http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/20/circl...-hands-on/
Yay?
I mean, it is good that Nintendo went back on their original statement and went ahead and made the thing for the super sized 3DS, but it also leaves open the simple problem that they should have simply worked the extra stick and buttons into the remodel from the very start. They claim they would have needed to shrink the battery to make it fit, but I wonder about that myself. I don't know that the circle pads are that deeply set into the 3DS that they would actually take up the battery space. And yes, it does appear that Monster Hunter basically forced their hand with this remodel. Yes, Monster Hunter, the series that forced Nintendo to remodel the Wii Classic Controller, make the FIRST circle pad pro, and now this XL/LL sized version. It's just THAT popular in Japan.
I tried MH Tri for Wii, I don't get the attraction much at all. Sure the graphics are good, but the gameplay... eh.
The mystique escaped me completely for years. I knew that the game was bigger than pokemon in Japan, and had a fair following in the US, because most of my friends play this game, and I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND why.
They tried to get me into the series with Tri, but after being shoveled through a few kills, the appeal still escaped me. It just seemed so boring.
Well, with Ultimate, my friends once again wanted me to get into this game. I gave it one more try, and this time I told them NOT to expect me to join their group online until I had a chance to play it by myself for a while instead of being led by the hand. The first DOZEN quests are AWFUL. It seemed like this would just be a repeat of my first foray into the series. I can learn more than one thing a quest Capcom!* So after... a quest for mining, carrying eggs, and a few other incredibly boring things, I eventually got a quest to kill a Great Jaggi, basically a pack leader for some raptors. Then I killed a big bear, and then, only then, did the game suddenly "click". I "got it", and was all like "killing monster is FUN!". The combat system is very well designed. Not many moves, but everything is set up to give weight to everything you do, so if you use an item when you aren't safe, you'll pay for it. The entire game from the ground up is all about big monster fights. Kill them, get their parts, make more armor and weapons, then kill stronger things. That's the whole game. Are there problems? Oh yes, there are a lot of things they really need to fix, but the core gameplay is solid enough for me to put up with it all JUST to keep driving wildlife to extinction.
If you've fought the big guys and still didn't really "get" it, I can understand that. I played the demo, killed two things, then stopped, still not getting it. Now I do, and I've been doing the REALLY fun thing, playing the game with friends. Solo was fun, multi is more fun. I really don't know how to describe what "clicked" but it did. Maybe it won't for you, and that's fine.
<img src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-b3JXw78/0/950x10000/i-b3JXw78-950x10000.jpg"> This comic makes the two viewpoints pretty clear. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll see JUST the right episode of "Adventure Time" and that show will finally "click" for me and it'll suddenly be hilarious, or maybe not.
*(It is the long standing "tutorial problem" in modern games. They don't trust us enough to figure things out on our own these days. Link to the Past still sets the bar for natural introduction to game mechanics for me, having the perfect balance of teaching players the basics, getting right into the game, and making sure that the tutorial doesn't feel like a "break" but instead flows naturally with the game. For example, want to know what a button does? Pause the game and they simply group every single item in the game under which button you press. It doesn't get much easier to understand than that. When you first get an item, it gives a basic and quick description without telling you everything, leaving you with discovering how it works in real time by experimenting right there in the room you got it from. Yes, Link to the Past is still one of the greatest games of all time. Link's Awakening is also absolutely incredible, but as far as game tutorials, it actually seems to be the very start of the "heavy handed" style of teaching. It isn't really that bad, but there's only so many times I can find out that "This compass has a new feature!". It would have been better to simply find out what that beep meant on my own. By Skyward Sword, tutorials in Zelda have gotten out of hand. The game isn't too easy like Wind Waker, and the puzzles are still tough, but wow that early hand holding is one of the few flaws in what is otherwise the best Zelda game in years.)
Quote: If you've fought the big guys and still didn't really "get" it, I can understand that. I played the demo, killed two things, then stopped, still not getting it. Now I do, and I've been doing the REALLY fun thing, playing the game with friends. Solo was fun, multi is more fun. I really don't know how to describe what "clicked" but it did. Maybe it won't for you, and that's fine.
