice dungeons T-T
the design of ganon's tower is really cool
omfg the mirror shield is so big it covers most of link's face
i like the bunny beam
you can see all the insp ALTTP had on OOT
i think the blue and red mail should be farther apart (play time wise)
omfg the lynels are terrifyingly fast T-T
LMAO vulture recap
THANK GOD NO DEAD MAN'S VOLLEY AHHHHH
Ganon's tower is SO LONG
oh? talking directly to the triforce essence? interesting
UNCLE ISN'T DEAD? AHHHHH
Sumary:
I can see why this game is so popular, it revolutionized the Zelda franchise. It is still a pretty cryptic game at times, but it was a lot of fun and very charming. There was amazing character and world designs, the artists absolutely killed it. I love how this game was the origin to a lot of things for the future: human Ganon, the ocarina, the dark world, the lost woods (although it was technically in zelda 1), ahhh it's so cool. I'm glad ALBW changed and improved on many things, giving more depth to the dark world, but I will say both have their fair share of annoying bosses. I hope Nintendo will continue to expand on the dark world in the future, especially because it's never been 3D. What a very charming game, I think I might replay it in the future since it's such a short game. I'm excited to finish the rest of the 2D games!
#journalsouppe#bullet journal#journal#tloz#legend of zelda#loz#the legend of zelda#zelda journal#a link to the past#alttp
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loz. which one had the best gameplay and which one had the best story in your opinion (+ worst of these too if you want?)
i hope you know how difficult of a question this is to answer concisely. not just because i have so much love in my heart for all of these games and it's impossible to pick a favorite but because i can be so petty sometimes. 1 million opinions under the cut
storywise i think wind waker is the strongest. i love the themes of it explores and the rich history of the world (especially now that i'm replaying it with the context of oot), i love the individuality of all the characters, i love how there's a clear throughline of motivation for link through the entire game. skyward sword is also really good, it's more focused on interpersonal connections and it has sort of the opposite approach to history and prophecy and it's neat!
i feel like the clear choice for worst story is triforce heroes which i don't think even other triforce heroes fans will disagree with, it's incredibly shallow by design and wasn't really MEANT to hold up at all. it's supposed to be silly! it's supposed to be not even secondary but tertiary to the cool puzzles and dress-up!
so my true worst story will be tears of the kingdom. it might have been good if the game had been designed around it more, but as-is it's a linear storyline stuffed into an open-world game, all the important story beats are cutscenes you watch that link and the player aren't even involved in, you can spoil the entire storyline for yourself just by viewing a single memory out of order, it's SUPER repetitive with the sages, and you can't use the information you actually learn until the "appropriate" part in the story. everything with the arm also makes me SO MAD, the very first thing i thought of with him waking up to it was how fucked up and traumatic that would be, and then i saw a post that said "yeah they literally grafted a dead hand to me irl without my consent and it was extremely fucked up and traumatic and this scene and all the focus on this arm following it was really triggering". and then they bullshit regrow his whole entire arm at the end. cowards. let link be an amputee, you don't even have an excuse of "but the gameplay" because the game is OVER and you even OUTRIGHT said you aren't going to put this one in more games. the only high point of this story is the light dragon and i love her. but she is not enough sorry
ANYWAY i think a link between worlds is still the absolute best in terms of gameplay. it's just so smooth and quick and snappy, you can get really creative with how you do fights and progression too! totk has similar levels of creativity and freedom which is neat.
for 3d games, skyward sword wii has some of the worst gameplay purely due to the control scheme, the motion control is somehow both oversensitive and imprecise and almost every enemy requires you to react quickly and slash in a specific direction... it adds up to a really bad experience. the switch version helped a lot just thanks to the joycons being more accurate and being able to recalibrate on the fly
twilight princess is honestly a slog to get through imo. it has the "huge, empty overworld" problem that absolutely every 3d zelda game has, but without access to at-will fast travel for the first half of the game until you get the master sword, and there don't even seem to be any shortcuts between areas like in ocarina of time?? or any way to pass the time between day and night? the main things i remember from playing twipri are spending ages running across hyrule field to get somewhere, spending ages waiting just outside kakariko village for it to become daytime so i can go in the shop, spending ages CLOMP CLOMP CLOMPing across the magnetic ceiling in my big metal boots in the goron mines long after the novelty of walking on the ceiling has worn off...
the worst gameplay in the top-down zelda games is unfortunately the gb/gbc games (link's awakening, oracle of seasons, and oracle of ages) having two buttons total for your sword, interacting with things, and ALL items in a lttp-style gameplay where you're constantly rotating between different items... it's not user friendly! which sucks because the dungeons are really good, and LAHD proved what a big difference it makes to have extra buttons to bind to and a little bit of extra polish... OOA and OOS really need the remake treatment. also, i didn't have any particular problems with it when i played, but shoutouts to the mermaid's dungeon in oracle of ages for having the single worst level design i've seen in any video game ever
(shoutouts also to zelda 2, for having such different gameplay from every other game in the franchise that i don't have any idea how to rank it)
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A dumb quick sketch for the 25th anniversary of oot cause this game means a lot to me. Plus to practice on young link a bit. Might draw some young links to practice.
Idk how to describe why I like it, but it was one of my first Zelda games along side Twilight Princess on the wii. I played the 3ds version and remember getting stuck on dodongo’s cavern (cause I was 9 year old idiot) and later used a guide to get through the game and I completed the game, and replayed it so many times I forgot how many times. (I have a problem I know) but I love this game so much and it made me love the Zelda series. It’s a game that helped during tough times when I was stressed, and depressed and had su1c1dal thoughts.
In a nutshell I just love it and I cry man. And go crazy over my favorite games.
Again I’m terrible at explaining shit.
#my art#oot link#ocarina of time#quick sketch#also brought us the legend that is the hero of time best link in my opinion#I draw him way too much#he’s cool and (sexy) how could I not
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I got two anons in regards to Zelda.
I'm going to answer them here to maintain spoilers. So spoilers below for Totk.
I'm of two minds about totk's story, personally. Keeping it vague for spoiler reasons, I think the twist with Zelda was a really cool idea, and the final boss was a really grand spectacle that made for a great finale. The new characters, Rauru and Sonia, were welcome additions too, but getting the memories out of order slightly ruins the impact, and I think the scenes in the past should have been playable instead. I love this take on Ganon, but I think his motives should have been explored more.
So, my own thoughts on your specific thoughts.
