Playable Zelda!

[A Black Falcon]

Nintendo had their not-E3 Nintendo Direct yesterday, a week after not-E3 Summer Games Fest and the rest of the industry's announcements, and it was a quite good show.  I'd say that the highlight of the show for sure, though, was the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom... a Zelda game where you actually play as Zelda!  And it looks like it's a somewhat traditionally-styled title also, being 2d.  As someone who has very little interest in BotW and has never played TotK because I find open world games some of the most boring things ever, I was kind of giving up on the Zelda franchise as something I cared about anymore.  Yeah, I used to love Zelda, until they made it into boring open-world games that totally lost me... until this.

Yes, going against all of my expectations given their past comments like "but then what would Link do?", Nintendo is making a Zelda game where you play as Zelda.  This is a 2d Zelda game with some unique design elements.  Visually the game clearly seems to be running in the Link's Awakening remake engine, and has an overhead view and a similar look to that game.  I'd imagine it's by the same developer as that one was.  I think the game looks great, I'm quite excited.  I'd be almost as excited if you played as Link, too; the main thing I'm excited for is the gameplay.  That you actually play as Zelda this time for once makes it even better, but that isn't the main draw.

Here's the trailer:



So yeah, you play as Zelda after Link got kidnapped or something when he fell in a portal that opened up.  She can't directly attack enemies, though, and instead uses a summoning rod to summon things to stand on or to fight for her.  They showed all kinds of things, including summoning tables to stand on, rocks to throw at enemies, and more.  You can combine things too; items can stack, and at one point Zelda is shown carrying around a rock-shooting thing, basically working like a hand cannon.  Pretty cool stuff.  I think this should lead to some pretty interesting puzzles, and fun combat challenges as well.

Also, there are sure to be more items in this game.  An item cross is shown on screen, which means that you will get other things to equip that they haven't mentioned yet.  It sounds like Zelda won't get a sword in this game because they want to leave direct combat to Link, but I'm looking forward to seeing what new and interesting items they come up with.  The 'summon stuff and do silly or useful things with it' concept is great and should lead to a lot of fun gameplay.

The game is already causing some controversy, though; some people are upset about Zelda's lack of a direct attack, either because they'd rather fight enemies directly instead of having to use slightly indirect means, or because of arguments that it's evidence of Nintendo's sexism or what have you.  And like... yeah, that may be in a way true in that they're finding a way to make a Zelda game starring Zelda that sticks to what they have said in the past about Link and Zelda's characters instead of making the "it's the same but as a girl now" game that some want, but this doesn't bother me at all, personally.  Nintendo is trying something that is both familiar and new with this game, and the results so far look fantastic.  Oh no, Zelda needs to hit enemies with other enemies, tables, rocks, or more instead of cutting them with a sword! How awful! (Yes, I know TP Zelda had a sword.  She was no accomplished warrior, though.)

So yeah, this game is looking amazing!  The summoning rod is clearly the central item here, but it'll be very interesting to see what other things Zelda gets to use in the game.  Will it be a selection of all-new things instead of Link's usual expected selection of items, the bow, bombs, hookshot, etc?  If so that will be pretty interesting to see.

As for the graphics, they've gone for a very cutesey style.  I do think it works in the overhead view that Echoes of Wisdom uses.  Is this my favorite Zelda art style, no, but it looks nice.  It's got a similar style to LttP and LA.

[Dark Jaguar]

Zelda has traditionally used a bow anyway, even going back to the cartoon.  But yes, we finally, FINALLY have a playable Zelda in an actual Zelda game.  No, Hyrule Warriors was just Dynasty Warriors, and Zelda playable there only counted as much as Zelda playable in... like Smash Bros.  No, the CD-i games had less to do with traditional Zelda than Zelda II did, and were pretty awful with nonsensical stories, dialog, and characters.  The BS Zelda games had A girl, but it was a generic placeholder "Mii" style character representing the player across a number of Satelliview games.  This is the real genuine first time.

And, I like it!  It's clearly traditional Zelda gameplay but with a new twist that, much like the other recent Zelda games, really puts a lot of focus on allowing the player to create open and novel solutions to puzzles and combat.  Inventing all kinds of crazy solutions to problems is what made Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom so fun, and this is a natural extension of that!

Have people really been criticizing it as somehow "sexist"?  Must be Twitter...  Take my advice, don't bother with Twitter.  The bandwagon effect there turns just about anyone into the "main character" for a day.  The real question you have to ask is if any women are actually complaining, in the same way that I don't recall anyone that complained about Lindsey Ellis' comments on some asian-style movie or whatever actually being asian themselves.

