22nd April 2005, 11:38 PM
"Meat"? But the second game is longer than the first one! In the first one, I got halfway through in one day of play (several hours)... with the second, it took a week for me to beat it. And I've come back regularly since doing that, and have beaten it twice more since then. The first one, I haven't played for long at all since that day I got halfway through (I played for a few minuites yesterday and ran over to the next castle (Festival Temple Castle, but didn't start it yet). I will finish it eventually, probably once I get home again after the semester ends... but it's definitely not as fun, and I doubt I'll replay it. It's like GGA's choppy and ugly little brother... it's clear which is the newer game, and it's also clear that they looked at what was wrong with the first game and fixed it in the second. :)
Sure, GGA isn't perfect... I wish it was longer (it's not absurdly short, but it's so much fun I definitely wish it was longer), some of the levels are annoying, I REALLY wish you could replay the castles (they are the best levels in the game! It's very dissapointing that the game doesn't let you replay them.)... but who really cares, it's a fantastic game. Simple? Sure, but so is the first one... "full Zelda-like adventure"? But the stuff you need to find is easy to find, for the most part, the enemies are simple (and usually easy to avoid -- though sometimes the shooting ones can be a pain, you get so much health you can get hit a bunch before you have to get worried)... it's a good game. It's fun, it's quite different from the second N64 game, it does sometimes have that "Zelda" feel (the 'it's a big world to explore, go ahead and run around!' thing)... I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying that GGA is definitely better. Everything is just improved... gameplay, length, challenge, graphics, ease-of-finding-things (in MN64, it can be a pain because of how the towns (like everything) are split into lots of pieces connected by doors... so you've got to memorize each layout, and which doors bring you where (as opposed to into the buildings -- another thing GGA improved, as you actually walk up to the people to talk to them and can talk to other people in the stores instead of just bumping into some platform to talk to the one person in the store you can talk to...)... oh, those NPCs are just as interesting in MN64, and it's just about as funny (missing things like the great noise Ebisumaru makes while crawling in GGA), but GGA just improves on all those things to make it a better overall game.
Sure, GGA isn't perfect... I wish it was longer (it's not absurdly short, but it's so much fun I definitely wish it was longer), some of the levels are annoying, I REALLY wish you could replay the castles (they are the best levels in the game! It's very dissapointing that the game doesn't let you replay them.)... but who really cares, it's a fantastic game. Simple? Sure, but so is the first one... "full Zelda-like adventure"? But the stuff you need to find is easy to find, for the most part, the enemies are simple (and usually easy to avoid -- though sometimes the shooting ones can be a pain, you get so much health you can get hit a bunch before you have to get worried)... it's a good game. It's fun, it's quite different from the second N64 game, it does sometimes have that "Zelda" feel (the 'it's a big world to explore, go ahead and run around!' thing)... I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying that GGA is definitely better. Everything is just improved... gameplay, length, challenge, graphics, ease-of-finding-things (in MN64, it can be a pain because of how the towns (like everything) are split into lots of pieces connected by doors... so you've got to memorize each layout, and which doors bring you where (as opposed to into the buildings -- another thing GGA improved, as you actually walk up to the people to talk to them and can talk to other people in the stores instead of just bumping into some platform to talk to the one person in the store you can talk to...)... oh, those NPCs are just as interesting in MN64, and it's just about as funny (missing things like the great noise Ebisumaru makes while crawling in GGA), but GGA just improves on all those things to make it a better overall game.