I personally found the dragon thing.... dumb. It doesn't feel like it belongs in a Zelda game. A friend of mine and I always discuss how much we hated it, haha. But I understand why others like it.
The human side of the final boss was great! The dragon was dumb. But that was because I found the entire dragon concept incredibly dumb.
Rauru and Sonia are.... fine. They aren't really anything special, imo. We don't really get to know them. They are just... nice. That's pretty much their only defining personality trait. I don't hate them or anything, I just don't find them anything special either.
This Ganon is.... meh. He's pretty stupid. He literally leaves Stones out in the open and doesn't take them for some reason. That's dumb villain behavior. His motivation is slightly more clear in the Japanese - He thinks peace makes people weak and he wants people strong. So... that's it, really. I just wish they gave him a Trident and not a samurai sword. Where is my Trident, Nintendo? That's literally his thing, you even had it in the OG teaser trailer! Character-wise, he's no more special than OoT Ganon, except OoT Ganon is actually given screen time to build a rivalry with Link. And was actually a more successful Ganon than this one.
To be frank, I found there to be very little to enjoy from this game's narrative. It's so sloppy, childish (note, I don't mean for a younger audience either, I mean it's like a 9 year old wrote it), and devoid of anything meaningful. The only thing I can recall truly loving was when Dragonroost Island theme kicked in during the Rito boss fight. And that made me tear up a little. And only because of WW, not because of BotW.
To be clear, I enjoyed my time with the game on the whole. But the only reason I plan to replay it is because I want to make a video explaining every microscopic detail as to why this game's story was poorly conceived.
In hindsight, I feel like Botw was to Zelda what FFXV was to Final Fantasy; games that changed the direction of their respective series for better or worse and given Aonuma's whole thing about the previous 3D zeldas being "restrictive", I think we're stuck with the botw/totk formula for a long time.
We are. I'm not exactly.... opposed to the open-world design. I just don't think they figured it out yet.
I know so many people think BotW and Totk are perfected open-world games. To me, a perfect open-world game doesn't look like what these two games gave me.
Here is what I want from the next Zelda game.
A narrative that adapts to the players actions, so the choices we make matter more
A smaller map but at least 8 dungeons. The dungeons should not require an entire sequence to enter, but can be wandered into when discovered. Imagine looking into the lake and seeing a temple! And then imagine swimming into the lake, and entering that temple for a new dungeon. Or, searching the forest and finding an ancient ruins buried deep within the leaves.
The smaller map should have more NPCs. I want real, large cities! Lendyell's, not the pathetic Rito village. I want Goron City to BE a city! Come on, Nintendo, make it happen!
Please do not make Princess Zelda a whiney baby this time, please. Or, in the case of Totk, an uninteresting Mary Sue.
Make horses actually good this time.
Stop forcing me to menu all the damn time.
No building! Lame! Stop it!
Can we make Link emote again, please? It's so embarrassing that the n64 Link has more personality than the latest Zelda game on better hardware.
I have more but this is what is on the top of my list.
Of course, I know I sound like a negative nilly. But I don't really hate the idea of these games like a lot of fans seem to do. I just can't love them yet because there are still too many issues.
I want to love the new format desperately. Totk, while a crappy story, actually gave me glimpses into greatness. I can see how the team tweaked it, tried to find a perfected formula in there. I can see them trying, and that gives me hope!
Like, if you were to give me a choice between Totk and Botw, and I can only play one of these for the rest of my life, I'm going with Totk. It's not a better story, but it's a better game. It doubled down on Botw's weaknesses, but I think that just comes with using BotW as a base. Maybe an entirely new game can finally do away with those weaknesses.
Hopefully, we won't wait 6 years to find out! Hopefully no more than 3? We know that they have already started the planning phase of the new game. And it possible that they started a year ago. Totk was finished over a year ago, and had a year of testing before release. Hopefully, they delegated, and had a small team begin the start of the new game.
Plus, no covid this time to slow them down!
Here's to hoping!
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Got an N64 to HDMI converter and I’m so jazzed for my next OoT replay to be my original cartridge after so many 3DS replays!!
#mallon txt#we dont talk about the switch port Im personally not a fan#and to be clear I still love the 3ds remake!
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GAME OF THE YEAR ("GOTY") (as they call it) 20222
Fellas!!!!! Howsit going Tumblr, felt like writing about video game again because my brain loves video games! I like thinking about video games more than actually playing them! There’s plenty of us out there who watched a baker’s million video essays in their adolescence and have been poisoned (PLAGUED... even) with gaming knowledge and insights. And I’m one of them!!!!!!!!!!! So here it is, Y'INZ... my top 300 games of christian year 2022.
And just to preface before one of you FREAKS gets any funny ideas, I think basing your GOTY lists on just what released in a given calendar year is bogus! If you do this, GET OUT OF HERE! If you only play the newest games on your PS5 and don't even look at anything released before 2018, everyone at the lunch table thinks you smell weird. So put on some antiperspirant and play freaking Halo Combat Evolved for pete's sake! (EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite this joke, Richard has not yet completed Halo: Combat Evolved despite owning it.)
HONORABLEST MENTION
Sometimes you have a list that has honorable mentions. me too!
Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass (Nintendo Switch)
This is actually not very good since it's just cheap mobile game levels imported into the MK8 engine. Unfortunately I love giving Nintendo money AND happen to think that playing Mario Kart after a hard day at the mine shaft is pretty relaxing. So even if they imported levels from like Forza Motorsport I think I would like that.
Sonic Origins (Nintendo Switch)
Is this even really a game to rank on a list like this? 30 year old Genesis remakes shoddily copy pasted into the Hedgehog Engine for some reason? With extra content really not worth engaging with? Ehhhh whatever man, this guy has Sonic 3 in it. You ever play Sonic 3 before? If not go do that instead and come back ONLY IF you've completed at least Flying Battery Zone. I would go further but I'd totally understand if you stop playing after pushing the Sandopolis blocks.
WWE 2K22 (PS5)
Regrettably, the newest outing from 2K Sports and WWE is probably my second most played game on this list. Not that this game is even bad, I mean it is probably the best WWE game in the last 10 years. Tons of modes, good visuals, cool roster. I played the banana slamma outta this game for like a month. But then I realized I was having more fun assigning championships to created guys on my roster to match the week-to-week championship histories of modern WWE and AEW rather than, you know, actually playing it. So I haven't touched this in about seven months. Something about the moment-to-moment gameplay of 2K just doesn't engage me at all, feels too slow but also not impactful enough to match how wrestling actually feels to watch. Feels faker than the real thing, believe it or not.
