A tale of two games

Two games came out last November that really caught my attention.  One thing that has piqued my interest is how remarkably similar they are.

Official Zelda Timeline

Wait, I didn't post about this yet?

For the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, Nintendo has released the "Hyrule Historia," a book detailing development, official art, and most importantly, the relation of the games to one another.

Oh dear lord...

I just... ugh...

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_legend_of_zelda_skyward_sword/b/wii/archive/2011/06/07/zelda-skyward-2011.aspx

While the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series had a prominent presence at the beginning of Nintendo’s E3 press conference, Skyward Sword was barely mentioned. Due out this year, we haven’t  heard much lately on the progress of Link’s next adventure

Oh, of course not, that would ruin the "surprise."

Sorry, please continue.

While the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series had a prominent presence at the beginning of Nintendo’s E3 press conference, Skyward Sword was barely mentioned. Due out this year, we haven’t  heard much lately on the progress of Link’s next adventure. Despite the lack of updates, the upcoming Wii title was playable on the show floor in the form of a new demo. I got a chance today to try out three different sections of the game - a bird riding race, a dungeon area, and a boss fight.

Bird riding was a fun segment that featured Link out of his standard adventuring garb. He resembled the farmer version from Twilight Princess, and was participating in a high-flying race for a trophy. It starts with the four participants diving off a cliff, followed by grasping and mounting a giant bird. Shaking the Wii remote makes the bird fly higher into the clouds, and the A button activates a speed boost system not unlike Epona’s carrots from previous games. Your objective is to reach a bird that’s carrying a trophy before any of your opponents, and they’ll eventually get more aggressive. After my first win, my fellow riders started shooting eggs back at me in an effort to slow my progress. Upon catching it the second time, I was treated to a cutscene of Link and an impressed Zelda flying off atop the bird.

And then they break out into song!

I can show you the woooorld...

Yes, I've missed impressing an non-princess Zelda by flying around on a bird.  I haven't done that in a Zelda game since... 

Wait, what?

Second on the agenda was the dungeon demo. This allowed me to experience more traditional Zelda gameplay, with a focus on finding keys, using items to solve puzzles, and defeating enemies. Like in Ocarina of Time’s Deku Tree, giant Skulltulas drop down from the ceiling if you get too close. Unlike those, however, there’s no immediate way to attack their weak spot. Destroying them is a mini-puzzle in itself, and it first requires you to snip their line of web with the flying beetle item. Once they’ve fallen to the ground, they’re still protected by their hard shell. Thanks to the added control afforded by MotionPlus, you can hold the sword near the ground and pop the enemy up to expose their weak point. A few stabs and a dramatic finishing move later, and they’ll be defeated.

You read that right, folks, flip it over and attack it's weak spot for massive damage!

Giant Enemy Spider! Actually happened in ancient Hyrule

After disposing of several of these Skulltulas, I started searching for a key. Flying my beetle around exposed a switch that opened a door, leading me to another puzzle. A gate guarded a treasure chest, and three ominous wall-mounted eyes watched me as I got close. They’d follow the movements of my sword like a haunted house portrait, but would quickly shut if I aimed at them with my bow. Looking around the room, I spotted a box hanging from the ceiling. I cut it down with the beetle, shoved it near the eyes, and stood on top. Now that I was close enough, all three eyes were open and following my sword. I still couldn’t shoot at them, so I spun my sword around in circles. After a few rotations, the eyes got dizzy, turned red, and disappeared. The gate opened, and I received the key I was looking for.

Such innovation! I haven's seen something like this since...

since...

Mario 64!

And it was obvious then, too!

The final section of the demo was a boss battle that relied very heavily on directional sword swipes and well-timed blocks. It was a ghostly white female, although it wasn’t clear what species in the Zelda universe she was. Rather than the immediate action of many Zelda boss fights, this woman slowly made her way towards Link. Her hand followed the movements of my blade, and she would catch it whenever I attempted to strike her. I learned that I had to get her hand set in a specific location, then quickly alter the direction of my swipe and get the upper hand.

 Okay, first things first.

That's a dude.  I know because in Japanese media there's generally two indicators of gender.  Usually rather large, round, and obvious indicators.

Secondly, I assume the 'species' is the same as the sword-fairy-master sword-girl from the concept art.

