Link's Awakening is the first Zelda game I ever played, at least the first one that I really was able to sink my teeth into.Sometimes it seems as if at least a few years of my life were spent playing this on either my brother's original Gameboy or the Super Gameboy. I haven't played it in many years, but when I dusted off my old, yellowed cartridge and started a new game, something clicked in my brain again, it seemed that I knew everything about this game, locations of items and secrets and dungeons and what to do in those dungeons. Maybe I'm right in thinking it was for years that I played this game?
The game plays much like the Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past, with Link being controlled in a top-down view, but returns to LoZ's two-button item system, which affects the way in which you must approach combat and puzzles in dungeons. Usually it will just be your sword and one other item, but like all Zelda games, it requires frequent item switching, so sometimes it's better to have no means of attack in order to move through puzzles quicker. It also allows you to combine items like Arrows and Bombs. The main quest itself is laid out similarly to Legend of Zelda, with 8 dungeons, but this game is far better in terms of dungeon design and the little quests required to get inside each of them, each is unique and strange in it's own way, most dungeons even have short side-scrolling sections similar to Zelda II.
The game world itself is comparatively small, but it's densely packed with secrets and many important items are almost entirely optional such as the bow and the boomerang, but can still be found and used to explore the world further. The boomerang being part of a great little trading sequence, something later games would use extensively. The sole sword upgrade is achieved through collecting seashells around the island. The Bow (and other items) can even be stolen from the shop, earning you a nasty retribution, and the name THIEF for the rest of the game. It's also filled with a lot of weird and wonderful people, side-quests and details, such as the inclusion of enemies from the Mario series and even an evil Kirby type monster in one dungeon. People you talk to make references to things like saving games before confessing that they don't know what they're talking about and one character tells you to watch out for him later on when he will be trapped in the mountain, it's a clever way to make tutorial stuff feel organic and diegetic, because as it turns out, the world is a fantasy, much like any game world.
When I put the phrase "plot twist" in the title, I was aware of how little of a twist it really is, the game is constantly telling you that the island of Koholint isn't real that it's all a dream, murals in the world tell you this, bosses make references to it in their dialogue and even the Owl. However, when I played this as a kid it blew my mind, to the point where the plot of the game still affects me to this day, I can think of very few stories or games that have stuck with me since that age, even less with the clarity with which I can recall Link's Awakening. I was glad, upon returning to the game, that while it's effect has diminished slightly, it's still a wonderful little game, and the plot, unlike most games I play, is still interesting to me. In large part because of the presentation of it, every aspect of the world of the game is designed to make it feel like an unreality, like something isn't quite right, even the silly little things like Bow-wow or how when Marin joins you, you lift her above your head like an item. The design of the game speaks more about the plot than any cutscene ever could, and while there are quite a few exposition scenes with the Owl, it never pulls you out of the game, or makes you feel like you don't have control over what's happening. There's a strange sadness to all of the bosses, or "Nightmares" in that while they are evil and causing monsters to appear, they must be defeated, it almost feels like they're trying to stop you from destroying the world, which is what your quest is, it made me not want to finish the game once I'd beaten the final dungeon , I just spent so long just milling around in the world, getting as much out of it as I could before finally giving in and waking the Wind Fish. All in all, the game remains one of my favourites in the series.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or how I learned to stop worrying and love the levelling system
Growing up a gamer in Europe, and even worse, in rural Ireland made it very difficult to have the same experiences I hear and read people from the US talking about on all the big gaming websites and podcasts. Even if you managed to find a place that sold games, which in my case required my Dad to drive at least an hour, the chance that they had any more games than licensed crap and the odd few famous games like Mario Bros. was extremely low, so I never played a Zelda game until the SNES era. I have some memories of being in my friends house, I don't know exactly when, we were playing Mystic Quest on his SNES, and I noticed that he had a weird coloured NES Game Pak, I don't remember the conversation we had, but the cartridge immediately captivated me. I new nothing about this game, but I suddenly had to play it, thankfully he still had his NES, so we played, and I loved it. Unfortunately, by this time I had a SNES, and thought that I could never possibly need my NES again, because I was a stupid kid and had not yet learned the concept of keeping things in good condition for later use. Needless to say, I skipped over the NES generation of Zelda games.