I didn't play it enough to get to that point, I got bored and quit pretty early. The game has tiny areas, for one thing. It's like Phantasy Star Online sized... the FIRST PSO. And that was made up for with the larger areas in episodes II and IV. The areas are way too small! And the way that they connect via those long paths that are just load times is kind of silly, too. The graphics are great, but that's the only strong point...
Quote:*(It is the long standing "tutorial problem" in modern games. They don't trust us enough to figure things out on our own these days. Link to the Past still sets the bar for natural introduction to game mechanics for me, having the perfect balance of teaching players the basics, getting right into the game, and making sure that the tutorial doesn't feel like a "break" but instead flows naturally with the game. For example, want to know what a button does? Pause the game and they simply group every single item in the game under which button you press. It doesn't get much easier to understand than that. When you first get an item, it gives a basic and quick description without telling you everything, leaving you with discovering how it works in real time by experimenting right there in the room you got it from. Yes, Link to the Past is still one of the greatest games of all time.
I'm not going to repeat old arguments, but yeah, you probably will remember that i don't agree with that point much at all... LttP is dated, doesn't tell you things you need to know, and it's annoying. It IS a great game, but it's nowhere near the best 2d Zelda game, and it is overrated.
I know I've always been a critic of LttP, and I do like it more than I once did, but still, it's a flawed game in comparison to later titles in the series.
Quote: Link's Awakening is also absolutely incredible, but as far as game tutorials, it actually seems to be the very start of the "heavy handed" style of teaching. It isn't really that bad, but there's only so many times I can find out that "This compass has a new feature!". It would have been better to simply find out what that beep meant on my own.
LA is pretty much perfect. Maybe it could repeat stuff a little less, but otherwise, impeccable design.
Quote: By Skyward Sword, tutorials in Zelda have gotten out of hand. The game isn't too easy like Wind Waker, and the puzzles are still tough, but wow that early hand holding is one of the few flaws in what is otherwise the best Zelda game in years
Heh... yeah, that is true. It was probably worst in TP (I love the game, but up until the second dungeon, it's not so great...), but SS does have too much of it early on too...
Are there other reasons you dislike LTTP? Over the years, my opinion of it has only grown. Every item has a good use throughout the game, with no "dungeon specific" items that get ignored after the dungeon you get them in (like the top from TP). Link's Awakening still ranks up there, but in the past few years, I've started liking LTTP more than LA. What's not to like? (Yes, I remember your problem with the story. That's not really worth dredging up again (I think the story works just fine the way it is told) but I would like to hear your complaints on the gameplay.)
I'm sure I've said most of this stuff before, but...
Well, I still dislike the art design... in comparison to LA, the character sprites don't look so good. Never have; this has always been one of my complaints about the game, the character art isn't nearly up to LA's level.
And I hate that stupid way-too-small sword swing animation, the LA engine's wider swing is a lot better. Your range is too small in LttP!
And the story is terrible, worst in a Nintendo Zelda game released in the '90s. The only post-NES Zelda games they've made that are as bad are Phantom Hourglass and the two Oracles games, all the others are better.
And there's not much to do in the town, either. You can see how that led to what they did with towns in OoT, but it wasn't there yet. The town feels kind of pointless, apart from the shop and such.
And the world design is so boring! It's just a grid of nine squares in each world. Each square has a different terrain in it. Very bland design.
And in that world, the zones are pointlessly large and mostly empty, LA's world design is far better. Heck, even the first NES game's overworld might be more interesting. LttP's is just so bland, with these huge areas with almost nothing in them and few obstacles or enemies most of the time...
And yes, I hate that there are still hidden items there are no good clues to that you are required to find, like the Book of Mudora, the Light Arrows, the Ice Rod, and maybe another thing.
Oh, and of course the interface is pretty primitive compared to any newer Zelda game. Only one item at a time, really?
