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The year of Zelda continues with The Spirit Tracks. I had started this game wayy back at the beginning of the year but I only went through the first 2 dungeons. I finally finished the game today. It was a different game because I was driving a train and didn't really have any of the freedom of movement in the overworld. I didn't really understand the trying to gather rabbits that were out in the field side quest. It was fun to shoot the cannon at things, and I liked that I could just draw a route and forget about steering if I wanted to. The gameplay was fun though, and was very reminiscent of Phantom Hourglass. Using Zelda to control other enemies was a neat idea. It gave a different style at the time, but other games like Skyward Sword have also used it since. All in all this was a fun Zelda title, but I wouldn't rank it in my top 3. On to the next game, which I'm already halfway through Twilight Princess. Time is running short and I have 11 more zelda games to beat.
Today marks the completion of The Wind Waker. Once again for those who have not completed it ***SPOILER ALERT***
This game has one of the more interesting death sequences for Gannon. It's all nice and cartoons, enemies turn to puffs of purple smoke. Gannon is wielding two swords and I'm having fun fighting. Zelda gets in on the action but isn't as useful as I'd like her to be. And then after spending half the fight unconscious she wakes up and has a brilliant idea. She's going to shoot an arrow at YOU, and you have to deflect it at Gannon! Sounds good in theory, and looks cool, but I would not want to have to pull this off in real life. It's mostly auto aim, but if the angle isn't somewhat close, you get hit by the arrow and take damage. The final blow is cool. One last parry attack and Link comes down from 20 feet in the air and embeds his sword 2 feet into Gannon's forehead. Kinda violent for this game, but it looks nice. The turning him to stone was a good idea since the world is going to flood again. Let's just leave him at the bottom of the ocean.
I didn't like the way the standard enemies died. When they leave you colored crystal balls and you smash them open, all the loot goes everywhere!! Why did it have to explode rupees everywhere and then give me 5 seconds to gather them up? It was annoying more than anything. Especially on the sea. If I sink a boat, and it leaves a crystal ball on the water, I have to shoot it to break it, which means being on the boat. But I can't collect anything while on the boat, I have to jump into the water, unless I want to grab something with my hookshot. But the before mentioned 5 second rule only lets you grab 1 or two things with the hookshot. You might get it if you jump out of the boat immediately and aren't far away. Not my favorite part by a long shot. Also sailing got boring and repetitive until you get the Ballad of Gales. At least the music on the water is nice. I enjoyed listening to that. The music was very good. I liked the theme from Dragon Roost Island, the overworld ocean theme, and especially the fight with Molgera at the end of the Wind Temple.
I have never actually hooked up a GBA to use the TingleTuner. Has anyone gotten any good use out of it? What exactly is it for? I still don't have a GBA so I can't try it out.
Wind Waker is lots of fun to play overall though and I like the cel shaded art style. I played the first few minutes of the 2nd quest that unlocks when you beat the game and did get a good laugh at my "new outfit" I get to wear throughout the game. It feels so light, almost like nothing at all...
This makes 4 console titles beaten, Legend of Zelda, Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and now Wind Waker. I might play Twilight Princess next, or switch to a handheld. So many to choose from.
It's been a while, but I have finished a couple of zelda games since Skyward Sword back in April. I went through the first Zelda in May and just forgot to write about it. It was alot of fun, and embarrassingly enough, it was my first time to play through the entire game and finish it. I never had an NES as a kid so I never got to play all the classic titles. I had an Atari 2600 to play with for a while and a Sega Master System. Then we got the SNES for Christmas in '92. But back to Zelda. I was having fun learning where all the dungeons were, all the secrets hidden in the game. Finding out where the fairy fountains were was also neat. I didn't have to much trouble and was going through it fairly quickly until I hit the 5th dungeon. I think it was the blue Darknuts. I just could NOT beat a room full of them. I don't remember how many times I tried, but I finally made it through. On and on I battled, eventually making it to Dungeon 9, and finding my way to Gannon. I had my Red Ring, 16 hearts, and a red potion, and actually needed to use the potion one time to beat Gannon. I finally did and was happy to finally beat the original game.
I didn't play anything over the summer, and thought I need to pick this back up if I'm going to finish by the end of the year. I grabbed my original 1998 gold Ocarina of Time and put it in my gold N64 and fired it up a few days ago. Of all the Zelda games, I know Ocarina the best. I have been through the game many many times. It took me 3 days to make it through the game playing a few hours a day. Day One was through all the child temples. I was having fun going through Jabu Jabu's belly and then my n64 froze up on me. I restarted and realized I hadn't saved since the beginning of Dodongo's Cavern  So back through everything I went saving along the way. Day 2 got me through the forest, fire, and that damn water temple. The water temple only took me an hour and a half this time, not who knows how many days. Day 3 saw me breeze through the shadow temple, spirit temple, and go through Gannon's Castle. Nothing gave me any real difficulty, and I was surprised at how much I remembered and was just automatically doing without thinking about it. I didn't go through most of the side quests, but I did kill Gold Skultullas wherever I saw them, ended up with about 30 or so and got my Giant's Wallet. I always have fun with Ocarina and this was no different.
The next game on the list is going to be Wind Waker. I beat it once and didn't go back, so this will be interesting to go back to it. Hope I remember to post when I beat it and I hope I can beat them all before the end of the year.
Seeing as how last year was the 25th Anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series, and it's my favorite series of all time I thought it was a good idea to go through them all this year. I would have done it last year but I just didn't think of it. So I started on January 1st, played for a few days, and then forgot all about it with real life stuff going on. But I did remember and pick it back up at the beginning of April. I dusted off my golden Wii-mote, and sat down to play some Skyward sword. (Warning: Spoilers Ahead if you haven't finished the game!!)
I was very happy with this game. The colors looked gorgeous and I wasn't having any trouble with the Wii Motion Plus. I was laughing when Zelda and I were up at the ceremony at the beginning and she pushed me off a cliff. Even better was her father saying how it was taking an awful long time for my Loftwing to catch me. Of course Zelda swoops down and saves me from plummeting to my death so early in the game. That was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. The ability to fly as high as I could above Skyloft and then just hop off my bird and skydive to the ground below. I was surprised at how far they let you fall before it cuts to you just above the ground. It's to bad they force you to pull out your sailcloth so you don't hurt yourself falling.
I think Fi took over as the most annoying companion so far. Almost all of what she would tell me about my situation was plainly obvious to me so I felt little reason to call on her. I just never got any kind of feeling of attachment to her like I did Midna. I was kinda sad when Midna left, and kinda glad to be rid of Fi. Even Navi wasn't this bad at telling me the overtly obvious.
The idea of having just the 3 main areas to visit seemed to really work in this game. Yes you were visiting the forest area again, or the volcano area, but they were totally new areas to discover in the first and second parts. I was lucky enough to have known about the game breaking glitch and what to do to avoid it, but I was kinda disappointed that Nintendo let such a huge bug get through.
I think one of my favorite new mechanics of the game was the timeshift stones. It was just a cool concept that these stones can make an area go back to what it looked like in a previous time. Sailing around with the Captain in the Desert Sea just looked funny because I had water all around my boat, but 15 feet away was nothing but sand.
I liked the going up against Girahim several times too. It made it more of a grudge match against him, and I liked how the villain doesn't just show up at the beginning and then again at the end. Fighting Demise was awesome though. The environment, his design, the swordplay, it was all just so fun. I'm glad I upgraded to the Goddess shield before I went up against him though. I can imagine what his lightning sword would do to that little wooden shield you get at the beginning.
I didn't get all the side quests done, but I did do some of them. I wanted to finish the Gratitude Crystals one to see what would happen to Batreux, and in the end he turned human of course, but I didn't expect it to get rid of all the monsters that roamed Skyloft at night. That was a pleasant surprise. Since it was a game I didn't really rush through and was having fun searching for pieces of heart and side quests it took about 60 hours for me to finish it.
So that's one game down and 15 titles to go. I'm only playing the major releases for the year, no CD-i games, no game and watch games. I don't know if I will ever get my hands on Zelda's Adventure for the CD-i but I don't want to play it as part of this series. I will try to keep at it and keep this blog updated for my progress.
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