Leading me back to the present, I have never finished Zelda II, I have played it emulated on my PC, and when I first got the collector's edition disc for Gamecube. I just became too frustrated by it. However, this time, perhaps because I'm older now, or because I didn't play it while immersed in other games in the series, which made its differences stand out like a sore thumb, I was able to enjoy it on it's own merits.
It really is a brilliant little game, the combat, while difficult to begin with, it's extremely responsive as are the controls in general. The tools you are provided with throughout the game are not quite the same as in other games, relying on spells and sword techniques for progression rather than various gadgets and gizmos. Exploration through the world is on a different plane than dungeons and towns, but really makes the game's world feel massive. Progression through the map is measured out in such a way that feels more like later games than the first one. The inclusion of actual towns makes the world feel alive, and the game really does reward talking to all the people to get clues and hints. The levelling system is also an interesting inclusion, being able to level up in this way seems more Final Fantasy than Zelda, but it still serves a similar function as health/magic/sword upgrades in other Zelda games, being almost optional, but making the game much easier when made full use of.
It's also, as I mentioned, a deeply frustrating game, between the difficulty of some battle screens, and the amount of backtracking required because of being reset back to the beginning of the game every time you get a game over and the resetting of EXP points, there were a few occasions where I was determined to quit forever. Thankfully I did not, because once you learn to work within the limitations of this system and begin to pick up on the quirks of the combat system, the game begins to become much deeper.
Late game becomes about trading off between whether you should try to progress to the next dungeon, or getting the next item or just levelling. It's those hairy moments when you can't do any of those things, are low on magic and health and have no choice but to keep going and hope that an enemy drops a potion, or more likely, get killed and have to return to the temple. In this way, the backtracking becomes one of the game's strengths, while still frustrating, it's offers a deeply rewarding level of progression, and by the time you've done it 10 times, those mandatory battle scenes on the way to the final few dungeons become less of a hindrance. Each time you reach a new level, or find the dungeon item, or even just progress a few screens further is a great feeling. It feels almost like the time-limit in Majora's Mask, where the fun of that system is in pushing yourself to complete as much as possible with limited time and even when you can't get through, once you begin again, you are still often able to get through, or even completely skip sections once you learn a song or find the owl statues or dungeon items.
Even the limited extra lives are part of it's strengths, because you can only pick up one per game, will this be the time I take it? Is it too much of a risk? Have I already lost too many lives? If I haven't, will this one be enough for me to get through? In my case, on the second to last dungeon, I took the extra life, which allowed me to get to the Boss, however I died very quickly, but not before figuring out how to take him down. This experience alone made it worth something when I continued, as I blasted through the dungeon and took out the boss in almost no time, which was a great feeling.
Zelda II is an anomaly, it's considered by many to be the "worst" in the main series of games. It's also considered by a vocal few to be a great game hamstrung by it's name, and the legacy of The Legend of Zelda. I fall more squarely into the latter camp, but I still think it's a great Zelda game, it just goes about its business in a different way, while still making use of some of the design aspects of the previous games, and at the same time, greatly influencing the later, more traditional games. Think of how many aspects of your favourite Zelda games were lifted from or influenced by Zelda II, it's gonna be far more than you might think!
Next up... Link's Awakening!
Leading me back to the present, I have never finished Zelda II, I have played it emulated on my PC, and when I first got the collector's edition disc for Gamecube. I just became too frustrated by it. However, this time, perhaps because I'm older now, or because I didn't play it while immersed in other games in the series, which made its differences stand out like a sore thumb, I was able to enjoy it on it's own merits.
It really is a brilliant little game, the combat, while difficult to begin with, it's extremely responsive as are the controls in general. The tools you are provided with throughout the game are not quite the same as in other games, relying on spells and sword techniques for progression rather than various gadgets and gizmos. Exploration through the world is on a different plane than dungeons and towns, but really makes the game's world feel massive. Progression through the map is measured out in such a way that feels more like later games than the first one. The inclusion of actual towns makes the world feel alive, and the game really does reward talking to all the people to get clues and hints. The levelling system is also an interesting inclusion, being able to level up in this way seems more Final Fantasy than Zelda, but it still serves a similar function as health/magic/sword upgrades in other Zelda games, being almost optional, but making the game much easier when made full use of.
