Just wanna quickly say that Louie is a menace and also one of the funniest characters I’ve ever come across simply by existing; me and a friend of mine found him and the face icons he has in the battle mode the funniest shit ever, and now that I’ve finally played and beat the game, I’m happy to say he’s just as deranged as I hoped him to be. His deadpan expression in the credits as he’s left stranded will never not be hilarious.

I think there’s no better way to see and understand just how much Pikmin 2 differs from the original than by just looking at how it handles the end of a day in both games:

In the first game, we are given a peek into Olimar’s thoughts thanks to its captain log, a collection of texts he himself acknowledges deep down may go unread by other eyes if he’s to fail in his mission, somber pieces that show glimmers of hope as he gathers more parts and discovers more and more about the fauna of this strange new world.

In Pikmin 2 we get a bunch of comical e-mails, most of them focused on the Boss’ misadventures escaping the space IRS and as he becomes friends with wild animals.

And I love both approaches almost equally.

2 may still revolve around having an army of 100 little aliens following you and most of the elements that it introduces and expands upon are from systems already present in 1, but as experience on its own, Pikmin 2 clearly strives for VERY different things than that of the first entry, things that distance it from the meditative and time-management experience that it once was and instead made a… I honestly struggled to find ways to exactly describe it, but I think the better term for it would be ‘’arcadie’’.

Pikmin 2 is an inherently ‘’arcadie’’ experience, more challenge based than ever and removing the external factors like the 30 day time limit and putting all lights on the core mechanics of managing the legion of these adorable colored aliens. A lot of the tension is gone, but at the same time is substituted by the challenges the caverns and even the surface holds… not that those some of those challenges are exactly great but ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh BOI we’ll get to that when we get to that.

I’m gonna be blunt, I fucking LOVE these ideas and this direction for a Pikmin sequel; I really thing you can’t exactly pull off the same thing 1 did without it feeling lesser or making both games less special by proxy, so instead… they didn’t do 1 again, and I really like that, furthermore, I commend the BALLS to have such a banger idea like that of Pikmin and pivot into a complete different direction tonally and structurally wise.

Hell, Pikmin 2 kinda fixes every single qualm I had with the original game! The flowers that once felt underused and a huge miss potential? Now they are a godsend, the only way to obtain other colored Pikmin in dungeons PLUS being the only source of both White and Purple Pikmin, which is also nice, considering how useful they are (specially the latter) and how it acts as a neat way of balancing and keeping the numbers of that Pikmin low, they may not outright fix just how powerful Purples are and how Whites are generally more useful than the three main types, but I like it! The bridges getting destroyed? Now it actually feels impactful, since they now act more as shortcuts than ever before and sometimes they are even mandatory pathways. And the Pikmin AI? THEY FIXED IT, SWEET MOTHER OF HOCOTATE THEY FUCKING FIXED IT. They still sometimes act dumb and get distracted even when it kills them BUT I DO NOT CARE, THAT’S PRETTY FUNNY AND NOW THE FRUSTRATING PART IS GONE; I lost like, 2 Pikmin to drowning in the entire game, and that plus the returning hazards being generally more manageable (emphasis on manageable) makes it feels far more lenient in that regard and eliminates the only enraging aspect I found in the first game, WE ARE SO BACK WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

And to be completely honest, even tho as I said I do like the e-mails and what they represent, hearing about the President and Olimar’s family wouldn’t be as cool if the Piklopedia wasn’t also on here. Reading through Olimar’s (and eventually Louie’s) thoughts about the creatures and objects they come across is such a interesting and cool evolution of the captain logs, while also functioning as a sort of easy tracker for completionist and perfectly fitting with the more laid-back tone. Plus, the text themselves are really entertaining, nothing’s better than reading of Olimar and Louie being a comical duo and seign this small fellas and the ship trying to make sense of common human artifacts, it’s a super pleasant experience to go through, just like some of the changes!

Gathering and farming Pikmin feels a lot faster and rewarding, the new sprays are amazing tools that make certain sections far more tolerable, returning to areas from the first game and see just how much they changed and how each basically represents one of the four seasons and they all feel equal in scale… I like these tweaks! Pikmin 2 doesn’t seem to me interested in introducing quality of life changes, but more so to accommodate for the treasure hunting and more linear gameplay of the caverns… or at least it tries to. Sometimes it succeeds, like in everything I just said up until that point but… I think it’s time… it’s time to be a meanie.