After striking her numerous times in this manner, she started backing up and throwing projectiles at me in lines of five. I initially dodged them by jumping to the side, but you can also deflect them with your sword if you swipe accurately enough to hit all of them at once. The boss started charging me, and I got another chance to get some hits in after parrying with my shield as the strike approached. When she finally fell, it felt like I had played an entirely different boss fight than any of the dozens I’ve encountered before in the Zelda series.

See, this sounds fun, and it very well could surprise me, but really it just sounds annoying and boring.  Why can't  I have more than one way to attack enemies?

Gamers have complained for years that Zelda is a franchise content to rely on an age-old formula. You may be collecting keys, taking on bosses, exploring dungeons, and pushing blocks again in Skyward Sword, but the 1:1 MotionPlus swordplay really does make a difference. Many encounters with standard enemies feel like miniature puzzles in their own right, as you have to perform actions like flipping the spider on his back before you can take it out. With a new take on enemy encounters, a visually pleasing art style, real-time weapon switching, and fantastic motion controls, Skyward Sword looks to be a great addition to the Zelda lineage.

Why would I want enemy encounters to be miniature puzzles?  I don't want puzzles, I want mechanics.  Like raid bosses in World of Warcraft.  Like a good boss fight.

Why is it that people complain about the boring dungeons, (because they're full of boring, tedious puzzles) so the solution Aonuma comes up with is to make the overworld like one giant dungeon?  To make the boring puzzles into enemy encounters?

Why is it that the solution to 'you only use items once' is to make that stupid flying Beetleborg morpher used for everything?  It's like the seagulls in Wind Waker, and I didn't think that those were worth revisiting.

I really don't think motion controls will impact the gameplay that much (considering how most of the complaints about the formula aren't centered around pushing B to swing your sword) and I sincerely hope that this game bombs just as bad or worse than the atrocity known as Spirit Tracks.

I don't know if I should be screaming in rage or laughing my head off about this game.  At least Spirit Tracks made that distinction obvious.

And another thing...

http://www.1up.com/news/eiji-aonuma-wraps-zelda-skyward

-In this game, Zelda starts out as a childhood friend of Link's -- and not royalty. "She's not a princess this time," Aonuma said, "which is something I'll pretty much have to put forth right now in order to talk about this title. She's a childhood friend, but she goes away in the midst of the game and it's Link's job to search for her."

...
...
...Nintendo's trolling me, right?

- The starting plot unfolds quite a bit differently from other Zeldas. "This game's plot is something like a school drama, you could say," Aonuma noted with a laugh. "The flying sequence at the E3 demo is Link competing against his classmates. One of them looks kind of a like a bad guy, as you saw, and he shows up in other ways in the game too, since he has a major thing for Zelda."

Yes, that's exactly what we need in Zelda, bad high-school drama ala Kingdom Hearts!

- Despite this, though, the game progresses in a somewhat similar fashion to a previous Zelda title. "The game starts in Skyloft, this city that's floating in the air, and you'll come back to this town multiple times," Aonuma said. "Things are always proceeding along in town, and in that respect it's very much like Majora's Mask. Like with Majora, there are a lot of game events involving the townspeople that get intertwined with the main story. Link, Zelda and their other friends all go to the same boarding school, and you've got teachers and a principal as well. It's a bit of a different setting from previous Zeldas."

 Um...almost all of that stuff in Majora's Mask was optional.(i.e. not part of the main story)  This sounds more like Wind Waker, or Twilight Princess, will all these stupid NPCs that nobody cares about.

- Aonuma's team is making a deliberate effort to give Link new items -- like the boomerang-beetle in the E3 demo -- early on in Skyward Sword. "With previous Zeldas," he said, "the common pattern was that the really neat items wouldn't show up until later on in the game. You need to have the basic item set or it wouldn't be Zelda, so the new items tended to get shunted to the latter part of the game. [Shigeru] Miyamoto said that had to change, like 'This is neat, let's bring it out from the start.' So a lot of neat new items will show up pretty early on."

- Is Skyloft the entire 'world' in this game? "Yes, it's only the people in Skyloft," Aonuma responded. "Nobody on there thinks anything of it, though, because living in Skyloft and flying around on birds is normal to them. They don't have any awareness of there being a mainland beneath the clouds and so forth -- that gets expanded upon once Zelda goes missing, and you get access to the areas under the clouds."

 So...It's like Final Fantasy III (not 6)? Or Baten Kaitos?