Ship of Harkinian (PC)
This only didn't make the list since, I mean like it's Ocarina of Time from 1998 which I first played in 2010 and have replayed approximately 8 times. But I've been waiting for something like this since the Ocarina of Time source code was 100% decompiled late last year, and the fellas over on the King's ship have given me everything I wanted. 60 FPS gameplay, tons of tweaks to improve on OOT's core features, support for nearly every device under God's watchful glare, controller remapping AND analog camera. Still doesn't look as good as the 3DS version but if you choose to play Nintendo Switch Online version rather than this you are under arrest.
OK THIS IS THE LIST EVERYTHING BEFORE WAS NOT REAL
16. Super Kiwi 64 (PC)
I remember picking up this game while being stressed out about going to a social function. The sales pitch for me was simple: it plays like an N64 platformer AND you can beat it in an hour.
As someone who has more games in his backlog than iPhone chargers in his plastic bag of chargers (pictured), it feels good sometimes to just... crank one out y'know? One session of non-stop platforming and you never have to worry about it again. Pure dopamine to your chrome dome.
It helps that SK64 is a pretty fun time too. With controls so fluid that I don't think I messed up one of my thousands of jumps, levels which are just the right about of expansive as to not be too imposing or restrictive, and a story which makes me grin to the edge of my cheek bone but not further, this is an easy recommend for people of my age range and taste in gaming.
15. Astro's Playroom (PS5)
That's right gaming public, PROOF that I own a PS5. I purchased that white block of solid matter in January after realizing the sheer amount of gaming experiences I was missing by not being in the PlayStation ecosystem. Of course, directly after making the plunge, one of my main PS holdouts I thought would never release on PC (Spider-Man (2018)), well, did. So I haven't really used my PS5 as much as I probably should have for a $500 investment. My fault, of course, for being bad with money.
But for the brief three hours that I was playing Astro's Playroom, I was not thinking these things. Not that I was absolutely head over heels in love, just that I thought, "hey! this little (big) ps5 system ain't so bad! it has this cute little robot game where I can be surrounded by playstation propaganda and murder the dinosaur from the ps1 tech demo!"
I put this game right above Kiwi since they are both pretty short but the sheer effort put into Astro's presentation just notches it a little ahead. You can tell the devs of this loved making it and, hey, I loved playing it too. A little bit. Not $500 love but maybe $10 over the course of 50 years love.
14. Mario's Super Picross (SNES) (by way of Switch Online)
Much like Kiwi, I played the majority of Picross this year while being stressed out over a social arrangement. But while the social arrangement surrounding Kiwi's purchase and playtime was honestly not that bad and I was just being an anxious little bear, the social arrangement surrounding Picross was a wedding. A wedding I had no friends to go there with, taking place 6 hours away with a crowd full of people who went to Liberty University. Needless to say I was dreading the days leading up to this thing. I distinctly remember sitting there, in my rented Airbnb quite literally just in someone's house, thinking to myself, "why the fuck am I here in someone's house for a wedding I will not have fun at?"
So instead of thinking that, I got lost in Picross. While a game I've certainly heard plenty about, Picross seemed to me like it would be confusing to learn and not super fun for me to play. But all it took was a friend explaining the basics to this Japanese-language-only game for me to figure it out. The game started with easy 5x5 puzzles to get my feet wet with the idea of breaking blocks to match the numbers on each row and column. But before I knew it, I was staring down the barrel of a 25x20 board with 30 minutes to figure everything out. And the cool part was that I didn't necessarily feel overwhelmed by that point. The concept had seeped itself into my head that much.
I'll definitely be playing more of this game in the future. I don't think I've even completed a quarter of this game's gargantuan list of puzzles. I kind of don't want to complete this one because I know if I do I'll be sent down the rabbit's hell of Picross games. That puzzle debt is too great for me at the moment.
13. Sonic Frontiers (PC)
Nearly two years ago, I wrote a bunch of words about Sonic on this very blog that ended with this pretentious garbage:
I don’t want SEGA to half ass [the next Sonic game]. I want them to boldly step into that abyss with a vision of Sonic that appeals to the heart of the fandom. Because, even if it’s been down recently, that heart is still beating, and after the abuse it’s already taken, it’s going to take a hell of a lot to get it to stop. And if SEGA can get this heart pumping to its full extreme as it had in years past, we may have something legendary to look forward to.
And, uhh, that kind of happened? Sonic fans seemingly across the board (or as much across the board of lavishly online Sonic nerds as you can get) are utterly in love with Sonic Frontiers for appealing straight into the heart of early 2000s Sonic fandom.
There's plenty about this game that I can look at and say with certainty that I absolutely love. These main four hedgehog et al characters have never been written this well in a mainline title of the series. At its best, Sonic running around the open world is a straight up good time. And the three titan boss themes have been permanently stuck in my headphones and may be some of my favorite songs of the past several years.
So its a shame then that Sonic Frontiers doesn't quite come together very well. The gameplay loop just feels kind of... random to me in a way that no other game in the series has ever been. In a four hour Sonic Frontiers review podcast (*shudder*) JebTube calls some of the challenges that open the map up "Among Us tasks" which may have just ruined that part of the game for me. More than anything, though, the controls just don't quite stick the landing for me. You feel pretty magnetized to the ground even when running off a ledge, which feels pretty strange when the very foundation of this series is based on being launched up a vertical slope into the air.
Still, it's hard not to respect what SEGA was able to accomplish with this one. Harping on potential is often a fool's errand but sometimes, with a media property that has spat you into the dirt more often than not, its hard not to cling onto that potential so that hope isn't totally lost.
12. Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit (PC)
Thankfully, even if the mainline Sonic releases are spotty, fanmade content has kept the spirit alive and beating. And this title, made entirely by one guy (Noah Copeland of bearded twitter PFP fame), is the latest in the Sonic fandom's absolute service to older games in the series. From the Retro Engine decomp releases to mods that force games like Adventure DX and Heroes kicking and screaming to the operating table, Sonic fans love improving on older games. Because we love those games. And preserving the core of what made those games so special while improving on the many objective flaws they may have it's the highest tribute you could possibly make to it.
Triple Trouble 16-Bit may be the shining example of this phenomenon. The base of this remake is in an already decent Game Gear game released in 1994, at the height of Sonic's popularity. But it's just too hard to play those Game Gear games in the modern day. There's a certain retro crappiness that comes with playing a game like that, with cropped aspect ratios and 3rd rate visuals bringing down a decent concept. With a fresh Genesis inspired coat of paint and enough tweaks to the overall package that make things way better to actually play, Copeland's project is pretty clearly the only way to play that game right now.