Pikmin 2’s pitch is incredible; like picture this: you can play as two captains, the world is now full of caves which are entire more linear gauntlets that test your Pikmin management abilities to your limits, and now there are more bosses, enemies, and surprises than ever on top of the normal surface exploration! Sounds like a killer game, and it would be!... But Pikmin 2 flounders in every single one of these aspects in some way or another, in a one step forward one step back kind of way, two in the worst of cases…

Having two captains sounds nice, and it kinda is. Like I said, we have Louie which is peak, and eventually we get to play as the President which is funny, and every single character gets his own whistle AND theme variations on top of the constantly changing music, which to me is insane and an amazing detail that elevates this game’s soundtrack to even greater heights. But… I don’t know, on the one hand is kinda nice to not have to go back to base change Pikmin constantly since you can do it with one while the other captain is exploring, but… it feels clunky? In 1, everything felt like constant motion, even during downtime, and even then, you could take those moments of waiting for Pikmin to bring back something or bringing down a wall to do some other stuff. Here, while a cool new addition, I feel like is doing the same we once did with extra steps. You still have to control manually each captain, and I think having at least one option to make a captain go automatically to a certain part of the map while you control the other could have been an incredible addition, ‘cause as it is it doesn’t feel satisfying, not I feel like the game itself uses it in interesting ways.

The tutorial leads you to believe that there may be times when both captains may be separated or may need to resolve puzzles together to progress, and the caves sound like a perfect opportunity to create that kind of challenge, right?!... I think that in all the caverns I completed, only one boss required me to use both captains, and it wasn’t a particularly fun fight either; and in the surface, I can only remember one cool puzzle that asked coordination of the dynamic duo, soooo… yeah… I think I spend like 75% of the game with the Captains together, and considering the potential of this idea, that’s a huge bummer, to be honest…

It's a weird thing ‘cause I don’t know if the problem resides in the game biting more than it can chew, or simply poor execution… That’s funny, now that I think about it, that could also be said about the caves and their relationship with the surface-OH NOES.

Listen, I like the caves… I think. Considering what this game is trying to be, considering its focus is found on endurance test and hunting for items and creating a cool recollection extravaganza, the caves are a no brainer. They can be fun challenges, it feels rewarding to grab treasure and clean rooms from enemies, it’s satisfying to complete them and overcome their challenges. The caves are fun, the caves are cool… SOMETIMES.

This game… this fucking game… it’s a fucking looney, to put it lightly. The caves don’t take prisoners, THEY DEMAND BLOOD. Every single moment of frustration that could be found in the original game PALES as the mere sight of three rock bombs falling at the same time while being chased by a Bluborb on flames, or at the avalanche of spiders that steal your items or carry more rock bombs, or the barrage of enemies in tight corridors that launch every projectile imaginable while you are surrounded by some of the most punishing hazards I’ve seen in a while (LOOKING AT YOU, ELECTRCITY), or better yet, everything I just mentioned at the same time while boulders are falling out of nowhere! What could be worse than thi- OH GOD NOT THE FUCKING FROGS

This game throws at you so much unpredictable bullshit at the same time at some point I began to wonder if I was going insane or if I was just bad at the game, but after the madness of the late game caverns I think it’s safe to say they went sicko mode in the worst way possible. Plus, every single cavern floor’s layout is randomly generated every time you load and for the life of me, I have no clue why. The enemies and treasures and always the same, yeah, but when you are met with corridors that let to nowhere and entire sections FLOODED with enemies, explosions, and impossible to reach treasures unless you have the exact number of Pikmin of one type, I couldn’t stop wishing that these were just either being manually designed or that the level generator was more even. It’s not like randomness gives interesting challenges to begin with, some even repeat in separate caves! Why would they do this?!

The caves can be fun, they have the potential to be fun, but when, most of the difficulty comes in complete and utter randomness and total bullshit that turns entire levels into a fucking stressful chore, by the end of it I wasn’t even feeling rage when a rock bomb fell just as I was sending my Pikmin to attack a wall, I just felt resignation. On top of that, the dungeons also make the world feel… smaller? In some of them there isn’t much constancy visually wise and because of the artificiality of the hazards and how every single time there’s a boss at the end, they feel more like stages than actual unexplored caverns. Even the one that feels unique, the Submerged Castle, is still plagued by the same random bullshit as the rest, so it isn’t even cool!... well, maybe a bit. It’s still fun to battle the Waterwraith, and so is encountering many of the other bosses, but in many cases, I feel like they turn what they should be special encounters into something more forgettable.

