I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
As someone who grew up with 3D games, it was always bizarre to see people objectively saying that 3D games were awkward and different and thus not good
Disappointing = this was not literally the greatest game i've ever played / album i've ever heard / movie i've ever seen / show i've ever watched and i don't know how to have realistic expectations
People didn't like Super Mario Sunshine? I kind of assumed it was accepted overall that it was awesome. I knew it had a lot of initial criticism, but I feel like it's one of those games that people have realized they've liked after it had been out a few years - sort of like Windwaker.
Agreed on A Link to the Past, also. It's my favorite top-down 2D Zelda game. Majora's Mask is my favorite 3D one, though. Er, 3D as in models being 3D and stuff, not as in 3D like the 3DS and such.
I was also really partial to The Minish Cap, though, which is an absolutely adorable game. The Picori are really cool characters (not to mention that they're SUPER CUTE), and fusing the stone things to unlock new areas was an interesting way to keep you wanting to return to old places. It was a really vibrant world with a lot of change as you progressed. It really had the exploration and puzzle-solving element down pat.
Man, I have many things to say about Zelda but so little connecting fiber between my ideas. I suppose that's kind of important.
A Link to the Past and Adventure of Link are the two Zelda games that aged the worst (the former simply seems very thin compared to pretty much every entry in the series, even the first, and the latter lacked the polish that was one of Nintendo's strong suits back in the day), the Oracle duo suffered heavily from having been developed by Capcom, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were tight but didn't really toy with series conventions in a meaningful way (which is pretty strange for a series more or less founded on toying with its own iconography), and A Link Between Worlds was basically a better version of A Link to the Past but still felt bare.
The original Zelda was a masterfully atmospheric game. Really, I think that was the secret ingredient to its success. Every sound, every color palette, and just the feel of using an item felt just suited to the game experience. Some aspects of its design could have been improved (mainly the inconsistent pretense of nonlinearity, by which I mean the way progress was nonlinear in some ways while barred in others with no logical reason for going between linear and open structure). Zelda II still feels like a hell of an adventure, and the action-RPG mechanics hold up very well today. 2D segments also look really nice; shame the overworld looks and feels like shit. A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds had really nice progression. Link's Awakening was astonishingly poignant, especially considering how scarcely the series tried emotional moments even after that point. Ocarina of Time may not have been mechanically perfect but felt like an adventure through-and-through and again made excellent use of atmosphere.* Majora's Mask has been talked about incessantly and I don't have anything to add to that conversation. The Oracle games are still probably the 2D games with the most content, rivaled by MAYBE Minish Cap. Wind Waker was pure joy to play, and had a genuinely interesting plot even if it was somewhat confusing in hindsight. Minish Cap felt like it was bursting at the seams, and the Minish added a fun twist to the dual-world theme of the series. The Four Swords games are a damn riot to play with friends. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword had much more involved, interesting plots than their predecessors, and the latter played with the established conventions in a mostly successful way. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were very tight and well designed even if they were unremarkable.
hey Kexruct you're an enormous Zelda nerd so maybe you'd know this
you know that "it's dangerous to go alone" bit? Has anyone ever like, done a fan-reading of the game or made a video or something where that is said aloud?
I have no idea why anyone would consider A Link to the Past to be "thin"
I preface this with the fact that I love every game in the series, ALttP included.
But the game felt passive. Essentially all of the skills the game requires you to know are learned by the third dungeon, which is about two hours in. After that it becomes a game of poking into corners and using the same skills learned in the beginning without really building or expanding on them. It was essentially a matter of the player's ethos remaining rather stagnant over the course of the game, not helped by the more difficult moments being moments where the player has essentially just hit a wall and has to stumble onto the right thing to do.
I dunno man, I thought ALttP built up pretty admirably over the course of the game. It's not until later that you get things like the hookshot and the block gun thing, for instance.
Maybe I just don't expect as much from a game. I'm fine with my ethos remaining the same
Eh, saying it didn't build at all is a mite unfair.
The hookshot and the cane were both really cool. I almost wish the game had less items so it'd spend more time to let the player explore the possibilities of them. Zelda could learn a lot from Portal.
At least, some of them could. I could divide the Zelda games in three camps based on why they're engaging: The first would consist of the two NES titles, the second would consists of ALttP, LA, OoA, OoS, MC, PH, ST and ALBW, and the third would consist of OoT, MM, WW, TP, and SS. In broad terms the first camp were primarily focused on skillful combat and a bit of exploration, along with understanding patterns in game mechanics, e.g. there is only ever one hidden door per wall in a dungeon, the second camp focuses on solving explicitly gamey puzzles and exploring the use of items, and the final focuses on environmental puzzles and uses items interchangeably as keys and aides to puzzle solving, with slight emphasis on using more than one at once.
The lines can be a bit blurred but I'd say that's how they're split, more or less.
There's evidence for various sub-interpretations among that, but the general consensus is that Young is having a dream of some kind. Whether it's an actual sleep dream, a dying dream, hallucinations brought on by any number of causes, etc. is the disputable part. That game packs more symbolism per square inch than some French films.
Disappointing = this was not literally the greatest game i've ever played / album i've ever heard / movie i've ever seen / show i've ever watched and i don't know how to have realistic expectations
the term is rarely used accurately.
I think it's more that certain people have expectations that actually have nothing to do with quality per se and frequently make little sense for the subject of those expectations—comparing apples to oranges, as it were—and treat those expectations like actual standards. Which is to say it is inaccurate not because the expectations are irrationally high, but that they think that they are playing a different game.
Example: My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, Swans' first comeback record, is good but not very cohesive, and the production, while lovely, frequently works against the material. A lot of people were disappointed because it did not resemble Swans' older material so much as it did Gira's last project, Angels of Light; to my mind, this is not a very fair expectation, although being disappointed because it is a weaker effort than those last two Angels of Light albums despite having an equally strong line-up and some great songs certainly is.
^^^^ Other than parts of The Great Annhilator, I don't believe he's done anything that isn't sonically or thematically related to The Angels of Light since 1987, so I don't get where that expectation comes from.
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Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I understand what people didn't like about it, but I maintain.
Maybe I just don't expect as much from a game. I'm fine with my ethos remaining the same
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead