#how??? after so long without a new 2D Zelda?

[esmeraldaka]

It's funny because yesterday I told my team at work that I missed 2D Zelda releases between the 3D ones.

Well

[thegeminisage]

So You Want To Get Into The Legend of Zelda But Don't Know Where To Start: A Masterpost

this discussion came up in my zelda stream the other week so i thought since i'm a longtime fan and Extremely Normal i'd make a guide to people who are just now getting into the series because of breath of the wild/tears of the kingdom. there's a lot of games and it can be confusing on how they're connected, where to start, etc. this is going to be an EXTREMELY LONG guide, sorry - if you want a short version you can check out this post i wrote a long time ago.

The Timeline

so the good news is that the zelda games were published non-linearly, meaning that the game that takes place first chronologically was not necessarily the first one ever made. they didn't even HAVE a timeline until like 2011 or so. for that reason, with a few exceptions*, you can jump in pretty much wherever you like. most zelda games (or pairs of games*) are spaced hundreds or sometimes even thousands of years apart, featuring different links and zeldas and other characters, which means you don't need to know anything about zelda to start with any game. the series is deliberately made so that each title works perfectly well as a stand-alone game.

*the exception is that a very few games have direct sequels - for example, majora's mask takes places just a few years after ocarina of time, phantom hourglass takes place after wind waker, etc. luckily even with these games, you can still jump in without having played their other half and have a good time without getting lost.

The Introduction

that said, the zelda series is extremely eclectic. while they all have the undercurrent of "zeldaness" that makes them special they can be as different as night and day. 2D or 3D, happy or edgy, mainline or spinoff, story-heavy or story-light...which game is best for you to start with will depend heavily on your own personal tastes.

the short version: if you haven't yet, i recommend most people new to zelda start with either ocarina of time or breath of the wild. these games, released almost 20 years apart, were both completely revolutionary and redefined their genres (or, in oot's case, the entire industry). they usually have something to offer everyone and they're both games with standout tutorial sections that teach new players the lay of the land with ease. there's a reason most people start with one of these two - which one you prefer depends on whether you can enjoy an older game or would prefer something newer. for brand-new gamers, i might also recommend skyward sword because of how much the game holds your hand - it's frustrating for more experienced players, but for those just getting started in gaming in general it might actually work out well.

the long version: OBVIOUSLY i'm going to do a game-by-game write-up. sue me. if you're looking for information on a particular title, ctrl+f it. otherwise, settle in. time for a cut!

The Games

how to read this guide:

which games: most of them. this guide is long enough as it is, so i'm not doing a whole ass writeup for REALLY niche spin-offs like the tingle games, the crossbow training game, the bs releases, or the much-loathed cdi games, even if i think the crossbow game ruled. i will do hyrule warriors and cadence of hyrule because they're properly fleshed out games. ports and remakes are gonna get grouped together with the originals to save time and space. if there's something missing from this list you want to know about, the wikipedia article with the complete list of zelda media is right here and it's a genuinely fascinating read. have fun!!

release date: self-explanatory. using japanese release dates for overall accuracy, and the games are in order of release date as well, but you DO NOT need to play them in that order - that would be madness

console: original console, other consoles it's available on (not including the weird experimental stuff like satellaview, c'mon), and whether or not it is available for switch. why? the switch is the latest console, how many new fans got into zelda, and because of nso, it will be the easiest access point for people who can't or don't want to buy new consoles/emulate on pc. nso stands for "nintendo switch online," which is a the online membership you can purchase from nintendo. the basic plan allows, among other things, emulation nes, snes, and gameboy titles. the expansion pack tier adds emulation of n64, sega genesis, and gameboy advance titles. i think nso is a good service with great value if you can afford it - read about it here. virtual console is just buying the game, usually for a low price, and downloading it digitally to play on newer consoles, but most of those services have been shut down now. there's also backwards compatibility - the wii u can play wii games, the wii can play gcn games, the original ds (and ds lite) can play gameboy advance games, and the gameboy advance (and gameboy sp) can play gameboy and gameboy color games. the snes can also play gameboy and gameboy color games with the super gameboy, and the gcn can play gameboy, gameboy color, and gameboy advanced games with the gameboy player.

average playtime: this comes from howlongtobeat.com - if it seems off, take it up with them

mainline game: this just means whether or not this game was a "big entry" into the series - typically, mainline games are devloped by nintendo directly (though nintendo develops side-games too), and they have a higher budget and a longer dev time, but this doesn't necessarily mean they're better - some mainline games are received more poorly than the ones that aren't mainline. also sometimes people argue about which games count as mainline games so take it with a grain of salt

sequel: whether or not a game is directly tied to another game in the series - again, even if they are tied to another game, you don't HAVE to play that other game first

story-heavy: how many cutscenes/cinematics/character stuff is going on

edge level: how much grimdark and serious stuff is present and how "on-screen" it is. zelda games are infamous for a careful balance of cheerful and dark stuff in all games, but some games are more forthright about the darker elements than others. i prefer those, but you may prefer it the other way!

the premise/the good/the bad/the verdict: the actual write-up. unfortunately not even i have played/finished every zelda game (someday...), so for the games i can't speak on personally, i will make a note on it so you can seek a second opinion.

now let's get started!

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

original console: nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gcn & gba (ports), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 8-10 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: no - in fact, for games in this era, reading the instruction manual is a must if you want story content; because the file size had to stay small, story content that couldn't fit was often added to manual instead

edge level: low

the premise: explore hyrule to find and put together eight fragments of the triforce so you can rescue princess zelda from ganon, prince of darkness.

the good: a solid introduction to the series, you can waste HOURS exploring this game, which is kind of a miracle considering the whole thing is only 128kb. (if you enjoy emulation, any computer will be able to play this. like doom, it could probably run on a microwave.) it's charming enough for when it was made and the music is all catchy as hell, even though it contains only a dozen or so tracks. this game is pretty light on puzzles, but most of the fun comes from the exploration - in fact, it was this game that the dev team for botw drew inspiration from when they were trying to figure out how to "reinvent" the zelda series - what they actually did was take it back to its roots.

the bad: well, it's that you can waste HOURS exploring in this game. back when it was released, the intent was to get players talking to one another - you would get one piece of the map explored and fine one secret, your friend would find and explore a different piece and find other secrets, and you'd trade! many people even had their own hand-drawn maps put together one screen at a time. since it really isn't possible to play this way today unless you get a bunch of friends together to do it blind, you almost certainly need a map or guide for this game when you're doing it on your own, otherwise you're never going to get anywhere, because there aren't usually indications that certain walls are bombable or bushes burnable.

the verdict: if you're a veteran who liked alttp (particularly the combat), if you have a high tolerance for aged games, or if you wanna see what this series looked like during its humble beginnings, you will like this game. if you're looking for a more guided experience or something with a lot of cinematics or puzzle-solving, pass. don't forget to read the manual!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

original console: nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gcn & gba (ports), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 11 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: yes, to the original legend of zelda

story-heavy: no - ditto for story being in the manual, like with the original loz

edge level: low

the premise: dive into six ancient palaces to place crystals there to wake princess zelda from an era long gone, who has been sleeping for hundreds of years. avoid being caught by ganon's minions, who want to use link's blood to revive their master ganon.

the good: because this game began life as an independent title which eventually got zelda-fied, it's quite different from most games in the series. it has side-scrolling combat and rpg elements. the soundtrack is very catchy, and this game also introduces dark link, an extremely cool popular doppelganger of our beloved hero. the map is HUGE in comparison to the original so there's tons more to explore here.

the bad: this game is HARD. not, "challenging," like, "bordering on impossible." i've never beaten it. i got just a couple of dungeons in and i was so miserable i had to give it up. even playing the "special edition" on nso (which is with all the unlockable upgrades to make it easier), it's a fucking slog. that's it! that's the only flaw.

the verdict: even with all its good qualities, even with how fresh it feels, it's so damn frustrating that only gluttons for punishment and very unique souls will truly find joy here. if you do decide to brave it, remember to read the instruction manual.

A Link to the Past (1991)

original console: super nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gba (port), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 15-17 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: medium. this was the first game to actually HAVE a proper story with named characters and extended dialogue. it wouldn't be considered story-heavy by today's standards, though.

edge level: medium, but like, on the high end of medium

the premise: one stormy night, link and his uncle receive a telepathic message from zelda begging for aid. link's uncle goes out into danger and doesn't return, so it's up to lik to go rescue her in his stead. from there you'll have to explore hyrule to locate the master sword, and explore the mysterious golden land behind the seal of the seven wise men to locate their missing descendants.

the good: alttp set the blueprint for the rest of the series - we finally have our first dungeon-crawler with proper puzzles, real dialogue from zelda, named bad guys, a huge array of funky items, and jammin' tunes still used in the games today (hyrule castle anyone?). plus, link has pink hair! the opening to this game is utterly iconic in every way, and traverse through not one but TWO world maps that overlay one another makes exploration even more exciting.

the bad: truly, no complaints here. it does require some patience. it's a little aged, and it's always possible to get lost without a guide, but so is it true for every game with a big overworld like zelda's.

the verdict: again, this game isn't story-heavy by today's standards, but back then it was more story than we'd ever gotten from a zelda game. as long as you don't go in expecting it to have an rpg kind of story, you'll probably enjoy it. if you don't like 2D zelda combat or need shiny graphics to keep your attention, give it a pass.

Link's Awakening (1993, 2019)

original console: gameboy/gameboy color, and a switch-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes - you can play the original with nso (basic) or the switch-exclusive remake

also available on: snes (super gameboy), gcn (gameboy player), gba, original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds (virtual console), switch (remake), pc (emulation of any version)

average playtime: 14-19 hours for the original, 14-21 hours for the remake

mainline game: yes for the original, no for the remake, technically

sequel: technically a sequel to a link to the past, but they truly have nothing to do with each other

story-heavy: medium - similar story style to a link to the past. smaller cast and less overall dialogue, but more character work on marin specifically

edge level: usually pretty low, but in the rare moments when it jumps out it REALLY jumps out

the premise: while sailing, link becomes shipwrecked, washes up on shore of a remote place called koholint island, and is rescued by a girl named marin. with his boat in pieces, he has to go on a bittersweet adventure exploring the island and getting to know his rescuer in order to wake a mysterious being known as the windfish so he can go home.

the good: a tiny yet vast map, foreboding dungeons (hello, face shrine), a strange and quirky world that's impossible not to love with a small but charming cast to match (though, of course, the real stand-out character is marin), fun minigames, and a soundtrack that only got better in the remake. this game has it all! the story will surprise you by leaving you weeping at the end. there's not a huge difference to the gameplay between the original and the remake - it's mostly a graphical update, though they did add some side content.

the bad: it's one of those games that's different from the rest of the zelda series, which means it's not for everyone - there's no zelda, no ganondorf, no hyrule. also, getting the best ending is absolutely painstaking.

the verdict: what a wonderful game! the story is sparse but rewarding. if you don't like 2D zeldas, story-light games, or don't want to cry through the credits, you can give it a pass - but everyone else should love it.

Ocarina of Time (1998, 2011)

original console: nintendo 64, and a 3ds-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: gcn (port), wii, wii u (virtual console), 3ds (remake), pc (fan-port or emulation of either version)

average playtime: 25-40 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: yes, medium-high. it wouldn't impress by today's standards but back then it WAS the standard

edge level: medium-high. it's horrifying in some respects, but overall very wistful and bittersweet

the premise: link, the local outcast, is ousted from his idyllic home after tragedy strikes in the form of ganondorf murdering his forest's guardian spirit. from there you'll explore hyrule to open an ancient doorway, and go on a time-traveling adventure in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a terrible future and heal a broken world that didn't always want you.

the good: what can i possibly say about ocarina of time that hasn't already been said? critically acclaimed as the best game of all time when it was made and still 25 years later (with only breath of the wild threatening to unseat it), this game is everything. this is the game that taught me to love stories, to love gaming, to love zelda. the world is full of secrets and places to explore, there's a kind of dual-overworld thing happening the way there was in alttp, there's a lot of collectibles and sidequests and TONS of minigames, there's a huge cast of characters with real depth, you can RIDE A HORSE, and the quite literal coming-of-age story has actual plot twists that affect the gameplay. this game defined the official timeline for zelda (massive spoilers at the link), it defined the series itself, it defined the genre and even the industry - games everywhere are still using concepts introduced (or made popular) here, like targeting enemies, context-sensitive buttons, dynamic soundtracks, and day-night cycles.

the bad: one of the dungeons is a shitty goddamn motherfucking royal pain in the ass. you know what i'm talking about. unless you don't, in which case i'm sorry. maybe it's less horrible in master mode, i don't know. also, like, it's not that the game has aged poorly, it's still a solid adventure, but it HAS aged. since basically every game you've ever played has emulated oot with stuff like lock-on targeting, these features won't feel as revolutionary and special to a new player today as they did to new players in 1998. that's not bad, but it has caused some people to get excited to look into the hype, pop the game in, and then go "wait, i don't get it."

the verdict: unless you absolutely cannot deal with playing a 25yo game, pick this up - for the historical value, if nothing else. i cannot more highly recommend any game that ever existed than i do this one. that said, for people who are new to GAMES IN GENERAL, it may not feel as intuitive as it did to new players in 1998, because speak a slightly different language now. new gamers should definitely still play this, but they should either use a guide or consider not making it their very first game. more experienced gamers should still be fine making this their first zelda game.

bonus verdict: as for which console to play it on - the 3ds version has a lot of quality of life adjustments, including gyroscopic controls and a master mode (gcn version also has master mode), and the graphical improvement is absolutely astounding...but it's on a teeny-tiny little screen. i think the best way to play ocarina of time, if you're able to, is to emulate the 3ds version with the fanmade 4k upgrade. of course, this requires a good pc, emulation skills, and a properly connected controller (i haven't done it yet myself) - so don't feel bad playing anyway you can access it.

Majora's Mask (2000, 2015)

original console: nintendo 64, and a 3ds-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: gcn (port), wii, wii u (virtual console), 3ds (remake), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 20-38 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: yes, it's a direct sequel to oot. the opening may be a little confusing if you haven't played it but otherwise you're fine

story-heavy: yes, VERY. the character-work alone is unparalleled even by modern standards

edge level: EXTREMELY HIGH. this is without a doubt the darkest and most haunting game in the series

the premise: link, trying to escape his problems back home, gets thrown into an unfamiliar world where the moon is going to fall and destroy everything in only three days. with the help of multiple forms (link can shift into a deku, goron, or zora), and time travel, link relives the same three days over and over again, exploring clock town and the lands around it, and getting to know its people, so he can find a way to help everyone and prevent the oncoming apocalypse.

the good: holy cast of characters, batman! as with every zelda game, there is exploration and dungeon-crawling, and these are phenomenal here - of particular note is how the use of 4 different forms plays into puzzle-solving - but the real meat of this game comes from its incredible cast. near the beginning of the game you are given a journal, in which to note the schedules and habits of each and every resident of termina as you learn them. you play the same three days over and over, so while the clock is always ticking, there's an infinite time to get to know them. each character reacts to the upcoming armageddon differently: some are resigned, some are frightened, some are brave, and some are in denial. (notably, one minor character who appears brave crumbles in the final hours, begging not to die.) who these people are and the sorrows they carry around with them to the end of the world define this game and make it like no other.

the bad: look, it's a game about an upcoming apocalypse. you're on the sinking titanic and the clock counts down every precious second and no matter what you do there will ALWAYS be that time limit, which not everyone likes. it's stressful, and it can be sad and tragic, even upsetting at times, which is kind of a requirement for the powerful catharsis it also offers. it's very different to the usual zeldas - no zelda or ganondorf or hyrule - which also isn't everyone's bag. it's also a huge timesink - you really miss a lot of the point if you don't 100% it or at least get all of the masks, which takes a long time and a guide (although it is fun as hell the whole time).

the verdict: some people really hate the time limit and find it imposing. i mostly don't have a problem with it - sometimes i have to race to finish a task before i run out of time so i HAVE time to travel back before i get blown to bits, but without this mechanic, the game wouldn't work at all. famously, this game was made in only one year (hence the reused assets), so the pressure the devs felt really came out in their work. i think it's a fucking masterpiece, but it is a game about death, among other things, so if you need a feel-good title this one probably isn't your stop. that said, the incredibly powerful cast makes this game timeless - if not for the graphics you'd hardly know it's aged at all. even newer gamers should enjoy this one, but use a guide! for a game this complex it's more important to find everything than it is to do it blind.

bonus verdict: while the graphical improvements on the 3ds are wonderful, and the added fishing minigame is great, i mostly preferred the controls of the original. new players may not notice the difference, though!