Seeing this game given such love and care makes me yearn for this treatment for other older Sonic games. Like, hear me out OK? Sonic Rush. 16:9 widescreen. No screen switching weirdness to make it easy for modern screens. CD quality soundtrack. Turn down the trick SFX. And tweak the level design to not be so unforgiving. I would do that but I'm a talentless hack!
11. Spider-Man Remastered (PS5)
When I purchased my PS5 earlier this year, I had two games in mind to play on it. One of them was Spider-Man, which has been taunting me for the last five years since its unveiling at one of those old E3 shows. Swinging around like the red guy is just one of those innately fun ideas, I think. Kids think it when looking outside the car window. Adults think it when looking outside their office's window. I want to jump out of here and swing around monkey-style!
Really, Spider-Man only needed to do that right and, shocker, it does do the swinging right. It doesn't even really matter that the open world is in New York, the pinnacle of urban homogeneity and therefore not an incredibly fun world to look around in. New York City skyscrapers were tailor-made for web swinging and video games have been trying to capture that magic for 40 years. You can argue that the 2004 Spider-Man 2 game has a bit more depth to it, but 2018's version is just so smooth and effortless. Really makes me feel like Sp-
Of course there's a story and structure to this game too. Which were both fine. Both serviceable, both doing exactly what they needed to and nothing more. Which probably is bad if you like Spider-Man more for its narrative. But also you don't exist, I had just made up a guy in my head.
10. Dark Souls II (PC)
The end of 2021 revealed to me one crucial detail - I like Dark Souls and Soulslike games after years of failed attempts. This realization occurring conveniently before the release of FromSoftware's next behemoth Elden Ring. So the race was on - how many Soulsborne games developed by FromSoftware could I complete before getting to Elden Ring?
In January, all eyes turned to Dark Souls II as the immediate next step after slaying Lord Gwyn. I've heard a lot about it, not all positive of course. There's a lot of annoying little things about this one. The controls feel a little weird. The health bar is constantly going down. The levels feel kind of samey and lack a ton of level-to-level cohesion. The bosses are truly all over the place.
But, like, Dark Souls 1 had a lot of problems too. So why did I not love this one as much? The gameplay loop involved in tackling monumental challenge is still as fun as ever, and none of the areas are truly repulsive in quality or anything. Maybe it's the fact that I can't really remember much about the experience that says it all here. Still, I had a good time messing around with this one, and even from the bit I experimented with it looks like replaying DSII is definitely worth it.
9. Risk of Rain 2 (PC)
Gamer confession time - I do not care for Roguelikes. I've tried, believe me I've tried. Isaac, Gungeon, Necrodancer, Spelunky, none of these ever did anything for me. So what were these missing? At risk of going on too much of a tangent, let's just keep it simple. They didn't have multiplayer.
Risk of Rain 2, has multiplayer. And just by nature of that one addition, I'm sold on the idea of randomly generated runs of similar content. What can I say? Reacting to the different events in every run is a lot more fun when there's people to react with. Tackling the challenge of getting to the end of a 90 minute run is a lot more satisfying when it's a group effort. And learning the game's mechanics and intricacies by asking a question to a human is a lot more engaging than doing so to a Fandom page.
You know what else Risk of Rain 2 has? Loader. Gosh damped Loader is in this game. Loader has a grapple hook that can fling her across the level AND can uppercut small critters. I want to be her when I'm robotic and dead.
8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PC)
Star Wars is kind of exhausting to engage with. Thankfully, beyond being another piece of the Disney media machine, Jedi Fallen Order is a pretty fun game as well.
I had this game on my backlog for about two years and I'm glad I finally got to it. The main make or break for me, the Metroid-enjoyer of my friend circle, is how the levels would be laid out to incentivize exploration and finding essential movement-based items along the way to facilitate progress. And while not as good as, say, Metroid Prime in that regard, Jedi Fallen Order hits a lot of those beats. I didn't even think there'd be a double jump in this game (for some reason) but when I got one it immediately made me think of all the new areas I could explore with that new ability. Combat is pretty fun here as well, with a slew of abilities both involving your saber and your force hands to obliterate the white menace (Stormtroopers) and all rats that come from the dirt.
Taken as just a game, it's a good time, albeit one that feels like a mashup of a lot of other successful game ideas and mechanics. But when all these mechanics and features are wrapped in a cozy Star Wars shaped wrapping paper along with a gift card to "Actually Tells an Interesting Story of Regret and Acceptance Without Relying Too Heavily on Star Wars Tropes And Areas," maybe it comes together better than the sum of its parts.
7. Splatoon 3 (Nintendo Switch)
Boy howdy, do I love giving money to Nintendo. One of my favorite pastimes, that and sitting. I'll be honest though, I wasn't too keen on engaging with Splatoon 3 up to launch. Nothing really grabbed me as someone who only liked Splatoon 1 and 2. To be honest, I was more of a fan of the single player modes of those earlier games. So if anything, I would just get it for the campaign. Which would have been fine, Splat 3's story takes the best of Octo Expansion's creative level ideas into a wild story that ends with a cool boss fight, like expected.
What I didn't expect was for one of Splatoon 3's multiplayer modes to make a believer out of me, which did end up happening. Not turf war though, at least not really. Still only think that mode is alright at best and infuriating at worst. Or Ranked/Anarchy, sweating in Splatoon feels like a recipe for a brain tumor. Splatoon 3's biggest win is the new Salmon Run. Well, "new" isn't really accurate since its mostly the same thing as Splatoon 2's mode. However, Splatoon 3 surprised millions and soared above the competition with just one innovative tweak and trick - throwing golden eggs with the A button.
And with that, Salmon Run can be played far more offensively, letting you run around all over the place with your Tri-Slosher while throwing eggs into the net from the lower level of the map. And my golly, when I nail a buzzer beater where the last second egg throw into the net just meets the quota to move onto the next level, I felt more comfortable with parting $20 a year for Nintendo Online than I ever have. Until the next communication error, of course.
6. Dark Souls III (PC)
Dark Souls III, the fifth Demon's Souls game and the fourth game on my Soulsborne list, was made for me by the Abyss Watchers. My experience with those guys is what these games are all about. A brutal challenge which I throw myself at time and time again, originally feeling so hopeless and beaten but gradually growing in both skill and confidence to conquer your fears and goals. Dark Souls III is also made by the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, a beautiful fight befitting of its name in which your rolls and R1 presses must fit in tandem with the bosses enveloping swings and spins. When judging Soulsborne boss fights, DSIII is easily my favorite in the series.
