Memory Lane: The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess

After De Blob in the summer of 2010, I started playing Twilight Princess around November 2010. This was to be the second game in what would later become this quest.

I had gotten something like 5 Wii games from my wife for Christmas and I had barely started playing this game 11 months later. I resolved to correct that, partly remembering the satisfaction I got from completing De Blob.

This game was fun, though not without its faults. I never really got into Wolf Link. Also, the motion controls seemed tacked on at the last minute. There didn't seem to be any real need for them. Certainly waving your hand around to bite people as Wolf Link didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. However, there was a lot of good here, too.

The story was great, and it was pretty dark. The dungeons were satisfying. The only thing better than a hookshot is a double hookshot. The biggest complaint I had with this game was that it seemed to fall in the same patterns that so many Zelda games have fallen into ever since A Link to the Past. You start out, you get a sword, you go get three pendants (or medallions, or something) that allow you to get the Master Sword, then you go take out 8 more dungeons for a final confrontation.

I didn't get every piece of heart in this game, but I would play it again. It's staying in my collection.

Aaaaand It Happens Again!

Today I spent a good chunk of my morning playing through the second temple of Majora's Mask when the bloody thing froze on me again!

I tell you, I have half a mind to drop this game! I'm gonna go back and look at the damage it did on my save file...

*** UPDATE ***

I used a guide to get back all the progress I lost. I'm back on track and I will finish this game. I'm about half done with it, but after this Zelda, I'm taking a break from Zeldas and Skyward Sword will have to wait a little longer.

Well, Shit. Thanks, Nintendo

I'm currently on the second game of the anthology game Legend of Zelda Collector's Disk. I decided I didn't need to play Zelda II or Ocarina of Time this time around, but I'd do a replay of the original Legend of Zelda and try to beat Majora's Mask for the first time.

Now, it needs to be said that none of these four games are their original versions. They are emulated versions ported over to a Gamecube disc, which I'm now playing through a Wii.

Now I come to find that Majora's Mask has a well known and well documented bug: it freezes without warning. It doesn't happen all the time. I played for some 4 hours, maybe more, and it never happened. Until yesterday.

The very real problem comes from the nature of this particular Zelda and its save system. On any other Zelda, I'd say, "No big deal, I just save all the time and if it freezes, my ass is covered." That is not the case in Majora's Mask. This is a lot like a game version of Groundhog Day. You have three days to finish a quest, but you can always go back to the first day (I got you babe!) You start talking to people and trying to help them, and eventually you learn where and when they will be so that you can help them (What do you say? I've saved you a hundred times and you've never thanked me!) The difference is that when you time travel you get to keep many (not all) of the items you collected. You're basically on a quest that would take considerably longer than three days. You do a bit of it there, go back to the first day, another bit there, go back to the first day, and so on and so firth.

Now, what does this all have to do with why I can't save?  Majora's Mask's save system is different. Here you only have two choices: You can either save and go back to the first day (of a three day quest) and lose the progress of your current objective, whatever bit of the quest you were on before you traveled back to the first day... or you can hit these owl statues that work a lot like a bookmark, saving your progress up to that point, but if you use an owl statue you have to save and quit right then and there.

All this because Nintendo decided to release a port of the game that wasn't really up to snuff. I could conceivably download it from the Wii Shop Channel for ten bucks, but I was really looking forward to not spending any more money on this game.

I'll keep on trucking. It's not the end of the world. It wouldn't be the first time I played a buggy Zelda: I once completed the original Zelda on an NES cartridge that had a dead backup battery, so I had to leave my NES on until I finished it.

I'll make it work. The game is weird, but still enjoyable.

Memory Lane: de Blob

Every now and then I'm going to write about the games that I had already beaten by the time I started writing this blog. Today it's de Blob.

This game sort of got me in this frame of mind of finishing games. My wife had gotten me something like four or five Wii games one Christmas and this was just the first one I started. I played it for a while and then I stopped.

After a summer in Chicago, I decided that since I was going to be by myself, I was going to make a list of things that I could do without bugging my wife. Watching some anime, catching up on some old TV shows, and playing some games. de Blob was the first game I thought of. I would put it back in my Wii and play the thing until I beat it.

There weren't all that many levels left for me to finish. I was probably about a little less than half-way done, but here's where the problem was: each level took something like an hour to complete. No wonder I had left it before.

de Blob Pros and Cons

Pros: It's funny and quirky and at times it's even hilarious. The graphics are adorable and colorful. There's definitely a 1950's avant garde look to the design which I loved.