Oracles of Ages & Oracle of Seasons (2001)

original console: gameboy color

available on switch: not at the time of writing, but nintendo has confirmed it is coming to nso (basic)

also available on: snes (super gameboy), gcn (gameboy player), gba, original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 16-25 for oracle of ages, 15-21 for oracle of seasons, leading to about 31-46 hours total

mainline game: no

sequel: not linked to any other games in the series, but they're technically both sequels to each othjer - more below

story-heavy: no, about medium-low

edge level: low

the premise: link hears the triforce calling out to him, and when he investigates, is thrown into one of two words, depending on which game you're playing. these two games stand alone, but they can also be linked via a code so that your playthrough on one can be transferred over to the other (like golden sun, if you've ever played those games). you can choose which game to play first. at the end of your playthrough, you can get a code, which can then be entered on the other game - complete both and you get a secret special grand finale. somewhat like pokemon games, the games complement each other in their differences, thoguh the differences here are much more drastic - they have different overworlds and dungeons, a slightly different set of items, and a different way of interacting with the world (by either traveling through the ages or by changing the season). oracle of ages is focused on puzzle-solving, while oracle of seasons is focused on combat and action.

the good: what a dense and detailed little adventure these games are! with a double of everything from items sets to overworlds, there's a ton to do. the worlds have a ton of variety and can feel endless at times. and since they were built on (i think) the link's awakening engine, gameplaywise it's kind of like getting to play a really good sequel to that game for the first time...twice. the lore is fun, the lands are fun, there's a couple of unforgettable tracks i still listen to. since you can play the games in either order, there's a good bit of REplayability involved, because hardcore fans will want to experience it both ways - leading to two playthroughs of each game, meaning four total playthroughs, for up to a whopping total of 92 hours of gameplay. talk about bang for your buck!

the bad: the codes are a real pain in the ass to work with, and you really can't get by without them. not only is it essential for moving your file from one game to the other, but you can also use them to get special items from one file to another. it's SO EASY to enter these codes in wrong and SO TEDIOUS to have to check them character by character. here's hoping the nso version has a better way (though i'm not holding my breath).

the verdict: an absolute must for any 2d zelda fan. first-time players, i HIGHLY recommending playing ages first. there's an important side-character in ages whose story gets resolved in seasons, but not if you play seasons first. of course, if you really like the games a lot, you can always start over and play them in the other order for different cutscenes.

Wind Waker (2002)

original console: gamecube

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (hd port), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 25-60 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, this is one POSSIBLE sequel to ocarina of time (which splintered the timeline, leading to multiple possible branching paths), though it takes place hundreds of years later. it has the same ganondorf from that game, but you should understand everything just fine whether you've played oot or not.

story-heavy: yes

edge level: medium-low - there are some more serious moments, and this is technically a post-apocalypse story, but overall this is one of the more bright and joyful games

the premise: this is a hyrule that was flooded by the gods when the hero of an ancient era could not show up to defeat ganondorf. people live on former mountaintops, now islands, interconnected by only the sea, and sailing is very dangerous. when link's younger sister is kidnapped, he has to leave his little island and go on a sea-faring adventure with pirates in order to get her back and unlock the mysteries of the hyrule beneath the waves.

the good: the game is vibrant, colorful, beautiful, and full of life. even if you don't like the cartoony art style (and i have mixed feelings), you can't deny the ambiance. there's a new combat system where for the first time you can pick up the dropped weapons of enemies, and the cast is stand-out - the "zelda" of this game is more hands-on than in any other title, and ganondorf is at his most sympathetic here, not to mention all the minor characters and their various sidequests. the characters are truly some of the funniest and most endearing yet - this game will make you laugh out loud. the enemies and bosses are unique and fun to grapple with (special shoutout to helmaroc king) and there's no shortage of stuff to do.

the bad: firstly, we have to mention the art style, which has been a little divisive over the years. it won't be for everybody. i like it for the most part, because you couldn't get the same vibe without it, but i do wish it was just a little less stylized - just a little! secondly, the game is just not finished. the development was rushed, leading to the cutting of an entire dungeon and a poorly-implemented second half where the focus shifts from exploration and dungeons to a near-ENDLESS fetch-quest for triforce pieces which involves a LOT of incredibly tedious and time-consuming sailing. (as kids, some trips were so long we could just set the direction and leave the controller on the floor while we took a bathroom break.)

the verdict: overall, the flaws aren't enough to ruin what is a truly great adventure. fans of the more serious games (hi! me!) may find themselves wishing wind waker had leaned into its post-apocalyptic setting and mysterious drowned world aspect more, and fans of lighter zeldas will find themselves wishing the damn thing was finished, but overall, everyone should find it's worth at least one playthrough, unless you absolutely cannot tolerate the visuals. fans of lighter zeldas, combat, and pirates will all love this one.

Four Swords (2002)

original console: gameboy advance

available on switch: no :(

also available on: 3ds (single-player remake), potentially pc (idk if emulation of the original is possible considering the connectivity, but you could almost certainly emulate the remake)

average playtime: 3-17 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: technically, it's a sequel to minish cap, but minish cap hadn't been made yet, so whatever

story-heavy: not at all

edge level: non-existent

the premise: link pulls the ancient "four sword" in order to defeat bad guy vaati and becomes split into 4 selves. this game was the first multiplayer zelda, and you had to have three friends, all with their own gameboys and link cables, to even play this bad boy. from what i understand in most of the game you just compete to see who can get the most rupees? a single-player version was released on the 3ds a few years later but i don't know if you can still buy it legit or if the 3ds store was shut down. since it was so inaccessible, pretty much no one played this, including me, so i can't give it a proper writeup. probably nobody reading this will ever get a chance to experience four swords how it was originally meant to be played either, but you can find this game's spirit in similar titles like four swords adventures or minish cap, which are much more accessible.

Four Swords Adventures (2004)

original console: gamecube

available on switch: no :(

also available on: uh yeah that's it. just the gamecube. you may be able to emulate it on pc though - i've never tried

average playtime: 15 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: teeechnically a sequel to the original four swords, but nobody played that, it's fine

story-heavy: not at all

edge level: very low

the premise: a sequel to four swords, this was intended to be the sleeker and (somewhat...) more accessible version. you can play this one as a single player, but my brother and i did it on co-op with a link cable and a gameboy sp - just the two of us, and no need to find two other friends - we each controlled two links each, to simplify it.

the good: the game is FUNNN as hell. the graphics are sleek as fuck because it's a 2d game running on a system capable of rendering 3d ones (just look at those flame effects!), the gameplay is addictive, and co-op puzzles are a blast. nintendo has always come out strong when it comes to in-person multiplayer (even if they have yet to catch up with online multiplayer...) and this is no exception. for anyone who ever wished they could sit on the floor and play zelda with their siblings the same way they played mario kart or smash bros, this game is a dream come true.

the bad: this game is still so GODDAMN inaccessible. we were lucky enough to have the gameboys and link cables we needed, but i don't have any idea how you'd go about playing it with other people now without some extremely tedious emulation or buying some extremely old (and expensive) gaming equipment. sure, emulating the single-player version on gcn is no big, but the game really shines in its multiplayer aspect, which is all but impossible for most people to enjoy now. it's incredibly frustrating.

the verdict: if you're lucky or rich enough to own a gamecube, a gameboy, and a link cable (multiple gameboys and link cables?) in 2023, AND you have a friend or three to play it with, please pick this one up. unless you just hate 2d zeldas, it is a FUCKING blast, and zelda fans the world over are probably envious they can't experience it for themselves.

Minish Cap (2004)

original console: gameboy advance

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds, wii u (virtual console)

average playtime: 15-27 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: no, but it is a prequel to the four sword series (made well after those games were released)

story-heavy: medium-light - about the level of most 2d zelda games

edge level: very low - this is such a bright and cheerful adventure

the premise: in an adventure meant to explain vaati of four sword fame's origins, you meet teeny-tiny people known as the minish, who live in teeny-tiny spaces all over hyrule. they mend shoes, use pots and old boots as houses, fight dust mites, and leave surprise gifts such as rupees and hearts beneath pots and the like to help adventurers. by shrinking and growing you explore various nooks and crannies and solve a ton of puzzles, and through fusing items called kinstones with strangers you can change or uncover more of the overworld and unlock even more secrets

the good: the game is beautiful, bright, and fun. the soundtrack is catchy, the gameplay is addictive, the puzzles are very fresh, and the kinstone fusion feature means you'll be doing a lot of backtracking and replaying to see all this game has to offer.

the bad: besides zelda, i didn't find myself terribly enthralled with most of the cast. the reused sound effects from other games can be nostalgic sometimes but sometimes they feel a bit cheap, since they had to be downsized; they're the audio equivalent of a pixelated jpg. and as great as the soundtrack is, it suffered from the same thing.

the verdict: my nitpicks with this game are minor - i think it's a wonderful and fresh entry into the series, and probably one of if not the best 2D zelda. if you like 2D zelda at all, you'll want to pick it up.

Twilight Princess (2006)

original console: gamecube AND wii (i know)

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (hd port), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 30-56 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, this is another possible sequel to oot, taking place 100 years later, and involving oot's ganondorf. (it has nothing to do with the timeline wind waker is on.)

story-heavy: yes, very - the cutscenes look great, the mocap for this game is wonderful

edge level: very high

the premise: 100 years after ocarina of time, darkness falls across hyrule in the form of "twilight," desolating every part of hyrule that it touches by turning its denizens into ghosts, and forcing princess zelda to surrender to zant, the king of the twilight realm. when link's village is destroyed by this twilight and he is turned into a wolf, he leaves to save zelda, save hyrule, and save his home. this game was meant to be a gcn title originally, but development was delayed for so long that they began co-developing it for the wii and released it as a launch title for that console.

the good: where do i start? this game was intended to be a return to oot's more realistic artstyle after many years of the wind waker art style in spin-off games, and was in fact a spiritual remake of oot in many ways. it is similar graphically, tonally, and gameplay wise - it's the oot they wanted to make in 1998, only with a more powerful engine, and fans loved it - check out this video of its announcement at e3 - it still gives me chills. famously, this game introduced horseback combat, which the devs had really wanted to implement in oot and were forced to give up on due to hardware limitations. the cast and the puzzles are all great on this one, and the world is huge and full of surprises, but of particular note is your partner midna, who comes with a better story and more personality than any partner before or since (sorry, king of red lions). lesbians and their associates will LOVE whatever the hell she has going on with zelda in this game. twilight princess also has the most fleshed-out swordplay of any zelda game - the various techniques you learn from the ghost swordsman are fun as hell, and every single boss battle in this game absolutely fucks.

the bad: despite its high moments, the story in this game is just a little weirdly paced. ganondorf was brought in kind of suddenly, and link's childhood friend from his village, whom the story focuses on a lot, is maybe not the most compelling character (sorry to ilia fans - she's okay, just not my favorite). not everybody liked this game's emulation of oot, and some people felt it was uninspired. personally, my gripes are mostly about the dual-console release; having played both versions multiple times, i think they both suffered from being co-developed. because the wii version uses motion controls and most people are right-handed they switched to a right-handed link for the wii (BLASPHEMY), meaning they actually flipped the entire world horizontally, and there are times when the laziness of this action is very apparent when playing the wii version. while the controls are superior on the wii (there's a mandatory shooting minigame that's all but impossible on gcn connected to a crt tv), the graphics just...look a little aged for a wii game, whereas they look damn good for a gamecube game. the hd remake fixes this, but since it's only on the wii u, fucking nobody has played it, and it remains inaccessible to most players except through emulation.

the verdict: if you can get your hands on this, do it. despite its flaws it's a classic meat-and-potatoes zelda adventure. fans of combat and more serious stories will especially love this one. personally, i preferred the gcn version because of left-handed link, but i do think the motion aiming on the wii (and wii u?) was a great addition, so it's a matter of preference as far as if you want the hd graphics and what controller feels correct in your hands.

Phantom Hourglass (2007)

original console: nintendo ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 17-31 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: a direct sequel to wind waker - not sure if you need to have played that to understand; from what i can tell there are actually a few plotholes

story-heavy: medium, i think?

edge level: low, as far as i know

the premise: after tetra gets sucked into a ghost shiop ad vanishes, link has to set sail on a new ship to find a way to free her. that's all i really know because, okay, up-front, i did not finish it. i did not give it a fair shake. it's got great reviews and they can't all be wrong, but i found controlling link with a stylus (the ds had no control stick) frustrating, the game hard to see (the graphics are trying to emulate ww's style on less capable hardware), and the story uncompelling (tetra? a damsel??). i know a lot of people really love linebeck and i wanna love him too one day, but until then, get your answers from the people who love this game!

Spirit Tracks (2009)

original console: nintendo ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 20-33 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: to wind waker and phantom hourglass, technically, though it takes place 100 years after those games

story-heavy: medium, i think?

edge level: low, as far as i know

the premise: 100 years after wind waker and phantom hourglass, a new hyrule has been founded above the waves and it has TRAINS. for some reason zelda gets zapped out of her body and can now follow you around as a cool ghost who possesses bigass statues to help you out. that's right, your partner for this game IS ZELDA. the main theme for this game is so catchy it's a crime. i never played this since i didn't finish phantom hourglass, but it looks so fucking cool that i wanna power through phantom hourglass despite my initial reservations just so i can take a crack at it.

Skyward Sword (2011)

original console: wii

available on switch: yes, as an hd port

also available on: wii u (virtual console & backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 30-58

mainline game: yes

sequel: no - in fact, it's the prequel to every zelda, being that it's the very first one in the timeline

story-heavy: yes, very

edge level: mostly low, but it does have its serious moments

the premise: taking place at the very start of zelda's long and complex timeline, this game seeks to explain the origins of hyrule's creation and and some of its mythology. link and the other proto-hylians live in islands high above the clouds and attend the school for flying around on bigass birds, not knowing if there even is a world below, until one day zelda (not a princess but the headmaster's daughter) gets dragged down by a dark force, and link must venture into the land below to save her.

the good: skyward sword is oozing ambiance. a standout area of this game is lanayru desert, in which you can use a timeshift stone to shift the area directly around you back in time by 1000 years or so and watch it come to life with greenery. this soundtrack is fully orchestrated, we get to hear zelda sing (her first voice acting debut!), and when the motion controls are on, they're REALLY on. sometimes the swordfights feel like actual duels. the cast of side-characters all get a lot of development (shoutout to my man groose!), and the villains are creepy and quirky. the dungeons in skyward sword are especially good - the cistern in particular is one of the best in the game, but we can't forget the ghost ship or the sky temple either. minor spoilers for the story, here, but finding out WHY there are so many zelda games and the struggle against evil never ends (it's a literal curse) was really cool and really reframed how a lot of people saw the series and the characters - it's a lot more tragic that they have a fate they can't escape from so long as zelda fans want more games.

the bad: minor spoilers for the story here too. as far as prequels go it did not make a lot of sense. there's nothing about the three goddesses we've come to know and love, only about the minor goddess hylia, and the ancient hyrule features species that don't ever make another appearance mole guys and seahorse dudes. there aren't any zoras or gerudo or koroks/kokiri, there's only one goron, we only see two sheikah...it feels so far removed from the hyrule we know that it doesn't feel like a prequel at all. additionally, when the motion controls aren't good, they're REALLY bad - especially on the switch version, which has less precise controls than the wii. finally, while i personally didn't mind it (puzzles!), a lot of people disliked how linear the overworld was and complained there was no exploration. another common frustration, one which i share, is how much the game holds your hand. (this famously inspired toriel in the game undertale to LITERALLY hold your hand and do the puzzle for you.) this game will present a puzzle and then have the nearest npc (most often fi, poor fi, she undeservedly gets all the blame for this) explain how to do it before giving you even one chance to try for yourself.

the verdict: it has its flaws, but i still enjoy it a lot. i think more experienced players will be very frustrated with it at times, and people who hate motion mechanics or constant alerts/lots of useless dialogue will be miserable. (you can turn motion controls off in the switch version but it feels unnatural because of how sword-swinging works.) on the other hand, the game's linear and hand-holdy nature actually makes it a perfect start for brand new gamers, especially given where it falls on the timeline.