- Does everyone in Skyloft have their own personal avian transport? "It's the custom for each person to have one bird. Link has a red one, and it's actually a special and very rare breed of bird -- which is something that makes him get picked on, like 'Why do you get this fancy bird and we don't?!' But it turns out that you need that red bird in order to access the mainland. So the hand of fate gets involved here, like it always does in Zelda games sooner or later."

 Oh, poor picked-on Link, is this supposed to be meta or something?

- Ghiraham, the enemy Link fought in the E3 demo's boss battle, is definitely going to be an important character in Skyward Sword. "The demo shows when you first meet him, and plainly he's looking down at Link, stopping his sword with his fingers and so forth," Aonuma noted. "In terms of story image he's kind of like Dark Link [from Ocarina of Time]; he sees right through Link's moves in battle. You can sort of swing your sword wildly and still hold your own against a lot of foes, but there's no way you can beat Ghiraham like that. You need to keep your distance and watch his moves, and it's something you'll need to change your strategy for. I think he's a pretty good change of pace as bosses go, and he'll change gradually throughout the game."
 

 He's kind of like Dark Link?  Okay...so you beat him by not using Z-targeting?  And what does "in terms of story" mean, anyway?  Dark Link was just kind of...there.

"This game talks about the birth of the Master Sword, and it touches on why Ganondorf showed up. If you play it, I think you'll get some understanding on that. It connects to Ocarina, so if you play Ocarina of Time 3D and move on to this game, I think you'll catch on to a lot of things."

 "Please, play this other, better, game, first.  That way you can know what everyone else has for the past 13 years."

- How's development going along? "The whole game is complete, and we're fine-tuning the balance right now. We were going to have it wholly done by around E3, but there's so much volume to it, neither I nor Miyamoto have gotten to fully play out every aspect. The non-English localizations are proceeding along now, and we're trying to make this a simultaneous worldwide release. You have to put Zelda all out at once or else the story's going to get spoiled -- although, really, there's a ton to enjoy here even if you know a little about the story beforehand."

Oh, yes, this sounds like a fantastic story.  I wouldn't want it spoiled.

This makes absolutely no sense.  Why is it that Nintendo is so intent on changing absolutely everything about Zelda except for the one, small thing we want them to?  Not only that, why do they get to completely destroy the lore that's been set up?  I haven't seen such blatant mockery of the lore (and the fans) since Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the Star Wars prequels.

 

I've finally figured out what Malstrom has known ever since Yoshi's Island, Nintendo has absolutely no intention of giving us the games that we want.  They insist on finding ways to buy the games that they want, and yet New Super Mario Brothers still manages to be in the top 40

I'm not going to get a true, spiritual sequel to Ocarina of Time, I'm not going to get a New! Legend of Zelda.  I'm not even going to get The Last Story.

Screw you, Nintendo.  I'll be giving my money to people who deserve it.  People who know how to listen to customers, like Blizzard.

Or maybe I'll just make the games you refuse to, and get your money.

Even More Zelda Without Zelda

I might do more of these if Nintendo's going to just do all the work for me.

 No Zelda to see here, move along.

Spoony's thoughts on Nintendo

I love watching videos at The Spoony Experiment, though due to his use of particular language, I can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone.

This video is great though, and I'm pretty sure it's clean to boot!



I really listened in when he was talking about Zelda and Nintendo in general (about 10 minutes in)

There's so much to love in what he says in only a few minutes. I love the way he talks about how the Zelda games feel like they're in parallel universes, about how they have such a great backlog of world and characters and yet always have to do something radically different. I love how he compares Ocarina of Time to steak and the later games as "steak and potatoes," "steak with garlic bread," and so on. He just really hits the nail on the head, and I had to stop myself from cheering out loud at one point.

Anyway, his videos are great, and if language isn't an issue, I'd say check his website out. He's got a fantastic set of videos.

More Zelda without Zelda

This time Wind Waker gets the treatment

Gasp!

Malstrom answered my email!

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/email-zelda-without-zelda/

Zelda is a little more absurd as the fans will buy a Zelda, be very unhappy with it, and say to themselves, “This is an outlier. The next Zelda will be as amazing as Ocarina of Time / Link to the Past /Zelda I and II/ etc.” After the next bad Zelda, they say the same thing. And the cycle goes on and on. If anything is going to change in Zelda, this cycle must end.

  I can't emphasize enough how true this is.  I assume this is what Highlander fans feel like.

Zelda without Zelda

Spirit Tracks is not a Zelda game, and I have proof.

Can someone please tell me what part of this says "Legend of Zelda?"

How about this one?

