My Opinion on Zelda - Pt.1

I just completely complete, for the first time, ever, Majora's Mask. In the past, I didn't care too much on getting all the heart pieces, doing all side-quests and getting every single item. But now... I feel like it's a requirement. I HAVE to get everything or else I'll never be happy with the outcome. Although most Zelda games are easy, and getting everything just makes it easier, it needs to be done. Maybe one of these days I'll do a 3 Heart Challenge, or something.

Anyway, I've decided to give an opinion on all the Zelda games I've beat. Just something that may be interesting to read. After all, people love (or should I say, love to hate) opinions. Might as well, I have Zelda on the brain. I'm going to write up to Majora's Mask for now.

The Legend of Zelda (NES)
Old. Just... old, and it feels clunky. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was amazing at its time, and while I didn't grow up with it, I'm not biased just because it came out on the NES. I tend to play my games with an open mind, it's actually kind of hard for me to be against something until after I get a taste of it, and I got a taste of this game when I was young. Like I said, I didn't grow up with the game, I played the game when my dad busted out his NES from Italy. It had been a couple years or so since I beat Ocarina of Time, so I was heavily interested in seeing the roots of this game.

And I enjoyed it. In fact, I loved it at first. Me and my dad went and beat the game. He showed me all the secrets in the game; dungeon locations, secret rupee locations, bombable/walkthroughable walls, all that stuff. And we beat it. Both quests. It was great, and I have fond memories of that time. But that time ain't today. Today, as a video game developer in-training, I can see through the nostalgia and find that this game is just overrated and mediocre. An overrated mediocre game...

As I said, the game is clunky. It's not the NES Pad's fault, it's fine when playing games like Super Mario Bros. 3. It's the programming; the way Link moves around is just a hassle. Link can stand on any pixel on the screen, and yet he can't move in eight directions. It's very annoying in a game series such as Zelda.

Next we have the overworld and dungeons; a lot of screens are repeated, and it all looks so bland. I know, the NES has limitations, and repeating screens would take a load off the NES's memory. However, I then would play a game like... Super Mario Bros. 3, and Dragon Quest IV. Those games are amazing games that hold up even today, and yet The Legend of Zelda remains to be mediocre. Yes, yes, I know there are more reasons to it, but the facts remain clear to me: The Legend of Zelda potentially could have had better overworld and dungeon layouts.

One thing that bugs me in particular is the enemy formations. Whose idea was it to put eight or so Darknuts in such a cramped room in Level 5? The fact that you have hit their backs makes it an absurd "challenge". Don't get me wrong, I love me a challenge in games, but not something so difficult that it makes you rip your hair out. Especially since the game is relatively tame with the enemy formations up until that point. After that, sans Level 6, Darknuts appear like this everywhere in the dungeons, and it's just a pain. Hitting their backs... so annoying with the already bad controls.

And yet, even though I don't think this game is all that great anymore... I'll still probably replay it again sometime. I always replay it again. I guess I'm just a masochist.

There's probably more, but this getting way bigger than I thought it would. Hopefully, the others won't get this behemothly huge...

Zelda II: Adventure of Link (NES)
Ugh. I know everyone loves to bash this game. I'm not going to try to bash it... I love the idea, and the direction this game could have gone great. But... it didn't.

First off, the thing that bugs me a lot is the collision detection. Especially dealing with Iron Knuckles. Takes forever to kill those things... Yes, the time it takes to kill some monsters is just frustrating.

I really like the leveling up system in this game. And it doesn't take much to level up... just one or two half-hour grinding times, plus a hour of grinding in the beginning... a lot less time consuming than regular RPGs. Zelda II is probably one of the first few NES games to feature Status choices, which works pretty well.

This game also introduced Magic to the Zelda games, and it works out pretty well in this game... my only complaint is that some spells take too much MP to use, even after getting Level 8 Magic and all the Magic Containers.

Now, another HUGE complaint for me, are the layouts yet again. The overworld is fine, it's all the side-scrolling action. The towns, caves and palaces are all the same, and all bland. Especially the palaces. They suffer the same thing the original Zelda game suffers with the dungeon layouts, and a lot more. Since you can't see the entire room AND there's no dungeon maps to help you through, the palaces become labyrinths that test your patience and sanity. It's my biggest pet peeve, and it's what turns me off from Zelda II. I only really completed it because it's Zelda. I didn't need much more of a reason than that.