A Link Between Worlds (2013)

original console: 3ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 16-23 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: takes place at least 100 years after a link to the past, and even uses the same overworld! you don't have to play that to understand this though.

story-heavy: medium, about the level you expect for 2d zeldas

edge level: medium-high

the premise: link turns into a little flat guy so he can go more places! this is a sequel involving the inhabitants of lorule, a parallel world to hyrule, one without a triforce. go back and forth between kingdoms to save hyrule from suffering the same fate, all while trying to kick a giant rabbit guy out of your house.

the good: the puzzles in this one are really fun and fresh, the old overworld map feels super nostalgic, the music is charming, and being able to tackle the dungeons in any order is a nice touch. i especially loved getting to know certain inhabitants of lorule.

the bad: the non-linear style won't be for everyone, and i wish i had been able to spend more time getting to know hilda in particular.

the verdict: this in my opinion is one of the best 2D zeldas - if you're a 2D zelda fan, especially a alttp fan, don't miss it!

Hyrule Warriors (2014, 2016, 2018)

original console: wii u

available on switch: yes, as a remake/collection

also available on: this is complicated. the game was originally released on wii u, then ported to the 3ds with new added content but i think mising some other content, and then FINALLY released on the switch with ALL the content. you can also emulate any version on the pc

average playtime: 17-38 hours, though people report up to a whopping 366 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: no

story-heavy: medium-ish. there's cool cutscenes but it's not that deep

edge level: low, this shit is just balls to the wall crazy-ass fun

the premise: a crossover between dynasty warriors and zelda. turn zelda into a beat-em-up and add cameos from popular characters doing increasingly batshit anime fighting moves. what's not to like?

the good: this game is insane. the electric guitar soundtrack, the cameos, the nostaliga - it's all here. the gameplay is good mindless fun you can really sink your teeth into, and despite it not being the point i had fun running around and exploring all the maps. there's so, so, SO much to do (366 hours!) you will literally never see the end of it.

the bad: the OCs are maybe not my favorite people. i don't know if they come from other dynasty warriors games but they were a little annoying and truly, uh, underdressed. also, as someone who likes to 100% games, it annoys me that i'll likely never 100% this, just because of the sheer timesink/grinding required.

the verdict: if you like fighting games and combat, this is for you. if you're into zelda for the serious story stuff and the puzzles, give it a pass. completionists beware, 100%ing this game is NOT for the faint-hearted.

Tri Force Heroes (2015)

original console: 3ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 14-26 hours, but up to 56 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: takes place a few years after a link between worlds - not sure if you need to play that to understand this, but it seems unlikely

story-heavy: doesn't look like it

edge level: low. oh my god, he's in a little cheerleader outfit. look at him

the premise: i don't really know, i think you crossdress to gain superpowers and then solve puzzles with your buds. i didn't play this one because i didn't have 2 friends with a 3ds and a flexible schedule. apparently there's a one-player mode, but it just doesn't seem as fun, and the lack of a 2-player mode is sad because my brother and i could've rocked it. like the four swords series, this looks like great multiplayer fun, but it's inaccessible to people without the time or coordination to get 3 people together. it looks fun as hell, though.

Breath of the Wild (2017)

original console: dual launch on wii u and switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 50-100 hours, though to 100% everything and enjoy the dlc it could take up to 210!

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, it's a sequel to everything, since it takes place at the end of (somehow) every timeline. but you don't have to have any prior experience to enjoy it

story-heavy: medium-heavy? this is the first zelda game with voice acting, and what cutscenes it does have are amazing, but you can expect to see only a very few of them

edge level: very high (this is once again post-apocalyptic), but not as high as majora's mask or twilight princess

the premise: link wakes after a 100 year sleep with no memory of who he is or what happened to the ruined world around him. explore a completely open world in your own way at your own pace, recover your memories, rescue zelda.

the good: this game hit the industry at a thousand miles per hour and six years later the hype still hasn't slowed down. this redefined the series and the genre in a way we haven't seen since oot in 1998. this game is revolutionary in the way that oot was revolutionary back then, but updated so that newer players find it just as surprising and refreshing as new players in 1998 found oot back then. the exploration, the physics, and the world are all totally unparalleled - three decades later, this zelda truly gets back to the original explorer and adventuring spirit miyamoto tried so hard to capture in the very first legend of zelda game all the way back in 1986.

the bad: as much fun as this world is to play around in, i found that most of my joy came from the exploration and not knowing what i'd find around the next corner. it's still a very, very, VERY good game, but i found that on my replay it just didn't have that same shininess that other games in the series do when i replay them. and, of course, because it's so different it's very divisive - there's no human ganondorf in this game, no dungeons - all your puzzle-solving comes in microdungeons called shrines scattered around hyrule. weapon durability is also a hotly debated feature - even i found it frustrating at times, although in many ways the forced improvisation it brings to the table is more than worth the cost of admission. and overall the enemies are all the same and have no real difference between them, even the bosses, and the boss fights kind of suck. it's a really good game, but it does have its flaws.

the verdict: this is the perfect starting point for anyone new to the series. many people have started with this game and learned about hyrule alongside the amnesiac link - i had an extremely interesting discussion once with someone on tumblr about how the game is different if you've grown up loving hyrule and see it get torn apart, vs if the only hyrule you know IS the one that's torn apart. both ways are wonderful experiences, and i think even non-zelda fans would find something to love in the freedom this game offers.

Cadence of Hyrule (2019)

original console: switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 6-11 hours, but you can add up to 12 more if you play the dlc

mainline game: no

sequel: no

story-heavy: not really

edge level: low

the premise: a crossover with crypt of the necrodancer, a roguelike rhythm game. there's no real story here except, notably, a brief cameo of a younger ganondorf, though his back is always turned to you. (if you could go back and kill ganondorf as a baby...)

the good: well, a rhythm game's gotta have good music, right? both the rehashes of the old songs and the new music are absolutely stellar here. i'm normally iffy on rhythm games but i found the gameplay addictive (there's a strong tactical element to moving around) and the exploration fun. getting to play as zelda (!!!) if you want is a great bonus, too. there's really nothing not to love.

the bad: the kind of movement you have in this game doesn't lend itself super well to boss fights most of the time. they weren't bad by any means but definitely one of the weaker parts of the experience.

the verdict: unless you hate rhythm games or hate fun, you'll like this one, especially if you're a crypt of the necrodancer fan or a fan of zelda's music in general. puzzle fans might be disappointed there aren't as many mind-twisters in this one, though.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020)

original console: switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 25-40 hours, though it can take up to 76 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: a direct prequel to breath of the wild and its eventual but as-of-yet unreleased sequel tears of the kingdom

story-heavy: yes

edge level: relatively low, i'm told

the premise: so this is a prequel to botw, taking place during the era just before the apocalypse. i didn't finish it because it came out right around nov 5 2020 (iykyk) and then someone spoiled the ending for me and i thought it sounded stupid, so i was less motivated to play. what little i did play of it was great, though - it was exciting and fun in all the ways the original hyrule warriors was but bigger and badder in every respect, and with a little more of that somber botw flavor. i intend to finish before totk comes out despite my reservations about the story.

The Conclusion

it's a great time to be a zelda fan because out of the 22 games on this list, only 8 of them are unavailable on nintendo switch, and only 2 of those are what i would consider to be mainline games. that means you can access two thirds of the ENTIRE SERIES, spanning almost 4 decades, on a single console! your only limits are your time and your wallet. most of the ones that AREN'T available on the switch can be played on a 3ds, so if you have or buy one, nearly the entire series is at your fingertips. (you can emulate the shit out of your 3ds, btw, and play a lot of these gameboy, gba, and ds games for free - nintendo isn't looking anymore so they don't care.)

sorry i couldn't fully cover all games - i welcome opinions from people who have played games i've missed in the tags. when i do get around to playing them, i will come back and update this guide! expect an entry for totk eventually too. thanks for reading and i hope it was helpful to someone!

[lexicorp]

Ohgodstheresmore-

now I'm tryna decide wtf I want my own human Bill to look like

the left one was the last design I did a couple years ago, and it ain't bad, but I'm jus like eeehhh

bill has always been very shape shift in my brain too so that also confuses me when tryna pin him down to one lol

my Human Bill Cipher au is where he was actually born a regular human but has the mental illnesses and gets involved with dark magic. the euclideans in this world branched out from their 2D coils, there still aren't many left though since the group of them were the soul survivors of their degrading home world. aaand are thus are scattered across dimensions. Bill meets a disguised one and she is actually the one to get him involved with magic junk and creating that fun beast lol. she is very proud of herself-

anyway, here's also a bit of lore I scrounged from my documents:

As a kid, he was infatuated with oddities, and was curious as can be. He wanted to know it all, but aside from research, his father brought him on hunting trips and taught him how to cut the meat, and this sparked an interest in dissecting small creatures on his own. And when he wasn't doing that, he would play games like portal or zelda games, which his little bro ray liked to watch. His parents were often busy, his mother a surgeon and his father a lawyer. They found time where they could, and taught him and ray to be independent. As long as they did their chores and made sure not to miss school, and of course be careful and not stay out too late, their parents trusted them to stay with friends, go to the park, the library, etc. About when he was 10, a group of kids at school started paying special attention to him. The leader was a new kid from the city who started to try and make some sort of mini gang. He manipulated other kids into joining them, most guys. They would steal his work, break into his locker/his backpack, harass, and jump him. Bill tried to hide it, covering up or avoiding his parents when the gang had beat him. He found it a sign of weakness, and was ashamed and frustrated that he couldn't do anything. One day about a year later, he decided to bring a knife to school and stabbed one of the kids, after finding him alone. He carved carefully to inflict maximum damage without it being fatal. Needless to say he was expelled. Next year his parents managed to re-enroll him. During that time out of school he delved more into his hobbies, and was around the time he found books on magic in a hidden part of the library. It was usually closed off behind a bookcase, but the new librarian, oddly enough, showed it to him, and told him it was their little secret and that she saw potential in him. When it was nearing his 13th birthday, his parents had managed to get time off so that they could all go on a vacation on spring break. Unfortunately, they wouldn't get the chance to enjoy it. When they were driving, bill was reading one of the spell books over again, and trying to pronounce some of the spells. The dark magics combined with the fact that he barely slept, made him start to hallucinate. When ray tried getting his attention and he looked out the window, he saw white ghostly figures walking in the road, surrounding them as a fog filled his vision. Their arms reached the ground and their eyes were hollow, and when they opened their mouths they were like leeches. Bill told his parents to speed up, or dodge them, but they were just confused and concerned. When he looked at his family's faces they looked white and eyes blackened, and he could only hear them asking what’s wrong, in a pitying voice. His chest felt heavy and he struggled to breath. He took the wheel and flung them off the road, sending the car tumbling before being stopped by a large tree. In the end, the parents don't make it, ray barely survived with lost limbs and internal damage. Bill was practically a missile in the crash and thrown from the vehicle. The doctors said it was a miracle he and his brother survived. If it wasn’t for the witness who called 911 they wouldn’t have. When bill woke up from his coma, he had amnesia, and upon opening his one good eye the doctors were baffled by the snake eye that looked back at them.

Personality: Bill is confident, and will get frustrated when someone questions him/his actions. He has the idea that he knows what's best and that relationships of any kind are a waste of time. He’s relatively paranoid, and can get carried away, thus then throwing all reason out the window. When his head is clear he will strategize but if you tip him off his game he will become erratic and impulsive. He is obsessive when it comes to his interests and despite his curious nature, he will approach new things and ideas with skepticism. He has no problem pushing boundaries and toying with others. He’d rather torture than kill, but if you push him far enough, he’d end you. He has a variety of abilities, due to his experience with butchery and magic. He can shadowstep, utilize biomancy, arcane, fire, hypnosuggestive, dark magics, etc. He’s also a phase shifter in larian terms.

might edit some of this but yeah I am very much still tryna get my shit together

I have WAY too many stories/au's/crossover shit but gravity falls is so fucking in my brain rn I can't not do something XD

[tortilla-of-courage]

I'm curious about your first impression of eow! I'm still wondering whether I should get the game cus of the price

im having a LOT of fun with it ngl!! more than I expected

like. okay gonna try to be as spoilerless as possible here. for context im up to just after the first temple/first heart container (in hindsight this got too long so im putting it under a read more oopsie)

the story and lore we've got going on so far is REALLY interesting and im actually fascinated by all the Implications™ they've dropped on how things work in this iteration of Hyrule. im dying to go talking to every npc i can get my very itty bitty tiny zelda hands on

gameplay wise im having a lot of fun too! i was a bit worried when the game was announced that id get bored of relying mostly on echoes to attack enemies, or that things would be too easy, but the way the game limits how many echoes you can use at a time makes it so you can't spam powerful echoes, and so you need to strategize a bit before running off placing echoes across a chasm (learned this the hard way. oopsie)

zelda (series) is usually very high in puzzle-ness already, but i feel like this game truly makes it feel like everything you use becomes a puzzle. you want that chest in a cliff? there's a bunch of boxes you cant move on their own down an optional but very tantalizing path? you ran into an enemy that may be a bit too much for your current echoes but you REALLY want that thing? if you can use your echoes accordingly with the environment you can usually get it without much issue

so far i haven't ran into anything that was inaccessible to my current level/abilities. as long as you place your things accordingly.....

i think if puzzles aren't much your thing you Could get frustrated with it at points, but i find most of the main path ones arent too hard to solve but. again. im only past the first dungeon so who knows how things may change

also the characters I've met so far are very charming and have made me laugh a lot; even the NPCs have unique designs from what ive noticed. and i think getting to see the way Link interacted with the world before we got there from the other npcs is SO cool and gives him a lot of personality. also id die for this iteration of Impa. lovely woman

OH AND TRI oh god i love tri. i was sooo worried tri would come off as Just Another Fairy Thing but so far i adore tri. they (i have no clue if they've got pronouns spanish has Not been clear with it lmao) feel like a nice mix fi and navi, kind of in a middle ground. closer to Ciela from ph's personality maybe? but they have that calmness and matter-of-fact attitude like Fi sometimes. i wish they let you talk to them outside story bits to know them more

i bought it right before it was released last night for $1200 mexican pesos which was about $60 USD, which isnt too bad considering most games go for $1500 MXN/$75ish USD nowadays. but if you wanna wait til it's a bit cheaper that could be a good idea, though i do think this game is worth every penny so far.

like i saw some people say before, this feels like they're taking some of the new things they added in BOTW/TOTK (i.e. general menu formats (but nicer), open world-ish, some abilities, etc) and adapting them to Classic Zelda games, giving the good old 2D zelda style a breath (lol) of fresh air

tldr: so far im really happy with it!!! i played until 3 am last night and i just woke up and plan to play more! Very puzzle oriented but we all knew it coming into it, boss encounter i had was interesting to fight in this new style, and the map is actually very sizable for a 2d zelda from what ive noticed. 100% recommended will report more once i get further in

[game-boy-pocket]

Nintendo Direct Thoughts

I just woke up and had a look, not expecting much given this is one of those "we're at the end of the Switch's life" Directs but honestly I was surprised.

We start with a brand new Mario and Luigi game... we've been getting lots of remakes for Mario RPGs but this is a new one and honestly was the one I expected to get a new game the least out of all of them. To tell the truth I would have preferred a continuation of SMRPG or a new traditional Paper Mario over this, cuz a party made up of just Mario and Luigi was novel when Luigi wasn't appearing in as many games but now it feels boring by comparison. I wish they would do more with the idea of adding on surprise guest party members, like how the 2nd game had the Baby Bros and the Third game had Bowser, then Paper Mario, but after that it just a weird version of Luigi? idk man. This looks neat, I'm glad the franchise isn't dead. I'll think about picking it up. Probably not a day 1 purchase. I do hope other Mario RPGs have a chance at continuing too though.

I still think the Nintendo World Championships is pointless.

Not interested in Fairy Tail, I only ever read a bit of the Manga, I'd like to check out the anime but lisenced anime games are a hard sell for me. Wish they'd just make another One Piece Grand Battle style game.

Don't care about Fantasian, Nintendo Switch Sports has a bad reputation and I don't care about sports anyway so that's a pass, pass on Mio, pass on Disney, pass on Hello Kitty, give me a sequel to the Keroppi platformer for the NES and then we'll talk, It's weird to see Loney Tunes in a video game. That Porky Pig voice was rough. I don't have hopes for it, Don't care about Among Us or Farmagia...

