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Wednesday 20 February, 2008
GAMEPLAY
I played this game again, and once again was very happy with my experience. The way the story has progressed has been exciting. Initially I knew that an evil man was trying to take over the world, and was told the story about how the world was created and about the triforce. When I went to Princess Zelda, she told me more of the story, she told me that the triforce was stored in the Secret Realm. More of the story was revealed. But my main point is that I like how doing certain things leads to more of the story being revealed. This in a way can be seen as a sort of reward.
While playing this game I felt pretty happy. Maybe its cause all the kids in Hyrule Forest only have smiles on their faces. Or cause all the citizens of Hyrule seem so happy. I don't know what it was about this game but it made me feel pretty happy. It could be cause everything seems so vibrant when Link is a kid. But this of course changes as he gets older. Hyrule looks ugly and destroyed. But beforehand I feel happy.
I like how its pretty difficult to get lost. Every so often a giant owl will come along and tell you where to go next. And if you happen to be running around for a long time without doing nothing your little fairy guardian will remind you of what you are supposed to be doing or where you are supposed to be going.
DESIGN
I really think Nintendo did an excellent job with the camera in this game. It seems that they took Super Mario 64's camera, and improved it dramatically. Where SM64 would frustrate me with its camera Angles it seems that Zelda only makes me happy. It could also be that I don't need the camera in the same ways that I needed it in SM64.
The tone of the Gameworld is initially happiness. Like I stated earlier, everyone and everything is happy. Dogs are running around, people are in the town center talking, there's a couple looking in love. Everyone is just happy. But as you progress and go seven years into the future, everything changes. The world goes from happiness to ugliness. There is no longer people hanging out in the town center, and to make things worse everything is destroyed. The game does a good job of conveying this by using alot of brown. Where everything was once full of life and color, seven years later in the game the town center is in ruins and full of dirt.
As has become standard in my game logs, I shall summarize my likes and dislikes.
First off the stuff I like:
I love the camera. Its always, at least up to this point, where I want it to be. In fact, as I have been playing I have forgotten about the camera. Where in Super Mario 64 where I was constantly shifting the camera, here its like that set it and forget it infomercial.
I also enjoy the "z-targeting". I have now come to believe that GTA:SA in fact took their targeting system from this very game. And if that is not the case, then Rockstar is years behind. But I enjoy being able to target a specific enemy and then killing him, or being able to fight multiple enemies at once without getting hurt too badly. It has also made the boss battles I;ve had so far a hell of a lot easier to finish.
I like how this game took the puzzle elements of the original Zelda games, and brought them to the world of 3D. How you might ask do they bring into the 3D world. Well at least in the very first dungeon, the deku tree, you have to fall from the third floor onto a web covered hole on the first floor to break the web and access the basement floors. There you go, one puzzle in the bag.
Some of my dislikes.
Having to run across the land. It takes so long. Not having Epona really makes this portion slow. So I actually figured a way to traverse the gameworld faster. I use "z-targeting" and face perpendicular to the path I need to take. I then jump sideways which seems to be a hell of a lot faster. I don't think I should have gone through all this trouble.
But aside from that I don't know anything else I haven't liked so far. It could very well be that that's my only obvious dislike.
Because of this, I believe this game was very deserving of its perfect or near-perfect scores when it was reviewed back when it was released.
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