Woo! I loved these games, and their good punk soundtracks (despite N64's inferior sound quality). I would sink hours into them. I'm looking forward to zipping around those newly rendered gorgeous levels.
That wonky thing was always misfiring on the perpendicular to whatever direction I put in. However I've recently been able to do something about it. I applied a fix I read about online combined with a little extra I added. You'll need two things. The first is electrical tape and the second is a gel style super glue applicator pen. (Be sure it's that specific kind, and that it's the kind formulated for wood, metal, glass, and plastic. Oh and yes- don't glue yourself if you can avoid it.)
The first step involves disassembling the controller until you can get under the d-pad to the copper traces beneath. That's a bit more involved than I expected. There's many little hidden screws, starting with the two in the handles. Then you slide those two off like sleeves. From there the plastic "back" has 4 silver screws. Remove those and under this are 5 more screws, black in color. Yes- five. Do not proceed until you find them all. There's a few hidden VERY well in two little tubes in the battery compartment. Now you can separate the shells. Be careful here, as there's a ribbon cable connecting two boards together. You'll need to pull up on a tab on one side or the other to slide the cable out cleanly. Lastly, there are 4 more black screws on the "facing" side of the controller.
Once it's all open, remove whatever rubber contacts are still clinging to the board and take a look at the 4 contact points. You'll notice how each one consists of two half circles. The rubber pad contains a metal contact inside it which bridges these points and that gets interpretted as a button press. (A microcontroller is used for this, otherwise you'd need two wires running to the console for every button on the controller.) There are two issues with this d-pad's design, and we're going to handle them both. The first is that the contacts can connect with very little input. Those half circles connect very close to the center as well as out to the tip of each direction. The second has to do with the plastic d-pad itself. Look under it and you'll see a half-sphere that kind of resembles a ball bearing underneath. This is intended to prevent pressing left-right or up-down at the same time. The ball is just a smidge (millimeter or two at best) too short and thus doesn't do it's job.
The next step is going to take some experimenting. We need this to be very accurate. Take the glue applicator and apply a little dot of super glue right in the middle of the d-pad contacts on the PCB. There's a little divot where the plastic part rolls around, aim for that. Let it soak in and spread and wait an hour or two for it to harden. This will provide a higher base. Again, we're talking millimeters. Better to apply too little than too much here. If you don't trust yourself with the glue, I found ONE layer of electrical tape can do the job too, but it may degrade quicker over time.
Now cut 4 thin strips of electrical tape. You're going to want to put it over the contact traces closest to the middle. The goal is to prevent a circuit until the d-pad is depressed a little more, to prevent accidental presses. You may need to adjust the position further inward or outward (from the center), then screw the controller back together enough to test it, then take it apart and adjust. I had to do this a number of times. The goal is to prevent accidental presses in the wrong direction while still making the button press "register" the moment you "feel" that direction click down. For me, that ended up covering I'd say about a forth of the contact.
Once you are satisfied, screw the whole thing back together. One piece of advice: when you are screwing it all together start by "unscrewing" until you feel a click, that's the screw finding it's original thread. This is plastic, if you don't find the original thread you're going to end up drilling a brand new thread into the hole and over time that's going to degrade that screw hole. Since you're going to be putting the thing together a few times to test the feel, please consider this.
Anyway, my d-pad is FAR more satisfactory now. I've found even in games that don't use it for direction control it's been a major help in controlling the games properly. It finally feels as good as the SNES d-pad. I also prefer how that center ball being raised a bit makes it more "rolly" now- to prevent buttons from triggering if I press too hard on the center.
From one wolf game to the next, I guess. Years ago, I apparently logged 5 hours into the game, then lost interest in it. Would have been around the same time as Twilight Princess, maybe?
I started the game, and damn, that was one long, protracted opening scene. It's always tempting to hit (+) to skip, but I don't want to miss out on the story. It's charming in its simplicity: an ancient village enjoys peace and harmony all throughout the year, save for one, when a nearby cave-dwelling, 8-headed demon forces them to sacrifice a village maiden, lest they incur his wrath.