Donkey Kong Country Returns... not a new game, and they didn't announce any new playable characters or features aside from levels from the 3DS version, and I wish they gave DK and Diddy more of a facelift, but i'll take it, a way to play DKCR on the big screen, hopefully without the motion controls, is a win... but please Nintendo.... give us a new DK game...

Dragon Quest III 2DHD. I am very mixed about the whole 2D HD thing, I don't think it looks good. Never have. This looks a lot better than Octopath to me but I still don't like it. Also, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Horii. Playing the games in chronological order is not the best way to experience the Erdrick Trilogy, and that's a pretty dumb thing to say. That's like telling someone to read a Murder Mystery but start with the final chapter. The big twist in DQ3 will be meaningless to those who haven't played, at the very least, DQ1... I'm glad all 3 games are getting the treatment. I am a big fan of the trilogy so even though I don't care for the whole 2D HD thing, I'll pick it up, and who knows, maybe the style will grow on me.

Funko is a fucking joke. I'm ehh about Luigi's Mansion 2 but I might pick it up anyway if I have extra cash burning a hole in my pocket and I really want a new game. Don't care about Denpa Men, Would prefer Traditional Metal Slug, Don't care about Darkest Dungeon, Don't care about NSO but it's nice that those games are now available for people, Phantom Braves has a cute art style but i'm not interested in the gameplay, Marvsl and Capcom arcade collection might be worth a look but idk, I'm no good at fighting games, so i'd only be in it for the beat em ups.

I tried to like Mario Party but I just can't get into that style of game. I want to like it because I love the Mario series but it's just not fun for me, either with friends or going it alone, I hate board games irl, making them video games doesn't actually help, and I think the minigames are just not fun and over too quickly.

I wish I was excited about our first new 2D Zelda in a long time. But Link has always been...ugh... I guess you could call him a "comfort character" for me. I never liked Princess Zelda that much, and I enjoy the combat in Zelda games a lot, so a game without Link and without Combat.... I am apprehensive. The one thing that might save this game for me is that it has hints of monster taming. Not like... real monster taming, you're creating copies, so it's not like your bonding with monster companions, but it's still monster vs monster, and that's something I'd love to see expanded on. Give me a full on Zelda monster tamer.... I hope this isn't "The new direction for 2D Zelda" the way BOTW is for 3D Zelda though. I was kinda hoping 2D Zelda would keep traditional Zelda alive while 3D Zelda continued being open air.

More headlines, I don't care about just dance, never was a fan of legos, stray was interesting when it was first announced but the novelty wore off after watching ppl play it, there's a lot of games like lately. Don't care about the Hobbit, and i'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I don't care about a lot of things and I know t he franchise has a lot of fans but I just don't care about Ace Attourney. And don't care about Hunted Line, looks edgy. I know SaGa has a legacy, but I'd prefer to try an older game before thinking about checking out a new one.

Metroid Prime 4 looks interesting. We have Sylux with some Metroids following him around. We have orchestral sounding music. It's definitely Metroid Prime alright. Can't wait to play it for myself.

Despite how often I said "don't care" I'd call this a good direct.

TLDR, Metroid is the most exciting thing there, I'm happy for the DKCR remake, I'm apprehensive about Zelda but I'm gonna try it. Mario and Luigi i'll probably pick up some day.

[pumpkinsouppe]

The reason why the 2d games are so great is because the technological limitations that force the games to be creative. There’s limited inventory space and bottles meaning you have to be creative in what you equip and use. The mechanics are limited so inventive gimmicks of the game inform the storytelling (think the Minish cap, Albw, etc).

I’m hopeful but I’m already so not happy to see that infinite scroll come back from Totk, that thing always made it harder and harder for me to go back to playing Totk to the point where I completely stopped playing (of course there were other issues but I don’t want to spend 50% of my play time scrolling).

Considering how much I praise Zelda 2 it’s no secret I’m a huge 2d Zelda fan, I actually like a lot more of the 2d games more than the 3d games. My big worry is that Nintendo continues to use the botw formula for everything and completely isolate the fans of the original formula. Sure whatever, change the 3d games. They’ve always been super experimental and you can choose which ones you want to enjoy. But the 2d games? If you change everything to be botw 2 then I wouldn’t be surprised if long term fans stopped playing more and more future games.

There’s a reason I was begging for oracle hd remakes, it’s smth I know Nintendo couldn’t fuck up without pissing off the fans bc of the classic formula. But a completely new game is up to the whims of the devs who currently want botw or bust.

It’s annoying how much the devs are singing the praises of games that they didn’t even bother trying to improve after 6 years of work. It’s annoying that they shit on games that made this franchise famous in the first place and isolate the communities who are fans of those games. Stakes in video games? Who’s that? It’s not like one of the most famous games in the world ends with Link’s best friend permanently dying/leaving to the point where it canonically made link risk turning into a skull kid just to find her in the sequel. But nooo link can’t lose his arm or have scars :( how else will he look like a carbon copy of Zelda otherwise :((( (🙄)

Aghhhhh now I’m jsut getting really mad at Totk again but wow it sucks spending so much time in this game series only to be spit on. I’m excited yet so wary and hesitant of echoes. I’m worried they’re giving us things fans have wanted forever to return as a bandaid to hide its issues. I love the art style, I’m excited for many things, but after how badly I’ve been burned by totk I’m so nervous. I hate that triple a companies can be so secretive of their projects and expect fans to pay $70. I should not be stressing like this over a creative project, your fans should be excited. ESPECIALLY if it’s about mechanical and ui issues, your fans should not be stressed out about that ruining their experience.

Okay I’m done i promise, everyone go play hoverbat’s zelda 2 it’s so good

If bottles don’t return in echoes and we actually get a semi unlimited inventory like botw and Totk I’m gonna be livid , I am so sick of health spamming and the worst inventory ui

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

All this stuff with Nintendo Switch Online is just giving me a lot of Not So Nice thoughts about the whole video gaming industry. Or maybe the entire entertainment industry in general.

It’s a long post. I have a lot of Thots.

Okay, so, the 3DS and Wii U eShops are closing. That’s a thing. It’s also expected, since it’s clear that Nintendo and most of its users are focusing deep on the Switch family. So obviously I am now looking at what to buy before the eShop closes down. Now, even though it was expected, it does suck that a lot of stuff will be lost pernamently. That’s the main gripe with these online shops. Like, that’s why I usually try to still buy things physically when possible. Because a) resell value and b) if something goes down, you still own it. If my 2DS or Switch decides to die, I will lose all digital copies. And yes, Nintendo will offer support, but this is always tricky and how reliable will it be? 

But physical is often more expensive. Like, a digital Stardew Valley is €15 and physical it’s €35. And luckily, most big name companies like Nintendo and EA have the same prices for digital and physical, but look at older games. I can now buy Link’s Awakening DX for only €6 on Virtual Console 3DS, which is a fucking steal. Especially since physically it can go up to €100 or higher. Or the Oracle games are €6 each, whereas physical without box it’s €60. So then obviously I’d be daft to go for the physical one anyway, especially since I am not a collector. I just have to hope that Nintendo won’t fully fuck me over once the eShop is gone.

How much am I willing to pay more for physical, though? €5 is doable, but what about €10? I paid €25 for my secondhand copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World, after searching extensively for something that was afforable, because a lot of copies were €50. Then I found out it’s €10 on the eShop, but at least my copy is fully mine now. But would I have bought it on the eShop if I knew sooner that I could get it for a mere €10 new (since new physical is also around €50)? Probably. Cause here’s the other thing: games become expensive physical when the cartridges are no longer being made. A Link Between Worlds should be €20 digital and physical, because that’s Nintendo’s retail price for it, but I see retailers hiking up the price (more than €30) and I won’t be surprised that in 10 years these games will also go for crazy high prices, simply because of ask and demand.

Also, at least Nintendo still allows physical cartridges. If you buy a Sims game in the store, you’ll get a download code to put in Origin. And if I’m correct, PS5 is going full digital. I don’t like this trend. It’s now that the company will always have some say in what or how you own. Back in the ole days, you’d buy a game and then it’s yours. That’s it. You can resell it, you can lend it, you can destroy it if needed. With digital you depend a lot on the services of the company. Cause people who bought Link’s Awakening back when it came out in the 90s can still play it, if they kept it in proper condition and if they have access to an SNES. That’s a lifespan of almost 30 years and counting. What happens to my digital Link’s Awakening in 30 years when my 2DS is obsolete? If I buy a new 2DS, will I still have acces? Are Nintendo services still providing me their cloud services and back-ups and what not?

That’s why it also bothers me that some 3rd party publishers are releasing games on Switch through streaming. 

And that leads me to the other problem with the industry. The fucking live service model and the subscription services. When I just bought Ocarina of Time 3D (for fucking €40, even though it’s €20 digital on the eShop, but see above), Nintendo announced Nintendo Switch Online+, which includes N64 games, including Ocarina of Time. I’ve discussed this before with others (hi Laura if you’re reading this), but yeah I am still hesitant to buy copies of older Zelda games, because what if Nintendo releases them again, either in something like NSO+ or as a bundle, like Mario 3D All-Stars (and rip, because Super Mario 64 is now also part of NSO+)? What then? These rumours about GBA games coming to NSO+ are driving me fucking mad. What if I invest in GBA games, either through Virtual Console or through physical overpriced ones, only for Nintendo to go ‘heeeeey so, about these GBA games-’? Now, luckily, these GBA games on Virtual Console 3DS are super cheap. Will it still feel like a waste of money? Yeah, but €5 is obviously so much better than €50! (Also I have extreme spending anxiety, I talk about it now with my autism coach, because I can feel bad for days after buying something like a muffin for €3.) (And also, for some people, €5 is still a lot. My spending anxiety is irrational, but for some it really is needed to think thorougly on spending €5).

But this NSO+ shit ALSO sucks (I said this post was gonna be long), because I don’t want to buy NSO+!!!! I don’t think it’s worth it for now, but the library keeps growing as well. Majora’s Mask is about to drop. But stuff like NSO+ and other subscription services like Netflix and Spotify have this other shit thing: you now definitely don’t own it. You depend on what the company offers. You rent the media you consume. And if like Netflix or Spotify, Nintendo decides to take off some games, what then? With digital copies, you at least own it. You’re just fucked if your device dies. But with shit like NSO+, you are fully dependent on Nintendo’s fuckery and once again if we look at the future, how much will this bring us in the long run? That’s why I’m probably still going to get Majora’s Mask 3D physical for my 2DS, because I can either pay €50 one time or I pay €50 on a yearly basis for something I might not own in the long run!

But here comes the money question again! Cause I didn’t buy NSO+ on release, but now that the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC will be included in there, I’m like “oh... okay, that’d be sweet to have on top of the other stuff NSO+ has to offer”, but a) same here: do I actually own it, or will I also rent the DLC? and b) what if NSO+ starts adding DLC for games I don’t own, because then I’ll be paying for stuff that’s completely useless and c) what if it adds older DLC that I already own, like the Breath of the Wild one, because then I’ll be paying twice (and yearly) for something I already own! 

Besides, the latter is already true. Since I knew I wasn’t going to go for NSO+, I bought the Animal Crossing DLC separately. Obviously that demotivates me from getting NSO+, but am I then motivated enough to buy MK8D DLC? I see the addition of those extra courses in the NSO+ genuinely as an extra that’d be nice to have. What if NSO+ does become interesting? What will I do then?

Gah!!! All of this is just so frustrating. Why does everything have to be like this? I mean, I know the answer: capitalism. (Cause here’s another thought: why don’t I just... pirate or emulate those old games?)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the troubles in the video game industry. I narrowed it down to my 4 Ps: patching (as in lacklustre basegames at release, with the promise they’ll patch it, à la Cyberpunk 2077 or the Sims 4), premium (which includes stuff like live service models), porting (I mean, all that crap I wrote about re-releasing falls under this) and pricing (games are simply getting more and more expensive). And I’ve also given it a lot of thought because I am obsessed with Abigail Thorn’s video on it.

(The video is pre-transition, but Abi is fine with people watching it because the quality of her old stuff is great and the philosophy still holds up.)

So if someone is actually reading it (other than Laura, possibly, hi!), I highly recommend watching her video on how she dissects the free market, capitalism, philosophical materialism while using the video game industry as a case study.

[ericvilas]

Zelda timelines? In the year of our lord 2021?

It's more likely than you think.

Anyway hear me out. Two canons. Not two timelines, that's a different matter, but two *canons*, two *different canonicities*. One revolves around Ocarina of Time, the other revolves around A Link to the Past. One has mostly 3D games and is made up of direct sequels and prequels, the other has exclusively 2D games and is made up of the retcon shenanigans Capcom concocted to give ALTTP a place.

Ready? Here we go:

(I apologize for making this an image, but Tumblr's formatting destroys any attempts to make this using text. It's the standard branching timeline of the 3D games).

This is just straightforward. TP is implied to be a sequel to OoT, WW and MM are direct sequels to OoT; PH and ST are direct sequels to WW.

I included SS because I think that SS was mostly created with OoT-TP in mind.

In fact, I would even go so far as to argue that you could actually include Breath of the Wild in here, far off in the future of the Adult timeline. You don't have to, of course - BotW is designed to be separate from the rest of the timeline, so far in the future that any timeline is but a distant memory. And that's fair and valid! But if you wanted to place it in the 3D timeline I'd argue it fits in Adult better, as long as you consider the EX DLC treasures as noncanon (which I do).

Either way, this post is not about BotW, and you could get deep into the weeds with the original 2 Zeldas as well, so we won't do that here, and we'll consider those 3 to be "place them wherever you feel they fit best, if you wanna place them anywhere at all".

Now, for the fun part.

Long ago, there existed a prequel/sequel connection between OoT and ALTTP. OoT represented the Imprisoning War, and ALTTP represented the escape of Ganon. However, there were some major inconsistencies. And it all went to hell when Nintendo decided to make a completely new sequel to represent the escape of Ganon: Wind Waker. So ALTTP was left prequel-less.

Enter Capcom.

Their first order of business was to create the Oracles games. Due to the way they ended, it's hinted at being a direct prequel to LA. Or, alternatively, a midquel between ALTTP and LA (the fact that Ganon is dead and Link leaves in a boat, for instance).

Then they made Four Swords and connections between FS and ALTTP, which they then solidified by pulling the same trick they pulled with the Oracles games and creating Four Swords Adventures, a game which they created as a retcon prequel to ALTTP - same map, Ganon wielding the trident of power, Ganon having the same form as in ALTTP...

So many people get mixed up because the Ganon in FSA is almost the Ganon in OoT... but isn't the Ganon in OoT. Honestly he could just be yet another incarnation of the cycle Demise put in motion, one with a more balanced heart that can wield the full Triforce....... But I think it might make a bit more sense for him to be a part of a different canonicity altogether.

And then there's TMC and ALBW, the "ultimate Capcom prequel" and the "ultimate ALTTP sequel", to cap off the ends of the timeline.

So here's my proposal:

TMC - [time passes] - FS - FSA - ALTTP - OoS/OoA - LA - ALBW

This fills in another hole I always wondered about: why Din/Farore/Nayru are the fucking world-creating goddesses in some games but just "oracles" in other games.

And here's the kicker:

All 8 of these games can easily happen without Ocarina of Time.

That is definitely not something you can say about, say, Twilight Princess.

and, similarly, all the 3D games can easily happen without any of these 8.

So that's why I think there's 2 canonicities:

and

And hey. If you really want to merge them, if you feel like they must be combined, because this is Zelda goddammit - I have some good news for you.

See how each of those two have a "time passes" gap right after the first one?

You can interweave them, if you really wanted to. Pick a timeline for FS to go in (I find that Child would work best, leave a big gap after Zant kills Ganondorf for the new cycle of Demise to show up) and just. Slot them in. If you wanted to, why not?

I personally think it works better if you don't actually do that, tbh, but. To each their own.

And I will continue to put BotW at the end of Adult, because fuck it I like Vah Ruta, Vah Nabooris, and Vah Rudania to refer to our Ruto, Nabooru, and Darunia. But I can understand people who don't.

Anyway, that's what I got.

I've been thinking about this for WAYYYYY too many years and honestly? I like this conclusion. No third split, no unnecessarily convoluted plots, no dismissal of everything, it feels right. To me, at least.

If anyone finds any holes please let me know.

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Mega Man Legends

Ah yes, a wonderful PS1 classic. Exactly what I needed. Exactly what I always need.