Overall, LttP is a very good game, and I did actually enjoy it when I played it through on the SNES a few years ago (the GBA version wasn't as good, and I dropped that one midway through after I got it back after it came out because I lost interest), but it's overrated, and it's nowhere remotely near as good as LA, OoA, or OoS, for 2d Zeldas. I'd seriously consider putting the first NES Zelda above it too. Probably would, really; yes, that game's even more random, but at least then you expected that kind of thing (even if I like StarTropics more than NES Zelda in part because it gets rid of most of that random-searches-required stuff...).
However, if you count the two DS Zelda games as "2d", which in terms of gameplay they kind of are, those at least are worse than LttP for sure...
"No clues"? The book of mudora is ON TOP OF A SHELF IN THE LIBRARY. It's kinda obvious once you get the pegasus boots how to get them.
Other than that, all I can really say is I disagree so far that I'm not even sure we value the same things in a game. In fact some of your flaws are things I WANT in a game.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:"No clues"? The book of mudora is ON TOP OF A SHELF IN THE LIBRARY. It's kinda obvious once you get the pegasus boots how to get them.
Other than that, all I can really say is I disagree so far that I'm not even sure we value the same things in a game. In fact some of your flaws are things I WANT in a game.
So I'm supposed to just memorize that after getting the Pegasus Boots I'll need to go back to the library and get that thing? No, that isn't very good design...
Okay here's how it went in every single player's mind except yours.
"Okay I have dashing boots! Yay! I'm told to go into the desert now. What are these weird shapes? I can't read this at all! Maybe I should go to the library I saw back in town. Oh, there's a book on that shelf. I remember that now. How do I get that down? Hmm, maybe if I try knocking it down..."
Why would I think of going to the library because I ran into a completely random, unreadable block? Sorry, I didn't think of it, and even had I gone there, I doubt I'd have thought to use the boots to knock down that book. That part required a FAQ to get past. I believe my cousin got stuck at the same point as well.
I assume you have excuses for why those other hidden required items (Ice wand, light arrows, that book hidden up top, etc.). I think I've heard them before, but seriously, there are no good excuses for that kind of design... it's just random hidden stuff, NES-style. There is a good reason why that kind of design has gone away. I mean, I don't want games to be 100% linear all the time, but having hidden stuff you must get with no real clues is NOT a good alternative, it's just as bad or worse.
You're just restating your claim that it was "completely random with no hints" even though I told you exactly what the hints were. If you got stuck, that's fine, but you didn't need a guide online to get through that. Why would you think to dash into a bookshelf to knock down a book on top of it? Why wouldn't you? Does the game need to have a fairy guide say something like "There is a BOOK up there, if only we had some way to RAM into the shelf we might be able to get the BOOK to fall down!" Excuses? EXCUSES? I just listed my entire train of thought, and apparently that is an excuse now. Oh well.
Light arrows were as easy for me to find as the level 4 sword. The hint as to what you needed to do was fairly clear there, though it was a long process to "unlock" every step along the way. The fat fairy hidden behind the pyramid door? That might have been tough if you forgot about the bomb shop, I must confess. However, if you kept checking back up on that bomb shop through the game, you would have seen the "big bomb" for sale. The pyramid crack you'd been struggling to break open was sure to spring to mind once you had it. Why would you check the bomb shop? The owner states repeatedly that you SHOULD check back as his/her stock may change. Once you get IN that crack, you should have been instantly reminded of the lightworld upgrade waterfall. Remember that? You tossed the boomerang in there and got a magical one in return so long as you were honest. Since this waterfall works the same way (you select an item to throw in from your inventory), you should be trying to toss all sorts of different items in there. There is a glyph you see in the pyramid after the first time you fight Ganon that tells you you "need the silver arrows". Well, what better place to look for them than the pyramid itself? Why wouldn't you try those arrows? I mean, yes, it isn't spelled out for you, but all the clues are there for anyone with clarity of thought to figure out.