And on the quality of those bosses DSIII sits here on my list. Because the rest of the game is kind of forgettable. Maybe it was just Souls fatigue that did this to me but I really don't remember a whole lot beyond the bosses from this game. I remember the one terrible swamp area that felt like dragging my foot through a... mud... puddle. And I remember the area that was kind of black and white that looped back around on itself. That's about it though, and this Souls fatigue kind of bleeds into the overarching themes of the game, it seems like. This world needed to die, leaving it all in the past to chart new territory. Dark Souls is over, but it's spirit will continually revive into greater things.
5. Cuphead: Delicious Last Course (PC)
I have only played Cuphead as a multiplayer experience. Over the summer of 2019, my roommate and I gorged ourselves in Cuphead's challenge and aesthetic. He would wake me up at around 11am, staring with loving yet needy eyes which told me to get my ass up and back at the setup. Much like Risk of Rain 2, the joy of accomplishment feels all the sweeter when shared, and the journey to get there all the more fun. We even learned the Cuphead barbershop quartet jingle, singing it on the way to Frenchi's to the bereavement of passers by.
At the end of our journey, I distinctly remember feeling excited for the new DLC level to release, as at that point it was scheduled to drop later that year. Less than a year turned into three, and by the time the Cuphead DLC launched for a measly $8, I knew we needed to get together again to experience the heights of beating the piss out of bees and carrots yet again.
Cuphead's Delectable Lone Continuation is, put simply, more Cuphead. It didn't necessarily set to light the world ablaze like last time, but as a fun revisit of the mechanics and aesthetic, DLC was everything I could have wanted. We certainly didn't find it as hard as the end of the base game, given we beat everything within two sessions and five hours. But perhaps we have simply grown as gamers, and as men, since our last time at cartoon town.
4. Spark the Electric Jester 3 (PC)
Spark hit the big time this year, notable since it was the first time the Yellow Lanky Brown-Coated Hat Wearing Clown Man has ever hit my purview. Taken on its own, Spark 3 is an impressive feat for a single developer, as high speed 3D platformers are a tough mix to develop for. You have to simultaneously create large, sprawling landscapes for the characters to traverse through, while being keenly aware that the world is often going to be breezed by in a matter of seconds.
But taken as a culmination of developer Lake Feperd's body of work over the past decade, forged in the fangame scene before tackling the challenges and expectations of original IP, Spark 3 rises ever higher. Comparing footage of the game's two predecessors reveals a steady forming of confidence in how to make games that feel and, more importantly, flow like this. With controls that propel the titular character seamlessly to impressive speed, and level design that facilitates such high speed without becoming too much of a straight line. Developers with higher budgets have been treading this line for years, and often fail to hit the peaks of this wondrous adventure.
High speed doesn't define Spark though, as a character and as a game. There's a lot of thought put into how each level fits into the overarching world. You're not just running through levels for the fun of it, these are genuine places that are inhabited by people. If you stray off the linear path to collect any of the colored coins scattered through each level, you'll find each area is fleshed out beyond the point of necessity. The story is surprisingly deep and moving for a game of this style, with twists and turns that call into question the world you've just blazed through. More than anything, Spark feels like a labor of love, and hopefully that love is reciprocated.
3. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (Dolphin)
It's easy to take for granted the emulation paradise we're currently experiencing. Nearly every console ever developed has at least some group of passionate hobbyists working to preserve that hardware and software library therein to players and developers for years to come. Even modern consoles like the Switch and PS4 have impressive emulation solutions right now, with undoubtedly more progress to be made in the coming years.
Most impressively, though, is Dolphin. A combined emulator of the GameCube and Wii consoles, Dolphin has been polished to a mirror's shine. Nearly every game worth playing on these two systems have been made fully compatible, with remaining loose ends being closed every day. If Dolphin closed up shop five years ago, it would still be among the most feature complete emulators to this day, but the continued progress is nothing short of inspiring.
No emulation experience has left me in awe more than when me and three other friends played Four Swords Adventures earlier this year. By linking Dolphin and another GBA emulator (mGBA), utilizing the built in Netplay features in Dolphin to connect to each other, and remapping our controls to better suit modern pads, we were able to play one of the most chaotic, insane, well paced, and ultimately fun co-op experiences Nintendo has ever made. While the original game was hampered by insane accessibility concerns (four GBAs for crying out loud!) and has not been ported officially to anything since, this emulation solution has blown the door open for future players to experience this multiplayer masterpiece well into the future.
2. Elden Ring (PC)
There was no doubt FromSoftware's latest game would hit this list, as it has and will do for the lists of thousands of gaming-obsessed wannabe writers over these past and future months. It's very concept left people in want - an open world Dark Souls game with the highest production values and development time in the Soulsborne semi-franchise. These games' following has progressed far beyond cult, as Elden Ring and its impact caused these games to hit the mainstream. Reverberations of which caused me and my friends to embark on our Souls experience in the preceding months. Along the journey, we fell in love with what was on offer - the world, the design, the challenge, the community, and the sense of achievement, specifically on my end, of finally putting a series that I always knew I would love solidly into one of my favorites.
All roads lead to May, when everyone I knew was either already playing or had just started playing Elden Ring. The experience of early Limgrave is something really special, and it remains my favorite part of the game. Truly no path in this early area is the wrong path. Each story and journey embarked is entirely unique to each of the millions of players. Open world games rarely get this unique part of their appeal; playing games like Spider-Man this year only reinforced this perspective. While each player is bounded to come across some of the same things, the pure scale and density of the world is something to behold, and to experience everything requires commitment and time.
But often, when beholding the monolith of something seemingly insurmountable, motivation is fleeting. Admittedly, after getting through Leyndell and conquering Morgott, I simply ran out of gas. It should have come as no surprise, given I had been gorging myself in Souls content for the preceding months and that Elden Ring on average takes around three times the hours to complete compared to the preceding titles. I took a three month long break from completing its remaining areas, in which even when I got there, I was struck by the quality difference between the early and end game. This is to take nothing away from what Elden Ring achieved, though, and the experience I had playing it. Ultimately, it's an experience I'm glad I had, particularly at the end of my Souls journey. But as the months went on, my experience with Elden Ring was not what stuck with me as the peak of my gaming year.
