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Move Over Nostradamus

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Most people would believe that the experts on seeing into the future would be the fortune tellers in A Link to the Past or Ulrira from Link’s Awakening. However, players of the game who actually believe this malarkey are quite incorrect. It’s not that the fortune tellers and Ulrira don’t see in the future nor that they don’t do a particularly good job; no, they’re just what the doctor ordered when the warrior doesn’t know what to do next, and their advice about the future is worth its weight in rupees. The problem is, however, that they’re simply just not the best at it.

The true masters of the future and beyond are none other than the Bombers Gang. (Who’d you expect? Tingle?) The notebook that each of the Bombers carry is the proof in the pudding. Without their illustrious notebook, how else would Link have figured out just how to reunite Anju and Kafei? Just meeting someone told you whether or not that person needed help, even if they didn’t have the pride to say so, as well as precisely when he or she would need help. Even better, the Bomber’s knew about the upcoming destruction of Hyrule; their notebook had the next three days labelled “1st,” “2nd,” and “Final,” which tells us players that the Bombers Gang is a special cult for mediums and seers into the future. “There must have been some magic in that old notebook they found / for when they placed it in their hands, all the words just danced around.” (Sorry, I began writing this article well before Christmas, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to parody a carol!  🙂 )

We all know that 2006 is going to be an exciting year for the gaming community. The XBOX 360 is already out, and we should be seeing Sony come out with the PS3 as well as Nintendo with the Revolution sometime this year. This year we’ll see the first anniversary of the new fight between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. And there’s also the promise of Twilight Princess coming out, so us as Zelda fans should be really pleased.

So I couldn’t help myself. I loaded up Majora’s Mask again. I had to see what the Bombers had to say about 2006. Unfortunately, all their book said was stuff about Anju, the Rosa Sisters, and *shudder* ???. I went to go yell at the Bombers for the obvious oversight in their notebook, but all they wanted to do was use a peashooter to pop a balloon and play hide and seek. So maybe the Bombers aren’t that great. Who needs those jerks anyways? 🙂

So I made my own OMG SUPAR 1337 NOTBUK!!!!1111sixty and put down a list of predictions for the future.

I’m sure many of you will disagree with many of the things I’m going to go out on a limb with, and I realize that this post is very much speculation. Just take into account that I’m not as good as the Bombers are!

PS3

Yes, I know I’m talking about a non-Nintendo thing, but let’s face it; no matter how far removed Nintendo is from the competition, Sony and Microsoft affects what will happen with Nintendo. So…

  • In March, the PS3 should come out in Japan, achieving their expected launch date for spring 2006 (even though March is still mostly winter, but I won’t even get into that one).
  • Sometime in Q3, UMD sales will begin to fall. Yes, I know that so far 8.2 million UMDs have been bought since the PSP came out; when you compare that number with the 15 million DVDs the movie The Incredibles sold just in the first half of this year, not to mention the rest of the movies on that list in addition to that, I honestly do not think that UMD can continue being sold separately from DVDs, especially at the ridiculous price they’re being sold at not to mention the gradual reduction of cost of both DVD players and portable DVD players. (I got one for Christmas this year; it only cost $60 after rebate.) However, if Sony begins selling UMDs along with DVDs, even if it costs $5 more, then UMD will be able to do well.
  • Sometime in Q4, my guess is November, the PS3 will finally be released State-side. Unknown when it will hit Europe, but if they’re having a three-quarter difference in releasing it in Japan and the US… sorry, Europe. Looks like 2007 for you. As far as a price point, it would be smart for Sony to hit US$350, but I don’t think they can considering how much new hardware they’re floating; they would easily lose money on the console. (However, it’s been done before.) Look for it to be $400 at the very least, more likely $450. $500 is also a possibility, but I wouldn’t expect it to be more than that.

XBox 360

  • Q1 will see the 360 getting back on its feet after initial problems with manufacturing, distribution, and quality control. The 360 will be a hot item regardless of shortages and overheating problems, so don’t get your hopes up for Billy-boy going down just yet. Once version 1.1 comes out, what should have been the initial adoption wave in November and December will take place a few weeks afterwards. Sales will probably be down late in Q1 as the price will remain high after the “first wave” and well into the year.
  • Beginning in April, begin looking for signs of a second wave of gamers. Since the US$299 and $399 prices are pretty high, it’ll take a bit of time before the not-so-hardcore gamers adopt it.
  • If the end of Q2 is good for Microsoft, then Sony should be concerned; if the 360 isn’t adopted well, Sony will have a good future. Pretty much, this is the Go/No-Go gate for Microsoft and Sony. I believe that this generation will work a lot like the PS2/XBOX generation; one will do extremely well, while the other will only do moderately well.
  • Look for Microsoft to drop the price of the XBOX 360 by $20-50 when the PS3 comes out late in the year.

Revolution

  • Expect Nintendo to publish small tidbits of information in February or March. They need to keep the hype for Revolution high through Q1 since 360 is already in the marketplace. In fact, I would expect a better grasp of the release date and/or the final name to be revealed in this timeframe.
  • This one we know; in May, Nintendo is doing something exciting at E3, and they’re not telling us what. They’re pitching this well in advance, so who knows what’s up with it. We know that they’ll be promoting some super-secret feature about the Revolution. What that is, who knows?
  • Personally, I’m figuring that Nintendo might pull a fast one and go for a worldwide release of the Revolution come Q3. I would expect September, possibly October. They’ll already be behind Sony in Japan, but Nintendo is second there already, so that isn’t much of a threat; however, doing this would 1-up the PS3 here. If Nintendo did that and 360 does well, Sony could be in major trouble, especially if Revolution’s price point is low, especially considering this non-scientific poll. The lowest it could possibly be is US$100, but I don’t believe it will go for that. I predict $150 with a maximum of $200.