Oh and as for the ice rod, that IS spelled out for you, as long as you talked to Sahasrala after beating the first dungeon. That old man specifically says "head to a cave by Lake Hylia, there is an item there you need." When you look for this ice cave, there are signs indicating where you are. Actually getting the ice rod isn't that complicated a puzzle. You can see the chest from one side of the cave, and all you need are bombs to open the other side. I got the ice rod on my first time through long before I even got to the dark world, much less before fighting that double headed elemental rock snake.
I was joking about ya there, but really, all you need is a clear head and a sense of adventure and you can find everything you need. The only things I ever needed a guide to find were two pieces of heart I was missing. As it turned out, I just hadn't examined my surroundings enough to realize that a few places in Death Mountain could be reached by making some leaps of faith. Your examples are exactly the point I was making before. I would actually champion those as examples of EXCELLENT puzzle and exploration design, not "randomly placed things with no hints" at all. I vehemently disagree with all of these examples, and that's not just me "making excuses" for them. I really DID solve them all with exactly that train of thought, I really did NOT use a guide nor just explore randomly and "retroactively" append a solution after the fact. These are nothing like that annoying bridling the snake puzzle from King's Quest II.
Zelda 1, I would agree with you. You basically have to experiment with randomly pushing rocks, bombing walls, and burning bushes to find pretty much all the hidden stuff on the overworld. There are notable exceptions where you piece the clues together yourself, like maps with suspicious "dark spots" and very conspicuous rocks in the middle of a field, but yes, it did depend much more on the "explore everything" side than the "subtle clues" side. Zelda 1 probably has the worst puzzle design of the whole series. I love it, but it is much more of an action game than otherwise. Zelda 2 actually has some puzzles that are better designed than the very basic ones from Zelda 1, and Zelda 2 is certainly more of an action game than a puzzle game.
Link's Awakening does have excellent puzzle design. I've played that game about a dozen or so times at this point, and it really is amazing in about everything it does. It deserves a lot of credit, as I've said in the past. However the "combining items" gimic isn't enough in recent years to keep it ahead of Link to the Past, for me anyway (plus, it was underutilized, and I would love to see a future Zelda game expand on that a lot more, such as this new overhead Zelda coming out). The original release kept the hints very cryptic, but more than that, had more than enough puzzles that didn't need dialog based hints. Many were purely hints as provided by architecture and things that "stand out" from established "rules" of the world. The "hint" of Eagle Tower wasn't much of one at all (you knew you had to knock down 4 pillars, but that's something I figured out by destroying one before I'd even read the hint), but the main puzzle was finding out exactly how to GET the metal sphere to each of the pillars so you could break them. It was certainly very well done and required a lot of thinking, spatially and based on limitations of where your character could move (such as noticing you could throw the sphere over certain walls, but Link couldn't actually cross those walls). It took me a long time to solve that tower, a week or two in fact back when I had a child's patience for that sort of thing, but when all was said and done I never once thought to myself "this puzzle is unfair". Actually, the next dungeon after that took me about as long to solve now that I think about it. That one actually did confuse me because it took an accident to figure out that those "push blocks" that generate paths could be controlled by the directional pad after being pushed. THAT should have had some sort of hint that I could do that. Once I had that "rule" down it was only a matter of solving some more spatial puzzles involving pushing that block to cover the lava up.
It is odd, the one puzzle that Nintendo saw fit to "simplify" in the LTTP rerelease is one you never complained about, the ice temple's block puzzle. That one was tough, I can admit. It took me some time to figure it out on my own, but it WAS doable, and it was entirely a spatially based puzzle that was possible for anyone to noodle through, given enough time and concentration.
I never had an issue with sword length. The first sword was short, but upgrades gave it some length. It was also a wide swing. I tended to stun someone before hitting them with the sword, or charging up a spin slash which had a wider attack range. I've played some interesting games with far shorter swords swing animations and much smaller "time windows" where the swing registers as a "hit", so maybe that plays into why I find the swing to be just fine. But yes, Link in LA does swing a much larger distance.