So yeah, Zelda II, not that great. I somewhat like the gameplay, and I like the RPG aspects but everything else just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Excellent. One of favourites. This was my first Zelda that I've ever played. And it was in French too, which didn't help me much. It took me ages to do anything in the game... and yet, I still loved it.

The graphics aren't detailed, but it works. Although the dungeons are somewhat bland (a lot of them have pallet swapped tiles), they all have unique rooms and shapes; none of them look the same. And even though a map is there to help you along the way, you don't need it because all of the rooms are easy to remember where they are and the dungeon layouts are simple. Aside from the Ice Palace (which is my favourite dungeon anyway), the dungeons are easy to get through (although maybe just a little too easy...). None of the dungeons are hellish labyrinths of death where you get lost forever.

The difficulty is just perfect in this game. Enemy formations aren't annoying, the hard enemies aren't bunched in every room, they're mixed with the easy enemies and in balanced ways. Not to mention, getting hit by a lot of the later enemies HURT, but they're easy to avoid and don't take forever to kill. The game isn't grueling difficult like its prequels, and it ain't easyfest like it's sequels. Like I said, A Link to the Past's difficulty is perfect.

The gameplay set the bar for later Zelda games. It had the classic item-dungeon gameplay the first game did, and the magic bar the second game had. The game fused the two and made it work in perfect harmony, and it was used for every Zelda game afterwards. And unlike a certain other game in the Zelda series, all of the items served a purpose. They were all useful in their own ways and were needed to be used frequently in the dungeons. I have to say, A Link to the Past had the best item usage out of any Zelda game.

Now I know it seems like I'm calling A Link to the Past perfect, but it's not. Close, but it's not, no game is perfect. But, it is a timeless game, in my opinion. To be enjoyed for an eternity. A Link to the Past is a game I can see myself playing on my death bed.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB/C)
Fun. Not bad for its first game on the GameBoy. Apparently, I owned the original Link's Awakening a very long time ago but I couldn't find the sword so my dad returned it to the shop. Nearly a decade later, I went and bought the DX version used, and found out why I had such a hard time finding that sword.

Although I didn't have nearly as much difficulty as I seemed to have had all those years ago with this game, I had a lot of fun playing through it. The graphics are great for a GameBoy game, the colours (on the DX version) are nice and colourful. You can walk diagonally like you should in it, and there was a ton of different items all with their own usages.

This also introduced the whole Fetch Quest thing that later Zelda games adopted, where you start by getting the Yoshi Doll and giving it to the Mother for a Ribbon, which you give to the Chain-Chomp Dog for some Canned Food, and etc. For some reason, I don't mind doing Fetch Quests in Zelda games.

The difficultly is a bit on the easy side, but there were definitely a couple puzzles that kept me stumped for a good 10 minutes. When a game does this to me, especially a Zelda game, I love it.

Although the resolution is quite small, the game still works. This is also the first Zelda game to not feature Zelda as a main character at all! This was one of the first few Zelda games to show us that Link doesn't need to save princesses in towers being kept by a giant man-bear-pig-monster-demon in order for it to be fun. I think Link's Awakening is one of more original Zelda games.

Not much else I can say, though. Since I didn't really grow up with the game, I don't have any nostalgic feelings towards it to let me feel emotionally attached to the game, so I don't have much to say about it. It is fun, though!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Amazing. I know I'm not the only one to consider Ocarina of Time one of the best games ever made, and it's up there on my favourite games of all time list (I should compile one of those one day).

My last playthrough was the first time I ever fully complete it, however. And, I still enjoyed it. Even Skulltula hunting was fun. It feels good to have all 20 hearts while fighting the final boss, although it was too easy. Although it always was.

I'd have to say that this is when Zelda games started to get easy. Other than the Iron Knuckles (who damage output gets cut down to two hearts end game anyway), none of the enemies really damage you more than one whole heart. I kind of wish that there was a difficulty option in Zelda games because of this.

I'm sure the puzzles are amazing and tough to figure out the first time through, but I don't remember my first time through. The only thing I really remember is fighting Ganon a lot of times because I had a lot of fun doing it.

The graphics at the time were very good. It was a first year Nintendo 64 game and it probably blew everyone's mind at the time. However, at the time, not even Mario 64 blew my mind for some reason; all I cared about was playing the game and having fun with it. Ocarina of Time is no different.

