Games – Page 2

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:

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!)
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:

If Metroid Prime can be both an FPS and an adventure game, what prevents Zelda from being both an RPG and an adventure game?
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?
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.

One Hundred

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According to a Japanese article, “between the single-player adventure and all of its hidden side-quests, there are over 100 hours of gameplay to be experienced. Also on the subject of size, it’s said that the game in general is much bigger than any Zelda before it. Finally, the article goes on to relay that the fresh and new gameplay mechanics introduced in Twilight Princess will set the benchmark for the next generation of Zelda” (emphasis mine).

If you remember, the last time we heard an indication of length, Aonuma guesstimated 70 hours. Whether his estimate was strictly storyline or included side-quest tallies as well, I can’t say for certain, but I think something interesting to point out is that, out of all the RPGs I have ever heard of (the only games that are typically measured in “hours”), I have never heard of any non-MMORPG lasting 100+ hours. (You all can correct me if I’m wrong, but even Final Fantasy X didn’t advertise that, and it was a huge game. Perhaps I’m trying to count my cuccos before their hatched, but I believe that this not only sets a benchmark for Zelda, it will set a benchmark for all RPGs to come.

A.S.S.A. – The Power Glove Conspiracy

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The following article is not for the light of heart. I’m warning you in this little blurb right now, so you don’t accidentally click the link and succumb to the horrors within. What I am about to reveal to you will be so shocking it will cause you to lie awake for hours questioning the very essence of Zelda itself. All because of this:

Those that are smart shouldn’t be reading this sentence right now. The rest of you have been warned.

As customary of A Somewhat Serious Article, I strive to bring out a point that no one else would care rupees about. But what I found not only startled me, it led me to question the very idea of how Link could save Hyrule.

Thus welcome to another Somewhat Serious Article, In this edition, I will be discussing THE POWER GLOVE CONSPIRACY.

Don’t blame me if you can’t sleep after this.

Behold the Power Glove. Thing of power and strength. It bestows its wearer with the strength of 500 Hylians. In “A Link to the Past” this glove is found in the second dungeon and allows Link to lift those huge green rocks that block his way.

Now I, like numerous Zelda fans before me, was completely engrossed in the game. Foolishly, I simply collected the glove and continued on, eager to show Ganon a bit of my pwnage skillz. It wasn’t until 6 years later that I finally realized the horrible truth.
Link only found ONE glove.

That’s right. On the screen, it says “Power GLOVE” singular. One glove, nothing more. Yet, walking out of that palace, Link picks walks right up to the closest green boulder and lifts it with BOTH hands.

Shocked yet? It gets much better. For those of you, who think Link is simply steadying the rock with his bare hand, try the following experiment:

Using an oven mitt, (Kids have your parents permission before you do this) walk to the closest bed you can find and lift it above your head just like Link does. Now steady the bed by just using your right hand and left thumb. Can you do it? Me neither.

Clearly, Link should be totally incapable of lifting something that huge even with the Power Glove. Overlooking this gross error, I decided to obtain the Titan Mitt. As I inched my way to through the dungeon, I hoped that this mitt would solve all the problems caused by the Power Glove. Instead it only made things much worse.

He only gets ONE mitt.

“But Darth” you say to your computer screen, “That solves the problem. He can wear the Power Glove on one hand and the Titan Mitt on the other. Quite, except for one problem.

They are both right handed gloves. It didn’t matter that Link has two gloves. Link is still forced to use one hand to lift all those boulders. Unless he turned one of the gloves inside out, which I’m sure would weaken him instead. But we’ll talk about that another time. The point is that Link, wearing only one glove Power or Titan, cannot lift those rocks. While he obviously does in the game, it is simply a gross error on the part of the programmers and game designers.

If Link in theory cannot lift those rocks, he can’t continue with his quest. Link would have never been able to travel to the Dark World. The Seven Maidens would have never been freed. Hyrule should have fallen into Ganon’s hands way before Ocarina of Time was made. All because Link found one glove instead of two, preventing him from ever entering Death Mountain.

I warned you this would scare you. If there is such a mistake with one item, what’s not to say there’s a mistake with other items? Is the Master Sword REALLY the sword of evils bane? Do Fire Arrows REALLY come from the sun? Does the Silver Scale REALLY let you stay underwater longer? And slowly the games begin to unwind themselves. The timeline is forever changed, and all hope of game continuity is lost.

Horrifying isn’t it? Everything you thought you knew about Zelda, fallen to absolute pieces. And don’t even get me started about this little picture from the Oracle Series: You Got The Power Glove Dialogue Box Zelda

So now you know the truth. Now you know the horrible secret of the Power Glove conspiracy. Everything you thought you knew about Zelda has been turned upside down. Something that no one else has ever seen has suddenly been forced into the light. And as the questions pour in; Nintendo can no longer deny this conspiracy. The kind of conspiracy you would expect, in A Somewhat Serious Article.