Nintendo DS

I’m not expecting anything major to happen to happen in DS-land, but I reckon we’ll get a couple of things going:

  • Come late Q1 or early Q2, I think you should expect to see a new color DS come out. So far, we’ve got silver and blue along with aqua and red being part of package deals. I’d jump out and guess that we’ll see a forest green one, but considering the colors they choose tend to be colors I don’t want, maybe we’ll see orange or yellow!
  • I think by the end of Q4, the DS will experience an advent in gaming. I think you’ll start getting a good number of heavy-hitting RPGs for the DS, and I’d also look for a lot of online Wi-fi games to come out as well. I think DS will enjoy a great Christmas season.

The Legend of Zelda

  • We’re still in limbo on a date, it seems. I expect this to be banished early this year. Expect by the end of February to hear a final release date (or at least a target month) for Twilight Princess.
  • When do I think it’s going to come out? April or May. Reggie is saying April, but I think there’s a chance that they’ll hit after E3 since they can generate a lot of easy hype at the conference. As usual, the price will be the standard game price, US$50.
  • At E3, expect to hear something about the next Zelda game after Twilight. My hunch is that it will be for the DS. Expect them to be mum about a Zelda for Revolution.
  • If they announce a Zelda for the DS at E3, I reckon a good release date for it would be November or December.

Tingle

You might notice that everyone’s favorite evil “Sith Lord” doesn’t have anything scheduled for this year. That’s because I’m predicting that Twilight Princess will not have Tingle anywhere within it. I also don’t expect to see the Tingle RPG released State-side; that’ll be a Japan exclusive. Now they may include Tingle on a DS title, and I’d give the odds about 50-50, but being that I’m wary about that even coming out in ‘06, well… we’ll see…

That New Hyrulian Math

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All right, class, I know you’re going to hate me for this, but put away your textbooks, get out your quill and roll of parchment, and number your paper one through four. It’s time for a mathematics pop quiz. Ready? No? Well, suck it up and here we go:

  1. For a child under the age of 15, what is 99 + 1?
  2. For an adult, what is 200 + 1?
  3. For a Goron, what is 500 + 1?
  4. (Extra credit) If everyone in the world lives in caves, how much is 255 + 1?

Time’s up! Let’s see how you did. If you got 99, 200, 500, and 255, you get an A. Missed one? That’ll float you a C. Worse than that? You’re telling me some of you failed this thing? Oh come on now, this quiz is easy. None of you should’ve failed this! This is Hyrulian Mathematics 101! Well, I guess you all need a review, so let’s start with a story problem.

Let’s assume that ® is the symbol for rupees. Now, child Link is wandering through the forest with 99® in his wallet. He finds a green rupee on the ground and picks it up. How many rupees does he have now? If you said 99, you’re spot on. 99 + 1 = 99.

Not fair, you say? Trick question, you say? You bet.

The wallet systems throughout the Zelda games have never been perfect, although the further back you go, the better they were. It’s almost disheartening to say it, but the economic system of the original Legend of Zelda was one of the best economic systems I’ve seen in Zeldadom. The number of things up for sale that need to be purchased to beat the game—all of which at varying sale prices based upon locale, no less—is sufficient to teach the value of saving money to a child. The cheap shields are on the other side of the map and cost this much, but the more expensive shield is much closer. Is it worth the trek to the other side of the map? You bet. Back then, with a limit of 255® (minus the rupees you plan to use for arrows), you had to be thrifty in everything you did. You have to save up for that ring (which set you back 250 dead kings). You had to shop around to find the goods at their cheapest values. You had to find the ubiquitous old man when he was in a good mood (not when he was demanding payment for door repair—ahem, what door? I burned a BUSH to get in.). You had to get those double-shot life potions from time to time. You had to go rupee farming over in the graveyard constantly. And you had to keep a good nest egg around for that bow of yours.

I make it sound really bad, but don’t take this for criticism. Part of this had to do with the technology back then. Back in the days of yore when Billy-boy thought 64K of memory ought to be enough for everyone (ha!), every byte of space was valuable. They couldn’t waste valuable disk (or cartridge) space . For those wondering why the magic number was 255, it’s the maximum number you can represent in a byte of memory, namely 28 – 1. They had to be so stingy with memory that they couldn’t spare a second byte for money… or even another byte for arrows! Two hundred fifty-five rupees ought to be enough for everybody! (Thankfully, we can all agree today that gigabytes are wonderful creatures.) But beyond the techy mumbo-jumbo, gamers ate this up. It was a challenge, not needless scavenging. There were areas of the game that dropped tons of rupees, and all one needed to do was get there and begin hacking monsters. Most of the time, you didn’t have to worry about it, but when you just died AGAIN in Level Six and needed another potion, well, being broke hit you hard.

Link to the Past upped the ante to 999® (the interface being limited to three digits), and this pretty much was sufficient until you were going to the Fountain of Wishes to get more bombs and arrows. After all, elsewise the nastiest purchases (for savvy shoppers, of course) were the Zora’s Flippers at 500® and maybe a few blue potions, and those purchases never overlapped one another. Link’s Awakening, however, sucker-punched us when we had to buy our own bow for 980®. It was painful when, in the middle of a dungeon, you reached the 999-marker before buying the bow. All those extra rupees in the treasure chests were wasted until you got out to get it. Of course, you could bypass the whole rupee problem and pilfer the bow, but no one likes a thief, you dirty, rotten, lousy bow-stealer.

However, Link’s Awakening only pulled that trick once. The real “tragedy” was when Ocarina came, and along with it for the ride was the most atrocious monetary system ever in the Zelda empire, the 99-200-500 system. I have yet to figure out just why they thought this was a good idea, and I have two reasons for my confusion.

