I know I'm still in the middle of another marathon (Kirby) but I've decided to also go through every Zelda game I own and can emulate because I've been in a big Zelda mood lately. Not only that, some other Backloggd members have also decided to join this marathon as well. Namely QuentTheSlayer, Ptcremisi,Steinco,Phantasm and a couple others. The four I mentioned plan on playing pretty much every game like I am, while the others plan on picking and choosing games they want to play. Either way, be sure to check out their accounts because they plan on putting out reviews for all the games too!

Anyways, The Legend of Zelda. I first played this game years ago on my brother's 3DS XL. He randomly bought this off the eShop and when he wasn't using his 3DS, I decided to actually try the first Zelda game out. I don't think I got far, and I didn't love it but it was neat finally trying this game out. Fast forward to 2020, I was trying to beat some games I started but never finished. Since I still had NSO, and I knew this game was on it, I decided to finally beat it once and for all. I did, and yeah I didn't like it all too much. I think I had to use save states, and definitely had to use a guide for most of it and that hampered my experience a lot. Coming back to it today tho, I say I still don't really like it all too much but it has its merits.

I guess I'll first go into the story of this game. Most future Zelda games also go by this same story structure as well, so get used to what I'm about to say. You play as Link, a young boy from the kingdom of Hyrule. You must rescue the princess of Hyrule, Zelda, from the big bad of this series, Ganon. You must collect the pieces of Triforce, which are used to stop Ganon, and they are split into 8 shards and are all found at the end of dungeons. The three pieces are the Triforce of Courage, Wisdom and Power. The specific pieces don't really come into play until later games, because that's if. That's the entire story of the first Zelda game. It's incredibly simple but it works, and these story details are the backbone of the entire Zelda series.

When you first start the actual game, the first thing you see on the first screen you're on, is an empty cave. You meet an old man, and he utters the now famous dialogue "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!". He hands you a sword and with that, you're free to explore the world of Hyrule. Exploring Hyrule can be pretty fun and frustrating on your first playthrough. On one hand, you'll be exploring everywhere trying to find each dungeon and trying to find any secrets you can. That can be very fun for people that just love to explore with almost zero direction, this is a game from 1986 so the best direction you'd get back then were vague hints or using an issue of Nintendo Power for help. This is 2024 tho, and you've been able to just look up a guide online for a while now, so that's what most players will do. And honestly, that's what I did and it's the best way to get through the overworld portions at least. See, this game's overworld relies on you finding random secrets you would only find by randomly guessing their locations or by using a guide. This game loves random bombable walls or random bushes you can burn, and while this only affects actually dungeons near the end, this is used for required items and also several rupee locations (that you WILL need) and so I think this is an unfun part of the overworld. If there was any indication the walls or bushes had secrets, it would be fine, but there isn't unless you find some very vague dialogue in game. That, plus just bombing a wall or burning a bush isn't really puzzle-like, which I would prefer in my Zelda overworlds. This is something future Zelda games improved on, but here, you might as well just use a guide to get most of the overworld stuff done first and then move onto the dungeons (that's what I did). I can see why some other people might find it more fun to constantly replay this game and actually memorize all the secrets, however I just don't think that's good game design and so I decided to do the whole overworld with a guide.

The dungeons themselves, while not great, are definitely the best part of this game. They are way less cryptic than the overworld, and thus are more fun. They can get pretty brutal near the end of the game, and also more confusing (they start to rely on bombable walls too) so I had to use a guide for the last couple as well. But in general, despite the simplicity, the dungeons are pretty fun. The bosses at the end of each dungeon are pretty easy but with this type of game, I'm fine with that since the bulk of the game is exploration. Something I didn't like, and I'm mentioning it here because it happens mostly in dungeons, is the fact you start with 3 health when you die. No matter how many heart containers you have, you'll always just start the game with 3 health and it's my biggest issue in the game because it's tedious having to get more health to have a fighting chance (since it's so easy to get hit in this game). Luckily, there are a couple fairy fountains that restore your health fully throughout the world, and there are caves that give you potions (believe me you will need these) so they make that whole health system a bit more tolerable. Going back to "since it's so easy to get hit in this game" whenever you get hid, there enemy pushes you back a bunch and because the invincibility frames are relatively short, it's not hard to get comboed by enemies and die. Now this didn't happen too much in my playthrough, but it can still be annoying. Outside of getting hit tho, Link plays well otherwise.

