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Jan 24th, 2007 at 21:15:24 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
After playing an additional hour of Zelda I was amazed at how difficult it could be. I only made it through one more dungeon in all of that time and I was just beginning the third dungeon when I decided to write about it.
It is a good thing that I was playing the second quest because if this was the first quest it really wouldnt be ok. All of the tasks on the overworld are very vague and must be achieved without any real instruction. Some of it must simply be remembered from playing through the first quest while other parts require massive amounts of time to comprehend. This kind of design would not be acceptable in a modern game because the average player is not expected to spend large amounts of time wandering around with no clear objective. All this having been said the game is meant to be hard so I am not suprised, all I am suprised by is how much easier and more logical the zelda games have become.
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Jan 24th, 2007 at 20:35:22 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
I spent over an hour playing the second quest on the original zelda now and I have found many examples of excellent level design. In the second quest (accessed by either beating the game or naming the main character "ZELDA") is the same overworld but with reworked dungeons. Instead of the dungeons being the shape of the name of the dungeon they are shaped like the letters of the word zelda. The difficulty in these new dungeons is extremely high, as is the difficulty in getting too them, since they are in a different order then the original quest.
The level design within the extremely difficult dungeons is quiet genius. Many of the rooms are intentionally made in such a way as to maximize difficulty without making it unachievable. Many of the rooms I have had to play through over a dozen times to master. Though this is far to difficult for a normal game I can accept it considering the fact that it is intentionally designed for experienced players.
The simplicity of the levels is indeed a strong point, when compared with some of the later zeldas. Instead of having to worry about how to switch floors the focus is more on how to get through the individual rooms and how the dungeon is shaped. This simplifies the game making it more managable, since it is so difficult. The later games make the individual rooms harder but instead focus on puzzles, which is in fact a more enjoyable experience and should be considered when analyzing the zelda series.
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Jan 17th, 2007 at 23:04:02 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
I played through the second half of Kirby's Adventure in a little over an hour. I am amazed at how much things have changed - the new zelda's first two hours are merely training for the "real" game while in this game the whole experience can be completed within two hours.
The design qualities changed somewhat during the second half of the game. The level design got much more difficult to follow, but it was intentionally confusing for the player. I feel that the use of constant bosses is a bit of a cheap trick rather then creating more complex levels near the end, but none the less the final two bosses were quite a bit different from the rest of the game.
The infinite continues feature was very helpful, since this game would be nearly impossible to complete on a first try otherwise. It was very enjoyable and I thought the platforming was interesting and well designed. There was one issue, on a few of the levels there were whole areas that could be dodged by merely flying over all of the enemies, and considering the fact which other people pointed out about there really being no point to the score there really is no incentive to fight all of the enemies in these areas.
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Jan 16th, 2007 at 23:31:45 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
I have played through the gameboy (original) kirby game so i had a bit of an idea of what to expect from the game. That having been said I was very impressed with the overall quality of the game. Though the graphics are dated now they are fine for the time. The thing that catches me is the level design. It is brilliant and a world above that of the first two mario games. The levels are usually not to difficult but provide a lot of variety surrounding Kirby's unique abilities that he aquires from sucking in his opponents like the vacuum cleaner he is no doubt named after.
On another note the game used a lot of ideas that were later used for Super Mario World, such as the level design of the haunted areas. It expanded on the original gameboy game extensively, with better attacks and enemies as well as more complex boss fights. Some of the powers are unfair compared to others, such as the ice attack which is extremely lethal compared to any other weapon because it has a ice blasting area around the main character that protects Kirby and destroys most enemys, even bosses.
After having played for a little over an hour I think i have reached about half way through the game, and I am impressed so far, I'm hoping that the rest of the game will hold up to the quality of the first half...
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squeakytoydeath has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 12 days |
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