It's also, as I mentioned, a deeply frustrating game, between the difficulty of some battle screens, and the amount of backtracking required because of being reset back to the beginning of the game every time you get a game over and the resetting of EXP points, there were a few occasions where I was determined to quit forever. Thankfully I did not, because once you learn to work within the limitations of this system and begin to pick up on the quirks of the combat system, the game begins to become much deeper.
Late game becomes about trading off between whether you should try to progress to the next dungeon, or getting the next item or just levelling. It's those hairy moments when you can't do any of those things, are low on magic and health and have no choice but to keep going and hope that an enemy drops a potion, or more likely, get killed and have to return to the temple. In this way, the backtracking becomes one of the game's strengths, while still frustrating, it's offers a deeply rewarding level of progression, and by the time you've done it 10 times, those mandatory battle scenes on the way to the final few dungeons become less of a hindrance. Each time you reach a new level, or find the dungeon item, or even just progress a few screens further is a great feeling. It feels almost like the time-limit in Majora's Mask, where the fun of that system is in pushing yourself to complete as much as possible with limited time and even when you can't get through, once you begin again, you are still often able to get through, or even completely skip sections once you learn a song or find the owl statues or dungeon items.
Even the limited extra lives are part of it's strengths, because you can only pick up one per game, will this be the time I take it? Is it too much of a risk? Have I already lost too many lives? If I haven't, will this one be enough for me to get through? In my case, on the second to last dungeon, I took the extra life, which allowed me to get to the Boss, however I died very quickly, but not before figuring out how to take him down. This experience alone made it worth something when I continued, as I blasted through the dungeon and took out the boss in almost no time, which was a great feeling.
Zelda II is an anomaly, it's considered by many to be the "worst" in the main series of games. It's also considered by a vocal few to be a great game hamstrung by it's name, and the legacy of The Legend of Zelda. I fall more squarely into the latter camp, but I still think it's a great Zelda game, it just goes about its business in a different way, while still making use of some of the design aspects of the previous games, and at the same time, greatly influencing the later, more traditional games. Think of how many aspects of your favourite Zelda games were lifted from or influenced by Zelda II, it's gonna be far more than you might think!
 |
| My end screen, for the sake of posterity. |
Next up... Link's Awakening!
2014: A Year of Zelda
Ok, so I'm fudging it a little. At the beginning of December '13, I
reacquainted myself with a childhood and young-adulthood love, The
Legend of Zelda series. I fell out with the series around about the time
I fell out with Nintendo in general. When the Wii was released, I was coming out of my biggest Nintendo fanboy phase, and Twilight Princess on that console was, I think, what made me lose interest in that console and the series for such a long time. The motion controls felt, and were, tacked on at the last minute by Nintendo, and after a particularly annoying few hours of trying to get through the tutorial, I finally gave up when the game wanted me to do (I think) a spin attack in wolf form. I could not do it, I flailed about my living room with that awful remote for what must have been 45 minutes, trying every possible motion with the controller to get my wolf to do it consistently. I can't remember what exactly the criteria were, but if I remember right, you were required to keep things away from you while spin-attacking, and had to do it several times in succession, while surrounded by darkness. I made several attempts to do this and failing many time, I finally gave up on it. This wasn't the event that made me give up on the Wii altogether, but it certainly made me question whether the little white box was all it was made out to be.
Eventually, I bought an Xbox, and for the next 5-6 years, that was exclusively my console. I still kept my Wii, and on occasion I did play it, but no new games came out that made me want to return to it for anything longer than the odd play-session. I got rid of most of the games for the system, but not the console itself, because I had invested quite a bit of money in the Virtual Console service and I didn't want to lose all those games. One thing I did keep was my DS Lite, and for those years, it was my primary window into the world of Nintendo and thus Zelda. I loved Phantom Hourglass but Spirit Tracks I found to be quite tedious, getting bored shortly after the tutorial and not really going back to it.