The Breadbug in 1 was a funny yet incredibly unique enemy that hold one of the optional pieces. In 2, they plague one of the dungeons, and thy aren’t that fun to deal with at all…

There’s so much missed potential with he caverns is honestly depressing, like how they bleed into the surface, not factoring into the time system at all and generating grind both at the beginning and SPECIALLY end of the game, and how that just makes you realize in some cases the best way to traverse them is to… not engage with them. Just make a run for the exit until you arrive at the floor you want to, just make a run for the treasure you missed on your first go…

The caverns can and should have been a standout of the game, a wonderful collection of challenges that showcase what kind of game Pikmin 2 is… and to my knowledge, some people really like them, and I’m glad it clicked for them, but to me, Pikmin 2 is a collection of amazing ideas gone down he drain thanks to poor execution. I actually hope to see them again and improved upon, ‘cause the potential is right there man, you just got to use it!

I haven’t even talked about how messed the balancing is now (my poor blues and reds… what did they do to you…), or how now enemies respawn faster than ever and some can even revive, or how as much as I respect the different tone I don’t really think it’s saying anything substantial, but honestly, I don’t think there’s much to get to aside from everything I’ve been yapping about…

Pikmin 2 still makes me smile, it has the core I love so dearly and some fun moments, it has the Bulbmin for crying out loud! But it also makes me sad, sad that it had such an amazing concept and made so many mistakes along the way, because that’s the thing; 2’s problems don’t reside in what it wants to be, hey reside in the execution and its conflict with man aging the openness of the surface and its own identity. It was to be both a brand-new entry while also not really committing to that, and I think I had that realization the moment I noticed many of the treasures are in the exact same place that some ship parts were in one.

It was to be Pikmin 1 on top of being its something, and when you throw that on top of the mistakes it already makes, the result is a game I wish had more confidence in balancing and committing completely into its new ideas.

Having said all of that I still maintain that I adore this cast of characters, seriously, these goofballs are funny as hell, and I wished I could see even more of them. But oh well, good thing Louie won’t show up again to commit even more deranged acts, right?...right?...

Skyward Sword on Wii was already one of my favorite games of all time. I now have no reason to ever touch it again.

Skyward Sword HD took a game that I loved despite its flaws and fixed everything I had an issue with. I've already done a lengthy review on the original game, so instead of repeating all of that, here are my impressions from the 39 hours I spent completing this remaster.

- Ghirahim is still my favorite Zelda villain. He's so deliciously camp.
- "Romance in the Air" might be the most beautiful bit of music in any Zelda game ever: https://youtu.be/T6x5bEr_UUU
- The resolution and buttery-smooth framerate take this game to a new level. I know Breath of the Wild 2 is gonna chug just like its predecessor, but it would be a TREAT to have all Zelda games in 60fps from now on.
- I still adore these motion controls. For whatever reason, they just click for me. Wish I could have 1:1 sword controls in every Zelda game, just like this one!
- The side characters are so good here. Meaningful, memorable interactions with NPCs make this such a fun world to be in.
- These are still some of my favorite Zelda dungeons, especially the ones in Lanayru.
- I really like returning to areas multiple times with different stuff going on. Seeing things change in an area is one of my favorite things in games, it makes the world feel more alive.
- I adore the Silent Realm challenges! A little bit of survival-horror in a Zelda game works really well. I recommend going for the difficult tears first just in case you get caught though, no need to ruin your whole run by saving the ones surrounded by floaty ghosts for last.
- Timeshift Stones are so rad.
- I liked the Demise fight much more this time than I did in 2011, but that might just be because I knew what to expect.
- I replayed BotW right before this, and that game really lacks an ending. In contrast, SS's ending is solid, probably right behind OoT.
- Fi is great, and it's much easier to appreciate her with the now toned-down number of interruptions.
- Bring back Scrapper!!
- My only real complaint is that I wish there were even more side quests, but if a game just makes me wish I could keep playing for longer, that's hardly a negative!

That was kind of word vomit, but I think that about covers everything. I love this game!