As for art, well, I guess I just have to disagree there. LA is a very nice looking game, don't get me wrong, but LTTP is also lovely to look at.
Quote:You're just restating your claim that it was "completely random with no hints" even though I told you exactly what the hints were. If you got stuck, that's fine, but you didn't need a guide online to get through that. Why would you think to dash into a bookshelf to knock down a book on top of it? Why wouldn't you? Does the game need to have a fairy guide say something like "There is a BOOK up there, if only we had some way to RAM into the shelf we might be able to get the BOOK to fall down!" Excuses? EXCUSES? I just listed my entire train of thought, and apparently that is an excuse now. Oh well.
Most of the things you're calling hints really are nothing of the sort. I mean, so there's a book up there... so? You may think of it, or may not. But if you don't, a game like this sure won't be of any help.
And on that note, people complain about how modern games have too many hints... but then get stuck, or miss things because they don't know how to do things, because they weren't paying attention or something. And I often mean the same people. I mean, for developers, they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place -- on the one hand, if they fill it with hints, people will gripe, but on the other hand, if they don't, people will complain. Which is worse? I don't know. Some very careful balance of the two, I guess, but that's hard to get right, of course.
Quote:Light arrows were as easy for me to find as the level 4 sword. The hint as to what you needed to do was fairly clear there, though it was a long process to "unlock" every step along the way. The fat fairy hidden behind the pyramid door? That might have been tough if you forgot about the bomb shop, I must confess. However, if you kept checking back up on that bomb shop through the game, you would have seen the "big bomb" for sale. The pyramid crack you'd been struggling to break open was sure to spring to mind once you had it. Why would you check the bomb shop? The owner states repeatedly that you SHOULD check back as his/her stock may change. Once you get IN that crack, you should have been instantly reminded of the lightworld upgrade waterfall. Remember that? You tossed the boomerang in there and got a magical one in return so long as you were honest. Since this waterfall works the same way (you select an item to throw in from your inventory), you should be trying to toss all sorts of different items in there. There is a glyph you see in the pyramid after the first time you fight Ganon that tells you you "need the silver arrows".
Sure, you might think that you might want to go in the pyramid. But that the pyramid has a REQUIRED item in it, that you can't get without a semi-hidden item, (the super-bombs)? That is not hinted at, most certainly not. You either have to get lucky, or use a guide.
Quote: Well, what better place to look for them than the pyramid itself? Why wouldn't you try those arrows? I mean, yes, it isn't spelled out for you, but all the clues are there for anyone with clarity of thought to figure out.
No, I don't see any connection between the pyramid and "oh of course the arrows are going to be there." None. It's randomly placed, and hidden behind a wall that you might give up on trying to get through, since nothing else seemed to work on it. And there are no clues to its location.
Quote:Oh and as for the ice rod, that IS spelled out for you, as long as you talked to Sahasrala after beating the first dungeon.
The FIRST dungeon? Who cares what he said after the first dungeon? The item isn't required until pretty much the LAST dungeon! That is, at the bottom of one of the last dungeons in the game. And your excuse is that many, many hours earlier, you got an extremely, extremely vague hint, maybe dozens of hours earlier in the game? Oh come on. That is NOT decent design.
Quote:That old man specifically says "head to a cave by Lake Hylia, there is an item there you need." When you look for this ice cave, there are signs indicating where you are. Actually getting the ice rod isn't that complicated a puzzle. You can see the chest from one side of the cave, and all you need are bombs to open the other side. I got the ice rod on my first time through long before I even got to the dark world, much less before fighting that double headed elemental rock snake.
I didn't even notice that cave until after going into an FAQ to find where the ice rod was, and even then I was wandering around back and forth around Lake Hylia for quite some time before I found the stupid thing... there are so many things in that area that it could be, how am I supposed to know which cave is being referred to, or which item? There's no possible way to know that he's actually referring to something you NEED, or that cave versus any of the other things in the area either!
