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Eegriega's Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
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| [January 31, 2007 05:50:07 PM]
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Okay, so my second session of playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time consisted of working my way through the Great Deku Tree toward its boss, Gohma. I was relieved to find that the Deku Tree enemies (like the Deku Baba) didn't terrify me like they did when I was little; I still had to take a few tries to get used to the realtime fighting (I'm more used to turn-based fighting games), but I didn't freak out and turn the game off, either, so I'd consider that an improvement. (Obviously this game wasn't designed to be played by little kids or wussies, of which I was both those years ago. Ah, me. The fighting and varying levels of scary enemies definitely mark this as a game for slightly older children, if not quite so much as Twilight Princess has shown itself to be. In particular, I recall the ReDead and the Wallmasters, and the Shadow Temple as a whole, to have been particularly eerie when my brother played it through the first time. Something I'm quite looking forward to reaching, the Shadow Temple. Ugh.)
Anyway, after some practice the Deku Baba are dispatched with easily enough, as are the Skulltula (especially if you can pick them off with the slingshot right away). These fairly simple enemies are good to practice fighting with in order to get more adept with targeting and attacking and blocking with the shield.
Other than the enemies, I liked the puzzle-type aspects of several of the rooms in the Deku Tree, where you have to figure out to step on a raised area of the floor or set something on fire with a Deku Stick or shoot the eye with your slingshot. I vaguely recalled some of this from my brother's gameplay experience and thus probably saved myself some time (since I didn't want to give in and use an online walkthrough as the easy way out). It was very rewarding to look at a situation and figure out on my own what I had to do and then get it done in the right way--the designers had a good idea of what was an appropriate middle ground between complete babying of the player with obvious directions and leaving them completely on their own to figure everything out. This makes the game a challenge but not hair-tearingly difficult.
I ran around taking care of the various rooms in the Deku Tree, and after some time finally got to the first boss of the game, Gohma (or, if you prefer, Parasitic Armored Arachnid: Queen Gohma). Even with the advice from the Deku Scrubs about her eye as her weak spot, I apparently wasn't on-the-ball enough and ended up dying for the first time. Friends I've discussed this game with seem to agree that Gohma is relatively difficult to fight for a first boss, but until I turn the game back on and find I have to fight her five or six more times I won't call her unreasonably so. For now I consider it all part of the challenge.
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| [January 31, 2007 05:24:29 PM]
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When told I had to choose another game from the classics list for the third gamelog assignment, one game came to mind immediately--Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. My brother bought the game for our N64 when it first came out and over the course of several weeks or months (the length of time has since faded from my memory) I had the very enjoyable experience of being able to watch him play from start to finish. In those days, I didn't like playing video games too much myself, and when he encouraged me to give OoT a whirl, I got as far as the Deku Tree, freaked out, and refused to play any further. (I was in middle school, what can I say?) It's been quite a while since then, and although our N64 is currently in the possession of one of his friends back home, I managed to acquire my best friend's (at least temporarily) and eagerly sat down to play. I had strong memories of great graphics, amazing music, and truly epic gameplay (from a spectator's point of view), and I wanted to see whether all that still held true several years later.
I can truthfully say that OoT is almost as good as I remember. Admittedly, compared to the new Zelda game (and most other games of today) the graphics are a little clunky and rough, but it looks just as good as the other games I have from the same timeperiod and it isn't anything that detracts from the gameplay. The music has held up quite nicely--OoT has one of the best soundtracks of any game I've ever played, and even my mom, who's never picked up a game controller in her life (except to maybe play a few rounds of virtual golf on the Sega Genesis), quite enjoys the orchestral OST I picked up a few years ago to listen to while studying. I know I always keep coming back to music in these gamelogs, but darnit, music is really important to a good game experience and the designers of each game I've played so far understand that. Really great music can make an otherwise average game (which OoT most definitely is not) really stand out, so it is definitely something that takes careful consideration when one decides to design a game.
My first session of playing the game was mostly running around the Kokiri village, becoming familiar with the controls and talking to the villagers to understand what my goals were. (I'll admit that I went into all the houses and smashed everyone's pots in order to get the rupees inside. If only this worked in real life.) The controls aren't anything too difficult, but it's good to get familiarized with the lock-and-target technique and practice with the shield and sword you acquire before heading out to the Deku Tree, which is your first real task. (The game designers force you to arm yourself before you are allowed to leave the village by blocking the pathway with the rather annoying leader of the Kokiri people, which is a good way of making sure you don't get caught unawares and unarmed when you first enter the Deku Tree.) Finding the sword was slightly more difficult for me than I remember it being for my brother, but it's interesting that the designers make you figure it out for yourself rather than just handing the weapon over. It adds a small bit of challenge to the tutorial-style setup of the village and makes things interesting. In any case, I ended my first session by heading off to the Deku Tree as planned, hoping that I wouldn't embarrass myself by getting scared this time, so many years later.
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Eegriega's Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 30 January, 2007
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