1. Bloodborne (PS4)
I bought a PS5 to play this game. I've owned Bloodborne for many years, with my first experience occurring in 2015. My time with the game was short, as very soon afterward I was whisked off to college without a PS4 to play with. But much like how the experience of trekking through the Undead Burg and Parish is still baked into my skull even years after first attempting it, I will never forget my first run through Central Yharnam. That packed alleyway full of damned locals wielding nothing but their bare fists and torches to light the way, dimly lit and dankly produced with the pronounced, overwhelming horror of a gothic town gone mad with sickness and death, remains the most striking opening to a Souls game FromSoft has ever made.
I didn't get much further than the Father Gascoigne fight before I stopped playing that first time, but something about those early hours kept drawing me back to Bloodborne. Even when I was pitch broke and jobless in college, I would frequently check for the price of PS4 Slims on Facebook Marketplace to see if I could get one for close to $100. While the PS4 has a great library, with tons of quality titles that I would like to play at some point, only one made me eventually pull the trigger when money was right.
And here I was, March of 2022, having bested Dark Souls 1 and 2 and becoming innately familiar with the Souls series, finally sitting in front of my obnoxiously high latency television that was stating the Bloodborne title screen. At last, I was ready to give this experience another crack. And of course, a master at gaming and gameplay that I am, I still got rocked at this same Central Yharnam graveyard. As I soon learned, knowledge of previous Souls games actually isn't that much of an advantage. You don't play Bloodborne like Dark Souls, a fact I was harshly reminded of going straight from DSII to BB to DSIII. It's been repeated to the point of chronic eye pain at this point, but the lack of shields in Bloodborne really makes a difference in how you trudge through it. This lack of instant defensive options combined with the regain system of getting back health upon hitting an enemy, the insane number of quality trick weapons at your disposal, and the complete lack of things like slow rolling and armor upgrades forces players to approach combat scenarios not so much as a studious, opportunistic Dark Souls player but as a ravenous hound, thirsty for carnage and blood vials.
Which, even in context of the game world, makes sense. You aren't a cursed undead trying to escape a rotten world by resetting the cycle of anguish, escaping this cruel engagement through wits rather than brawn. You're coming here. To this ruinous city on its most vile, violent occasion. The utter definition of eldritch, cosmic horror which unravels slowly and grotesquely as the game progresses. You, in your pride, come here to cure illness. And in your attempt, you find yourself adapting to match the furor and intensity of the beasts you fight in your path. Even if a cure can be found here (it can't), the sickness you receive in return can't be worth the trouble. Beasts all over the shop...
I usually don't think of games like this. I have what my goofy favorite YouTuber NakeyJakey calls goopy goblin gamer brain, a sickness which makes you compare every video game to Super Mario. Gameplay comes first and foremost; it doesn't really matter how it all comes together as long as the core is solid. So perhaps its because Bloodborne quite simply can't get out of my head months after completing it that puts it at the top of my list. The more I think about the experience in its totality, the more in awe I feel of it. Games like Bloodborne are not created by pure artistic competency or raw man hours put in. There needs to be a certain alignment of the moon and amygdala to have something so horrific and beautiful exist on our revolving hellfire.
My "New Year's Rockin' Wish" is for Bloodborne to release on PC, if for no other reason than for my friends to play it. They helped me get over the hurdles needed for me to enjoy this series, so they more than deserve to experience what I believe to be the crowning achievement of the FromSoftware catalog. But if Mark Sony hates God and mocks death as much as I think he does, he will continue restricting access of Bloodborne to a sub-30 FPS experience even on my $500 white rectangle. And for this, my gamer brainiacs, he will go to, and burn in, hell.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
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Tell me about your fandom! (Legend of Zelda) Also, this isn't a fandom but I love nonfiction & I recommend Brene Brown's two podcasts if you don't listen already
(NOTE: I found this in my drafts, unposted, so I'm posting it now!)
Recommendation noted! Thank you!
So...
The Legend of Zelda
Baby Kat's first RPG, I do believe, was Ocarina of Time and I adored it. It was not my first "fandom" in the traditional sense of community and interaction (I had no idea about fandom at the time, that came later) but I was most definitely in love with the franchise. Next was Majora's Mask, which creeped me out omg. I loved it, but I can no longer play it through because the three day timer combined with having to go find a save point triggers anxiety. XD BUT, I played it... twice, I think? Once with my brother and once solo to prove I could. And really enjoyed it. I didn't actually pick up a new one until Twilight Princess, then another gap and Skyward Sword, and another gap before Breath of the Wild.
I really can't say I know the fandom end of it well though. Counting plotting with you, I have... one other person I rp in Zelda with, also in the OoT/MM era, and I really haven't been active on the fanfic front either. I do have several friends who enjoyed the games and we've talked about them (mostly BOTW), so that's really nice.
I would 10/10 recommend the games, though, and would like to do more with rping in it. And possibly fanfic, but I've got such a backlog and no burning stories that want told so probably not ficcing for a while.
Under the cut, some aimless rambling about the games I've played.
CONTAINS SPOILERS for: OOT, MM, TP, SS, and BOTW!
Ocarina of Time
Why I love it: I think I love the story and characters, first and foremost, but I also really like the plot device + game mechanic of time travel, that's one of my favorite tropes tbh? Even if it wasn't executed the way I usually aim for. (I also... fairly recently? in the past yearish? found out that it is not, in fact, required to be done linearly so I clearly have to replay one more time minimum just to test this.)
Who should play it: Anyone! It wasn't a horrendously challenging game, in my opinion, so it's not the problem some rpgs are, but it was fun and the graphics may not be up there with the most recent titles but the 3DS version was a really well done remake and I think people should really think twice about ignoring it because of the graphics; in context of video game history, that was groundbreaking. There are creepy parts the well THE WELL that surprisingly didn't hit me as as creepy as they are until I came back to it as an adult XD but still! If you can get your hands on it one way or another it's worth playing.
Majora's Mask
Why I love it: I think "love" is a little strong, but I definitely enjoyed it. The mask system was well done and intriguing, and it had a lot of moving parts and puzzles, even for a Zelda game.
Who should play it: as long as horror elements don't bother you, (it's definitely not a horror game but it's got some creepy bits) and you don't get anxiety over being timed, it should be good. You have three days to complete... everything, but you can do the three days over and over and over so there's that at least? It's got some really fantastic mechanics, interesting characters, and again, puzzles.