First, let’s assume that our wallets are NOT bags of holding. (Sure, Link does carry a lot of stuff behind his back. But bags of holding implies Infinite Rupeeland exists, but since 99 < ∞ even in Hyrule, well… you get the idea.) Now imagine plucky young Link wandering around with his 99® wallet, and he goes around collecting nothing but green rupees. He gets 99 of those crystally thingies in a bag, and that’s it. That’s all the wallet can hold. (Let’s not even go into the physics of how big that bag would be, much less how big the Goron wallet would have to be. We’re pretending.) Now, Link then replaces each green rupee in the wallet with a blue rupee? Contents of the bag? 99®. Wait… what? Yes, ninety-nine rupees of beer in the bag, ninety-nine rupees of beer. You put one in, shake it around, ninety-nine rupees of beer in the bag. The extra is completely gone. This doesn’t even begin to consider what happens if I shoved in the red, purple, silver, or gold rupees scattered throughout Hyrule. This wallet will not hold more than 99 rupees, and the leftovers? The elusive, invisible, and invincible Wallet-Monster eats everything beyond that. (Now THAT is something Ganon could take over the world with!)

Second, and this carries off of the first point, what in the world do we honestly have to buy anyways? The biggest purchase we have to make in the game is the Hylian Shield at 80® (less with the discount). Unless you’re Crocodile Hunter Skulltula Hunter, you still have the 99® sack at that point. That’s nearly your life savings to date in one shot! Then you get the 200® bag later after you’ve bought the shield, most likely after Dodongo’s Cavern, and then you’re living high on the hog. But what do you do with your rupees then? You don’t have to buy your tunics (those are free); Deku sticks, arrows, and bombs are a-plenty… The only purchasable commodity you have to worry about are potions… and guess what, they supplanted that with free fairies. Back in LttP, you had a choice; either you get your auto-life fairies for seven hearts only, or you shelled out the money for a full-life (or full-everything) potion. By a show of hands, who here has ever bought a red potion in Ocarina or Majora? Those of you who have, how stupid did you feel when you realized you were getting ripped off? I rest my case. Even if you HAD bought a potion, the blue ones are a mere 60®. That ain’t gonna break the bank. Simply put, you don’t need money after the Hylian Shield. So why bother upgrading it… or even limiting it to 99® in the first place?

Wind Waker was slightly less a disaster, yet it was bad nevertheless for an entirely different reason. This time, the economies of scale tended to mess up players. Instead of 99-200-500, you had 200-1K-5K, but for those of us who didn’t immediately go for both wallet upgrades at the beginning of the game (and thus capped ourselves at 200 or 1,000® for a prolonged amount of time), when we get Tingle’s final tab of 3,385® (that’s 398® for each of the 8 Triforce maps plus the 201® C.O.D. charge for his IN-credible Map, all of which highway robbery), players can’t afford the bill, and so they have to go farm the islands for rupees when they could have been collecting them the entire game. You rarely see the 5K® mark as is in the game (all because of that greedy son of a fairy), and so what is the point of the 200- and 1K-rupee bags? They’re wastes of disk space, especially considering the prevalence of the blue 5s, yellow 10s, and red 20s in the game. Two hundred rupees is NOT difficult to come across.

When you add to this system with the fact that there are no banks, no savings accounts, no cashier’s checks, no credit cards, no debit cards, and no checkbooks… Link’s retirement will be forever linked to the poor house. (Yes, I know Majora had a bank. How many times did you accidentally Song of Time back to day one without saving your rupees in the bank? Thought so.)

Wallet upgrades need to be abandoned. Simply put, they’re illogical, inconvenient, and can easily be replaced with a more thorough economy system (a la 500-rupee Zora Flippers). While I hate to say that the only games that did a fine job of nailing this were the earliest Zelda games (and the Capcom titles, even more painstaking to admit), reverting to that system would be better than what we have now. Better yet, don’t cap us at some rupee limit that’s easy to get to.

Next week, class, I will teach you how to complain to your parents that your allowance isn’t enough.

Tri The Force, Luke

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With the exception of the Four Swords series and the more tangential Zelda games (like Awakening and Majora), the centre of the Zelda universe—the common bond (aside from Link) that ties everything together—of course, is the Triforce. You’ve got three sacred equilateral triangles of pure gold, but that’s not the big part of it.

Tingle RPG, Wherefore Art Thou?

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It seems that in the Zelda world, there is always something going on. In the past few weeks, there have been a bit of a slow down in news, a slow down to a stop. This is mainly because of the news we’ve been getting about the Revolution, and the fact that no Spanish websites have made up any news yet! However, this article will be discussing the Tingle RPG.

So, Tingle RPG, wherefore art thou? You seemed to have appeared briefly, once, in Famitsu, and then you seemed to die away. This makes me sad. I like to know about games like this, even if it is only for a second. I mean, seriously, there are some things about games that many people don’t ever know about. Yet, with the Tingle RPG, the entire planet knew for a few days and then you seemed to drop off the face of the Universe.

If you do a search for Tingle RPG, you’ll get next to no new information (you’ll also see Rauru’s Return in Sixth place!). If you go to Nintendo Japan, and try and wade your away through the masses of foreign information on the website, there will be nothing new there either.

Am I alone in wanting to know what’s going on with this? I have predicted for many a month now, that the game will not be released outside of Japan, as it’d fail miserably. However, the fact that there is no news at all makes me feel like they’ve stopped production of this game. If this is so, then why have they not announced it? Furthermore, why have they not attacked us with more information if it is coming out? Famitsu tends to be great with information like this; after all, they were the people that told us about the Pikmin E-Cards.