In the last 2 years or so, I've found myself with less time for gaming, and taking my free time to catch up on movies and TV shows. However, since September or so, I've found a reason to go back to my Wii, namely, playing Mario Kart Wii with my girlfriend, and Xenoblade Chronicles, a game I started way back in early 2012 before moving to the Uk, and decided to give a go of again. It drew me in so much so that when I moved back to Ireland, the Wii again became the primary console underneath my telly. During this move, I unearthed my GBA SP with the 3 Gameboy Zelda titles (neither of the GBA ones unfortunately though,) and my copies of Wind Waker and the Zelda Collectors Edition promo disk. I popped the collector's edition disc in my Wii, and on a whim, began to play Zelda 2: Link's Adventure, this somehow kickstarted a renewed interest in the series. Somehow, this gave me the notion that I should endeavour to play ALL the Zelda games in the next year. Then I began to think about writing short posts on this endeavour, if only to give myself an outlet to post my thoughts on these games and get back into writing and thinking about games again. This post really serves as small context to anyone who may happen across these posts, and to give myself a much needed kick in the arse to actually play the games and then write about them. It also gives me a non-important goal for the year.
I suspect I won't be able to play EVERY game in the series, Four Swords in particular, unless I can get some of my old college gaming buddies together for an afternoon to dust off our GBAs and play through it, and for games that have been remade, I wont bother with them unless the difference is significant enough that I decide I would like to do it. I also don't have a 3DS or WiiU right now, so as much as I would love to, I can't yet play ALBW or WWH, hopefully I may be able to get one or more of these consoles before year's end and play at least one of those games. These also won't be Let's play type posts, or even a play by play account of each game, it will just be short posts on my experiences with the games and my opinions, ill formed as they may be, on each game.
Anyway, enough of my prattling... on to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link!
Eventually, I bought an Xbox, and for the next 5-6 years, that was exclusively my console. I still kept my Wii, and on occasion I did play it, but no new games came out that made me want to return to it for anything longer than the odd play-session. I got rid of most of the games for the system, but not the console itself, because I had invested quite a bit of money in the Virtual Console service and I didn't want to lose all those games. One thing I did keep was my DS Lite, and for those years, it was my primary window into the world of Nintendo and thus Zelda. I loved Phantom Hourglass but Spirit Tracks I found to be quite tedious, getting bored shortly after the tutorial and not really going back to it.
In the last 2 years or so, I've found myself with less time for gaming, and taking my free time to catch up on movies and TV shows. However, since September or so, I've found a reason to go back to my Wii, namely, playing Mario Kart Wii with my girlfriend, and Xenoblade Chronicles, a game I started way back in early 2012 before moving to the Uk, and decided to give a go of again. It drew me in so much so that when I moved back to Ireland, the Wii again became the primary console underneath my telly. During this move, I unearthed my GBA SP with the 3 Gameboy Zelda titles (neither of the GBA ones unfortunately though,) and my copies of Wind Waker and the Zelda Collectors Edition promo disk. I popped the collector's edition disc in my Wii, and on a whim, began to play Zelda 2: Link's Adventure, this somehow kickstarted a renewed interest in the series. Somehow, this gave me the notion that I should endeavour to play ALL the Zelda games in the next year. Then I began to think about writing short posts on this endeavour, if only to give myself an outlet to post my thoughts on these games and get back into writing and thinking about games again. This post really serves as small context to anyone who may happen across these posts, and to give myself a much needed kick in the arse to actually play the games and then write about them. It also gives me a non-important goal for the year.
I suspect I won't be able to play EVERY game in the series, Four Swords in particular, unless I can get some of my old college gaming buddies together for an afternoon to dust off our GBAs and play through it, and for games that have been remade, I wont bother with them unless the difference is significant enough that I decide I would like to do it. I also don't have a 3DS or WiiU right now, so as much as I would love to, I can't yet play ALBW or WWH, hopefully I may be able to get one or more of these consoles before year's end and play at least one of those games. These also won't be Let's play type posts, or even a play by play account of each game, it will just be short posts on my experiences with the games and my opinions, ill formed as they may be, on each game.
Anyway, enough of my prattling... on to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link!
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