WARNING: Your head may explode

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, an artist known as Ag+ created this little (heh) picture. (not for the faint of bandwidth)

I have 2 questions:
1)Where do I get this as a poster?
2)When is Nintendo hiring this guy as an art director?

It is also worth noting that this is a looping picture.

E3 Impressions: Legend of Zelda

So, here we go, I'm going to watch through Nintendo's press conference, and try to kind of leave my impressions here.


Cell shading?  I'm not so sure, it makes me think of Wind Waker.
Skyward Sword, huh?  I like it!

Bill Trinnen demoing, dag nabbit, it actually looks fun.

Mushrooms, hm...


Sword beams?!? holy crap, holy crap, holy crap...

Miyamoto is demoing it now,

swordfighing inspired by Wii sports resort? [expletive]!


Potion drinking is in real time?

Don't have to point at the screen to aim the slingshot?

Items not assigned to buttons?

Rolling bombs ala Wii sports bowling? Nice.

Bow & Arrow also inspired by Wii Sports Resort?  Very nice.

Whip?  Oh please let there be Indiana Jones throwbacks.


Crap, I'm sold.  Time to start up the "can't wait 'til next year" calendar

EDIT: Also of note is the fact that the Master sword is PROMINENTLY displayed.

A rant about Zelda

The problem with Zelda is the puzzles. I'm not saying remove the puzzles entirely, because that would ruin Zelda as well. The thing is, in earlier games, the puzzles weren't obvious, they were a lot more simple and subtle. There was a time when entering a dungeon didn't feel like there should be a screen pop up saying "puzzle time!" In fact, maybe that's my new name for Spirit Tracks. The Legend of Zelda: Puzzle Time.

Nah, I think I'll save that for Zelda Wii (pending more info)

Many people complain that the dungeons themselves are the problems. Aonuma has responded to this by removing the 'dungeon-overworld-dungeon' setup. That's not what people mean. The reason why people like me hate and dread the dungeons is that they're BORING. They feel like a chore. They've become little mazes with puzzle-solving in the mix, not storming the dungeon and taking out the monsters ala Elder Scrolls, the older Zeldas, and every other dungeon crawler ever made. I don't hate the dungeon/overwold set-up, in fact, I love it! I hate the fact that the overworld is diminishing, and the dungeons are regressing to puzzles.

Take Twilight Princess, for example. When I got to that last dungeon of Hyrule Castle, I was expecting to storm the castle and be taking down enemies left and right to rescue Princess Zelda like the opening to Link to the Past. What I got was a puzzle in the castle courtyard involving using the boomerang to spin the pinwheels in a particular order in order to open the gate so I can open the chest to get the key. But this isn't the key to the main doors, oh no, this key opens a door to the other side of the courtyard where I fight a bunch of monsters including their leader who finally gives me the key to the main doors.(no, seriously. Halfway through the fight he talks to you and gives you the key.) That's right, all that just to get into the castle.

That was not fun. It was only compounded by the fact that all of the enemies, even the leader, were CAKE for being the final dungeon, (or, rather, being outside of it.) And then there was forced 'arena' matches on the way where you got fenced in with terrible AI. That didn't help. At one point you're facing upwards of six enemies, in an enclosed area, with no threat of death, or even of the enemies even harming you. When I'm up against six enemies at once in the final dungeon of a game, I should be peeing myself, not being annoyed.

Alright, so I finally get into the castle, I get to really start storming it now, right? Of course not. Immediately inside, in a nice open area, I get to...hookshot onto chandeliers which activates switches that will raise platforms! In the next room I get to light torches in a particular order (because they burn out at different rates) to open the door! I get to transform into a wolf so I can see dead knights which show me the way across a pitfall-riddled floor!

Yeah, that last one sounds awesome...but describing it shows what was wrong with the whole thing. I transform into a wolf so I can talk to ghostly undead knights who show me the way across a pitfall-ridden floor...and it's nowhere near being as awesome as it sounds. It sounds awesome, but it just comes across as another puzzle. I think that the same sort of thing, set up right, dropped in between pants-wetting battles would add to a defecation-inducing level of scary-awesome that that whole dungeon should be, and is even telling me with the music and atmosphere that it should be, rather than the yawn-inducing level of boring that it is.

The game even goes so far as to taunt you with the music, which consists of the 'storming the castle' song in Link to the Past, slowly evolving into Ganon's theme. The music tells me I should be fighting off twisted guards, hordes of monsters, and whatever else a final level can throw at me. What do I get instead? PUZZLES! And a few token enemies.