I don’t know to be honest with you, this does not seem like a promising sign to me at all. As much as a loath the idea of cheapening the Zelda series like this, I’d like to see more information about its cancellation or creation. Silence is just the worst.

Most Famous (Infamous) Dungeons

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Ocarina had it, Waker didn’t have enough of it, and fans can’t get enough of it. No, I’m not talking about being free of Tingle! I’m talking about dungeons! Not surprisingly, the dungeons are the life-blood of the Zelda games; they’re the parts that make us rack our heads about how to get onto the other side of that locked door… or how to climb up to that cliff. They’re the most challenging part of the Zelda game. Yet interestingly enough, they’re often the least talked about parts of the game. Everyone talks about timelines and shipping and blah blah blah blah blah. All of that is the speculation stuff. The most we ever talk about dungeons is the occasional Internet poll of “which dungeon do you like best?”

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and take a look at some of the most interesting, the most original, the best designed, and yes, the most evil dungeons out there.

  1. Deadliest Dungeon—Level Six, LoZ: Move over Shadow Temple. For those of you old-schoolers and for those of you who got to torture yourselves over the Collector’s Edition, you know precisely what I’m talking about. This dungeon had you restarting over and over and over again the first time you played it, and even after the first time, it’s no walk in the park. Wizzrobes (especially the blue variety) back in the day were tough as nails, nothing like today’s variety (they just don’t make enemies like they used to), and getting past them was a feat and a half, even with your obligatory 68-rupee red potion! The runner up, as I’m sure those who’ve played it will agree, is the Great Palace from AoL; those who’ve managed to see the end of AoL are quite possibly some of the most dedicated Zelda fans.
  2. Most Convoluted Dungeon—Ice Palace, LttP: This dungeon is the deepest dungeon in Zelda history at an impressive seven basements. What would seem like a straightforward plunge into the earth, however, gets complicated as you have to backtrack from B4 back up to B1 just to get the boss key, and then later from B6 back up to B4 back down to B6 just to get to the boss. (Of course, you could cheat and go to Misery Mire first to get the Cane of Somaria, and most players did, but they killed off that shortcut in the GBA version, forcing you to take the long way around.)
  3. Most Confusing Dungeon—Level Nine, LoZ: Very few dungeons in the history of Zelda have teleporters that warp you all over the map; fewer still strictly rely upon this for the difficulty of the dungeon! In Nine, you have no idea where you are, even if you’re lucky enough to have found the map of the dungeon. Tied for this is Level Nine of LoZ’s second quest which has so many one-way doors, invisible doors, and sometimes both that you’ll start testing each of the four walls the moment you enter a room.
  4. Most Unique Dungeon—Stone Tower Temple, MM: Just when you think the dungeons of Majora couldn’t get any more messed up, halfway into the final dungeon, the dungeon flips upside down, and you find yourself walking on the ceiling with the sky below your feet. The strange sights are enough to give you a sense of vertigo, especially when you have to flip the dungeon several times to make your way through, not to mention getting the illustrious 15th fairy.
  5. Most Beautiful Dungeon—Forest Temple, OoT: If you’re like me, the moment you stepped into the interior courtyards of the Forest Temple, your eyes went all aglow with the marvelous wonders you found there. It definitely was a magnificent sight, and the fresh green grass and ivy-covered stone walls allow the fiercest of heroes a chance to take a break, pull out his picnic basket, and take a well-deserved rest.
  6. Cruelest Dungeon—Spirit Temple, OoT:MQ: Master Quest had a good couple of tricks up its sleeve when you start traversing the dungeons through an entirely different path than you ever thought possible, but the worst part of all is when you’ve finished the child-half of the temple, gone through half of the adult-side, and then you step on a switch that causes a treasure chest to appear through a hole that only child Link can go through. If this were a high school reunion, this version of the Spirit Temple would easily win Dungeon that Made Link Travel the Furthest.
  7. Most Innovative Dungeon—Mermaid’s Cave, OoA: The dungeon was neat because it was broken into two major sections, but unlike other two-part dungeons like LttP’s Ganon’s Tower, this one spanned time. You had to have two keys to open up the two halves, and you couldn’t fully explore the present half of the dungeon until you activated some trigger in the past. Sounds like messing with the mind of the guy in Ocarina’s windmill, eh?
  8. Most Annoying Dungeon—Jabu Jabu’s Belly, OoA: Many people would claim that the Water Temple from Ocarina was worse, but make no mistake about it. (Don’t worry; we’re saving the Water Temple for later!) At least controlling the water level in that dungeon could be done by cycling through several areas of the dungeon. In this dungeon, not only was the water level NEVER at the right spot, but there was a single room that provided the master controls to playing with the water, meaning that you went through the five or six rooms just before the master control room thirty or forty times just to find what you were looking for. Talk about annoying! Just as annoying as that Evil Purple Dinosaur of Doom.
  9. Dungeon with the Biggest Puzzle—Earth Temple, WW: Despite being underground, light still managed to find its way into the deep crevasses of the Earth Temple. Of course, it quickly became a recurring theme, and light was needed just about anywhere Link could possibly shine it—that is, Link or Medli could shine it. The final mirror room forced Link and Medli to shine a beacon of light off of about 10 mirrors just so that a single door would open, and often Medli would need to stand in one place, shine light off of her lyre, and then have Link redirect it to where it was needed. That’s a puzzle!
  10. Most Hated Dungeon—Water Temple, OoT: I’ve never personally understood the hatred most players carry for this place, but I think a lot of it has to do that the dungeon design was fundamentally different from any other dungeon in the past; you had to think completely in 3D. Narrow vertical shafts carried Link between multiple floors, and the most likely way to find yourself in a random room was to tunnel from above or below to get to it. It is easily the dungeon that has extracted the most ire from all of the Zelda games combined.

