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Jan 18th, 2007 at 21:05:55 - Super Mario 64 (N64) |
Playing more Super Mario 64 only cemented the feeling i experienced with my first hour: I remember this game as being better than it is. I spent the majority of my second hour on the same level, which was inexcusably difficult and cumulated in an equally hard boss battle. Again I found myself frustrated by niggling problems in the game engine and control scheme that made this level more difficult than it should have been. As I stated yesterday, if Mario 64 was released today, nobody would put up with it.
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Jan 18th, 2007 at 01:29:01 - Super Mario 64 (N64) |
I, like so many others, first experienced Super Mario 64 soon after its initial release. It was one of the first Nintendo 64 games I had seen and the novelty of 3D graphics was enough to make me completely enamored with this new entry into the Super Mario franchise. I have played it on and off since then but only sporadically, never having personally owned an N64. I thought this "Classic" Gamelog would be the perfect opportunity to dive back in to Mario 64 and assess it from my more modern viewpoint.
The result is that I'm torn. One part of me loves it for the nostalgia value that comes with playing a game from my youth, but the other part of me recognizes a crucial element of the game that I ignored when I was younger but can't overlook anymore: it's unbelievably frustrating. The number of times I found myself going through the same level over and over again, making the same mistake over and over again would be inexcusable by modern game standards. The issue isn't that I'm just bad at the game, either; Like all first-generation 3D games, the nuances of that extra dimension are shaky to say the least. Often the camera or the physics (things we today take for granted and raise a hue and a cry should they fail to operate) make a puzzle much harder than it actually should be and likewise the controls are similarly spotty, the concept of a joystick being unexplored in console games prior to the N64.
The bottom line is that I ended up having some fun reliving this game from my childhood, but I used basically every curse word I've learned since then in the process.
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Jan 8th, 2007 at 19:11:56 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
After another ~45 minutes of playing Legend of Zelda, I was still having a great time enjoying similarities between the original and the newer Zelda games that I grew up with. Though I didn't flash on it at first, the enemies in the original LoZ have been recycled in later games, and some of the perils and pitfalls (such as falling boulders) are present in this first adventure as well. I think the fact that gameplay elements can be consistently used in a series for over a decade shows that Legend of Zelda is a masterfully crafted game that admirably stands the test of time. I plan to continue playing this game to completion.
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Jan 8th, 2007 at 18:43:48 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
I have been a fan of the Legend of Zelda series since I first played the phenomenal Ocarina of Time in 1999. For my first GameLog, I decided to go back to this series' roots and spend some quality time with the original Legend of Zelda for the NES.
What strikes me most after playing for an hour are the similarities between LoZ and its future iterations. The graphics and control scheme have changed (most obviously in Ocarina of Time, which made the switch to a 3D engine), but the core gameplay elements remain remarkable unchanged. From day one you were Link, you were armed with a sword, a bow, a boomerang, and bombs, and your health is measured in hearts which you gain by defeating dungeon bosses.
The game is challenging; "death" is a fairly commonplace occurance, but the game is forgiving when it comes to reincarnation - you keep your inventory and money and are transported back to the first area of the game, or the first room if the dungeon if you die while within one. Death is more of a temporary inconvenience than a game-ending tragedy. Despite its difficulty, LoZ is above all things fun, with nerve-wracking combat that requites deft mastery of the primitive control scheme, simple puzzle-solving that is still suprisingly rewarding, and perhaps the catchiest 8-bit musical score in the history of video games.
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| drundle's GameLogs |
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drundle has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 15 days |
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| Entries written to date: 9 |
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