There's even one point where I go outside to a terrace and am confronted by a bunch of enemies at once. All different kinds, with different strategies(which skirt dangerously close to 'puzzle' territory in and of themselves) to defeat them. I get hyped because I see a fight that might actually be a challenge. Then there's a big explosion and the super-happy-go team of the Hyrule Resistance show up. And guess what they do? Nothing! They show up, spoil the fun, and leave to let you do your thing. Thanks, guys. I thought you were annoying and unnecessary before, but now you've just taken the cake and ruined what had the potential to be, I'm not kidding, the best fight in the game
for absolutely no reason. The fact that I consider that potential fight the only real challenge should be telling you something.

Now before anyone says "Dur, hur, Cave of Ordeals?" That's not the same. I want a hard fight, not a cheap one. What's the difference? An endurance round where you aren't given any hearts and the only way to beat it without killing your controller/system/TV/neighbor is to use a ridiculously expensive suit of armor which, in a cruel twist of developer irony, drains rupees. And it's otherwise completely useless. That is not fun. That is cheap. Want another example? Megaman 9 (and what I've seen of 10) is cheap. They look like they were made by (or for) the Super Mario World modders, and look like they could give nightmares to the inventors of the Kaizo Trap. That's why I have no intention of playing either.

Above: if Keiji Inafune created New Super Mario Brothers Wii

Moving on to the final battle, do you get something like Ocarina? Lets see, in Ocarina, you fight Ganondorf with the now-obligatory magic ping-pong, while with every hit you land on him more of the floor drops down. When you drop down, it is a pain to climb the central pillar again and again, but to some extent you're grateful for the brief respite to psych yourself back into the fight (and collect some hearts.) When he's dead you flee his collapsing tower only to fight his 'final boss' form.

Let me describe this final battle. You're fighting a monstrous pig-beast in the ruins of it's own castle, which is itself floating atop a pit of lava, which is then surrounded by a ring of destruction and ruined Castle Town beyond that. You're trapped with the boss inside a ring of fire while your magic sword is outside of the ring of fire. This is all set to crazy-awesome-epic music, Complete with (Nintendo 64-era) choirs. I still get chills when I play that. (assuming, of course, I pay the game past the Water Dungeon.)

Now let's take a look at Twilight Princess's final battle(s). First, you fight Zant, The big scary guy you remember from the cutscenes who took over Hyrule, bathed it in shadow, and stabbed you with a curse that trapped you as a wolf. You storm into the throne room and...he's randomly crazy now. Not intimidating anymore. His 'boss fight' consists of an amalgamation of every boss fight so far (in what seems a pathetic attempt to try and 'use the items more') And he goes down like a pansy.

But that's not the real boss fight, you have to go to Hyrule Castle! (for no other reason than your companion tells you to. I personally had no desire to go at all. I did what I set out to do.) So after the previously ranted about puzzle-dungeon of Hyrule Castle, you get to Ganondorf. Then you get not two, not three, but FOUR stages of final battle. The first fight is pretty cool; despite being another round of magic ping-pong, because you're fighting a possessed Princess Zelda.

After that, Ganondorf transforms into Ganon! What do you get? A dual-wielding awesome-fest like previous installments? No. 'Ganon' this time around resembles a giant boar(pun?), and the fight consists of more freaking goat-stopping from the beginning of the game (I guess all that herding actually paid off!) mixed with the Phantom Ganon fight from Ocarina.

So, you fought Ganon, game's over, right? You see a cinematic as your shadow-friend Midna turns into a giant monster with a huge Trident, Goes after Ganondorf, and....you get teleported out of the Castle and into Hyrule Field, where you see the castle explode in the distance. yay.

Then Ganondorf appears somehow bringing a horse with him. (maybe he transformed Midna?) And of course, A horse chase ensues (which is exactly what I think of when I think 'final battle': epic horse chase)

But wait, there's more! The final final battle consists of a duel. One that can be beaten really fast with good timing. We can't have the game too hard, no, that would make it so newcomers (or, y'know, anyone) won't face any challenge during the FINAL BATTLE.

Of course, all these final battles have music screaming 'this is epic,' (complete with gamecube-era choirs) but without any real threat of death, (you might die once, but only because there's four stages of final battle)I'm not buying it.

I really am curious, with all their efforts, how many 'newcomers' they actually got with Twilight Princess.