Master using this and you can have it -
June 21, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
We got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color TVs...
Don't say we didn't warn you.
John Woo directing a "dark, hard edged" all CG Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, or Dragon Quest 8 on the Gamecube: which of these is more unlikely?
No, seriously, I'm asking, because they both seem utterly bizarre to me. All I can say is that it'd be a terrible injustice for Enix to get to return to Nintendo, but not Square.
Onward.
| Bittersweet symphony *Zelda: Link's Awakening spoilers* |
| The best game in the Zelda series clearly stands out in my mind: Link's
Awakening.
In my mind, the second and third titles in the series were getting off track
from what the series was supposed to be all about. Zelda 2, of course had
the side-scrolling RPG focus, and Zelda 3 seemed to be missing far too much
in music and level design (not to mention all of the redundant items).
Link's Awakening (the 4th installment) went back to the original material,
and somehow, Miyamoto's team pulled even more out of it. The "feel of Zelda
was there from the get-go thanks to the edge-scrolling screens. The item
selection seemed to be the cream of the crop from both the 1st and 3rd
installments. And some of the levels were damned hard, yet eventually
defeatable. (think Level 7, and the pillar breaking puzzle)
If there was all there was to Link's Awakening, it might still have been
enough. But there was more: a great cast of characters, like the now
ubiquitous Marin and Tarin (lookalikes for Zelda and Mario, respectively),
and a beautiful story tying it all together.
Fellow DA readers may be quick to give their emotional praise to Aeris's
demise in FF7, but Link's Awakening has the most well succinct love story I
can remember being in a video game. From the trio of encounters where Marin
lacks the courage to share her feelings (the beach date, or the mountain
rescue, for example), to the tragic finale where she sings her life away
singing the very song that destroys her world - its the combination of
classic Zelda and modern Final Fantasy that I might not have dreamed could
happen.
In a landfill somewhere, 20 pairs of AA batteries agree.
Richard "KZ" Knight
|
I'm just impressed that they were able to get much of the feel of the SNES installment from the Game Boy, which sometimes had difficulty emulating even NES games. More about the plot I won't say, except Zelda's often packed more emotional punch when it's wandered away from the Zelda/Gannon mythos and created new situations from scratch, like in Link's Awakening or Majora's Mask. That, more than anything, is what I'd like to see out of the GC installment.
| He wasn't the only person on the planet to say it |
| I'm probably the only person on the planet to say it, but I think Majora's
Mask was the best. Because it was basically a side-quest with no relation to
the main plot, they could afford to try new things, and it really showed.
The whole "Groundhog Day" thing really worked to make the entire game feel
different. Not only do you use it to change history using new powers and
knowledge, as you would expect, but you can commit bank fraud and cheat the
lottery too! The plot had the same advantage. By ditching Ganon and Zelda,
they created a plot that sounded more like a twisted faerie tale than a
typical swords and sorcery or anime plot.
On a different note, I think the ideal FF battle system would have
Tactics-esque battle system, like X seems to be trying, but if every
character had their own Limit Breaks, again so far, so good. But each
character should have a fairly weird regular move as well. For example, in
Tactics, Agrias/Mustudio etc. could use the regular moves, but also had
generally superior special abilities to work with. Of course, if the
standard Throw/Steal/Summon/Various Magics are part of the regular battle
system, the special abilities should be more creative. Blue Magic, maybe.
Or the powers that Sabin, Gau, or Cyan had, since all of those are weird and
haven't really been seen since. That way, everyone has their own abilities,
but also can be customized.
Seth
|
Twisted faerie tale pretty well sums up my take on Majora's Mask as well. I've said it before, but MM's one of the few games where I genuinely got the impression something was deeply, seriously wrong with the world, and it was up to me to stop it. It's also interesting how things changed during the course of the 3 days - the light and dark worlds of LttP and OoT were great mirror images of each other, but in MM you got to watch the corruption slowly creep in to the land, and the way the music and graphics conveyed that was nothing short of genius.