Anyway, it's interesting and it's using the Link's Awakening engine, so... yeah looking forward to it!

[Dark Jaguar]

It's interesting that at the end of the day, after all those big reveals, the three games that have the internet most excited are.... a Mario game, a Zelda game, and a Metroid game.  Change is what gives our life meaning.  Heck, it's what gives our death meaning.  But here we are, celebrating yet more entries in the "big three" franchises in Nintendo's arsenal (that aren't Pokemon) instead of focusing on some brand new IP.  Heck, the Mario one is a spinoff...  Not even that, a spinoff of another spinoff, that itself turned into a long series standing alongside another.

We're celebrating Samus going 3D... again.  Not "for the first time", just, it's been a bit since the last one so it's the "return" we're celebrating.  We're celebrating the "originality" of playing as Zelda in a Zelda game.  Something that not only should have happened a long time ago, they should have broken away from it always being Link right after Majora's Mask let us play as three completely new characters that had to pretend they were Link, but clearly had their own backstories and motivations.

Don't get me wrong, to my shame I AM very excited about two of these three games, and "tentatively hopeful" about the last one... but frankly, outside of Nintendo?  My biggest gaming moments as of late are random indie titles now.  Selaco just came out, and that game's amazing not because it's a "boomer shooter" but because it's pretty innovative in it's own right and breaks out of that mold to do it's own thing pretty well.

[A Black Falcon]

There's an exciting Mario game?  What, the Mario Party game with its 20-player multiplayer? :p

As for Zelda though, there are some people thinking that this might be a modified LttP world again.  I really hope it isn't, that world has never been my favorite as I'm sure people here remember.  If it is it could be okay but... eh, I'd definitely rather see something else.  Also, I'm sure the game will be at least somewhat open-ended since that's what people seem to like from Zelda now, but as someone who does not enjoy that kind of thing much at all I hope that it's a much more directed experience than BotW is.  We'll have to wait and see.  I think that either way it'll work a lot better for me than BotW does since it's a top-down Zelda game and none of those are, or are likely to ever be, as aimlessly open as BotW is, so I do think I'll like this game, but we'll have to see.

Don't get me wrong, to my shame I AM very excited about two of these three games, and "tentatively hopeful" about the last one... but frankly, outside of Nintendo?  My biggest gaming moments as of late are random indie titles now.  Selaco just came out, and that game's amazing not because it's a "boomer shooter" but because it's pretty innovative in it's own right and breaks out of that mold to do it's own thing pretty well.

Indie games can be good, but there are too many of them to know what most of them are, you know?  So many indie games are releasing that there's no way people could know what all of them are or buy the good ones.  And so most indie games fail to sell well enough to support the developers.

Anyway, as for games I'm looking forward to from this E3, given how much I've played Diablo IV -- yes I am still playing it, the gameplay is just so fantastic -- it should be no surprise that I'm definitely looking forward to its expansion pack.  The story doesn't sound particularly interesting, but that's not what I like about the game, it's the gameplay.  More of that would be great

[Dark Jaguar]

Have you played... Banana?

[Dark Jaguar]

I had no idea this happened, but this seems to be Nintendo's current MO, just hiring the people from defunct studios invisibly.



The Capcom team behind Minish Cap, Four Swords, the Oracle games?  They ARE the current Zelda team and have been since Skyward Sword!

[A Black Falcon]

Well, the game is out now and I bought it.  I haven't played it yet though, I'll need to get past "but it's the Switch, the Switch is my Mario Maker 2 machine! Turning on my Switch to not play MM2 somehow feels ... wrong... so yeah my pile of unplayed Switch games is large.  This one I'll definitely play, though.  It looks like so much fun.

[Dark Jaguar]

You only play Mario Maker on your switch?  I mean Mario Maker's great and all but you need a well rounded diet.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, for some time now that's kind of how things have ended up with me on modern consoles -- there are a few games I play on each console to the exclusion of others.

My Switch profile says I have over 1175 hours of Mario Maker 2.  Second place in the recently-ish-played games list is F-Zero 99 at 65 hours.  That number should be higher but I admit I haven't played it in a while, that game is incredible but it's more fun with more players and as the number dwindled... well, the AI racers aren't very competitive.

It would be somewhat similar on my Xbox Series X, except with a much lower number for the top games. Xbox doesn't have an hours counter for whatever reason, but if it did I imagine there'd be DOA6 and Diablo IV with higher numbes and everything else way behind.  Neither of those games, or the games I mention below, are likely to be over a few hundred hours played though, MM2's a game I've played a lot more than any other in a long time.