I played through three Star Wars games back to back: Dark Forces 2, Mysteries of the Sith, and Jedi Outcast. What I hoped to get out of these games was strongly Star Wars themed action adventures that were pickup-and-play. They were that, for the most part. But the levels were overly long, the difficulty uneven, and the complete experiences were mostly...exhausting. So when choosing my next game, I felt like I needed something more “reliable”. Mega Man Legends might be just what I was looking for...

I played the game as a teen in the 90s. It blew me away. Not sure I had played a Mega Man game, but I knew of them as 2D run-n-gunners. So to see a 3D Mega Man, with voice acting, cut scenes, and a full-fledged story was surprising. And it wasn’t like every game at this time were of this caliber. Resident Evil 2. Metal Gear Solid, and Ocarina of Time hadn’t been released yet. This game was blazing new trails!

Now...that’s not to say it’s a complete original. Tomb Raider had already shown the world how 3D platforming shooters could work. And much of MGL is RPG-inspired. Still, there was decent anime voice acting, and cut scenes. The graphics were doing the best they cool for 1997 on the PS1, and the art-direction is still a delight now in 2021. But what really always blew me away was how the buster-canon could be customized. You bought add-ons that boosted specific stats: power, range, fire-rate, and energy (clip-size). You could customize the canon with certain combinations to fit your play style or the situation. I’m really disappointed more games haven’t ripped this off completely (looking at you Borderlands!).

What I really love about this game is the freedom. That’s what makes all great games to me, a sense of freedom to enjoy the world presented. And I love getting to explore and find secrets. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed this game in the past and I’ve restarted it many times, but I’ve never beaten it. That changes now. I’m committed.

The controls (playing on Duckstation) kinda suck. You move forward, back, and left-right with the D-Pad. To turn (rotate) you have to use the shoulder buttons. It’s a precursor to the now-standard two-stick shooter controls of all FPS’s. But at this time, it was a complicated concert of actions to get around. Luckily, the environments aren’t too crazy: usually just straight hallways and large, open spaces. But some challenges are only challenges because of the controls. This is made more annoying by the fact that you can’t shoot while moving.

Well...you can. But only when moving forward or sideways. Not while backwards or turning. I think this is fixed in MML2--but not sure.

There’s a Lock-on button to help with the shooting, but it can occasionally focus on the wrong target. But even without the lock-on, there’s a pretty helpful auto-aim for targets mostly in front of Mega Man.

The difficulty pacing of the game is...well it’s bad. But that’s because as much as the game likes to hold your hand with tutorials and gameplay explanation, they don’t do a great job ensuring you’re properly equipped. I remember playing a few times and finding the first “bosses” to be brutally difficult. You basically go from exploring a short beginner’s dungeon to fighting three boss fights back to back. And these are not easy-going boss fights. These are “hope you’ve mastered these awkward ass controls” boss fights.

But the problem, it seems, is that I just wasn’t prepared. I double-checked a shop before going into the fights and found I was able to upgrade my health points by about 3 notches. I bought a health flask, and upgraded it as well. And then I was able to buy buster parts to make my canon  more formidable. This time, each boss fight was...not easy--but not frustrating. I didn’t fail any of the objectives, and found I could take a few risks without fear of losing. So now I’ve made it a point to constantly visit shops and grind some Zenny for upgrades.

This is where the RPG-ness comes in. While you don’t earn XP and level up--money (zenny) can be used to purchase health, armor, and weapon upgrades. You can also find weapon upgrades in the “dungeons”. Not all combat happens in dungeons. Much of the fighting has been above ground, in forests and towns.

The dungeons are pretty simple. They’re basically on grid-layouts with hallways leading to a variety of open rooms. It would be super easy to randomly generate these kinds of levels. And while I get some Zelda vibes from the treasure chests, the dungeons lack any sort of creative puzzle solving or unique tools and obstacles.

Given that the story of this game is that “diggers” (treasure seekers, tomb raiders--whatever you wanna call em) are exploring underground dungones/vaults for riches, the game could have easily been about finding islands with dungeons and exploring them. I mean, this game could totally function as a Sea of Thieves, and be infinitely playable. But I’m not sure games as such were really in the minds of designers at the time. So instead they created something more linear and story-driven. Which totally works.

Speaking of story--it’s silly. Mega Man is a “Digger” that goes around looking for refractor power sources. It seems this is a post-apocalypse world where oceans have risen to engulf much of the mainland (climate change warning??). To have power, the new cities that have formed must scavenger power from subterranean labyrinths filled with hostile robots. But while the Diggers appear to be generally well-meaning, there are pirates who seek power for power’s sake.

There’s a legendary abundance of energy called the Mother Lode. Um...Ok. It’s supposedly underneath this specific city that Mega Man and friends just so happen to crash land at. So Pirates have begun attacking the city to claim it. One of them is a girl named Tron Bonne. While she works with her pirate family and their army of super cute lego-looking robots, she develops a crush on Mega Man after he saves her from a tiny dog. It’s kind of an interesting development as you see signs of the pirates and Tron before the invasion truly begins. 

Beyond that, there’s not a ton of plot development. It’s really more character driven. Not super complicated characters, but people trying to live their lives while pirates bomb the library (why the library??).

I’m hitting the point in the game I reached when I first played as a teen. That first time was the furthest I’d ever gotten. So once I’m past that, it’ll be all new territory. I can’t wait!

While playing this, though, I can’t get Elder Scrolls out of my mind. I’ve really wanted to play through Morrowind or Oblivion. That thought has made me wish MML was open world like ES.

[scoutception]

Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand review

The SNES was a console with many great RPGs. From popular classics like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Earthbound, to hidden gems like Live A Live, Terranigma, Secret of Evermore, and Shadowrun, it’s a library with a lot of enjoyment to offer. Of course, not every RPG on the system fared so well, with quite a few mediocre and forgettable games scattered about, and unfortunately, Ys V, Falcom’s second attempt at revamping their classic series, after Ys IV backtracked to using the original bump combat system, is among these. Even today, about the only notable thing about Ys V to a modern fan is the current lack of any remake, unlike IV, or the similarly flawed Ys III, which was enough to rouse my curiosity and drive me to give it a fair playthrough. While I did have some fun with it, there’s certainly a reason there were no new Ys games for nearly a decade afterwards, and the specifics on why that is is what we’ll be looking at today. Note that while Ys V was never released outside of Japan, it does have an English translation patch, courtesy of Aeon Genesis, in what was apparently one of their most difficult hacking jobs ever.

Story: About 4 years after the events of Ys I & II, Adol Christin, or, as he’s come to be known, Adol the Red, arrives at the port town of Xandria on the continent of Afroca (yes, literally just fantasy Alexandria and Africa), rather suspiciously without his constant companion Dogi, and on an intact ship, at that. The normally aimless Adol has been lured to Xandria by rumors of a mysterious Phantom City, said to contain amazing riches. After being contacted by a wealthy merchant named Dorman, however, Adol is given the truth: the so called Phantom City is actually the lost city of Kefin, a prosperous nation that wielded tremendous power five hundred years ago through the power of alchemy. Recently, the Kefin desert has been expanding, consuming many towns within the area, and monsters have become numerous and aggressive, leaving Xandria at threat of becoming a barren waste. Wishing to gain access to the secrets of Kefin’s alchemy in order to halt this desertification, Dorman hires Adol to find six elemental crystals that are said to have the power to unlock the way to Kefin. Unfortunately for Adol, he really has his work cut out for him this time; many of Afroca’s citizens are fearful of him, due to ancient legends telling of a red haired man that will bring great havoc upon his arrival, and he’s harassed by a band of thieves called the Ibur Gang, who are out to take all the crystals for themselves. Though Adol makes several allies as well, such as Niena, the adopted daughter of the great adventurer Stein, who disappeared three years ago looking for the crystals himself, Massea, a woman who possesses knowledge of alchemy matched by few others, and Stoker, the spirit of a man who lived five hundred years ago, he also comes to find that several other forces are conspiring to use Kefin’s alchemy for their own destructive purposes, and that his client may be less trustworthy than he initially seems.

While most of the classic Ys games had quite cliche stories, if understandably considering their age, Ys V is actually a fair bit more original, with some pretty decent moments toward the end of the game. Unfortunately, before that point, most of the story just consists of just wandering around finding all the crystals, with the random interferences Adol encounters being the only things spicing it up, such as being forced to undergo a series of trials, or being blown off a raft by a sandstorm and washing up in a different town, keeping the tradition of boating accidents in Ys alive and well. Despite the amount of important supporting characters around, most of them barely even show up for most of the story, which makes for a pretty underdeveloped and forgettable cast, with only Terra of the Ibur Gang sticking out thanks to reappearing in Ys VI. It also just feels very disconnected from the rest of the series, with Dogi completely missing, and a lot of plot elements that feel out of place for Ys. According to the book Ys Complete Works, a lot of plot elements had to be left out of V, which certainly explains why it feels so underbaked, and leaves a lot of potential for improvement if a remake ever materializes, but until then, while a neat step forward for the writing of the series, Ys V’s story ultimately just doesn’t fare very well overall.

Gameplay: Here’s where things really start falling apart. The bump combat system is gone once and for all now, with Ys V using a dedicated attack button like Ys III, a system that remains in place even today. Unlike Ys III, however, the general gameplay is still much more similar to the other titles, overhead perspective and all, with the change in combat instead feeling a lot more like the 2D Zelda titles. Along with swing his sword, Adol can also now use his shield to actively block attacks. There’s also a jump button, though there’s not much platforming to be done. In theory, this isn’t a bad change at all, but in practice, combat is extremely stiff and awkward feeling. Unlike in Zelda, where Link always swings with a nice, wide arc, Adol is stuck jabbing things for most of the game instead. Each sword has a different range, with exactly one that actually has a proper swing, and the ones you’ll use the most, the second and last swords, only being capable of stabs. Annoying as this is, it wouldn’t quite be a deal breaker, if it wasn’t for how frustratingly precise you need to be when attacking. If you’re even slightly off center, you’ll just whiff. Meanwhile, attacks from enemies are given far more leniency, and even using the shield, you need that same level of precision in order to block anything. Needless to say, this gets very frustrating.

Aside from just attacking physically, magic, or to be more accurate, alchemy, is also available, with spells being made by collecting elemental stones and having an alchemist combine three at a time, with six different elements and eighteen possible spells, which can then be attached to Adol’s weapon and slowly charged up until the magic meter reaches 100, at which point attacking will cast the spell and drain MP and spell charge. While a neat idea in concept, in practice, almost everything you can make is downright awful. Not only are many spells nearly identical to each other, but most of them are just really, really bad, with absurdly long casting animations, during which enemies are free to continue moving around and out of the spell’s range, wasting both your time and MP. About the only useful spells are the ones that hit everything on screen, which take an absurd amount of MP, and the basic fireball, which has no casting animation, and is mandatory to get anyway. Several enemies will also just absorb magic entirely and gain HP, so using it can often be an outright detriment. Even worse, the game basically forces you to use magic by separating EXP into two different types: physical EXP, obtained from defeating enemies with the sword, or from bosses, which boosts physical power and defense and magic EXP, which is gained from killing enemies with magic, and boosts magic power and defense, meaning if you ignore magic, any enemy using magic attacks will quickly wreck you. The stones needed to make the spells, along with a few other items like coins to be sold, are also mostly hidden across the different areas, and can only be found by rubbing up against every wall and object in sight, which is really annoying, and you really can’t afford to miss any of them if you want to make most of the available spells.

Bosses are pretty dumb too, with a lot of them just coming down to standing in one places and stabbing until they die, chugging heal potions until they die, and considering the most basic healing item heals 60% of Adol’s HP, it’s not hard to do, either. In general, the game is overly forgiving. While still pretty annoying, the level system means it is pretty easy to end up overleveled with physical and magic levels combined, and rather than just dropping a set amount of gold, enemies instead drop gems, which can be sold to merchants for varying amounts. While this wouldn’t make much of a difference on paper, the gems are worth so much, and certain merchants have high enough exchange rates, that you can make a lot of money pretty easily, and considering the third and second best weapons in the game are sold in the first two towns, it’s even easier to break the game wide open. Most areas are also really short, with several dungeons literally just consisting of three or four small rooms, so you’re rarely ever in serious danger traversing them, with most of their length just coming from forced backtracking. While an improvement from how grind heavy most of the early Ys games were, the easiness just makes the experience even less engaging, to the point Falcom had to make a second version of the game, titled Ys V Expert, due to complaints.

Graphics: The visuals of Ys V, to put it bluntly, barely even resemble the rest of the series, to the point it’s basically indistinguishable from any other SNES RPG. It doesn’t look outright bad, but whereas Ys usually uses a super deformed style with lots of colors, Ys V uses a more realistically proportioned style with really dark, dull colors, to the point that Adol’s usual distinctive bright red hair looks more brown than anything. Most areas are pretty forgettable, with pretty generic caves and ruins, but there are a few neat areas, like the rainy marshlands, which actually carry a pretty strong atmosphere, and the bosses look kinda cool, if a bit samey. You also get to customize Adol a bit, being able to change the color of his clothes and armor in the menu, along with his hair color, if you find a hidden NPC fairly late in the game, with the default option actually giving him his usual hair color. Overall, though, the visuals are still pretty unspectacular.

Music: In yet another change from series tradition, Ys V forgoes the usual rock style of the soundtrack, and instead takes a much more orchestral approach, again making it stand out even less from its competition, only retaining a few traditions like the item collection music and the Theme of Adol. In this case, however, I can’t complain that much about the change, because the resulting soundtrack, in usual Falcom fashion, is still fantastic. From the peaceful Foresta Village, to the melancholy Misty Lake, to the mysterious Oasis, to the dark Sand Castle, to the adventurous Wilderness, there are a lot of great tracks to be found, and it’s absolutely worth looking up the soundtrack even if the rest of the game would drive you away.

Conclusion: Overall, Ys V is not recommended. It’s not an outright bad game, and can still be decently fun. It’s short enough that it’s not much of an investment to play through, and it was still an important step that allowed Ys VI to fully modernize the gameplay of the series. As a whole though, it’s still a pretty underwhelming and clunky experience that’s almost completely divorced from the rest of the series. You’re not missing much by leaving it alone, and perhaps with the release of Ys IX, a remake of V could be next on the schedule. Either way, that’s about all I can even say about this game. Till next time. -Scout

[somethingwittyandweird]

Late Direct thoughts now that I’m off work! Lots of good things on the way, it looks like.

Triangle Strategy: And I was just thinking about Octopath the other day as a rare gem of a sprite-based game in this 3D-modeled day and age... and this one doesn’t disappoint either! Same gorgeous ‘HD-2D’ look... gameplay wise I’m super intrigued to see how it develops! I love Fire Emblem, but I couldn’t get into FF Tactics, so I’m interested to see where this falls on the continuity there. “Choose your story” stuff is also fascinating, a little intimidating, but again I’d love to see where it goes.

Outer Wilds: Big fan of this news! I had to stop watching a playthrough so I wouldn’t get spoiled if I ever played it myself... now I have the excuse. Definitely picking this up.

World’s End Club: Really, *really* fascinated by this! Danganronpa has never been my type of game, but the fact that this is promising a super different and ostensibly less weirdly horny take on the premise has honestly got me really interested. I appreciate that a game finally dared to answer the question of “Okay, but what if they just... left instead?” and made a whole story out of that.

Splatoon 3: Big fan of this news! (Yes I just typed that twice in the exact same cadence.) But yeah, it looks like more delivery on the solid core concept, in a fun new environment. Finally we get to see the payoff for the Chaos splatfest victory so long ago... And honestly, the singleplayer campaign in this setting is going to be to die for, I can just feel it. After the excellence of 2 and Octo Expansion, I feel like they’ll serve up another masterpiece.

New Smash reps: I don’t know Xenoblade, but like always, they look fun and well-crafted, and I’m going to enjoy having them in the game. Mr. Soccerguy does it again, and I look forward to the showcase. Not really disappointed over the opportunity cost of the slot either. Congrats to XC fans!

Other announcements that are neat but I have no strong feelings about:

- Hades collector’s edition, very nice

- Age of Calamity DLC, probably not gonna get it until I finish basegame but cool

- Anyone else notice that this Direct is the first time Switch Mii’s have been acknowledged in, like, 3 years?

And, of course, last of all...

Skyward Sword HD: My baby, my precious, my sweet sweet favorite of all time, the game without which I likely wouldn’t be the Zelda nerd I am today. Still the announcement I’m having the most feelings over... I’m very pleased. And hey, the motion controls discourse is solved forever because it’s just... you have the option now, for either. (Plus I’ve heard that the Switch does *really* good when emulating Wii gyro, arguably better than the Wii even.) Cute that they reminded us of the places where BotW ran with the ideas SS pioneered, too.