I played ds2 originally in 2017, so a lot of my memories from it were very blurry and incomplete. From my original playthrough i can honestly attest to not enjoying a single second of it. However, the general consensus seems to have changed, and suddenly this is the best game ever made. I decided to replay it with an open mind to see if theres something i potentially missed.

No, i was right. This game feels bad. Character creation is extremely limiting with basic things like hair, and im pretty sure they gender-locked certain options so if i wanted short hair i just had to roll with the anime Ellen Degeneres look.

Dark souls 2 has a very bland sense of style, ive always thought that every single thing from this game felt extremely generic. What if hollows just looked like basic zombies? What if the fire keeper looked like she got her outfit straight from Party City? The giants are the most iconic thing from this game, and they still were almost just bland, basic trolls you could see anywhere. The design is bad, there is no solid or unique sense of a look. The only thing i can say is that the environments look nice and have color, which is something actual dark souls lacks.

Alright, so i thought, this isnt a good dark souls game. But maybe it could be fun as its own thing.

No. The gameplay still feels utterly wretched. Its been a long time since ive controlled something so awful. Everything about it just feels wrong... the design philosophy of this game just feels like "hey, this aint your MOM'S dark souls!!!! You only get ONE flask!!"

I could play dark souls with one flask, but not this one. Why does it take so, so long to drink. What are life gems, why would you not just give me more flasks. Why are there so many random items that are just variants of an already existing item. Why does my character move like shes walking through mud. Everything takes so long, nothing feels smooth to do. In fact, the only things that feel nice are the things that arent really important, like climbing a latter and jumping. Combat feels equally as bad. Everything feels like its a joke at the players expense, for example why can i break chests if it just destroys whatevers in it? What purpose does that have other than to deny me a reward? Why does dying reduce my health pool when ive already been punished for failing? Nothing here feels natural or good to play, or worth my time.

I didnt even get to the first boss this time around, i got to a room that killed me immediately with javelins upon entering and i turned off the game. I refunded it for dark souls 1, and to be honest i really just do not get why people like this game so much other than the fact that they know its bad and they just want to say the opposite. Dark souls 2 does not feel good at all to play.


Shoutout to smelly joe...

despite its central premise being very inspired by Life on Mars, so much of Driver: San Francisco feels like the pinnacle of racing game stories. or just car games in general. the original Driver was one of the first games I played. I was one of the thousands who never made it out of the opening garage tutorial. I've always had a rooting interest in this series, even if Driver 3 and Parallel Lines slipped me by and I wrote this off for years as the final nail in the coffin.

turns out I was incredibly wrong. at worst, it fulfills the promise the original Driver gave me - a fantastic, free-flowing open-world racing game with impeccable real world detail, from the layout of the SF streets to the use of many notable real life cars, as well a deep love for replicating the vibe of late 60s and 70s car chase movies.

the story is both insanely stupid but it's told in one of the most ingenious ways. it holds up as a video game story almost better than any game I can remember. the tone is perfect. the little snippets of dialogue throughout are all nice.

where this shines though is the creativity on display. not even with the shift mechanic that's almost flawless, but the concepts for events are all so good. riding under a semi-trailer to defuse a bomb like you're in a Fast & Furious movie? gold. the goddamn level where your POV is from the driver's seat of the car chasing you? that was beautiful and inspired. the ways in which the game reminds you you're in a game by reminding you your character is in a coma? really great. following an ambulance around to keep your heartbeat down while you're in cardiac arrest is some really compelling that not only other racing games never aspire to but few contemporary games manage to pull off.

one of the last real ps3 gems.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
more like "DRIVERS" because although the main police drama revolves around a single protagonist, the truth is that thanks to a diegetically justified supernatural mechanics we will be able to possess any driver in the city and inhabit his vehicle with a single button, like a specter , a creative multi-level approach to changing vehicles that is often seen as it avoids the process of stopping / lowering and raising / starting a car, you only change cars while driving, simple pleasant and fast, but you also enter for a short time in the lives of those drivers; Maybe a rich mother who just bought her daughter a car, an engineer lamenting being an engineer with his brother-in-law, a kid training for a driver's license, a couple of cops on patrol, two Japanese brothers involved in a series of races illegal ... whatever you can think of, 150 characters (or something like that, dunno) in any case, the writing leads to very funny, imaginative and varied micro situations.
"sure, why not ?,"
It is a constant thought within the game, but always focused on movement, in contrast to other racers that look like high-end car porn, Driver: San Francisco is motion, and for the first time in a long time, I get excited driving, drifting alleys and I choreographed in the opposite direction, I no longer walk and just fly. i am true to the name "Driver.