Why is it always a maiden? I feel like some bawdy old bar maid or street walker would have better flavor, and be more entertaining on the flight back to the dragon's den. The two of them could swap dirty stories and limericks, cackling the night away. For serious, the maiden thing is bullshit, it's like men are obsessed with virginity even in their ancient myths, come on people!
In any case, one maiden in particular is selected for sacrifice, and a village man, driven by the kind of passionate, dimwitted, misguided, blind-siding love that only a young man could possess, rises up to save his beau and challenge the demon. With the help of the mysterious wolf, the two of them vanquish the beast, though the wolf succumbs to its wounds.
With that 10 minute cut-scene having been played out, WAIT, THAT'S JUST WHERE THE STORY BEGINS! At this point, impatient, man-childy Beanjo is squirming in his seat, wondering when he can move a cluster of pixels on screen to activate his dopamine receptors cuz vidya gaem go bang bang boom boom
So then the next cut-scene is shameless in its random, gratuitous sexualization of a female character, as is Japanese tradition. Onscreen comes some geisha woman with big bouncy tiddies practically spilling out her kimono, which for unspecified reasons, has a big box cut out in the front so the horny teenage player can enjoy the scenery. You actually see them jiggle as she talks. Later, you get a glimpse of her back side, with a similar square cut out so her ass-cheeks hang out. Wtf? Are those pajama bottoms with a missing butt-flap? For serious, I'm shaking my head here, she could practically squat where she is and squeeze one out.
Then, another character is introduced. The woman begins giggling and dancing and squirming, and out comes an insectile green orb, mischieviously tickling her underneath her robe before jumping out and introducing himself. This is practically a parody at this point, but like Donald Trump, some things are so cartoony and extreme that they're beyond parody. Then maybe a half hour later, in a totally random and unrelated cut scene, the firefly type creature remarks at how awesome it was to be fluttering all around in her nether-regions, tee-hee!
So, this game is kind of neat. It's an action-adventure RPG where you play as the wolf. Its novelty is that you can freeze-frame and use a virtual paint-brush (controlled by the wii-mote) to draw things on screen to accomplish some task. Maybe my motor controls are out of wack, but I cannot for the life of my draw a horizontal line. It always, always comes out diagonal, even if I carefully watch my wrist make a perfectly sideways movement. I have to overcorrect for some reason. Or, had to. Apparently, you can hold down the Z button to make a perfectly straight line. So hopefully that makes things easier in the future.
I sunk a lot of time into Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, so I'm going to try to dial it back a bit with this one. It's not like we're talking about a Zelda game anymore, so I think I'll be safe.
The advertising was a little misleading here, and my title is not meant to be an insult, so here goes.
FF7 Remake is an alternate universe total reimagining of the story with weird whisper ghosts floating around interfereing with the original events and with a battle against fate itself, where you murder fate and change history.
I don't think Aerith is going to die this time. I can't say that for sure, but I think that's what all this fate nonsense is about. This is basically that 90's remake of Planet of the Apes going on, in game form.
Yes, it's THAT drastic. Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure yet, but now I know why the game's being split into numerous parts. It literally isn't the same story any more. This is- different.
Turns out that not everyone is comfortable selling their soul for the millions cable news pays their mouth pieces.
He did "take it back" and apologize today. I think what he said Monday is what he really thinks though. Outbursts like that don't just come out of one day's bad mood. And he was right too. CNN, MSNBC, and of COURSE Fox News are news stations that have failed us all. Fox News is propaganda for the right, CNN promotes a false sense of "both sidesism" which he goes into here, and MSNBC pretends to be a left leaning network but when push comes to shove, they're centrists beholden to the money above all else.