And of course, as I've said before, the absolute worst part of it is that the stupid rod is only required at the very bottom of one of the last dungeons, at a point where, if you don't have it, you have to REDO THE ENTIRE DUNGEON just because you don't have a VERY easily missed item you'll surely need a guide to find. That is terrible game design!
At least with the Book of Mudora, all you do without it is just wander endlessly around that desert...
Quote:I was joking about ya there, but really, all you need is a clear head and a sense of adventure and you can find everything you need.
A sense of adventure is fine, but that's not the kinds of things you're talking about...
Quote:The only things I ever needed a guide to find were two pieces of heart I was missing. As it turned out, I just hadn't examined my surroundings enough to realize that a few places in Death Mountain could be reached by making some leaps of faith. Your examples are exactly the point I was making before. I would actually champion those as examples of EXCELLENT puzzle and exploration design, not "randomly placed things with no hints" at all. I vehemently disagree with all of these examples, and that's not just me "making excuses" for them. I really DID solve them all with exactly that train of thought, I really did NOT use a guide nor just explore randomly and "retroactively" append a solution after the fact. These are nothing like that annoying bridling the snake puzzle from King's Quest II.
I'd say these parts of LttP are just as bad as things like the desert in KQ5.
Quote:It is odd, the one puzzle that Nintendo saw fit to "simplify" in the LTTP rerelease is one you never complained about, the ice temple's block puzzle. That one was tough, I can admit. It took me some time to figure it out on my own, but it WAS doable, and it was entirely a spatially based puzzle that was possible for anyone to noodle through, given enough time and concentration.
That puzzle was fine. A bit tough, but it's an actual
puzzle. "Have this item we randomly hid off on the side near the entrance to a dungeon you went to hours ago and could have very easily missed, or you can't progress in the game" is not a decent puzzle. It's just poor design. The two things are entirely different. (Remember, the Water Temple was my second favorite dungeon in OoT! I don't mind some decent puzzles in a dungeon.)
Quote:I never had an issue with sword length. The first sword was short, but upgrades gave it some length. It was also a wide swing. I tended to stun someone before hitting them with the sword, or charging up a spin slash which had a wider attack range. I've played some interesting games with far shorter swords swing animations and much smaller "time windows" where the swing registers as a "hit", so maybe that plays into why I find the swing to be just fine. But yes, Link in LA does swing a much larger distance.
Wide? It's not wide compared to LA... you don't have nearly the range or width of swing. In LA you go all the way from the side to the front, but in LttP he sort of waves it in front of him. Not nearly as generous. You are right that there are games out there that are worse, but LttP's isn't that great.
Quote:As for art, well, I guess I just have to disagree there. LA is a very nice looking game, don't get me wrong, but LTTP is also lovely to look at.
The only Zelda game Nintendo's made with worse character sprites/models than LttP is Minish Cap, I think...
At this point you've basically just restated your opinions. Let's just agree to disagree. On one point I must say something though. I did not "just get lucky" when I solved those puzzles. I followed EXACTLY the hints I outlined and that is what solved it. I didn't just randomly wander around, I DID follow the train of logic. When you claim "you just have to get really lucky", the way you come across is like you're saying you know my experience playing the game better than I do, that I was somehow "mistaken" to ever think I put clues together, and really, I MUST have just randomly guessed to do it. That may not be your intention, but this is how it comes across.
Those things aren't clues. They just aren't... though the worst of all probably is that stupid blast symbol, or whatever it was that was hidden up near one of the dungeons in the upper part of the map. It's just hidden off on the side near a dungeon, with no clues I remember about existence, until you suddenly get to the desert and find you need ... something ... that you have. Whatever that something is, the game certainly isn't going to say.
The only excuse I remember from prior arguments about this point here was that I should have explored enough to find it the first time. Um, that's not a very good defense. I did explore, I just didn't find it... and then once you leave that area, there's no reason to ever return, so I wasn't likely to go back through and find it another time. Ugh.