Anyways, day started out kinda weird, but this has certainly turned it into quite the good one. Hope all of yours are good too :)

[stuckonlevelone]

Long Post: A Look Back At...

I absolutely love Mega Man. Out of the countless games that I've played, the Mega Man series has without a doubt contained some of my favorites.

Unlike many other popular franchises, Mega Man has seen several variations of himself over the years. There's been Classic, X, Star Force, Battle Network, Legends, and Zero. These versions of the Blue Bomber have all allowed Capcom to experiment with different art styles, stories, and gameplay elements.

However, despite these different Mega Men, the core gameplay remained relatively the same. Challenging 2D side scrollers that ultimately lead to a boss that will grant you with a new power.

Now, that's fine. As I said, I love the Mega Man games and am always looking for great side scrollers to play. Mega Man 11 was a wonderful return to the core series. It modernized and expanded both it's gameplay and graphics to make it accessable to new generations of fans.

But, one of these spinoffs has always stuck out more to me than the rest. One of these truly deserves a second chance at life: 

Mega Man Legends.

The Legends series (consisting of 2 games) broke the mold of Mega Man in every sense. No longer was he traversing a 2 dimensional plane. The Blue Bomber was now blasting enemies away and kicking cans (y'all can't tell me you didn't spend a lot of time kicking it around) in a beautifully styled and interesting 3D world.

The Story

Yes. The classic games and X have stories. Yes, the X story is interesting. However, the Legends games took a narrative and made a much more in depth story.

To keep this post from being a novel, I’ll just provide the basic information (for those who have never played).

The world has flooded and resources are limited. Vast lands have now become islands that run on refractor energy. These refractors can be found in ancient ruins (often below the surface) that are excavated by Diggers. You are Mega Man: a Digger that is joined by his Spotter (someone who helps the Diggers navigate the ruins) Roll, Roll’s grandfather Barrell, and a little monkey named Data. Together you use your ship, the Flutter, to get to these ruins.

Many Diggers dream of finding THE MOTHERLODE, a supposed source of infinite power that can end the need for the search for energy. 

However, of course where there is good, there is also evil. Pirates also exist that try to steal treasures for their own selfish desires. Here you have the lovable trio of the Bonne Family. 

Despite the Bonne’s thought, there are much bigger threats lurking in the world. 

Gameplay

As stated before, this time Mega Man was exploring a (semi) 3D open world. There were several towns, open fields, and dark ruins to explore. The game also introduced a lock on system. This system would end up becoming a staple in many future 3D games such as Zelda.

In both Legends games, you would often complete story line quests in the towns which would lead you to gain the ability to gain ruin keys. Sometimes it would be retrieving an artifact, other times it would be defending a city from robot ducks flying large ships!

While I have to admit, the ruins in both games look similar aesthetically, the layouts and puzzles were often diverse. The ruins would be littered with Reaverbots and the end of each ruin would have a boss battle. I always enjoyed the boss battles in both Legends games. The designs and tactics of these bosses were always unique! 

In addition, not only were you able to upgrade your buster, but you could also research and unlock new weapons to use in battle (machine gun, landmines, rocket launcher, etc). You were even able to gain Jet Skates to help you traverse the lands quicker.

This ability to upgrade equipment took the place of Mega Man gaining new abilities after defeating a boss in previous games. It added a more rpg element to Mega Man. 

The Characters

Whether it was Roll, Tron ( MISS TRON!!!), Teisel, Glyde, Data, Barrell, or Mega Man, there were characters for everyone to love. Not only did the world feel fleshed out, but so did those who occupied it. You were able to easily understand what drove this quirky cast of characters and it only takes the first few minutes of playing to see why they are so great. They all worked so well together and played off of each other amazingly. 

Who couldn’t love the Bonne family antics and arguing, Tron’s crush on Mega (and jealousy of Roll), or even the lovable dancing monkey Data who helped you save the game. Aside from a driving story, there was also humor.

What really helped bring these wonderfully designed characters to life though: the PERFECT voice acting. The actresses and actors truly brought charisma, humor, and life to these characters.

The Future

With all do respect to my favorite Italian plumber, I have often thought about how a man with a mustache and overalls has become such an icon (and remained so) and other characters like Mega Man are continuously fading into the background over time. 

The answer of course is how Mario has been handled by Nintendo. 

I am a teacher and love connecting with my students through video games. Every year I find that a vast majority of my students have never even heard of Mega Man...but when I show them a picture of him, they think he is “really awesome”. Others have said “OH I”VE SEEN HIM IN SMASH BROS!”.

This isn’t a new revelation by any means. It’s been long understood that Capcom has not always handled Mega Man the way long time fans have wanted. Mario has continuously pushed boundaries in his series and Nintendo makes damn sure you know his face. 

In my humble opinion, the Legends series was Mega Man’s boundary pushing game. It brought with it new life, design, and deeper story. His creator Keiji Inafune has even stated that Legends was his favorite series. 

For those that don’t know, Mega Man Legends 3 was cancelled in 2011. Leaving the story unfinished.

Keiji Inafune also left Capcom to create his new studio Comcept. A promised spiritual successor to Legends called Red Ash was Kickstarted (and apparently had some shady dealings behind the scenes), however no current information has been shared about the game in a long, long time. 

Mega Man Legends deserves a revival. It has the action, adventure, style, and story to thrive in 2019. It is an elaborate world full of forgotten potential.

Maybe...one day...fans new and old will get just that. Capcom has released collections for Mega Man and Mega Man X. 

Maybe...we will see a Mega Man Legends HD Collection.

And maybe the Legends series can get a proper ending in a third installment.

#GETMEOFFTHEMOON

#BRINGBACKTHELEGENDS

[notajinn]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am finishing this at nearly 2 AM in the morning, so I did not proofread. Excuse any typos.

With 2019 closing out the decade, I want to make a "Top 10 Games of the Decade" list, but first I have to point out my favourites of the year. I actually played over 10 games this year (which is very unusual), so I chose my top 10. As usual, these are not all games that came out in 2019, but I played them for the first time this year. I'm not ranking carried over mobile games this time, although at this point the only mobile I play is Dragalia Lost.

Let's go.

10. Untitled Goose Game (Switch)

There's a lot to love about this game concept alone even though I ignored it for the longest time pre-release.

Pros

The entire goal of the game is just that you are a goose and also an asshole. I've talked many times about how I think being unique is overblown in place of being high-quality, but this is a unique take that really works.

With a vaguely open-world that you're thrown into with no real purpose, you really capture the feeling of just setting out that day to be a jerk. I appreciate that there is a progression system with a list of mischievous tasks you have to do to reach the next area, but it's still presented in a very free way. You'll do some of them accidentally just trying to be a jerk, and others you'll really have to think about. Eventually there will come a clear end goal, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

Controlling the goose is also perfect in how unwieldy and overconfident you feel. You don't exactly move quickly, and there's no attacking, but you still feel better than the humans around you.

The minimalist art design helps sell the really low-stakes nature of the goose's quest. Sound effects are also pronounced thanks to this, and sound is very important for the goose. I also like the slight stealth gameplay that's not at all punishing, as someone who enjoys but is bad at stealth.

Cons

Even for a budget game, it's quite short to reach the "end goal". It's very much a game you can continue to mess around in, and there's a "New Game+" set of tasks you receive, but as far my "have to reach the end" mindset...I was expecting it to take a little longer. I'd say it was maybe 3 hours max, including lots of goofing around.

I also found that I VERY much don't enjoy being a jerk to children (see screenshot), and very begrudgingly did the minimum mean things to get past the kid. Luckily there is only one kid.

Final Thoughts

Honestly the lower ranking is not so much because of negatives, but because I played so many good things this year combined with this being mostly a fun little novelty. I feel like people who are interested would have already played it (if they have the console). Really you can go with your gut instinct of whether or not being an asshole goose sounds fun for you.

 9. Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)

If you told me Kingdom Hearts III wouldn't even make my top 5 in the year it was released, I'd think you were crazy. But here we are with the long-awaited game.

Pros

So much of this game is fanservice for the series, and I had fortunately caught up on the spinoffs enough to enjoy it. Seeing the 358 crew and the BBS crew, all the Organization members...there's a lot of love here.

KH3 also has some of my favourite worlds in the series in Toy Story and Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates in particular managed to scratch that Wind Waker sailing itch just enough. Meanwhile Toy Story going for a unique plot really helped pull me in, and there's that now infamous Woody scene that I love. Even other worlds like Monsters Inc get some great scenes (like Vanitas and the doors). Tangled is also one of my favourite Disney movies, so while the world itself was pretty average, I was happy to be in it.

Combat-wise, I appreciate getting so many options like dodge roll and blocking right off the bat regardless of your initial choices; previously I always forced myself to take the Shield so I could start with the super-useful dodge roll.

The music is as stellar as ever, although they loop far too quickly given how much time you'll spend in a single area sometimes (looking at you, Toy Story).  I especially love Don't Think Twice, which had the bonus of being a complete surprise.

 Cons

KH1 was the first Aladdin. KH2 was Return of Jafar. So logically KH3 should have been King of Thieves. Instead we get no Aladdin at all!  Just the Genie as a summon I think?

For all the character fanservice, it still feels like only the main trio, Riku, and Mickey are really useful. I can't believe how poorly Aqua does as a Keyblade Master. I can't believe Kairi and Axel's training basically amounts to nothing. I know it's Sora's game, but it's still so frustrating.

And the final fight with everyone is very much so "good idea, bad execution". It just feels so messy. The entire climax is just not paced very well.

The Frozen world is one of my least favourites in the series. Nearly nothing interesting happens (outside of one good Larxene scene), you don't get Elsa as a boss or a party member, and the progression is just "got to get to Elsa's castle, oh no we fell" repeated three times. Also did they really need to put the full Let It Go song in there? I say this as someone who likes the song. This whole world is just a mess, and I think we'd be better off it was cut. And replaced with ALADDIN 3!

Where is the Wreck-It Ralph world? You know, the Disney movie about video games?

The combat somehow feels less smooth than KH2, possibly because of so many things constantly going off. The Park Attraction skills are fun at first, but later they take so long and often aren't worth bothering with. But I think HP of the enemies assumes you'll use it, because some enemies get really spongy later on.

There was also literally no reason not to end Sora's plot with this game; they had a very easy chance. But they also had an easy chance to end at KH2 and they didn't. I don't know why they're so afraid to use a different protagonist. Even if they don't want to make one, there's so many other potential-protagonists in the game already. Some of whom are also technically Sora!

Also the stupid Toy Story music loop is like 10 seconds long. Stop it.

I was actually originally going to put this at 8, but after typing out these Cons I moved the ranking back.

Final Thoughts

For as many pros and cons as I wrote out, the biggest thing about this game is that it's somehow incredibly forgettable. Kingdom Hearts 3, the game we waited over a decade for, is forgettable. And that really hurts.

The ReMind DLC has some real potential to help with this, but it also costs $40 CAD. If you're on the fence for KH3 as a whole, maybe wait and see what people say about the DLC fixing stuff.

  8. Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)

 It really hurts to put Cadence of Hyrule this low, because there's so much I love about it. And I want to see more third-parties work on Nintendo IPs.

Pros

You can finally play as Zelda in a proper Legend of Zelda game! Yes there's the rhythm mechanic and roguelike nature, but you're ultimately still going around a 2D LoZ overhead map in the same way you would a mainline game. But now you can have Zelda go around and play a little differently. For example, you have no regular shield but you have the Nayru's Love barrier which can work defensively in a different way. I appreciate that the characters all play differently when the developers could easily have easily given you three different sprites with one moveset.

The rhythm mechanic of moving on the beat works very well with the LoZ map style. Being able to see the bar speed at the bottom also helps a lot to learn in the first place. Most importantly, you have the option to completely turn it off to play this like a classic LoZ. Obviously the soundtrack itself is full of great LoZ remixes.

The difficulty is just right without being too rough or too easy with only occasional exceptions, and the game is fairly forgiving about respawing when you do die; it usually doesn't feel like a BIG deal. There's tons of LoZ equipment to use, which I really appreciate after how barebones Breath of the Wild was in that regard.

As with any roguelike, you also have a lot of replayability with the map changes and different characters and equipment to try out.

Incorporating classic bosses with musical instruments is also really fun.

Cons

It's as short as you would expect a budget game to be, but it's more expensive than your average budget game. I'm going to chalk that up to using a first-party Nintendo IP, but the price fools you into thinking the game will be longer.

I also personally don't really care for roguelikes, so the selling point of replayability isn't for me. It's a bit unfair to judge the game for something the genre is supposed to do, but I don't think it's a bad game for being like this. I just think it's a game I like less because of that emphasis.

There's also one boss in particular that was super frustrating, and I think it's because I didn't understand the "trick" to beating it.

Final Thoughts

I do honestly recommend this if you like classic LoZ, but just know what you're getting into; something that emphasizes multiple playthroughs and won't take too long on a single run, but which executes the LoZ formula itself really well.

 7. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

 I can't believe how long it took me to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown given that Fire Emblem is my favourite series. I also owned it for years on Steam, but it was just this year I finally booted up this strategy RPG.

Pros

You want a challenging SRPG? Here you goddam go. This game is punishing as hell, but as long as you don't play Iron Man mode it's still reasonable to deal with. I don't usually care for games that sell on difficulty, but I've played enough SRPGs that I don't mind more difficulty in the genre that's not cheap. XCOM very closely skirts the line of difficult and cheap, again if you are not playing Iron Man (which prevents you from restarting missions).

There's so much dumb RPG numbers to gloss over and spec, and I love it. Things to research, order to research, facilities to build, equipment to craft, skills per each character to learn. If you like pouring over resources like me but don't like the real time nature of an RTS, this is perfect.

I also like the idea that you start off so overwhelmed against an absurdly powerful alien force, and everything you're doing is basically just trying to survive while looking for a way to hold your ground. There's a real desperation in the gameplay that captures the feeling of war in a way that Fire Emblem struggles with.

 Cons

I haven't seen RNG that hates me this much since Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword. And it seems to be a universal experience that the RNG is more stacked against you than it leads you to believe.

I've also seen many people online suggest Iron Man for a person's first run, but that is AWFUL advice. It's why I almost quit the game twice, but ultimately just made a new file without Iron Man. It sounds fun for a second or later playthrough, but there's so many unknowns happening constantly in your first run that it just feels unfair to go Iron Man.

The aesthetic is sci-fi apocalypse; two designs I generally hate. Everything is so gloomy and blue and tech. It's all very forgettable to look at.

Healing options are so limited, at least in the relatively early sections I'm in (I did not beat this). Actually this is one of the very few games I started but did NOT beat before playing something else, which in itself means there's something that I really disliked. At this point I can't remember what that is.

Final Thoughts

If you like Fire Emblem gameplay but want it to be even more resource management based, and can deal with a drab aesthetic, absolutely grab this. Especially since it gets really cheap on Steam. Just do NOT start on Iron Man mode.

 6. Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within (PC)

There was a Joker live-action movie this year; an entire movie dedicated to him. And yet Telltale managed a better Joker.

Pros

I am one of those weirdo people who considers Joker one of his favourite comic characters. I'm a sucker for a good villain, and it was probably Joker in Batman: The Animated Series that is responsible for that. So I love seeing a good fresh take on the character, and Telltale delivers. This is season two of Telltale Batman, and we briefly got to see "John Doe" in the first season as a proto-Joker who's definitely a violent jerk, but not necessarily a villain just yet. While there are many plot threads in Enemy Within, the main one is about how John grows among the mess that is Gotham. Depending on how you play, you can actually push him to become a vigilante and ally of Batman instead of the villain. This is itself not only a fun take on the character, but also the most uniquely any Telltale game has branched.

I remember explaining once that Telltale is not so much "choose how the story ends", but more "choose how your character's relationships with others changes". But there, you get a wildly different final chapter depending on whether John is a vigilante or villain. I really appreciate the effort it took, but it's also bittersweet since this was one of the last games the studio worked on before being closed.

Telltale gives us other character portrayals that range from standard to occasionally good. They have Harley play the big mob boss who has John wrapped around her finger this time, and they do a good job selling it.

You'll get some great dialogue options, and it seems almost impossible to please everyone. Being forced to make hard choices that will inevitably make someone mad at you is what this genre is about, and it's often not exactly clear cut what the consequences will be.