Twilight Princess
Why I love it: the characters are what make this game really stand out to me. There's brilliant designs, unique personalities and they all come together to support a pretty solid plot. It's also really pretty. I love the art style. I'd love to see it polished up a little bit with the modern abilities remake? REMAKE, but I wouldn't want them to change the feel of it, it's just really lovely.
Who should play it: both fans of motion sensing (there is a Wiimote version) and people who prefer a straight out controller will be happy here. I, personally, preferred the controller version by far. It's a fantastic story in my opinion with a lot of memorable characters. It also reveals a very important part in Zelda history.
Skyward Sword
Why I love it: I really enjoyed the art style, the storyline / glimpse of where things all began is fascinating to me even if they could have gone back further. It's immediate fic fodder, though admittedly I have not followed through due to other stories in progress already. (Didn't care for the anxiety-inducing timed sections though.)
Who should play it: you could read the wikis or Hyrule Historia, maybe even watch a Let's Play - all of these are valid and even advisable options to those who for whatever reason can't play the game (money, motion controls, anxiety over timers etc) then those are great options! That said, if you can handle this it's a really neat game full of unique art and a fascinating story line. I'd advise going in blank if you can - don't research ahead of time.
Breath of the Wild
Why I love it: Open world Zelda. I think I squeed when I heard that. Being completely honest, I found the lack of the traditionally seemingly linear story initially intimidating but once I'd started to get to know the world and mechanics, I began to catch my stride and I really enjoyed the game! Not so much the ending boss battle that, cutscenes counted, took me over 20 mins, but the rest of it yay! Honestly I even just liked messing around exploring the world and locating shrines. Didn't care for having a "your weapons break" mechanic without an additional "you can repair / smith new ones" though.
Who should play it: anyone who likes Zelda and also open world RPGs. It had a main story, of course, but there was so much interesting lore scattered about in side quests. Now, I haven't (yet) played Tears of the Kingdom but I am excited for it. And might play BOTW again because I loved it and it's worth the time and effort.
So yeah I recommend all of them, if with a few small caveats. Great games - great series! - and there are plenty more I want to play. (Special note for Minish Cap, which I keep meaning to play.)
#legend of zelda#ooc#ocarina of time#majora's mask#twilight princess#skyward sword#breath of the wild
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meant to post this back when I first started my replay but there's something so weirdly comforting in the fact that for the 3DS version of OoT they made these quality of life upgrades and bumped the textures and character and environment modeling etc etc and yet. And Yet. the fast way to travel across Hyrule Field as a child when you don't have Epona is to z-target and mashing the sidehop. as much as everything changes it still stays the same. ❤️
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Ocarina of Time was my first ever journal entry, it also happens to be one of my all time favorite games. Sometime soon I hope to replay the game and give OOT and MM the proper journal entries and summaries because this truly doesn’t do them justice. I didn’t know how I was really going to structure my journals at this point so it’s very lacking in notes. Later on, I ended up writing two whole journal pages on my love for Sheik but honestly, I could write even more.
I love how even to this day my favorite songs from OOT are the short but beautiful duets Link and Sheik share. Ocarina and Majora’s were exactly the games I needed at such a rough period of my life and I will continue to be so grateful for them. <3
The stickers are all from a sticker book from Amazon. I will make a separate post in the future that will detail all the materials I use!
Writing typed below!
Rating: 9.7/10 Played: 2017 (3DS - HD) Watched: Spr 2022 (Keith Ballard (OG, WiiU)
Comments
I love Sheik so much
I really love the reveal of Link being a Hylian and not a Kokiri
FUCK DEADHAND.
Bongo Bongo is one of my favorite bosses. His lore theories are so fascinating
I love Zeltik's theory video on redeads
"Everybody Stalfos"
Hylian Ensemble <3
My favorite songs
Bolero of Fire
Prelude of Light
Saria's Song
Nocturne of Shadow
Song of Storms
Minuet of Forest
Serenade of Water
My summary: Ocarina of Time is easily one of my all time favorite games. Playing through it, I could not believe how old it is. Even the music is so incredible. The moments between Link and Sheik are filled with so much emotion and faith that I can't help to just watch in awe. I am so glad this was my first Zelda game and I will continue to love and appreciate it.
#bullet journal#journal#journalsouppe#video games#loz#tloz#OOT#ocarina of time#link ocarina of time#sheik oot#the legend of zelda#legend of Zelda#Zelda journal
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COMPLETED: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Best Zelda ever? For me, it's going to be hard to play anything else.
BEST OF THE BEST
Ocarina of Time is my favorite Zelda. I haven't played them all, but I doubt this one will be replaced. Mostly because it feels like the original fo the 3D adventures, not just for Zelda, but also all 3D action-adventure games (though my replay of Mario 64 showed that many bosses and ideas in OoT were first explored in Mario). I've played a little of Twilight Princess and Windwaker. Those games have obviously made improvements but it still feels OoT inspired. Of course, playing Link to the Past and the original Legend of Zelda, I can see that many of the gameplay mechanics and themes were presente early on, if not from the beginning. So OoT's higher ranking is likely due to my preference for 3D adventures and the fact it was the first Zelda game I truly played through and beat.
Before playing through Breath of the Wild, I had become much more exposed to classic Zelda titles. I hadn't yet played Skyward Sword. I remember texting a friend that Breath of the Wild felt like a mix of Skyrim (which I love) and Metal Gear solid 5 (which I also love). While I totally think Breath of the Wild was the logical next step and fulfillment of the promises previous Zelda games had made, it still didn't feel like it was a unique Zelda. The names and locations were all there, as well as familiar gameplay items like bombs. But it didn't feel unique to the other open-world games around it. It didn't feel uniquely Zelda. It was the right move, and a great game (my second favorite Zelda at the time).
But as much as Breath of the Wild was fully embracing the open-world spirit of previous entries, Tears of the Kingdom does the same while embracing the Zelda-ness of the series. This makes Breath of the Wild look like an extremely polished prototype for Tears of the Kingdom. It'll be hard for me to ever admit Ocarina of Time's defeat--but I think I have to consider Tears of the Kingdom the best Zelda game ever made (that I've played).
SKYWARD SWORD
My wife loves Skyward Sword. I don't. I enjoy the early areas in the town, but the combat is annoyingly cumbersome due to the motion controls. The story wasn't very impressive. Zelda needs rescuing, blah, blah, blah. There's a great evil, blah, blah, blah. Link is the only one that can save us, blah, blah, blah. I was really annoyed that this game was meant to be the "beginning" of the timeline, but it also references older civilizations and mysteries that are never revealed. I guess it's hard to have a Zelda game without ancient ruins...so whatever.