Well? What do you think?

Or Will Darkness Reign

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There’s been a lot of speculating and postulating about the plot of Twilight Princess over the past few months. Back at E3 2005, we found out a huge bit of plot about what’s going on in the state of Hyrule during Twilight, but surprising as it may be to say it, that only brought more questions than answers. We know about the Twilight Realm slowly eating away at Hyrule, and we know about Princess Zelda cloaking herself in her funeral shroud warding away the poisonous air, but why is Link able to survive it? What magic is causing this to happen? Why is this happening? And just how are we going to turn back the tide?

We are even fortunate enough to know the tentative placement of Twilight in the overall timeline—should you happen to believe in timeline stuffs. It’s supposed to go after Ocarina and Majora yet before Wind Waker. As everyone who has played the game knows, between these two points in time, all Evil Realm breaks loose, and Hyrule is locked away, the Great Sea filling in above it. Thus, many speculate, it makes sense therefore that Twilight is supposed to end with this inevitable result that the hero will fail in his quest, that evil will win the day, and Hyrule will flood in the final moments of the game.

Could this possibly happen? Are we going to see tradition broken where the hero finally loses?

Before I try to answer that question, let’s take a good look at the context clues, shall we?

Everyone who knows Zelda at all should remember the E3 2004 video which held those memorable words, “Blades will bleed. / Shields will shatter. / But as the light fades… / Will the hero rise again? / Or will darkness reign?” A year and a half ago, when this video came out, the images of these words flashing across the screen were quickly dismissed as a needless pontification. I’m sure most video game titles somewhere—whether in its game trailers, box text, manuals, strategy guides, you name it—inserted one of those phrases doubting whether or not the protagonist would live through the game. You know, something like, “OMG! The land is in trouble, and it is up to you, TEH HERO! Should you fail, the world shall perish!!!111one” Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

Yet over a year later, everyone is now looking at these phrases in an entirely new light. This month’s issue (Dec 2005) of Nintendo Power has an interview with Takumi Kawagoe, the man responsible for many of the preview trailers for Nintendo. When questioned about the plot of Twilight, he answered, “…[N]otice that we dwelled—at just the perfect moment—on the gloomy image of Princess Zelda? Her dark melancholy is just as essential to the game experience. Personally, I hope that Zelda will liven up and regain her cheer by the end of the game, but I suspect that it may not be in Hyrule’s destiny this time around” (70). What wicked webs we weave; just reading those words are enough to send chills through my spine. The imagery here is so doom and gloom, and there is such a foreboding of failure in there; it’s almost scary to think about it.

So it’s really easy to see where the argument is coming from. The PR machine is in full force at Nintendo, placing this dark theme in the game, chugging away with the whole fatalistic ending, reinforcing it at every turn, and that should be the all the proof we need. Or is it?

Despite all of this, however, I think a lot of this is pure PR, plain and simple. I’m going to go out on a limb today with a prediction, and you can all hold this over my head come spring. (If I’m wrong, I’ll quit Zelda Blog you’re more than welcome to come back at me with all the I-told-you-so’s that you can hurl, and I promise I won’t shy away from them either!) Be it known that I do not believe that this game will turn out in such a way; I believe that Ganon(dorf) will once again be defeated and will have to go back to the drawing board once again.

“Why do you believe that, TML?” I hear you cry, to which I respond, “Quiet, you whippersnappers! I was about to explain myself already!” (Ahem.)

TML’s memory isn’t exactly the most efficient machine out there, but some days it works like a steel trap. I had thought I’d remembered a little titbit of information from a while ago, and after a little research, I found the very gem that I was looking for. Just before E3, 1UP posted an interview between Eiji Aonuma and a staffer at EGM, and they discussed the issue of light and dark in Twilight:

EGM: How would you describe this Zelda in relation to the others, besides just “realistic”? Will it be a darker game?

EA: What part of the game demo made you think this might be darker?

EGM: Well, it was more of an impression left by the two trailers. Like the dungeons, or where it’s in the woods, it’s raining and Link is fighting those Skeletal [sic] animals. And just the realistic graphics alone might make it seem darker or grittier…

EA: Actually, that’s not what this game was intended to be. In order to show good-looking bright action, we needed to feature darker aspects, to highlight—literally highlight—the lighter portions. That’s simply because the people [who chose what to put in the trailer] tended to choose the darker areas, and maybe as a result people have the impression that this is going to be a darker game.

EGM: So if it’s not “darker,” what words would you use to describe it yourself?

EA: [Long pause] It’s very hard to say. We’re not trying to make it a very dark game, despite that impression, but we are trying to create a big contrast. For example, it should sometimes be very dark, and other times very bright, so people can enjoy the sheer contrast. And as for the emotions, sometimes people will feel very sad, and sometimes very happy. Those kinds of contrasts are something that I always try to incorporate into a game. Unfortunately, there’s no one appropriate adjective yet. As always, we’re trying to make it a very mysterious game. And now that we’re going to make it photorealistic, I think that can intensify the mystery. (¶ 3-8)

There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth. Aonuma says that the game is dark, but not disproportionately so from the Zelda norm that we’ve grown to love over the past years. The only reason we get this impression of fatalism on Twilight’s part is from the trailers. Guess where our two previous quotes came from? The first was inserted into the trailer itself; the second was a quote from one of the very people who worked on the trailer. Coincidence? I think not.