 Cons

Like other Telltale games, action sequences are done with QTEs. These are relics in this day and age, so I really didn't care for them. It's a good way to get around a probably costly combat engine, but it's ultimately filler to me to get back to the plot. Since this is a Batman game, it has more action sequences than the average Telltatle game.

Other sequences like searching for clues are less annoying, but still not really fun. I did not grow up on point-and-clicks, but it seems the developers did.

You also can't easily restart sequences if you selected an option by mistake; you have to restart that entire chapter. And a chapter is multiple hours. I get the implication of "you have to live with your choices", but when it's an actual mistake because I'm using a PS3 controller on my PC mapped to Xbox buttons...I get a little annoyed.

Final Thoughts

It's a little weird to start at Enemy Within if you didn't play the first season, and it will retroactively spoil things, but you honestly could. It is more fun than the original (which is also good). Easily the big selling point is being able to shape John the proto-Joker; if that doesn't appeal to you, this may not be for you.

 5. Super Metroid (SNES Classic)

Not only is 2019 the first time I played (and completed) Super Metroid; it's also the first time I completed a Metroid game at all! I had played a decent amount of Fusion and the first Prime before, but fell off both of them. This time, I absolutely saw Samus reach her goal.

Pros

How do you talk about such a beloved game? First of all, the SNES era is still visually my favourite in video games. This has a lot to do with nostalgia since I grew with the SNES, but also because it was the height of sprites before the industry turned to 3D models. And as amazing as N64 and PS1 graphics looked back then, they did not age well. The SNES, however, still holds up so well visually.

For a game with a sci-fi aesthetic that heavily takes place underground, I loved the variety and colours Super Metroid offered outside my expectations. This is definitely up there as one of the most beautiful games of the console.

Where I think the game excels the most is Samus' controls. The level of precision they built into her abilities is nuts. Obviously there are games where characters have larger movesets (such as fighters), but for a platformer I love how well you can maneuver Samus. For example, when you do a moving jump. If you hit the D-Pad and then jump, you do the Spin Jump. If you jump and then hit the D-Pad, you do a more standard jump. It may not seem like much now, but I feel like for the time it's very impressive.

There's so many fun abilities you get, and the majority of them can be used simultaneously for some really fun platforming.

You also learn very quickly even without text based on the way power-ups and obstacles are laid out. Even storytelling is done well simply through gameplay; no cinema scenes or text explanations needed.

The bosses feel stressful but almost never too cheap; you always feel like they're possible to deal with. Occasionally you may need more missiles or energy, but it's usually learning and countering patterns.

Music can effectively be atmospheric or lively depending on where you are, and I retroactively wish we had a few more Metroid tracks in Super Smash Brothers.

Also even though I'm not a 100% completion-ist type of person, I appreciate when I do find some secret missile tank by really examining the area.  

Cons

When you're not used to the controls early on, it can be tricky to handle Samus. Mostly those spin jumps. The wall jump also never really got easier.

Weapon switching is a weird situation. I appreciate you can do it on the fly with the Select button, but the fact it always goes in a certain order means it can often take a while to get to what you want.

Personally I also thought Ridley was a hell of a difficulty spike, and the game actually calmed back down in difficulty afterwards? Maybe I'm just bad at fighting such an aggressive and fast boss.

Phantoon was also a tough boss made tougher by the fact the closest working Save Point was a good 5+ minutes of platforming away for me. I like that the nearest Save Point doesn't work because the electricity is off, and it builds on the haunted ship atmosphere, but boy was that frustrating to jump all the way back nearly four times to fight that boss.

Final Thoughts

If like me you've somehow not played Super Metroid, you really should. It still holds up, and it's relatively short (my time was about 6 hours). It may be a little weird at the start with the limited abilities and getting used to the precise controls, but if you stick with it you're in for a good time.

The reason it's number 5 and not higher is not due to any particular negatives, but simply because the next few games left me with more positives.

 4. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4)

The fact that this game exists is incredibly stupid, and I love it.

Pros

Persona 3 is not a happy game in a traditional sense. There are happy moments, but most are bittersweet. It's a game about dealing with and overcoming tragedy, and has a dark visual atmosphere to match.

So the fact we get to see that cast dancing around with bright colours is nuts. But not at all in a bad way. These characters go through so many difficulties; they absolutely deserve to have a fun dance party where they don't have to think about anything else. This isn't the happy kids deciding to dance; this is a bunch of stressed out people who need a break. And as someone who loves Persona 3, it makes me so happy to...well, see them happy.

The majority of the original voice actors were brought back (the main exception being Elizabeth), and they do just as good a job as in the old days.

We get mostly great remixes of the P3 songs, and the original versions of others. Each song has a particular character assigned to it so they can more effectively match their dancing style. The models look amazing.

There's also minor Social Link elements which are used in place of a story, and their personalities are mostly intact. There's certainly some Flanderization, but it's not as bad as Persona Q.

You also get a decent progression system of unlocking songs in batches, and needing to beat them to get the next songs. The Social Link requirements help make repeating the songs fun while giving you something to work towards.

The rhythm game itself is hard to judge since I play very few rhythm games. I found it fun once I got the hang of it on normal difficulty. There's tons of modification options to make it easier or harder depending on your preferences.

 Cons

As with every modern Persona game, the DLC is awful. Tons of Day One DLC, and they even locked Shinji to DLC! Does he not also deserve to have fun without paying extra? There's also a few songs I would have liked, but not at those prices. Otherwise DLC is mostly costumes and accessories which I both don't care about, and which are overpriced.

I also hate that we had an EASY chance to get the FeMC Minako in this fun low-stakes plot game, but didn't. It's not like Atlus forgot about her either; she was in Persona Q2 which came out a little later. If anything, SHE should have been DLC and Shinji should have been in the base game.

The jump in difficulty between Hard and All-Night is absurd. I can beat most songs on Hard with good ratings, but I can't beat the first song on All-Night at all.

Koromaru is not in the game, which inherently prevents it from being perfect. He could have jumped in during Fever Time at least!

Final Thoughts

This game is only for Persona 3 fans, but boy is it some great fanservice for us. If you're a Persona 3 fan that at least slightly enjoys rhythm games, this is for you.

 3. Indivisible (PS4)

 As of writing this, I have not actually beaten Indivisible. If I had to guess, I'm at the 2/3 mark? A big plot thing just happened, but it's clearly not the final plot thing.

Since this game is less known, it's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Pros

It's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Look at that sentence! These are all things I love!

I grew up on platformers and RPGs, and I have a lot of fun when I get into a fighter. And as someone who always desperately tries to find even one brown character in most video games, I'm all about a cast that is mostly South Asian!

The combat system is really fun. It utilizes something similar the classic Final Fantasy ATB style system, but at a very quick refresh rate and tons of fighting game elements thrown in. For example, a key is doing combos with your various party members. Each character has 3 standard moves, and knowing when to use what depending on the enemy's position is where the strategy comes in. There's also one party-wide meter that everyone dips into to use Supers. It's a very aggressive and offense-oriented battle system, but they manager to incorporate healers and support units comfortably. But yes, everyone is basically a fighting game character in an RPG battle system.

The platforming starts off very basic, but you get access to so many moves and can use them all fluidly together. There's some really fun platforming segments that really force you to use everything Ajna can do.

The character designs are top-notch, even removed from how ecstatic I am about the diversity. Again, they are designed as fighting game characters who have to be distinct and high-quality. Everyone also feels extremely unique in combat.

I wouldn't say the overall story and writing is amazing, but there's some good moments here and there.  It also follows a somewhat less traditional path for Ajna so far, even though I'm expecting a fairly traditional climax.

 Cons

Okay, so this is in some ways a fighting game. Which means you should have a move list you can look up. While you get a brief explanation of each character's gimmick when you recruit them, there's NO MOVE LIST!

That sucks, but you can go into Training and figure out the moves for yourself, right? Yes, except you don't unlock Training until almost 10 hours into the game! Which means for the early part of the game when you're still learning the mechanics of the system as a whole, you also have more trouble learning what each character can do. Combined with a very high rate of recruiting new characters early on, this can be overwhelming. If they didn't want to make a move list, they should at least have made Training available from the beginning.

Backtracking can be a bit of a pain; there's minimal fast travel points. Ajna doesn't cover as much space as Samus relatively to the game world, so it really takes some time to go around. Enough that it sometimes discourages exploration, which is not good in a platformer.

The sense of progression is also pretty slow once you get past the 1/3 mark. You don't get new characters quite as quickly, and it's not as though your characters learn new moves (they shouldn't, based on how the battle system works). You also only have levels for Ajna, which in my experience don't make a huge difference. And there's no equipment or items give you that sense of growth. What you have are the Ringels; collect enough of them and you can get a major defense upgrade, or add an additional attack slot per turn to every character. They're great upgrades, and fun to explore and find, but it's a long time between upgrades.

I also feel like healers and support are tough to use well in such an aggressive battle system, which is unfortunate because I traditionally love support-type characters.

Final Thoughts

Despite liking it more than most of the games on this list, it's a tough recommend. It's very specific to what it is, and there's nothing to really compare it to. However I really like it, and I especially love the South Asian influence.

 2. Celeste (Switch)

If you showed me a 10-second clip of Celeste gameplay, I'd dismiss it as some easier Super Meat Boy clone.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Pros:

In many ways, Celeste can be called a long series of platforming challenge rooms. Basically once you clear a distinct "screen" and die, you move forward. You die, you restart on the same screen in seconds. There's infinite lives and no timer. You take as long as you need, and you keep pushing forward. It's a compromise of making a classically difficult platformer that removes all elements that make the classics feel cheap. And it's also a great representation of the story Madeline is going through.

Having a young-life crisis, non-mountain-climber Madeline sets out to climb the famously difficult mountain Celeste. There's a few other characters to deal with, but the majority of the game is spent with Madeline and the reflection that represents another side of her. A side of her that's always bringing her down and trying to force her to turn backIt's a short and well-written story, and absolutely worth experiencing. I love the weaving of the "keep trying" gameplay and story, and the fact an Assist Mode to make the gameplay easier is available from the start is important.

The music also nails that Super Metroid feeling of atmospheric or lively depending on what's happening.

Controls are similarly precise but reasonable, and the incredibly low stakes of failure make even the cheaper platforming segments doable. Some of the platforming is legitimately annoying, but being able to try again in literal seconds makes it less frustrating than easier platformers.

Cons

I don't care for the character sprites. They are small and faceless. You understand what they're going for, and I know they have to be small in relation to the area of the game. But it's just not visually appealing.

...I can't really think of any other cons.

Final Thoughts

I feel like Celeste is an important game that will stay with me, far beyond just a good game I played in 2019. It's short, it doesn't cost much, and it's absolutely worth your time if you have any sort of anxiety or self-esteem issues.

 1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

 My favourite series finally returns to a home console after nearly a decade. And boy does it deliver.

Pros

There's two critical things I look for when judging a Fire Emblem game; the cast, and the core gameplay.

The cast in Three Houses is nearly fully presented to you from the start of the game. You have your three separate houses with their individual students, and you choose one to lead. Fortunately you can recruit most students from other houses with some work, so you don't have to worry too much about mutually exclusive units. You will see a few new faces over the course of the game join your team as well, so there's still some surprises. At first glance, many of the characters can be relegated to anime tropes. Claude is the charismatic schemer, Marianne is the quiet girl who likes animals, Hilda is the lazy high-confidence girl, etc. But as you progress through the story and the Support conversations, you'll find that nearly every character has a lot of writing effort put into them. I do not want to give any examples because it's better to get to them yourself throughout the game, but don't take the characters at face-value. Don't expect a full 180 personality shift, but do expect lots of depth to explain both currently personalities, and being able to see the growth of these characters. There's some very relatable issues some of the characters face.

Honestly, it's not a stretch to say Three Houses has some of my favourite characters in the series. It's a big plus that one of the main Lords is dark-skinned for the first time in series history.

Then we have the gameplay. Off the bat we're into some very non-traditional Fire Emblem stuff with the academy system; you use things like lectures to build the weapon levels of your students. Also Cavalry, Heavy Armor, and Flying have their own weapon levels now? Also you don't buy spells, you learn them with weapon levels? There is a LOT that's different.

But what remains the same is the core formula of the strategy-RPG battles. Your process to build your units may be different in many ways, but you're still using the tactics you would expect in an FE game. There's just a few other things to consider now.

Basically I feel that Three Houses' new systems are a good compliment to the classic system as opposed to being a full replacement. Which is why even as an old FE elitist, I absolutely loves playing out the fights. Also they brought back Fog of War!

I really love the incorporation of visible agro lines. Basically when you move your character within enemy range, you actually see direct lines from the enemies so you see who will attack you. Combined with ability to go back to a previous turn, this helps make bad RNG feel less frustrating.

The story is also hands-down the best of the modern Fire Emblem era (everything from Awakening and beyond). It may start off as anime high-school, but having a cast of characters from entirely different countries attend school together as teenagers and then skipping forward to when they are leading their respective countries to war against each other...it's a lot to take in. And you have four different ways to experience the game, all of which are fairly distinct.

New gameplay elements like the lectures and academy activities are actually pretty fun, and dip into a bit of that Persona itch. You also get a better feel for the cast as you see them going about more normal activities. And it's all done in voice acting. Even every generic NPC dialogue in all four routes. Honestly the level of voice acting is incredible for a first-party Nintendo game. Voices also help the game feel so much more alive.

As always, the music is wonderful. The main theme Edge of Dawn is up there with Kingdom Hearts songs among my favourite video game vocal tracks.

Seriously, listen to it:

The option to freely change class so long as you can pass certification is weird, but feels far less busted than Awakening and Fates due to skills taking longer to learn, and mostly being less overpowered. It's also great aesthetically. Being able to use any weapon with any class was also an interesting change.

Also we have gauntlets as a weapon in Fire Emblem now. Which means you can run up to a goddam Wyvern Rider and punch them in the face. This is amazing.

Another plus is that despite incorporating a time skip, there is no child system. Which means Support is not longer a means to getting a perfect gene child unit, but instead to see how characters grow together while also getting a slight stat boost.

 Cons

I kind of miss the Weapon Triangle. I know it's not even the most important thing in the old game, but I have nostalgia for it? You can sort of get the Weapon Triangle abilities once you raise your respective weapon levels enough.

As for more of a real problem...gender locked classes. It's very frustrating that there is only one class that focuses on Gauntlets, and it's locked to males. Like, have you seen Leonie? She's made to be a puncher! And I made her one, but I had to make her a Warrior.

Similarly, the only Master class that focuses on magic is locked to females. It didn't present a problem for me in the Golden Deer route, but I'm sure at one point during the other 3 routes I'll want to make a male magic user. Oh, the Dark Mage line is also locked to males, but doesn't have a Master class.

Master classes in general are a problem. Nearly all of them are Cavalry or Flying, and it's visually annoying. Also because most of my Advanced classes were infantry, so my characters didn't really learn Cavalry or Flying with certain exceptions.

I wish there were no gender-locked classes, and more infantry Master classes.

Also I know it doesn't make sense story-wise, but I wish I could recruit Claude to Blue Lions or Black Eagles because I really don't want to hurt him when I play those routes.

Final Thoughts

I mean, it's number one on my list. Obviously I love it. But it's important to note this is my favourite Fire Emblem game in a long time. I feel like I need more distance from it (and to play the other routes) to really compare it to my favourites, but for now it's at least my favourite game of 2019, and my favourite Switch game.

[aion-rsa]

How Metroid Changed the Way We Explore Video Games

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Whenever Metroid comes up, I always think of how hard it must have been to squeeze the phrase “The last Metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at peace��” out of the SNES sound chip for Super Metroid. After all, spoken words in games were still uncommon in 1994, and most other 16-bit titles were more than happy to be able to relay important dialogue through text. Metroid had always been a little different, though.

While that spoken dialog may have felt revolutionary, the words themselves weren’t entirely accurate. After all, the galaxy is never really at peace in the Metroid franchise. Upcoming Nintendo Switch game Metroid Dread promises to end the story that began in 1986’s Metroid, but that remains to be seen. What we do know is that Dread will be the latest entry in a proud line of Metroid adventures that task us with exploring, searching, and uncovering hidden passages in all the back-and-forth ways we’ve come to expect from this series over the last 35 years. Of all the ways that Metroid has done things differently, it’s the ways it changed how we explore video games that have had the most lasting impact.