A Little Bit of Malon by My Side…

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<off -topic>
Of all the things that Zelda Blog was supposed to be, the last thing that I expected it to be was the inspiration for another website. What mayhem have I unleased now?
</off-topic>

Ocarina of Time is perhaps the most loved of all the Zelda series. For a lot of people, it remains the pinnacle of the entire series, the best that Miyamoto & Co. have so far provided. The bulk of the fanfiction that you find out on the web has its roots embedded in Ocarina, and most discussion of history has to include the game somewhere. It’s a general truthhood, a lot like Godwin’s Law, that the longer an online discussion about Zelda becomes, the greater the chances that Ocarina is bound to come up at some point.

The reasons that this game surpassed its predecessors—and overachieved its descendants—are so numerous that it would be virtually impossible to cover them all in a single blog post. Let’s face it; Ocarina was much different than its previous incarnations, and not just because of the 3-D world, either. Most of the reasons have a little bit to do with how much “disk space” they physically had. On the Nintendo 64, Nintendo had a little bit of breathing room (with regards to cartridge sizes) to really expand Hyrule as we knew it. They had the ability to put in a lot of story elements in-game (rather than within the manual) that were largely missing from the earlier Zeldas. Text was an expensive commodity before those days; it’s why we never found out in A Link to the Past that “Zelda is your… …” destiny, and it’s no wonder the original Legend of Zelda had such comments like “EASTMOST PENINSULA IS SECRET”. (At least we can say that it had better English that Zero Wing. Could you imagine it otherwise? The old man would be spouting off, “EAST LAND ARE TREASURE HAPPY”!)

But the advent of expanded text didn’t just bring about gallant strides in plot. Finally, for the first time, we had massive leaps in characterization of the NPCs. Before Ocarina, the only characters that truly were dynamic entities were Sahasrahla from A Link to the Past and Marin from Link’s Awakening, and some wouldn’t even count the first since technically he mostly only gave hints via telepathy. When Ocarina of Time came to the forefront, suddenly things were much different. You had tons of notable (and named!) characters, each with a very distinct personality. Most of the characters that were fleshed out were of the female variety, and it didn’t take the fans long to notice this, either. We can only be thankful Lou Bega didn’t come out with his smash hit a year earlier or all we’d ever have heard on the forums would be:

A little bit of Saria in my life
A little bit of Malon by my side
A little bit of Zelda is all I need
A little bit of Impa is what I see
A little bit of Fado in the sun
A little bit of Nabooru all night long
A little bit of Ruto here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man.

When fans weren’t having Link be the Don Juan with all the girls, the rest were arguing senselessly over who the best person for Link was. I actually remember a long time ago fighting in the trenches of the United Sageshipper Army. (That’s Link/Zelda, for those who haven’t heard the term.) Our enemies were the Ranchshipper’s Contingent (Link/Malon), and the ground in between was no man’s land, the place where explosive posts blew up, argumentative rockets were launched, and insults made out of barbed wire rested. Occasionally, you had a third party come in, ready to conquer the world, and for a single blessed moment, the two sides would sign a hasty peace accord, completely decimate the newcomer, and then North and South Vietnam were at it again.

Since then, I’ve grown up… a little bit. And I’ve learned from my mistaken ways. No longer is Malon the hated gal that she used to be. In fact, I see a lot of who I am embodied within Malon: passionate and dedicated worker, loyal and caring friend, idle dreamer, and a believer in true love. (Anyone who makes fun of me for that will get a nice one of these: ) You don’t even need to go all the way to the manga to see it (although it’s much more prevalent there).

But seriously, why is there all the hatred towards all the “competition” in the game? I will admit, not every girl is the ideal match for every fan. Even Miyamoto, perfect as he is, isn’t that perfect. Though I like Nabooru as a character, I certainly don’t see myself marrying a Nabooru lookalike; nevertheless, I’ve come to respect Nabooru as a character (and the entire Gerudo race as a whole, as well). Each character that has come to have a strong personality in the Zelda series, I think, has his or her definite good points and moments. Even Ganondorf has redeemed himself largely from his monologue at the end of Wind Waker. We can argue whether Zelda and Malon is a better love interest for Link until the cows come to Lon Lon Ranch, but with Link being rather secretive of his own emotions, with thousands of potential characterizations for Link, can there honestly ever be a distinct winner?