Couple of thougths:
The world as a driving track and challenges has been explored on many occasions, but it has never been completely justified diegetically, nor has traffic been given so much importance as inhabitants. It is curious because when reinterpreting the world through a vehicle, perhaps giving importance to traffic as something more than fluctuating obstacles would be a cool idea.

Throughout the 20th century, San Francisco became synonymous with cultural experimentation and alternative thinking and the creativity with which this Driver takes the formal elements of open world driving games perfectly matches the description of this city.

It's the original Doom, with an additional weapon, new enemies, and bigger maps! Unfortunately, it feels less like the superlative original trilogy and more like the Thy Flesh Consumed expansion in all its cheap janky glory. The levels have some interesting gimmicks to them, but they're often needlessly sprawling and obtuse, and don't compare favorably to the atmospheric homerun of the original thanks to their largely scattergun approach to design.

Part of this game's level design issues can be attributed to its level structure compared to the original, which had multiple episodes, each 8 levels long. 8 levels was a good length for each episode as you gradually increased the size of your arsenal and faced off against a big boss at the end, and then you would start off the next episode afresh - the beginning of episode 3 which pitted the player against a Cacodemon with nothing but a pistol made a strong impression on me. Doom 2, on the other hand, is made up of one unbroken episode 30 levels long, which leads to two issues. Firstly, you normally attain all the available weapons and ammo upgrades like five levels in, depriving you of the feeling of 'powering up' for the rest of the game. But more crucially, the lack of cadence and pacing created by this single overly-long episode leads to a general lack of direction, and there are so many filler levels that make it apparent that the developers seemed to be running low on ideas.

In the end, this is still Doom. It's still lots of fun, it's still competently designed, it still excels in capturing the feeling of flying by the seat of your pants and always being a mistake away from death - a feeling enhanced by the greater variety of threats and size of enemy formations, although as mentioned above it can sometimes get a bit cheap. But it's also an unfortunate reminder that bigger isn't always better.

Zelda has become more and more of a truly wonderful experience the more of them I play and I was ready to finally dive into one of the best 2D games in the series I have heard from many people. Crazy how my first time ever hearing about this game was seeing the open game box in a Wal-Mart bathroom stall after somebody decided to use the five finger discount. All-in-all I did thoroughly enjoy it, however, I was not expecting a game that literally puts a puzzle in place to nearly do anything in the game. From finding out how to get to every dungeon or getting a specific item to access a certain area. A good bit of them were very kryptic at times and caused me to throw in the towel and head to Zeldadungeon.net to see the solution to a puzzle I would never have guessed. Certainly my biggest complaint regarding this one and became an ongoing frustration that took me longer than expected. To be fair, it is my first time playing the game so it does kind of happen and I do feel as though you can really get a better experience by playing alot of these Zelda games a second time! Music was wonderful, loved hearing the new Hyrule town music as well as old school tunes back from one of my favorites “A Link to the Past.” The Lake Hylia and Wind Fortress dungeons were some of the most fun I had with the game as well as a different type of sword system and plot points that weren’t about the master sword for a nice change of pace! Pretty cool different villian for the series and it would be wonderful to see this get a similar type of “Link’s Awakening” remake treatment. A must play for any Zelda fan obviously, just be sure to keep a guide handy this time around.

Hard to say whether it's my experience with future Zeldas or my experience with knowledge-based progression games as of late, but I found so much of this game intuitive when others didn't. There really are objects that stick out, contrast with areas you've seen before, or contradict the design of all other areas, and if I just thought what would work on them, well, a lot of the time those ideas simply worked. A lot of the hints are really good too.

It all falls apart in Level 7. What do you mean "there's a secret in the tip of the nose" old man? It has 0 connection to the actual layout of the level, the thing you could consider a nose is not the way forward, and doesn't help with traversing the level at all. What doesn't help is the level of overreliance on bombs. Level 7 and 9 both share this problem. It is stated in a different hint that every 10 enemies the player should receive a bomb drop, but what's the point.

Even the secret item found there, the red candle, is largely useless when you find the book in the next level, though it may serve as a hint to the player that they should try using the candle more, which may lead them to the next entrance. I found it earlier though, through context clues like I mentioned.