So we’ve debunked the chance that these are guaranteed insights into the game, but the fact that the timeline still places us smack dab in the middle of Ocarina and Waker is still potentially troubling. Fear not, for I’ve got another trump card to play on this one. The opening scene to Wind Waker tells of the time period in which Twilight Princess is supposed to fall. Waker tells us that “…a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom. / The great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero / …once again crept from the depths of the earth, eager to resume its dark designs. / The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. / …But the hero did not appear.” Aonuma, now at the pilot’s seat for the Zelda series, is a stickler for timeline concerns; he’s the guy that wants to unite the Zeldaverse behind a single timeline, so if we’re at the point where evil has to win in Twilight, why then do we have Link? Sure, we can reason that perhaps Link isn’t the Hero of Time in this game, or perhaps the legends of the past have been twisted and distorted over the years, but I really don’t think that’s the case here. We’ve know that Link will make a valiant effort in beating back the Twilight Realm and that he’ll slowly restore more and more of Hyrule to its former glory late in the game, so it seems to me that Link can’t be completely disregarded in the legends. He deserves a mention, even if he failed. It wouldn’t be that “the hero did not appear,” but it would be that the hero appeared but failed in his quest. Aonuma, who values timeline, wouldn’t let a discontinuity as major as this slip past his radar screen.

Lastly, and here’s the killer question, are we as players honestly ready to have evil win the day? Given that the game is slated to be 70 hours in length, are we going to fight all this way, dedicate so much of our lives to this, and still be satisfied when, in the end, all of our work was for naught? Sure, such an ending would be an emotional experience, but, with a show of comments, how many of you actually come out of a movie ending with evil winning with this warm feeling in your stomach? Any time this happens, the first thought that comes to mind is that they’ll fix that in the inevitable sequel. Matrix Reloaded and (dare I mention it?) Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith both have sequels in which the plot inevitably ends have much brighter endings. Sure, we have Wind Waker to finish it off, but being that Twilight is supposed to be the “ultimate” Zelda experience, are we really going to be satisfied with Waker finishing off the legacy that this hypothetical Twilight would begin? Don’t get me wrong; I love Wind Waker. I merely find the thought of Twilight’s evil ending overshadowing the “good ending” of Waker a pinch irksome.

So there you have it, the case for a happy ending. I don’t think we’re ready for Ganon(dorf) winning just yet. However, do not misread what I’m saying here. Link or Zelda could very easily die in the last battle just after Ganon(dorf) is defeated or somewhere during the game; in fact, I would not be surprised were it to happen. Sure, the victory would be bittersweet, but it would nevertheless be a victory. I think, despite all the politicking that Nintendo is doing, trying to portray this darker element of Zelda, I don’t think we have to fear about the fate of Hyrule just yet. There may be moments of sadness or even tears coming out of Twilight, but I do believe that Ganon(dorf) won’t be as lucky as some of the pundits believe.

To RPG, Or Not to RPG?

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Aside from the never-ending shipping debates and the timeline debates, the biggest debate—what some would actually call… controversy… le gasp!—in the Zelda community is the whole concept of genre. It seems to be mankind’s incessant desire to classify things. From the whole taxonomy of life divided into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species (or as I like to remember, Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools) all the way to the strict divisions of books in bookstores, people like to classify things into categories. Perhaps this is because we like to figure out what items are similar to another item, making comparative shopping all the more easier. (It certainly does guarantee that you won’t get a romance movie for Christmas when you asked for The Lord of the Rings on DVD.)

The video game world is not an exception. We’ve got a strict separation of games into various genres, and those division lines define what a game is. I mean, we all know that all of the Mario Kart games are racing games, all of the older Kirby titles are platformers, Final Fantasy games are RPGs, and Halo is an FPS. Thus, if you’re looking for a game where you get to shoot people, all you need to do is look at all the games in the FPS genre and figure out which one strikes your fancy.

But there are games that defy that mold, games which begin to eat away at the system. Take Metroid Prime. Before Prime, Metroid games have been action games, and that was that, but Metroid Prime was unlike those. It’s very easy to tell that it’s an FPS; however at the same time, it displays the characteristics of an adventure game where you go to point A to get this item, then go to point B to get this. It’s not like traditional FPSes where you complete the missions from one area then go to a completely new map. So how do you classify Metroid Prime? FPS? Adventure? Well? The answer many people came up with was to call it a “First-Person Adventure” game, but there’s no other game in the world that’s called an FPA. “You can’t come up with this new genre thing!” the people cried. “It’s illegal! It’s criminal! Make it one or the other!” Yet despite people’s attempts to change the system, and even though Nintendo officially calls the game a “First Person” game, it is still an adventure game in its own right.

This brings us to the main event of the evening: The Great Zelda Debate (Controversy). In this corner, weighing in at a scream factor of 65 decibels, The Adventure Kid! And in this corner, weighing in at 64 decibels, RPG-Man! Now, you know the rules, keep it a clean fight, no flaming one another, no insulting anyone else’s mother. And… go!

Needless to say, the bloodbath would be incredible. The rules would quickly be thrown out, Nazis would be mentioned at some point, and all of this would somehow be blamed on George W. Bush. Dear goddesses, what have we just done? Have mercy on us, Din, Nayru, and Farore.

But let’s get serious here for a brief moment. (You know some humorous quip will leak out of me sooner or later!) What genre is Zelda? Adventure? RPG? Sadly, the answer to this one isn’t as obvious as you think.

Everyone knows about adventure games. Adventure games primarily focus on exploration of a world as well as solving puzzles. There’s also a big emphasis on story and the unraveling of that plot. It’s no doubt that the Zelda games (and Metroid Prime!) fall into this category.

Much of the problem in this issue, however, is that the precise definition of an RPG is… well… ambiguous at best. The origins of the term stem from the traditional, non-video game forms of the RPG, which may seem to help, but even that doesn’t provide a clear direction. Most people, when they think of traditional RPGs, immediately latch onto Dungeons & Dragons, and thus, all RPGs must pull elements from there, but as 8-bit Theatre has talked about, there are many, many other forms such as live-action role-playing (LARP), multi-user dungeons (MUDs), as well as about a thousand other varieties of the genre. So much for definitions. (Definitions are dumb, anyways. Or something.)