While shipping wars have long been a mainstay of the modern Zelda community and have been a small force in keeping the community active and interested, I think the time to bury the hatchet is long overdue. It’s not that we shouldn’t ever debate the issue, but I think all of us need to find out that it isn’t bad to have “a little bit of Malon by our sides.”

Who’s The Master Quester Now?

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As I sit here at my computer and I gaze over the lovely vision of all my games within about 10 feet of where I’m sitting, I can’t help but see my GameCube copy of Ocarina of Time. I suddenly remember that, yes, Virginia, there is another version of Ocarina. It’s the version that hardly gets any talk about it because, let’s face it, it wasn’t a new game for all intents and purposes. It was a remix in the classic sense of the term, a copy of an existing game with everything changed, throwing you for a loop in the process because nothing is the way you remember it. The experience feels like a warm blanket in its similarities, yet at the same time you feel as if the game has tossed you out of your house without your key on a cold winter night when you encounter one of those glaring differences.

I am going to be blunt on this one, because it deserves to be said: Master Quest did bring some nice curse words out of me, although it hardly held a candle to what Super Mario Sunshine managed to pull out of me. (My save file for that game has not one shine more than the minimum required to beat the game, and it will forever stay that way.) At every turn throughout Master Quest, whenever I managed to solve a puzzle, the thought once again came to me: “This isn’t how I did it back in Ocarina.” Of course, it was Nintendo’s every intention to do something so cockamamy backwards, but I was completely surprised at just how much they were able to change the game even though the dungeons were inherently the same maps, rooms, and layouts as its predecessor… just with a completely different set of physics. Yet in all actuality, the real mystery of Master Quest has very little to do with this but is something else entirely.

My roommate and I are very big fans of Zelda (even though we differ quite a bit in our taste for games). He started before me way back with the original Legend of Zelda whereas I started playing with A Link to the Past, but that’s still “way back then” to most people. We had a contest with each other to see who could beat Majora’s Mask first. (He won. Not that I’m bitter that he had more time to play. Cough. ) We both enjoyed Wind Waker. (I beat him hands down on that one. Ha!) And we still both maintain that Zelda was best “back in the day,” both of us quickly becoming the “old geezers” in our fandom.

We both know Ocarina of Time nails; when faced with the Shadow Temple, we could probably navigate it blindfolded, with one arm tied behind our back, without the Biggoron Sword either. Yet when it came to Master Quest, we were thwarted at every angle. For those who have played the game, I’m sure you’ll remember on B1 of the Deku Tree the room with the spinning spiked log hovering above a pool of water with a lone platform gliding across it at the water’s surface. The Ocarina answer is to swim in the water, duck down, and press a switch that will lower the water’s level sufficiently to allow you to safely pass under the log. In Master Quest the switch doesn’t do this; instead, it creates a chest which doesn’t help you. Yay. The answer to this one is a sneaky one; instead, you have to (gasp!) simply duck down as you pass underneath the log, and you’ll clear it without a problem. It took my roommate and I four hours to figure this one out. (He discovered it first, not yours truly.)

However I have another friend who didn’t know who Zelda even was until after meeting us in college. She was a late bloomer into the whole Zelda thing; she didn’t play Ocarina until 2003, several years after it was released in ‘98; were she were to play the game again, she wouldn’t remember very much about it. She can’t beat A Link to the Past, I can’t remember her ever actually completing Majora’s Mask, and Wind Waker took her a long time to finish. Nevertheless, her time spent on the above puzzle: two minutes.

We were shocked. And after the shock, we were embarrassed and shamed back to our rooms to pout for the rest of the night. (Pity us. We deserve it.)

As she progressed, we kept taunting her whenever she approached the “difficult” puzzles. Our friend proceed through each one of them without difficulty (even solving the easy puzzles in a much more elegant way), and in no time at all, she had reached the end of Master Quest. We just looked at each other, and we said, “Nuh uh! I never thought of doing the puzzle that way!” While I can’t be absolutely certain about it, but I would reckon that she spent less time on Master Quest than either of us did individually. In short, the masters of Zelda were both severely pwned… by a non-master. (It was perhaps more humiliating than the time I watched the infamous Super Mario Bros. 3 speedrun in 11 minutes… while the player collected 99 lives in the process.)

Looking back on this, I have to chuckle a little bit at the experience. Master Quest really is a game that is meant to play with our minds and really make us think outside the box. All those puzzles that we thought we knew? Surprise! Zelda takes on an entirely different definition of difficulty, and just when you think you’ve got everything Zelda solidly under your belt, the next time is likely to completely revolutionize the way you think.

Twilight Princess may not be designed like Master Quest was, but at the same time, I really look forward to seeing just how that game will change the whole dynamic of the Zelda experience and structure. We may think we “know” Zelda; we have yet to realize that we haven’t a clue.

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.