For profit news has failed as badly as for profit prisons and for profit healthcare. And no, I'm not saying state run news is a good solution like it would be for those other two problem industries, but we do need A solution.
Soooo this quarantine has me staying in and playing a lot of old games. I haven't played this many video games in isolation since I was a teenager, yuk yuk. But one of the titles that somehow fell by the wayside for years was Twilight Princess. I bought it for Wii and began playing it 8 years ago (I still have the timestamp on the game file). I didn't get that far in it, and just lost interest for one reason or another.
Actually, before TP, I went back and revisited Wind Waker. It was kind of hard to get used to the low quality GameCube graphics, on an old CRT, after playing the likes of Outlast and Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze (thanks, DJ, it was quite good!) in 4k resolution. I tore through WW in just a couple weeks. I was surprised by how addictive it was. It's fun to go sailing the seas, like a pirate, exploring islands and what have you. It was pretty much as easy as I remember it being. Even the final Ganon battle posed no challenge - I beat him handily on the first try, with two bottled fairies to spare.
But anyway, as I was closing in at the end of the game, I thought, why the hell am I replaying this when Twilight Princess never got the attention it deserved? So I plugged it in and started from the beginning.
I don't know what it is, exactly, but something feels a little... off about it. It's not a bad game, it just doesn't exactly feel like Zelda. Almost like it's an X-Box knock-off. Strangely, I didn't get the same feeling with Wind Waker, which might be more of a drastic change to the Zelda formula (in both aesthetic and gameplay mechanics). I just beat Death Mountain and am at Lake Hylia, about to meet the light goddess.
Link, who has been transformed into a noble wolf, must collect the tears wept by spirits to vanquish the darkness that is consuming Hyrule! So dramatic. I don't mind it, though. The wolf parts are novel, but I'll say that I'm glad they're kept to a minimum. I want to play as Link, damn it. Midna is a little irritating, but not nearly as bad as Navi, and not even a TENTH as bad as that insufferable purple angel chucklehead in Skyward Sword. Dear god, I was ready to headbutt the TV every time a lengthy cut-scene ended, the game resumed, and just as I put my thumb on the joystick, she stops me in my tracks to reiterate literally the EXACT SAME INFORMATION SOME OTHER CHARACTER JUST TOLD ME! GO AWAY!
Speaking of Skyward Sword, I've played it in spurts over the years, and I STILL haven't finished it. The last couple times I tried, I just got too bored by the drudgery of tedious tasks, like having to go and collect a bunch of items before the time runs out. There's a bunch of filler that doesn't advance the plot, just "ok Link now do this if you want to progress in the journey, this is important because reasons." I can't believe how long they stretched that game. It's not just me, is it? The game has brilliant swordplay mechanics with the Wiimote+, but god damn is it frustrating to sink that much time into a game, and get teased that every time you think you're at the end, some new artificial challenge opens up.
I think I got the triforce and swordfought that one weird anime-y demon guy who seductively licked his lips at me, challenging both my wrist-flicking skills and heterosexuality. That was a great boss battle, kidding aside. Then I had to go back to the light world and do some other bullshit blah blah I don't remember, should have known it wasn't over when Ganon wasn't the final boss. Was Ganon in that? I don't remember.
Anyway, someone said at one point (might have been here, might have been another video game messageboard) that Twilight Princess for Wii is probably inferior to the GameCube version. The issue is that they designed the game around GameCube's controls, then just kind of stuffed it into a Wii port, but it didn't necessarily translate well. The Wiimote isn't really as responsive as a button-press to slash the sword. It's kind of neat to aim with the Wiimote, but I must be sitting too close to the TV, because my hand (which usually rests on my thigh) is pretty much always out of the scope of the sensor bar. I have to quickly move it up, which makes it a little clunky.
Still, not bad, not bad. I'm enjoying it. Welcoming a greater challenge than Wind Waker. But again, something about it just doesn't feel like Zelda. Anyone else experience this? First time it's happened for a Zelda game for me.