As for FFX, we may still see such unique abilities. I'll be honest here: even though I played both scenarios at E3, there was too much going on for me to actually get a coherent view of what was going on, system-wise. All I can say is, I didn't get the impression that this was a standard hack/slash/heal battle system, and I'm looking forward to it immensely.
| If I bury this cheesy suck-up in here, maybe no one will notice... |
| Chris-
Hot damn, I love this column! I just don't feel right in the morning until I've read my daily dose of DA.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is and shall remain my favorite Zelda game. Although I had played most of the other games, I never purchased any of them. That changed with Link's Awakening. The game gave me everything I asked for in a portable system. It built on the action of the previous games without falling into the same pitfalls they did. A Link to the Past always struck me as directionless and repetitive after a certain point, and the NES games were even worse about the directionless part.
The Ocarina of Time was a step in the right direction for the series, but it lacked something... a sense of urgency. Things were bad in the future, sure, but did it really stand to get any worse? Was there an imminent threat? Is it really so imperative to oppose Gannondorf? (Maybe this is a side-effect of playing too much Final Fantasy... if the world isn't about to die, there's nothing wrong, right?) Majora's Mask fixed this, and also felt a lot more dramatic than OoT, even if it felt less like a Zelda title.
As for the new games, I'm at a loss. Multiple releases may work for Pokemon, but this just bothered me. I don't want to just get one, but since I can't afford both (and a Gameboy Color, or Advance, for that matter...), I'll probably get neither. Sorry. These past few games have come in such a rush that I haven't had time to really recognize them as part of the Zelda family. And did I read correctly that there's going to be a new GBA game, in addition to the Gamecube game? I hope both are a long way off; I'd rather get a few good games than a bunch of mediocre ones. I'm sure Nintendo wouldn't intentionally sacrifice quality for quantity, but sometimes I wonder.....
Abundantly obsequious,
Jason Love
|
Now that you mention it, it's surprising how well Zelda has held up, considering the relative pace of releases. The only other flagship series that comes close is Mario, and ever since the early NES and Game Boy days, Nintendo's generally limited itself to one "real" Mario game per system. Zelda's been asked to perform a little bit more, with *gasp* non-Miyamoto followups on the N64 and GBC, but while Majora's Mask might have primarily been created to boost flagging N64 sales, it's still a great game, ditto the GBC Oracles. Sure Zelda 2's something of a black sheep (and we won't even mention the CD-I atrocities) but by and large, Zelda's done pretty well for itself. Considering that Gamecube Zelda likely won't be out for at least a year after the GC's launch (at least, I'd assume so, since we haven't seen any real footage yet) I'm not particularly worried about a drop in quality - on the contrary, I expect great things from this next installment.
| This battle strengthens the soul of *Link* |
| Hi Chris,
First of all, I think A Link to the Past was really cool, even though I never finished it. After all, it had two worlds, tons of items, and a huge cast.
Now on to Zelda for Gamecube. It's time to put all those buttons on the Gamecube controller to use. What I'm talking about is a completely new sword fighting system. Instead of just hacking at an enemy, you could slash, parry, block, and do all sorts of cool stuff.
-Rune, who plays too many fighting games for his own good
|
I dunno. I agree that, say, Soul Calibur's 3D fighting system would go well with Zelda's rotating lock system, but you can already do an awful lot of stuff within OoT/MM's existing combat framework. On the other hand, just those demo shots of Link vs. Gannon have me salivating for some heavy duty fencing action, perhaps bringing external objects (breakable doors, tables, chairs, etc.) into the mix. Could be damn cool, if Nintendo really goes wild with what the Gamecube can do.
| Where does he get those wonderful toys? |
| I don't know if I can really pick a favorite. On Game Boy the oracles
series has really captured my attention. (I have seasons) I missed the
N64 instaments (because of my obsession with Playstation RPGs) so my
favorite console title is A link to the past.(you're probably seeing
alot of these). What I'd like to see is some of the GB items make it
into the console arena. The Roc's feather/cape is one of my
favorites. I'd like to see this instead of Zelda 64's auto jump that so
many people complained about. I also like the controllable
boomerang(I'm just doing the Zelda fireball..hehe), it beats straight
throws.