But it makes me wonder, if they could have an upgrade for the candle, couldn't they also have one for the bombs? I mean, they do have an upgrade for the bombs in a sense, by allowing you to carry more of them, but why not just let the player use them freely at that point? Most enemies going forward don't even take damage from them.

I guess every issue boils down to wanting to extend playtime. While I had less of an issue with finding things, which is what a lot of people mention when discussing this game, I definitely had to grind a lot. I set out to play this game for as long as I needed to and use only the manual attached to the game. And it worked, I got literally every single thing I needed, I found entrances to level 8 and 9 before finding the fifth one. It was beautiful. All the way up until level 7, where a completely new block pushing puzzle popped up, and I just couldn't really figure out that out of the dozen blocks on screen that one had to be pushed. Had to look that one up.

That level is just such a bizarre mess of ideas, I can't stress that enough. There's also this room that also doesn't appear anywhere else, where "grumble, grumble" is supposed to indicate that you need to give the enemy meat to pass through? Something only found in the same shop as the blue ring, which boosts your defense, making it one of the most useful items at that point in the game, and costs basically the maximum amount of money you could hold, so you would obviously feel inclined to buy that and move on rather than grind for some meat? I mean, I went back and bought it, so by spamming everything I managed to get through, but still, why are all these weirdo ideas stacked in a single level?

That one dungeon really damages what is otherwise an honestly cool experience. I was surprised with how tight the controls were, there are these sections with statues shooting bolts that often have other enemies in them as well, and I had these genuinely great moments of weaving between these shots and the other threats. They were really tight.

So were a lot of the enemies and bosses. They were tough as nails and extended my playtime significantly, but I always felt like if I played better I could actually squeeze through them while taking less damage, and I often did. Too bad you don't respawn with full health, makes collecting all the containers feel somewhat worthless.

There's some surprisingly good stuff here, though it would be hard for me to recommend this as an introduction to the franchise. I'm usually big on playing games according to release order, but I think the knowledge of how certain items are used in other Zelda titles gave me ideas for solving puzzles and finding secrets. Hard to say whether I'd be able to figure them out otherwise.

Hard to say whether I enjoyed the game much, really. Though I didn't find the secrets to be as obscure, and I found the gameplay engaging, I think the actual designs really didn't grab me, and I was only ever excited to find stuff rather than go through dungeons. There were a lot of NES games that simply looked cooler even then. A lot of the designs and color schemes ended up being changed soon after, and for much better. Definitely not one of my favorite titles on the console, but an incredibly cool and inspirational one, even to me in current year.

Several small steps forward, several massive steps backwards. Zelda II's core gameplay is tight and tough; the combat on the classic side-scrolling plane is some of the most exciting and dynamic you'll find on the console. Reinterpreting the mechanics from the previous game and incorporating them more meaningfully into the experience: shields are now a key aspect of melee duels, not only ranged ones; the items are replaced by the spells which improve your core abilities; instead of killing to try and grind for money, here you kill to grind exp, to, again, make your basics stronger.

But it's just too much for the poor, old NES. The level of precision required for some of these enemies is so intense that every failure feels like the end of the world. And there's the insta-kill death pits too. The punishment is so much more severe than anything from the previous game. Losing all lives means being sent back to the very beginning, the spawn point, no matter if you choose to continue or not. And the map is so much bigger. You unlock some shortcuts but that doesn't help much.

And the player will lose so many resources trying to find the way into the next dungeon. Though undoubtedly the first game is obscure as well, through the use of the attached manual you can make your way through it for the most part. There are even simple and effective visual clues, plus the other secrets are largely consistent. Not here. Some secrets still get hints, but others? Good luck bumbling in the dark, trying to touch any and all tree in hopes it contains a secret. Tiles that look exactly the same as others may hide a heart container, or even a required NPC, without whom you can't progress the game. It's bizarre because the game has the first few locations like this placed with actual visual clues to guide the player, but further on there is just nothing.

This design feels like a natural extreme—it is testing how dedicated players can actually be to finding these things. In some ways then, I'm glad this thesis was tested so early and discarded soon after when it comes to Zelda. It is a huge step backwards in that sense. But it is unfortunate that the perspective was completely abandoned. Not that the other games on the NES don't do it justice, but there is something about these shield-to-shield duels that can make for something really exciting. I guess we'll never know.