Those things I said "clued me in" to something to solve. From there, I did solve those problems. You're perfectly fine saying the hints weren't direct enough, and there we may just disagree (perhaps there should have been a telepathic glyph in the dungeon for Sahasrala to remind you of that secret in a cave south of Lake Hylia), but unless you are arguing that I did NOT actually solve those puzzles the way I said I did, then yes, they WERE clues.
Blast symbol? Are you talking about those 3 medallions? Yeah, there are 3 stones hidden across Hyrule and you need the book of mudora to read what they say, then you solve the riddle they give and get the medallion.
The blast symbol itself was rather obvious, in that it perfectly matched the symbol on the Blastos medallion. If you had obtained at least one of those, you might guess that you're missing one with the right symbol. As for the monoliths, that's tougher. The monoliths themselves are all in plain sight in 3 locations. Was Blastos the one hidden on top of Death Mountain? Perhaps that one should have been switched with the monolith by the desert, as it would be much easier to see on your way into the desert/swamp and when you switch back and forth exploring that area. Again, I'd say I figured it out well enough, but it does take a desire to explore the areas you visit instead of just plowing on through from one "objective" to the next.
It seems I got things confused from your description. It wasn't the explosive medallion, but the freezing "ether" medallion you needed to open the door in Misery Mire.
Quote: Those things I said "clued me in" to something to solve. From there, I did solve those problems. You're perfectly fine saying the hints weren't direct enough, and there we may just disagree (perhaps there should have been a telepathic glyph in the dungeon for Sahasrala to remind you of that secret in a cave south of Lake Hylia), but unless you are arguing that I did NOT actually solve those puzzles the way I said I did, then yes, they WERE clues.
If the Ice Rod was required at the bottom of that dungeon, it should have been required at the entrance too. And there should have been a clue to where it is, if you didn't have it yet. Letting you get to the end of a dungeon, only to learn that you need some item or other you don't have and you'll have to leave and completely redo the dungeon, is absolutely absurd.
Quote:It seems I got things confused from your description. It wasn't the explosive medallion, but the freezing "ether" medallion you needed to open the door in Misery Mire.
Right, the Medallions... weren't several of them hidden, with no clues? And one was off in Death Mountain, in an inaccessible location you're only ever going to pass by once, and is VERY easy to miss since it's past the dungeon entrance, and you'd only be there for the dungeon.
Quote: Again, I'd say I figured it out well enough, but it does take a desire to explore the areas you visit instead of just plowing on through from one "objective" to the next.
I'd be interested in exploring everything if, like in LA, you were actually revealing map squares as you explore, but LttP isn't as good a game as that one, and doesn't have a great map like LA does either, so it makes me less likely to want to explore every corner of the world...
So what you'd like is a map that tells you where you've been then? Hmm, I can see that I suppose. Honestly I'd never even thought of that. It never really posed a problem to me.
Yes, I love maps which record your explorations. Ones that just tell you everything are kind of boring... oh, and greater detail is good too. I also love how the LA map has text descriptions on each square on the map, for instance. Great stuff!
The great, fill-it-in ingame map in Skies of Arcadia surely also helped me enjoy that game, for example... made me want to explore out every area. I don't really care about "collecting them all" in terms of items, but I like maps, and want them complete. :) Like, I found the idea of exploring out all the maps in Diablo 2 pretty fun, but didn't care much at all about getting lots of loot. That's one reason why I disliked the game online, I hated that every time you logged in it re-randomized the maps! Just awful, you had to start the map over every time. No fun.
I think I see it now! Yes, if that's the sort of aid you need, then I can understand why all those puzzles you listed, and SPECIFICALLY those puzzles, might prove troublesome.
Just to be sure, what are your thoughts on Metroid 1?
Unless they make a version with an ingame map, I'm not interested in playing it. I tried it a bit in Metroid Prime, but didn't play it seriously because come on, I'm not going to just memorize the whole thing or something. I guess I could make a map on paper, but that's a level of dedication I haven't ever spent on that game... well, or I could print off a map, but I just played newer Metroid games that do have maps, like the GBA games, instead.