Because of this lack of a good definition, people made up their own, and those that have “defined” what RPG means categorize into one of two schools of thought:

  1. The Strict RPG School (Yes, I’m making these names up.) believes in a vary narrow definition of RPG; in other words, for a game to be an RPG, it must adhere to a very strict set of properties. The specific requirements vary, but almost always there is talk about some levelling system—where characters start at “level 1″ and progress to some “max level”, as well as some numeric quantifier of how “good” your character(s) are in different areas. (Oh look at me! I have 65 Strength! I have no idea what that means, but it’s better than your 64 Strength, so RAR! I am awesome and stuff!)
  2. The Liberal RPG School believes in a very loose adaptation of what an RPG is. Usually they go in and look at what RPG literally stands for. Thus, say them, any game where the player plays the role of any other character is, by definition, an RPG. Simple. Hasta lasagna, don’t get any on ya.

There’s virtually no middle ground on this one. You’re either one or the other. The problem is that both schools of thought have good arguments for their side… and they also both have good arguments against the other.

The argument against a strict view is based upon the meaning of the levelling system. The liberals believe that the concept of a “levelling system” is inherently abstract. In Zelda, you “level” from having only 3 hearts (a measure of health, mind) to having some maximum level of hearts when you’ve found all the pieces of heart and heart containers. What’s more is that items are inherently more powerful than one another, and while there are no visible numbers to define this, people generally figured out that the Fighter’s Sword of Link to the Past is precisely half as powerful as the Master Sword, a third as powerful as the Tempered Sword, and a quarter as powerful as the Golden Sword. Thus, every such game has a “levelling system”, even if there’s no “level 1″ ever found in the game text. Thus, there really is no strict viewpoint at all.

The argument about the liberal POV is that their version of what an RPG is is way too inclusive. By their argument, FPS games are RPGs because you actually take on the role of some character in the game. Imagine… Halo… an RPG! Surely those guys must be sipping a bit too much of the Chateau Romani!

So which side is “right”? Well, there is no answer to that. (Stop booing, guys. I’m not done yet!) Personally, I veer to a more liberal perspective on what an RPG is, but I can easily see the argument for a strict definition. They are both good definitions and reasonable points of view. So, let me pose a few probing questions:

  1. If Metroid Prime can be both an FPS and an adventure game, what prevents Zelda from being both an RPG and an adventure game?
  2. Does Zelda have to be one or the other? If Metroid Prime can be an “FPA” game, can’t Zelda be a unique category all to itself?
  3. If a tree falls on a mime in the forest, and nobody is around, does anyone care whether the mime believed Zelda was an RPG or not?

The answer to the debate inevitably lies within those three questions, and I personally think the last question is, quite honestly, the most telling of all three.

Zelda Cartoon – Don’t Hate It

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I don’t know about you but I was very excited when DiC, in conjunction with Shout! Factory, announced the release of the collectors edition DVD of the Zelda Cartoon. For years we’ve had to put up with shoddy, poor resolution videos and fake DVDs plus uAV Corporation’s staggered random episode releases. Finally the longtime fans of this series are getting what they deserve. Personally I can’t wait for my copy to arrive and I’ve already heard from some of my American friends that it’s been cleaned up very nicely indeed. Finally it means I can have a good quality section about the cartoon on my site with decent screenshots and media clips.

However what really gets to me is how many Zelda fans seem to hate this representation of Zelda. On so many sites it gets a small, but pathetic mention, slating it and only commenting on what ‘poor quality’ or how ‘dumb’ it is. I’ve even seen some people say they wish that it hadn’t been made. Some people just dismiss it and state that it’s not canon and act like it doesn’t exist, like some unpleasant memory that has to be buried and forgotten about. And fair enough. It wasn’t the best quality cartoon ever produced, but it IS a piece of Zelda history and I don’t think it entirely deserves the vicious slating that a lot of fans give it.

For example, fans complain a lot about how Link and Zelda are portrayed in the show. At the point in time when that cartoon was made, Link and Zelda were only a bunch of pixels anyway. They had no real back story other than the game manuals, nothing that defined their personalities. The cartoon, along with the accompanying Valiant comics and the Nintendo adventure game books allowed us to expand on our favorite duo a little more and enjoy further adventures Hyrule.

Okay, so Link is a bit of a jackass. His incessant chasing of Zelda and his trademark phrase of ‘Excuuuuse me, Princess’ is infamous and to be honest, if I look at most fifteen year old boys, the majority of them do act stupid and immature like that. Link is a hero, but of course, he’s still a young teen. Of course he’s going to act like one! And in typical 80s style, you nearly always had a character like that. Zelda’s portrayal was very strong – she was no damsel in distress at all, probably a tribute to other strong female characters of the 80s like She-Ra or Cheetarah from the Thundercats. She could hold her own with the Triforce and that magic bow of hers and you rarely saw her in a dress. And if Ganon loses points for not being scary and comedic; well again, look at 80’s cartoon villains. The vast majority of them were extremely camp and laughable – Mumm-Ra from Thundercats or Skeletor from He-Man anyone? Even Bowser, I recall, was pretty camp, although he used to scare me in the Super Mario Brothers games. I’m pretty sure Spryte was probably the inspiration for Link gaining a faerie friend in OoT and all the links were there to the games, especially regarding items and locations. A lot of the monsters starred in the various episodes and we got to see many of the items such as the magic ring, boomerang and the whistle.