Cons: The levels take a long time to complete and even then it's hard to collect every collectible. Also, someone didn't think one little aspect through: this game is supposed to have motion controls, since it's a Wii game. Fine! Do motion controls! But for the love of Pete, this is a platform game! Don't make JUMPING a motion control. It's inaccurate, it's tiring. Every time you want to jump, you have to flick your wrist up, and you have to jump A LOT! It's ridiculous. My hand actually hurt from all the jumping. It's clear the programmers were busy making and not playing their game. If I'd been there I'd have made jumping a button press.

This game got sold back to the second-hand market. I beat it, but there was no way I was going to flick my wrist through it one more time.

And Now For Something Legendary

I've come to the point where I'm playing The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition

This is a lotta bang for your buck

The disc comes with four games: The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (both of the NES days), TLoZ Ocarina of Time and TLoZ: Majora's Mask. Let's break down what my moral obligations are to this game.

The first Zelda brings me memories of old days, which is good. It deserves a replay. Majora's Mask is a game I started back in the N64 days but never finished. It is reportedly a wildly underrated game and I intend to finish it. Ocarina of Time I've played to death. Back in 1998 you couldn't get away from this game, and I played it a lot. Many many times, so if I ever replay it, it will not be this time. I beat Zelda II some time in the late 90's and, believe me, once is plenty. I can go either way about game guides, and many games I refuse to play with a guide, but Zelda II was a bit of a chore, so guide it was.

Hey, how's about some love here?

This one here, this is where it's at. What else can I say about this game that hasn't been said already? You can go to multiple places to find out the skinny on this game and read how revolutionary it was. I just want to tell you my Zelda story. I thought it was boring.

Back in 6th grade, my friend Sergio showed me this magazine called The Official Nintendo Player's Guide.

Don't we look official

In this magazine they described Zelda as consisting of an overworld and an underworld, and there were shops and items, and you killed monsters and obtained money and you used this money to go into the shops and buy the items. This to me was the most boring game ever. Go kill monsters, get money, spend it, and do it all over again. Yawn.

Years later, in high school, someone started talking about Zelda and I said it was boring. He asked if I'd ever actually played it. I said yes, for a bit. "Well, did you ever get the raft?" he asked. "Well, no, I never got enough money to buy the raft," I replied.

"You don't buy the raft. You get it in one of the dungeons."

Wait, what?! The raft isn't something you buy? You mean it's just sitting there, waiting for someone to get it? Are we talking hidden treasure? THERE'S TREASURE IN THE DUNGEONS?! I had to be a part of this. Suddenly all my preconceptions about this game had come crashing down. This was a quest. You'd need skill to overcome obstacles, of which there was sure to be many... but the reward would be sweet!

There's a lot about this game that reminds me of growing up. I remember being in the 6th grade and translating bits of English from magazines for my friends desperate for secrets (back then it didn't seem odd to me that I understood what was before me, when most of my Mexican friends couldn't). I remember the thrill of exploration and treasure hunting. But mostly it reminds me that the world of gaming has changed a lot.

There were always secrets surrounding Zelda. You could place bombs in specific places and find things hidden. You could burn specific bushes and find shops of characters with rewards. How we knew that some things had to be bombed or burned, I'll never know. The game itself was primitive and what it affectionately doles out as "hints" are almost unintelligible gibberish. The hints invariably make more sense when you know what it is they're trying to hint at, but if you don't, then you're sheer out of luck. Even the final boss's dungeon is hidden away and well. I can see someone out of desperation placing bombs on any rock that seemed out of place.

Place a bomb on Spectacle Rock. We dare you.

But the most amazing thing about Zelda was that those secrets did get out. Someone DID put a bomb on Spectacle Rock and managed to not only remember it, but to tell someone about it. And the word got out and eventually it got to you. Cause we were talking to each other. We were asking for help. We'd spent afternoons at friends' houses showing each other the tricks we'd found, instead of looking them up on youtube.

So last weekend I grabbed my Zelda Collector's Edition disc, threw it in my Wii and I played me some Zelda. I beat it with some help, I'm not ashamed to admit that I used a game guide, but I will say that even my guide comes with some cred: aside from the aforementioned Official Nintendo Player's Guide, the NES Game Atlas from 1991. Game didn't play itself, though. It was still me saving that princess after all this time.