And yes, I love maps, and put significant importance on them in games. I really dislike that id removed the ingame map from Quake versus Doom, for example... that was disappointing. In comparison, Jedi Knight 1's on-screen 2d map and 3d map in the pause menu were just fantastic.
I see now. Thank you for that insight. For my part, I don't fault LTTP's map much at all, as I was satisfied with the presence of "markers" and such, but I understand where you are coming from.
Fact is, I have elevated the position of LTTP in my mind, but LA is still a strong competitor, in its own ways. The Oracle games are fun, but don't come close to how good Link's Awakening is. The DX version of LA is itself very good. I actually think it is colored well, if a bit brightly compared to the more subtle tones used in the Oracle games. It is acceptable to me in that the colors are similar to the very primary very bright colors of the NES Zelda games. If I could fault it, I would note 3 things. First, as you've noted, the extra dungeon hints are a bit too "on the nose". I prefer the riddle-like hints in the first version. While the new statues CAN be avoided, one would have to know to avoid them. It would be better if there was an option at the start, but Miyamoto tends to shy away from overt "difficulty selection" in his games. Also, while I love the new quest to complete a photo album, it is annoying that I need to be labelled as a THIEF to complete it. It would have been far better had the game provided an alternate photo for that slot (as it did for the first slot photo). Maybe if I pay for both expensive items, I get a photo of Link grudgingly handing over a massive sack of rupies to the shopkeeper to get the bow. Sure technically I can still label myself a thief after that, but oh well, it would be an option. Thirdly, the "color dungeon" was a nice bonus with retro Zelda 1 dungeon music, (although it was just a tad disappointing in that it didn't have a bonus boss and it was rather short). However, it would have been nice to switch BACK to my classic green outfit instead of being locked in with the red or blue tunics, just as an option anyway.
I agree, the changes made to LA that made it easier, both by adding in too many hints in the dungeons and by giving you permanent boosted stats (the red and blue suits are basically permanent Piece of Power and such...), degrade from the game. I don't love the color choices either; it's okay, but... it's kind of garish at times, I liked it better in B&W.
The added photo-collection quest isn't something that interests me all that much, either. Not enough to make me want to buy the game back when it came out just for that and color, certainly, and I didn't (buy it during the GBC's life, that is). LA DX is still a great, great game... but I do think the original release is slightly better.
I finally went and found that old discussion about this subject here:
http://tcforums.com/forums/showthread.ph...)&p=117930
From that, I see that in this thread I forgot to mention how big of a pain figuring out how to get into the Swamp of Sorrows was. Man, was that frustrating.
Now ya see, that was one of my favorite parts of the game, so we seem to differ quite a bit on this. I felt the puzzles were clearly laid out.
Also, it's Misery Mire, not "Swamp of Sorrows". The swamp of sorrows is from Warcraft. The swamp of sadness is from Neverending Story. The Bog of Eternal Stench is from The Labyrinth. Wow, there sure are a lot of depressing swampy places in fantasy...
Oh, that's the Warcraft swamp? Heh... ah well. And really, that stupid quest ("go to the top of one specific hill you have to warp to and use the flute etc") was one of your favorite parts of LttP?
And that's just it. I didn't internally cut the game into "here's a quest, and then there's a quest". I had one BIG quest from start to finish. It's actually a more recent convention to cut up every little thing you do in a game and call it a separate "quest". That part involving finding my way into Misery Mire? Yeah, I loved it! It was a great use of the two worlds thing, from finding the medallion I needed to get in to finding out how to get there to finding the entrance, and the dungeon itself was fun too. But yeah, I loved it.
I wonder if you'd have liked this game more if you had played it long ago when it first came out. I have little doubt nostalgia plays a role.
HGuh? Each dungeon in a game like this is a separate "quest"... but yeah, as I said in that old thread, I don't know how you're expected to ever guess how to get into Misery Mire without a guide.
Quote: I wonder if you'd have liked this game more if you had played it long ago when it first came out. I have little doubt nostalgia plays a role.
This is likely, yeah.