It is also wide of the mark for fans to claim that this characterization on Link is ‘wrong’. Link has rarely had any personality whatsoever in the games. He is a blank canvas with little emotion or feelings who doesn’t speak or offer his opinion unless prompted. Because of this he becomes whoever the gamer wants him to be. DiC’s portrayal is only the idea of the writers who did the cartoon storylines and to be honest, because the trend for the way the characters act is similarly expressed in the books and comics Nintendo of America must have given some express permission for this. You may not like how Link is shown as a character, but it is no means incorrect. It is simply the writer’s idea.

If Nintendo hadn’t agreed with this, Zelda being their intellectual properly, if they thought it would ruin the brand, then why did they allow firms like DiC and Valiant to give their spin on the series? They were made to promote the games, much like the Super Mario Bros Super show was, or Pokémon did. True the show was sadly cancelled after only 13 episodes, but it doesn’t make it bad. It actually had a lot of potential but it was DiC’s choice to end it. Personally I think it was superior to the Mario Bros Super Show but then that’s just my opinion.

Another thing is that lot of people moan about the poor quality animation but if you look closer it’s not all that bad and a lot of the backdrops are very beautifully illustrated. Compare it to many other popular western cartoons from that period and the animation is no worse than any other show. You have to remember that at the time animation wasn’t as advanced as it is now and not only that, such a show would have had a very low budget; it was just a kid’s cartoon after all. Fans whine on and on about how they want to see an anime cartoon but in hindsight, was Pokémon really all that great? No, it wasn’t.

My real point is though, without the Zelda cartoon, me and my sister, and many other people, would not be massive Zelda fans today. Those so-called ‘stupid’ cartoons inspired me to write fanfiction for the first time ever, when I was just 12 or 13 years old. If I hadn’t watched that cartoon by chance one day during the school holidays, Adventure of Link would just have been another game that I enjoyed but didn’t really expand on. Because I saw that cartoon, Link and Zelda came alive for me, and I wanted to keep having more adventures in Hyrule, simply by writing about it.

That to me, is very important. Without that cartoon, I would not have sat down with Kirsty and written all those fanfictions that so many people have enjoyed over the years. There are so many game series that we loved more than Zelda, such as Ultima. But we didn’t sit down and write about them. We wrote about Zelda. And it was all because of the cartoon. Not because of the game. The game has never inspired me in the way the cartoons, comics and books did. My idea of Link, Zelda, Ganon and Hyrule all grew and expanded from this show. Of course future games would add to our creativity but go down to the very basic bones and it’s obvious from where the inspiration came from.

So in short, I think we do have some things to thank the cartoon for. I think fans should sit back and enjoy this piece of Zelda history. Not criticize and dismiss it. It is, after all, Zelda to me. I’ll never view the characters any other way.

The Legend of Zelda

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The Legend of Zelda, what does this name conjure up in your mind? Link? Zelda? Nintendo? A great game? A bad game? Or is it the franchise that you think of? Do you think of all of the many great games that been released across the two decade time-span? Does Ocarina of Time come before any other Zelda thought for you? If so, then you are not alone. Many people across the Zelda community think of this when they are trying to define what this is. However, this is not what I’m here to discuss.

No sir!

The Legend of Zelda, the very first Zelda game. In recent times it’s been overlooked, a little too much if you ask me. The Legend of Zelda may not have the best graphics in the world. The game may lack any castle, main village, hell, any village at all, standard NPCs. However, this is not a reason to pass the game up at all.

The Legend of Zelda is where it all started, and it’s going to be where it all finishes as well. Many of you may know that I have a real love for this game, just as I do for the Gizmondo, but that’s another story. Those of you who don’t you’ll soon find out why!

I joined Zelda when Ocarina of Time came out; I was a fan of Nintendo, because of Ocarina of Time. Before this point in 1998, I was a Sega fan. I had grown up on Sonic, Ecco and other brilliant Sega games. Yet, when I first played Ocarina of Time, I was blown away. There has never been another moment like that for me, save one. It took a long time for me to get over my love for Ocarina of Time, maybe I never will do. Although this does not negate the fact that when I first played The Legend of Zelda, the feeling of love came back to me.

The simplistic gameplay is a joy for me. There may be little plot to the game, aside from kill the evil ones. However, it’s still clear that it’s a Zelda game. It’s the first. You’ve got all of your enemies from Ocarina of Time; in fact, there are more enemies than in Ocarina of Time, such as Zola. You wonder around the overworld and see the graphics that you saw in the screen before you and think that the game is poor. However, when you get out of that mindset you realize how much of a good game it really is.

The Legend of Zelda is a lot harder than a lot of the modern Zelda games, significantly harder than Ocarina of Time. It’s a lot shorter, which is why it can be speed run by people like TSA in like 30 minutes. This does not mean that it’s not hard. Just to get to the first temple, Level 1, you’ve got to meet seven types of enemy. Seven! Many of them appearing on the same screen at the same time. You also need to kill each of these enemies so that you can supply yourself with arrows later on in the game, as your arrows are directly deducted from your overall rupee count.

Alone, this made me feel that The Legend of Zelda is a great game. But then we get to some of the enemies. Seeing Gohma in her first, crab like form, is amazing. This game may be second to last in most people’s timelines, but it’s sure easy to see the evolution of each main, recurring boss.

The Legend of Zelda, for me, is full of nostalgia. It’s full of what we should be focusing on. Creating quality games, to the best of our graphical, hardware and gaming abilities to date. Not any of this crap that we’re getting like Four Swords. But real games. Games that actually take time to master, games that are still played twenty years into the future. Not a mish-mash of games and reused sound clips.

If you’ve never played the game, get it in any way you can. Via the NES Classics collection, via the Collector’s Edition or via the first NES cartridge game. You’ll then see why I believe that this game is truly some of the best, and overlooked gaming of today.