Shadowcat
|
No argument here, except if the toys get too complex, Zelda starts impinging on Metal Gear Solid territory. What's next, remote-detonated Deku Nuts, to be stealthily attached to the capes of unsuspecting Darknuts?
| Like wow man, totally... |
| My favorite Zelda game would definitly have to be Legend of Zelda: A Link to the past. It was my first Zelda game, it it kicked ass. My mom used to play it all the time to, and it took along time to finally know where to go and what to do. I rember when I finally got to Ganon, it was nearly impossible, then I realized that you have to get him with the silver arrows when hes tranced or something. That really helped. And that part where we goes invisible and you have to turn the lights back on was a real pain. The ending wasnt really that great when I finally beat him. Maybe it was great, I dont remember, and my file got deleted and i dont want to play the entire game again anytime soon. Maybe one day when I feel like playin a sweet old skool game. In later versions, I want to see more puzzles that were in Link to the past's dungeons, like you had to light certain torches to get on a different track when your on a non-stoping floating black. Oh the good ol' days!
- Jessie Lange
|
I dunno, I just like this letter - there's something to be said for a game that's so cool your recollections of it become rambling memories, not even of the game itself but of the feelings you had when you played it. I honestly wish more games would come along like that, although now that I'm old and jaded (not to mention crusty and cynical) it seems less and less likely.
| Surfer dudes out of Final Fantasy now! |
| Chris,
First, I want to comment on yesterday's topic. Sort of. Yeah, the
Sphere system sounds kind of nifty. Yeah, lots of stuff about FFX is
sounding pretty cool. I feel it's necessary, however, to bring up Tidus in
any conversation about the game. He sucks. Horribly. I always prefered
Amano to Nomura, but I could respect Nomura's talent. Even after he did the
designs for The Bouncer. They were unoriginal, yeah, but they were still ok.
Then he made Tidus. There's no excuse for that. Not a broken hand, not
narcotics, not brain damage, not specific instructions from Square, nothing.
Bad Nomura. No cookie.
Now, on to the topic that isn't a day late. Link to the Past is by far
my favorite in the series. I certainly enjoyed 64 and MM, but they just
weren't as much fun. I think it might be because they took out the fire and
ice rods. Also, the hookshot needs more stuff designed around it. That
thing is better than ever in 3D, so I expect to see it used. Oh, yeah...Link
to the Past had the best sound effect when you hit bosses. You know the one
I mean. I want that back. Also, I want a pony. Wait, no, we got a pony...
-The Neocount of Merentha, wishes he had a T1. Or a T3, that'd be
acceptable. Or any connection better than 31.2
|
Come on, folks - Tidus isn't that bad, is he? I frankly like him more than Zidane or Squall, and he really fits in with the whole tropical/asian feel of the FFX world. He's not the best lead I can imagine, but he's not total crap either.
Besides, after seeing Lulu in action, I'll forgive Nomura just about anything. Finally, a design has shown up to rival Callo Merlose for my affections... although that Moogle doll is just weird.
| Bigger, longer and uncut |
| HELL-o, spoony bard
GC Zelda, huh? What does little old me want from it? I want a real world map! Not just a centeral location and a town or two and a few dungeons surronding it. Once I reach the very edge of the game's world, I want to feel like it would take me for ever to get back to my starting location on foot.
I also do NOT want a spoony "Collect the artifacts from the different shrines" type of plot, they should give Link a real quest, like having to infeltrate an enemy Kingdom only to discover that they are trying to harness the Tri-force to create a SUPER Biological Weapon (that's "monster") Turbo! And they are planning to use it to attack Hyrule!
Oooooh! And I'd like to see Ganon help Link only to turn on him near the end of the game!
Yeah...I just want Link in Final Fantasy Land, that's all!
White Sword
|
Only problem is, I can't tell if he's being serious or not...
Closing Comments:
Tomorrow's Friday, when you get to rant about anything you think I missed during the previous week. Have fun, and I'll see you then.
-Chris Jones, wondering if John Woo would be interested in directing DQ8
|