The gameplay features were pretty revolutionary at the time, I guess. It's hard for me to talk about this game as if I've only played it through once but I'm just so used to everything about it that it just seems natural.

Talking about today's standards, however, I have to say that the gameplay still holds itself together. Since this game, the other 3D Zelda games didn't really change much in the gameplay department. Don't fix what isn't broken, I have to say.

Also, let me talk about Master Quest for a bit. My last playthrough was actually a playthrough of Master Quest, and it was the first time I've ever played through it, even though I owned it for a long time.

It was pretty fun trying to figure out new puzzles in familiar settings. However, only the dungeons have changed, for the worse in my opinion. In fact, a lot of the dungeons don't allow you to explore the entire dungeon, unless you want to collect Skulltulas.

So, my last playthrough gave me a bit of a bad taste in my mouth but that taste doesn't make my opinion on Ocarina of Time worse.

What I always loved about Ocarina of Time is the whole triangle between Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. These three are the most important characters in this game, all fit their roles the best; this game is the best hero toppling evil villain to save princess game ever made.

The final battle gives me shivers whenever I play it. All other bosses have some sort of subtitle, like "Parasitic Armored Arachnid: Ghoma" and "Phantom Shadow Beast: Bongo Bongo", but I absolutely love how Ganondorf yells and transforms... and all it says is "Ganon"... Fantastic... I don't know why but it just sends shivers down my spine, it's just so... perfect... I love it. And then the final battle... The music... and the fact that you can only see Ganon's face when lightning strikes... I have to say, that the battle with Ganon is the most epic battle in any video game ever. I don't think any final battle will ever top Ocarina of Time's.

Even though I still have a lot to say, I think a lot of people would have the same things to say about it... its settings, its music, its characters. It's all amazing, even today. I just wish I could forget everything about it so that I can play through it again and blow my mind properly this time.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)
Awesome. Just... awesome. I'm probably in the minority here who thinks that Majora's Mask is not one the black sheep of the series, but I absolutely loved playing through Majora's Mask.

Like with Ocarina of Time, I can't properly remember my playthrough of this game. But, playing through it now, it amazes me the amount of detail there is in this game... the characters, the settings, the story, a lot of it is insane for a game that's supposed to be on a "medieval" console.

And the graphics hold up even today. In fact, this game may have the best graphics on the N64 and can even top early PS2 games.

The time limit never bothered me. Not as a kid, and not even today. In fact, because of the time limit, this is one of the few Zelda games that are different from the normal games of the series. It does things boldly that no other Zelda game tries to do, and gives you a sense of impending doom. It makes you want to rush as fast as you can and save all of these people from dying.

About those people... it's amazing on how so many people in this game's world has a personality. All of those who aren't regular NPCs (which there aren't that many in the first place) have a story of some sort and all of them need some help. That's something not many games even today can manage to do.

The whole mask system is pretty fun, although the only masks that are worth it are the transformation masks and the bunny hood. Still, all masks served a purpose, and no matter how small it was, it was worth it.

There's an unfortunate amount of dungeons in this game... in fact, it has the lowest amount in the entire series: Four dungeons. That's all. But all four of those dungeons are unique in the series, and these four are the hardest four out of any Zelda game ever made, in my opinion... the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time doesn't hold a candle to the Great Bay Temple in this game.

I have to say that the Ocarina in this game feels pretty tacked on... It was pretty important in Ocarina of Time, but in this game you only have to play the songs a couple of times. The only songs that really help are the Song of Time (and its variations) and the Song of Soaring.

What really disappoints me about the Ocarina in this game is how the Quest Songs don't play its full version after you play it, like in Ocarina of Time. You only hear the full version once and never again (unless you want to do filler stuff again). And a lot of the Quest Songs aren't that catchy anyway.

This is getting pretty long, but I have to comment on Majora himself. Most Zelda games have Ganon/Ganondorf being an evil guy who wants the Triforce, but the games that don't have ol' Ganny have villains with similar goals... except Majora.

Majora is a twisted demon who wants nothing more but to amuse himself by destroying the world with it's own damn moon. Like Kefka from Final Fantasy VI, these villains are fun to see because they are the most interesting.

Overall, I feel that Majora's Mask is an excellent Zelda game and deserves more love from the fans of the series.

Well, that's it for now. I probably have a lot more to say about these games, but I don't want to bore everyone with my ramblings. Tune in next time when I talk about the rest of the Zelda games, and my thoughts on the future of Zelda games.