On Wii U, before its shutdown, Splatoon was well ahead in first, with Mario Maker 1 way behind; I've played MM2 way way more than its predecessor.  A lot of people prefer MM1 but I like the second game more, it has more stuff and made a few good changes.  Everything else... probably a few hours each for most stuff.

It is a bit different on the 3DS, which yes is a system I still regularly use, my playtime is more scattered across a bunch of (mostly puzzle and strategy) games, there isn't one title that's got a total way above the others.


In related news, I played some games Saturday.  I played ... Mario Maker 2.  My endless Normal run is over 2000 levels now, which is nice.  I have had to skip a lot of levels to get that far since I'm quite average at Mario, but still there are enough challenging levels to make keeping going a decent challenge -- sometimes pretty hard levels drop down into Normal...

I did stop playing MM2 for a while earlier this year though because of my regained interest in Starcraft 1.  That almost killed my MM2 run I think, after barely playing it for a month or two when I got back to endless my life count dropped from 90-something to a low point of 8... ack!  I've mostly recovered it now but that was not great.  So yeah, I'm back to playing MM2, as well as SC sometimes.  (On PC the other game I like to play and watch better people playing on Youtube is the browser-based geography game GeoGuessr, if you've ever heard of it.  I like that game a lot, I should make a thread about it sometime.)

[Dark Jaguar]

You have some crazy super-focus going on there!

...

But I get like that with Doom custom wads, so I can kind of relate.  I've got a billion source ports floating around in my "Games" directory, because just one isn't enough.  I got Crispy Doom for anything meant for vanilla or "limit removing" WADs, Woof for anything supporting the Boom enhancements, and GZDoom for anything made for GZDoom.... and I've got like a dozen distinct versions of THAT because GZDoom has terrible "legacy support" so mods made with it's features in mind break after only a few version updates.

[A Black Falcon]

Until recently I honestly don't think I knew (or remembered?) how much you love Doom...

But as for Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, it seems like the game is pretty broken in some quite amusing ways.  It's the Link's Awakening remake engine doing something with hybrid BotW and classic inspirations, with a large open-ish world but also with classic-style dungeons, and that's all good stuff.  But the real unique element are the echoes, and there are so many of them and they can be combined in so many ways that some people have made really crazy stuff in this game.  Apparently you can fly across the map several different ways, you can drag a water cube behind you and drown enemies, and more... silly stuff.

[Dark Jaguar]

I wouldn't call that broken so much as "working as intended".  I absolutely love emergent gameplay design and all the things that open up because of it.  "Unintended developments" are "intended" now, and I do hope that Nintendo's new focus on that sort of thing extends to Metroid Prime 4, so that if someone finds a way to sequence break that game wide open, Nintendo embraces it instead of patching it.

As for my weird Doom obsession, I must admit that I more or less "grew out" of Doom when I was a lot younger, as I hadn't yet embraced mouse+keyboard and thus... wasn't particularly good at the game.  I also ended up favoring the design of games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, which to my mind back then felt like more "thoughtful" shooters.  However, in recent years I got right back into Doom and fell right back in love with the game, and that's expanded quite a bit.  It's amazing just how creative people have gotten with map design and mods and so on, what with the game's source code fully available and free to all.

[A Black Falcon]

So I managed to stop playing Mario Maker 2 for a few hours a few weeks ago and start this game.  It's fun, not the most amazing thing ever but decently fun.  Most of the puzzles are easy but there was one in the first dungeon that had be stuck for a while, the answer was obvious but I didn't think of it.  It happens... oops.  People should play this game.  But did I go back to MM2 and still haven't tried it again since? ... yes.  But I will go back.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'll give you this.  You've played a LOT of platforming thanks to that game.  Clearly platformers are your favorite genre.

[A Black Falcon]

Overall I'd say that RTS is my favorite genre, with platformers in second and (arcade-style) racing games probably in third.  Starcraft 1 is the best game ever.

On a platformers note though, I uploaded a new Mario Maker 2 level today!  It's only like my fourth of the year.  I was working on the level over the past week or so and got it uploaded today.  I made a few things a bit easier than the original design because I'm mediocre at this game and got tired of dying, but that's fine, it should make it more fun for others...

[Dark Jaguar]

Starcraft 1 is a good game, no doubt, and I get why the big competition scene, as in South Korea, would likely consider it the best game ever.  For me though, it's not even in my top 10.  It's "a good RTS" to me.