The reason this matters is because Tears of the Kingdom seems to directly reference Skyward Sword in many ways. Which will get to. But obviously, floating islands. But all the references (story, themes, gameplay) interested my wife (way more than Breath of the Wild ever could) while giving meaning to those things that left me unsatisfied in my Skyward Sword playthroughs.
STARTING A NEW ADVENTURE
I wasn't super excited to play Tears of the Kingdom, as it looked like more Breath of the Wild with floating islands, but I'm glad we got it. It was way more than what I was expecting and after dozens of hours, I constantly felt like I was discovering something new.
The game starts with h Link and Zelda discovering a creepy mummy under Hyrule castle. I wasn't sure who this was at first because it didn't seem related to the Ganon of Breath of the Wild. It seems Calamity Ganon of BotW was just leaking essence from the true Ganon (Ganondorf) held captive under the castle. Zelda falls and is warped back in time while Link finds himself on a floating island. This is the Upheaval. A bunch of floating islands appear while huge chasms appear on the surface. I'm not quite sure where the islands came from, but it's clear that they are the ruins of a long lost civilization.
From what I remember of Breath of the Wild, Zelda is a passive character trapped in the castle. I guess her essence is keeping Ganon at bay. But what we see of her is through flashbacks. Flashbacks that made the past storyline of the Age of Calamity 100 times more interesting than the Breath of the Wild story/plot. Since Zelda is in the past, much of her part of the story is still told through flashbacks. But unlike BotW, Zelda's actions in the past are very active. And as we learn, she directly impacts the present time. BotW just showed us how hard Zelda worked and her doubts before failing. Sadly, no Zelda has brought us OoT Zelda who is both active throughout the game and a total badass. Tears gets close though. Very close.
Being on the opening flying island felt very Skyward Sword. It was also impressive to see how they were able to render all the floating islands while showing a lot of detail in the ground-level world. I mean, we're on the PS5 and the Switch is more comparable to the PS3, so to see it handle huge world is impressive. Clearly, they've worked hard to optimize the tech. And the game looks better than BotW
NEW ABILITIES
BotW gave the player some interesting abilities. Not super interesting, but kinda interesting. Two of those abilities were just bombs. Handy, but unexciting for the most part. and then there was a magnetic manipulation of objects that I mostly used to find treasure chests. Then there was stasis, which allowed people to cheat in interesting ways, and the ice ability. They were used in some interesting ways, but I didn't feel inspired to explore them very much.
At first, when I learned we wouldn't be getting these abilities back, I felt annoyed. But then I learned that these abilities are better, and the game had plenty of tricks to not just make up for lost abilities, but to go beyond their limitations.
The first ability is fuse. You can fuse almost any item. These means putting apples on a word, mushrooms on a shield, or moblin guts on an arrow. (You can also throw almost any item from your inventory.) At first I didn't think too much about fusing. Mostly I just fused rocks to swords so I could mine and break down barriers. But then I learned I could fuse materials and robot parts to make powerful weapons. This fixes the WORST part of BotW, weapons breaking. Even though weapons still break in TotK, but since you can pick up almost any garbage weapon and fuse it to a powerful material, it's really easy to replace your powerful weapons. In BotW, I rarely used my strongest weapons cause I wanted to save them for when I "needed" them, but I didn't have that anxiety (as much) in TotK cause I could keep making replacements. also consider the hammer: good for mining but not fighitng, yet it wasted inventory space. Now I can make any weapon a mining hammer when needed, and then switch it back later.
Next, is the Superhand ability, or something, I don't know. It first replaces the magnetic hand of BotW. But instead of being limited to metal objects, you can pick up almost anything--including tree trunks, wooden boxes, bombs, and various other things. While this makes that BotW skill more useful, it's true purpose is to allow the fusing of objects together. You can fuse tree trunks together to make a bridge. Or wagon wheels to a wooden plank to make a weapon.
But this really breaks out when you start building Zonai devices. See, there was an ancient culture known as Zonai that developed advanced technology. They seem separate from the Shiekah, who are also advanced, and they supposedly descended from the sky. BotW supposedly referenced them. At first you get basic things, like putting a fan on minecart to make it move. But then you can start building rocket ships and offroad vehicles. The game lets you collect these as items to be used whenever, but they also provide pieces just lying around.
It's through these devices that the game started to feel like a Zelda game. You're encouraged to be creative and make wild creations. And the wild creations that people have made are very inspired. I even saw someone make a functioning Metal Gear Rex. I have spent hours exploring different ways to make crazy contractions and solve puzzles in unconventional ways. Never once did I feel bored.
There's also a rewind ability. I think there's a few puzzles it's meant to solve, but mostly if just fixes mistakes. And there's the ascend ability. This mostly helps the player get to the top of structures and mountains without too much fuss. You can explore an underground cavern, and instead of looking for the way out, just ascend to the surface. It's useful but not as exciting as fusing objects.
The bomb and ice abilities are gone. But you can easily amass bomb-flowers that grow in the caves. You can throw these or attach to arrows for powerful attacks or strip mining. You can also attach fire fruit to arrows to make fire arrows or throw them to burn away thorns. Also, you can throw frost-fruits into the water to make ice platforms. Then you can meld those together to make ice bridges. There's so many cool ways to use items you pick up, either for exploring, puzzle solving, battling, or just to entertain yourself.
Being able to throw and fuse items brings a creative wackiness to the game that felt missing from Breath of the Wild, and makes Tears of the Kingdom feel much more Zelda-like and unique from other open-world action adventures (like Skyrim).
This is taking a long time to write and I need to move on with my life.
The point is: I love this game. It would be my favorite Zelda if Ocarina wasn't so important to me.
#Zach's Game Journal#COMPLETED#The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom#Nintendo#Switch#Video Games#Gaming
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Just finished my (casual) 100% (as in only did quests and upgrades) of botw and now I'm on to finishing up my playthrough of oot. I'm half way done already, then twilight princess for the first time in years (on purpose) and (almost) finally playing mm for the first time. I know near nothing about the game save for a couple thing i did when i was 4 and some footage from docu series.
I'm very excited to replay all the main line 3d zeldas. Also be nice to find ww any time soon. Never played that one either, very eager to.
So far the experience is amazing. Ss was the start point, and playing itnon switch was VASTLY better. I cried twice in botw from the dlc ending and the main ending. Im proud to say this was a formative series for me. One of the few consistencies of my life. Bless this series and all those who help it be created. I wish someday to make something so impactful
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