It might seem strange to some gamers now, but before Samus Aran’s ship landed on Planet Zebes, players were accustomed to following linear paths through video game levels. Most video game worlds were conquered from left-to-right or, on occasion, top-to-bottom. While Metroid initially presented itself as another 2D game, its developers were unafraid to present you with seemingly impassable obstacles such as a gap that was just a little too small to fit through or doors that couldn’t be unlocked through any means you can imagine when you first encounter them. These instances were designed to make you consider the previously unthinkable possibility that you may have to move left-to-right…and then left again for that upgrade you need to proceed.

That lack of guidance may have felt strange to most, but this was the team’s way of embedding mystery into this debut adventure and properly putting you in the boots of an intergalactic bounty hunter bold enough to explore an alien world. The Legend of Zelda tasked you with overcoming conundrums using key items within a series of multi-layered puzzle boxes, but Metroid went a step further by making its whole world feel like one giant puzzle box. The onus was always on you to get out there and discover it all for yourself. It was a much more complicated design strategy, but it was also often a more satisfying one.

35 years on, the original Metroid still boasts a uniquely unsettling atmosphere, and the limitations of the NES weirdly contributed to that lingering sense of mystery. Your dives into the depths of its secret-filled planet are set against pitch-black backdrops that lend Zebes an appropriately otherworldly feeling. Your limited ability to properly read your surroundings coupled with the constant presence of a swathe of villainous critters ready to take you out in just a couple of hits firmly established the feeling you just don’t belong there. Feeling so helpless during those early hours only makes gaining later power-ups like the Bomb and Screw Attack more liberating.

It isn’t long until you realize those upgrades are more than damage dealers; they are the key to navigating areas like Brinstar and Norfair. Bombing rocks to reveal previously blocked pathways and jumping higher than you ever dreamed are key to discovering the heart of Zebes. The best part was that the vast majority of those routes were entirely optional. Whether you chose to explore them was based on your own sense of adventure (or how bad you needed another Energy Tank). Like The Legend of Zelda before it, Metroid let you decide how powerful you wanted to be through exploration. In Metroid, though, items were woven into the world naturally, which only enhanced the feeling that something incredible could be waiting around any corner.

If there’s one aspect where the original adventure reveals its age, it’s in the lack of a dedicated map. Exploring Zebes without any indication of where to go is arguably the key to the game’s premise, but it’s hard to deny that it’s also often quite frustrating. For that matter, not being able to shoot omnidirectionally or be able to crouch to fire also feels a little unfair compared to the conveniences that would be introduced in the next generation. Thankfully, 2004’s Metroid: Zero Mission, a near pixel-perfect remake of the original adventure, simultaneously honors and iterates upon everything introduced until that point in the series timeline.

Metroid II: Return of Samus‘ may have sometimes struggled to advance the original’s innovations (it was a handheld game, after all), but from Super Metroid onwards, the franchise started to hit its stride. Mechanics like the Morph Ball and Bomb remained a staple, but new abilities like the Grappling Beam, Speed Booster, and Power Grip opened up additional opportunities for exploration during Samus’ fight against the Metroids. They’re all examples of Nintendo’s desire to stay true to the heart of the series by removing boundaries while finding new ways to force you to examine your environments and ultimately navigate them. This series has grown in a lot of ways, but almost every new item and feature are designed to reignite that “aha moment” many of us had when we realized how to get past Metroid‘s first roadblock.

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It’s not hyperbolic to say that Metroid has changed the way we explore video games and traverse their remarkable worlds. From Batman in Arkham Asylum using the Line Launcher to cross large gaps to the way Hollow Knight’s ruined kingdom of Hallownest gradually opens up to you as new charms are uncovered, the influence of the subgenre now known as “Metroidvania” has become so commonplace that’s it’s easy to take it for granted. Yet, we should never forget that the idea of picking away at a single location to unlock its mysteries began 35 years ago on the NES. The galaxy may never be at peace, but the innovations of Metroid have certainly made the world of gaming a better place.

The post How Metroid Changed the Way We Explore Video Games appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[zeldauniverse]

It is difficult to find good adventure games that focus on exploration and puzzles. I cling to The Legend of Zelda series, in part, because there are not many games like it. It is more common to find adventure games that focus on action. So I pay close attention any time I see a new adventure game that looks like it might buck that trend. Hob is the latest game to catch my attention.

Hob is an adventure game with a heavy emphasis on exploration and backtracking. It feels like the result of an experiment that combined classic 2D Legend of Zelda and Metroid into a single modern package. In addition, Hob has an interesting approach to narrative: saying nothing.

A silent adventure

One of the most intriguing parts of Hob is the way it approaches storytelling. From the very beginning, you are told nothing. There is no opening cinematic to set the stage and no character dialogue to give you an objective. You just wake up and start walking.

The game then begins telling the story via the gameplay, and you quickly learn about both friends and foes. This type of storytelling is very effective at the beginning of the game and serves as a sort of tutorial. After a brief introductory area, you are free to begin exploring.

In this regard, Hob is not unlike Breath of the Wild, but the similarities end there.

There is no clearly defined main quest. Hob drops you into a beautiful world and tells you absolutely nothing. For the first few hours of the game, that is enough. The world draws you in and encourages you to explore. However, once the newness wears off, you will realize that you have been wandering without any clear objectives. There are often markers on the map pointing you where to go to proceed, but it’s never clear what you actually accomplish when you reach those areas. You might hit a switch or open a floodgate, but why? In the long run, what does that help you achieve?

The world of Hob is beautiful, but what am I doing here? This question is never answered.

Hob never addresses this problem. When I reached the end of the game, I was not certain it was actually the end. When the game did end, I was confused. What had I accomplished? Why was I in this world at all? The storytelling at the beginning of the game set the stage, but then never follows through with a proper conflict or resolution.

Looking back at everything you have done collectively, you can begin to piece together a basic story, but it is a missed opportunity. I appreciate the artistic decision the developers made with the narrative, but it was poorly executed. Hob would have a stronger story if the main characters had explained even the most basic happenings, but the game as a whole may have been more forgettable if they had.

Where Hob really shines is exploration.

A constantly expanding collect-a-thon

Like many adventure games, Hob begins with a fairly small area, and you unlock more areas to explore as you progress. What makes Hob different is that new areas of the world are physically added to the map when you meet certain objectives. You will quickly reach the edge of the map as you explore, but when you locate certain switches large new areas appear in front of you. It is an interesting approach that always keeps you wondering if you have actually explored the entire world. Even after exploring extensively and completing the game, I am not at all certain that I have seen every area it has to offer.

Removing the poison corrupting the land is one of the primary goals in Hob.

The world is full of treasure and a variety of collectibles — some required and some optional. It is with these that every area serves a purpose. The three most important optional collectibles improve your sword, life meter, and stamina meter. Improving all three will make your adventure more enjoyable, and Hob doesn’t try to hide them. Hob marks collectibles you missed on the map as you explore. This had the potential to ruin the exploration, but I feel that it makes it more fun. More often than not, Hob hides collectibles in plain sight. The challenge is figuring out how to reach those areas; not learning that the areas exist. Again, even after finishing the game, there are collectibles marked on my map that I cannot figure out how to reach.

The environment is mostly a green landscape with rivers and lakes, but the land is littered with the remains of a technologically advanced civilization. Furthermore, a deadly poison has corrupted large areas of the land. Finding the source of the poison and destroying it is one of your main tasks. The poison doubles as a way to encourage exploring areas a second time. The poison prevents access to large amounts of the land. Once it is removed, you can explore the areas again to find more collectibles.

Puzzles litter the environment as you explore, but they are not a strong focus. Most puzzles consist of climbing and platforming to activate a switch. You might push a block, activate a power source, or turn a lever, but it all boils down to activating a switch to proceed. Nothing comes close to the complexity of even simple Zelda puzzles.

The camera changes without warning. Sometimes it is high above your head…

…and other times the camera is at your feet. The constant change is jarring.

Overall, I enjoyed my time exploring the world of Hob, but it does have one downside: a bad camera. Sometimes the camera is fixed, and sometimes the camera moves with you. The fixed camera areas can be frustrating when they require platforming; it is difficult to judge the locations of the platforms.

Most of the time, the camera is above you, giving a top-down view of the area. However some areas, seemingly randomly, have the camera at ground level instead. It can be jarring when you walk through a door only to find that the camera in the next room is completely different. It feels like you are switching between playing A Link to the Past and Crash Bandicoot without warning.

Thoughtful combat

Exploration is clearly the focus of Hob, but you are not free to explore unhindered. The collectibles are guarded by monsters. Hob does not place a heavy emphasis on combat, but you are provided a carefully selected arsenal. Enemies are not pushovers. A mistake can quickly lead to a game over (which thankfully does not punish you severely).

This strong punch is the first special ability you learn. It is versatile and used for both combat and puzzle solving.

Your primary weapon is a sword, and you begin with a very basic two-strike combo. As you progress, you will unlock three special abilities that are used both for combat and exploration. You can also learn to block, and you begin the game with a dodge roll. That’s everything you are provided. The result is a game that has very thoughtful combat. You never just run into battle and start hacking away. You need to carefully block and dodge before making your attack. During the second half of the game, enemies gain additional defenses that must be destroyed with your special abilities.

This type of combat is very interesting at first but has the potential to get old quickly. Hob solves this problem by making enemy deaths permanent. Very few enemies ever respawn.

The combat also stays fresh with the help of upgrades. The sword itself can be upgraded to deal more damage, but there are also special skills you can purchase to add additional effects to your abilities. All the effects are optional, so you can mix and match the effects you like best to suit your play style.

A world worth exploring

Hob is not a very long game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent exploring the world. If exploring new worlds is what draws you to adventure games, then Hob is definitely worth your time. You can easily spent 10-15 hours exploring the world and tracking down every last collectible.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in challenging puzzles or an engaging story, then you are better off playing something else. Hob‘s approach to storytelling is interested but executed poorly, and the puzzles serve as more of an obstacle preventing exploration than a real challenge.

Score Similarity to Zelda games 7.5/10 The Legend of Zelda – ▲▲▲▲△ A Link to the Past – ▲▲▲△△ Breath of the Wild – ▲△△△△

Review: Hob gives you a wilderness to explore, but it never explains why you should It is difficult to find good adventure games that focus on exploration and puzzles. I cling to 

[yvocaro]

Well, hello my friend, come on in! It’s that time again, time to chat about Handheld Gaming News.

Did you know the first ever Handheld Gaming News, which had a different name then, was published on here on in September 2015. I called it Friday’s Gaming Cup of Coffee, later changed to just Gaming Cup of Coffee. Thinking back on the past couple of year it’s weird to see how much the device that the handheld games are played on have changed.

The articles used to be much about 3DS and PS Vita games. Let’s just say that I decided a year ago that Switch games were just as much handheld games. A good thing too, otherwise I wouldn’t have had much to write about anymore! New 3DS games are scarce, and I suspect that new Vita games will be even harder to find in future.

Developers flock to the new hybrid console where they used to develop for the 3DS or Vita. Add to that, that the Switch lends itself perfectly to play games on that were released first on mobile. Just look at yesterdays article with all the new releases this upcoming week: a huge list of Switch games!

Anyway, get yourself a nice cup of coffee or tea, and let’s get back to the Handheld Gaming News.

Happy Birthday demo in eShop

The demo for Happy Birthdays is available in the Switch eShop! The game is slated for release on June 5 on the Switch, but this allows you to take a peek before that time.

You can try four “cubes” called Stone Plains, Greenlands, Fiery Earth and Frozen Grounds. The demo lets you play either until reaching 1.5 million years of in-game time or until primitive man is born. The save data from the demo can be imported into the full game when it launches.

It’s a quirky game that might not be for everyone, but be sure to take a look!

Persona Q2 still in the works for a Nintendo device

Persona Q2 was originally announced for 3DS in August last year. It has been pretty quiet since. One has to wonder if Atlus has switched the development over to the Switch.

Here’s what Kazuhisa Wada, gameplay and character designer at Atlus, had to say in Dengeki PlayStation, a Japanese gaming magazine:

“We are working on mid-to-long term plan, including new numbered entries, so that fans can continue to enjoy the Persona series after this year.”

Aside from Persona Q2 I wonder if we just might someday see Persona 5 on the Switch!

3DS HOME Menu Zelda themes on My Nintendo

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition was recently released on Nintendo Switch, and if you are a huge Zelda fan, you can now get various themes for the HOME menu in the 3DS. My Nintendo is now offering The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask: Dire Moon theme for your points.You can redeem your points up to five times to receive up to five codes for this theme.

My Nintendo is also offering discounts on select Zelda games, including a 30-percent discount on The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD.

My Girlfriend is a Mermaid…..must be Prince Eric saying that

Sekai project announced that visual novel My Girlfriend is a Mermaid?! is coming to the Nintendo Switch in Europe and North America. I don’t know about you, but hearing Mermaids, I instantly think of Ariel!

Here’s the details about the visual novel via Kitsuga:

“My Girlfriend is a Mermaid features the story of a protagonist who lives out in the city but one summer decides to return to his rural hometown and it is there he once again meets his childhood friend, Ion… who is now a mermaid!? Soon after he also meets Petakko, a mermaid who has lost her memory and Rin, a priestess who looks after mermaids but also has a split personality.

It is these encounters that brings our protagonist in contact with the legend surrounding mermaids. Together with Ion, who is at the center of this mysterious legend, as well as Petakko and Rin, our protagonist’s strange summer vacation begins. My Girlfriend is a Mermaid!? is the first new release from Sekai specifically targeting the Nintendo Switch platform. This version features enhancements over the original mobile version including new scenario content, Live2D animation and a new opening theme sung by the three main heroines of the game.”

E3 2018 is coming up

If you are a gaming enthusiast like I am, you will know the yearly E3 is getting close. The event takes place from June 9, kicking off with an EA conference and last until June 12.

It will be interesting to see what news Nintendo brings, riding on the waves of success from the Switch. They have announced that their major video presentation will take place on 12th June at the following times:

British Summer Time: 5 pm

Pacific Time: 9 am

Estern Time: 12 pm

Studio Brownies working on a new title for Switch.

This one caught my attention, because I had such fun playing one of their games on mobile. I spent a lot of time on holiday playing Egglia: Legend of the Redcap.

Now there’s confirmation that was made to Source Gaming in an interview that they are making a game for to the Switch. They said that it’s going to be something more unusual like 2017’s Egglia: Legend of the Redcap. I’ll keep an eye on it.

Second Nintendo Switch Set

Some people have been hoping for a smaller and certainly cheaper for of Switch. But I’m thinking this isn’t what they mean. Nintendo is now selling the ‘Nintendo Switch 2nd Set’ in Japan, which is essentially a fully colour-customisable Switch without a dock.

This new bundle costs ¥ 26,978 (including tax) on the Japanese store, while the original complete bundle costs ¥32,378. This is a price difference of roughly £35 / $50 but then you wouldn’t have the dock, Joy-Con grip controller, AC adapter, and HDMI cable.

Europe get two new 2DS XL

On June 29, 2018, Europe gets two new color variations with a pre-installed game.

The one model is a New Nintendo 2DS XL Black + Lime Green system. It is a black system with green accents on the edges and buttons. Mario Kart 7 comes with this bundle.

The other is a New Nintendo 2DS XL White + Lavender model. This one is white, with light purple accents on the lid and buttons. Its pre-installed game is Tomodachi Life.

Mii Studio lets you change how your Mii looks

Mii Studio is up in your browser, to be accessed through this link. Don’t expect too much though, it’s basically the same that you can do in the Mii Maker on the 3DS. No cute clothes or accessories. Makes me miss MiiTomo all over again!

Demo Sushi Striker available for the Switch

Frantic puzzler Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido will come to the Switch and the 3DS. If you want to give the game a try, you can now get the demo in the Switch eShop. Unfortunately, there’s no demo available for the 3DS version.

Chaos is coming with Lego

A teaser website for a new Lego video game has opened. It is a Warner Bros. and TT Games site that notes “Chaos is coming” in about one week. The images released so far for this new Lego project point to it being Lego DC Villains.

One on TT Games’ Twitter account shows the Joker’s silhouette in front of graffiti hinting at the game, showing the Riddler’s symbol and mentioning, “It’s good to be bad.” See the pictures of Batman and other DC Heroes that seem to have been vandalised by the Joker!

  Guess this is enough for now, right?

I see you have finished your cup, and we have to get back to everyday life. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you again next week.

Happy Gaming Weekend!

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