Inside the dungeons, and also outside in caves, you can collect different items that aid you in your adventure. You have some iconic items like the boomerang, bombs, a bow and arrows and ofc the iconic Rupees. You also have heart containers in this game, that you will want to find in all the caves and after each dungeon boss. There aren't heart pieces in this game, only containers, so each of them is super valuable. I won't get into all the main dungeon items, just know they're all pretty solid, but I will get into the clock. Sometimes when you kill an enemy, it drops a clock. When you pick up the clock, it stops every enemy in place if they're on the same screen you collected it on. This can be SO helpful in later encounters if you somehow are able to get one, it's very random tho so you better hope you get lucky. I also will say, one time during my playthrough, I killed three of these boomerang enemies and got three fairies at once from them. Idk how lucky that is but it seemed pretty insane.

The music in this game is simply iconic. The Title Theme(yes I shared the Famicom version, it's the best version) is probably my favorite song in the game and is the main theme of the entire franchise which makes sense since it's amazing. The overworld also uses a version of these theme and it's also very good. Picking up items and finding secrets also play jingles and they've been in pretty much every Zelda game since this one as well. If this game does anything super well, it's the sound design. There's a reason so much of it was reused for future titles lol.

While I don't care for the first Legend of Zelda all too much, due to the exploration secrets not being great and the 3 heart after death thing, I can't deny it's an iconic game and was very important in the grand scheme of things for the Zelda series. I don't love playing it, but I can certainly appreciate it for what it is.

Now that Zelda 1 is done, Zelda 2 is next. I actually have never played that one, and I haven't heard great things, so I'm worried I won't like it much but I guess we'll see. Look forward to that next.

Also, when I get to the 3D Zelda titles, I'll try to sprinkle in some smaller games in between but more importantly, I'll try to mix some Kirby games in between. Basically, I'll be doing a mix of Kirby and Zelda eventually. Just letting you know now since you'll eventually notice, I'm sure.

Amazing game with an eye-catching story. The main characters really feel like they're developing as the story goes along.
Die-hard fans of dungeon crawlers will love the gameplay, tons upon tons of way to build your squad.
Huge post-game content.

Grind. Alot of grind. Especially if you do the post game.
Definitely a challenge, even without changing the difficulty.

All in all, I loved it. It was really fun.

There's gotta be some insane Mandela effect at play here because I do not remember the Laser Ball enemy being anywhere in this dog gone world. Now the rest, I do remember! Like the first day of school. But... less daunting! I don't know how many times they can reinvent the pink ball, but apparently enough. The wheel has stopped, we are gathered today to celebrate the creativity bankruptcy of the once goat Kirb. A great mind once said "You couldn't hit a barn-sized lightning rod, Kracko!" That burn was free of charge DAMN, and here we find Kracko again... This is far from a coincidence. Ong? Just like that? We have so many gamemodes? It plays and looks better than its prehistoric version it's building on... if you are born in the 80s you are GAY and very OLD 🤓 ahah surely none of the readers are, that would be too silly.

We are used to remakes that remove content for no convincing reason, but in Kirby we trust? Wazzat? Stylus minigames??! GYAAAAAAAT!!! The presentation also includes new FMV cutscenes, as you've probably.. noticed... if you played the game. They are decent, yeah. Lil birbs. Marx got me fuh'd up though aint gonna lie. Is it fine spoiling shit? Eh, you'll figure it out. Look at blud's name. All being said, Milky Way Wishes still remains the goat. Anything that plays like Subspace Emissary knows what it's doing. I used to play the Arena a lot with my brother... happy childhood. We never really beat the True Arena. And by "really" I mean "yeah we barely made a dent in that thing. Absolutely fucked it up. I'm so sorry". I have to say, the bosses look... interesting... openAI draw them naked

While we're on a peak spree, chatgpt cook this top review, come up with a new gamemode and come up with a Saul Goodman type scheme to settle my student debt. Just kidding, I'm french. AH! Joke's on me. Jeez Louise, you can't go wrong with a Meta Knight gamemode. Well, NiDL's take was not much for acclaim, but this one is very cool. You are a heck of an entertainer, Sir Meta 😎 his strongest soldiers would agree 💪 no moaaaar FORTNITE no moaaar 19 DOLLARS MACH TORNADO. That's about the gist of it. But sir... A second gamemode has hit the remake??! Yeah, Dedede still wants that smoke, huh. It's like the extra mode in Dream's Land, putting the epic in extra epic!

Galacta Knight AND Masked Dedede? Iconic reccuring enemies back to back! Everybody gangsta until the japanese king dons the luchador mask. The "completely new" bosses are decisively nuts when you dunno better. Nothing has changed about any of them I don't think, but they're not recent graduates so of course their life has come to a stop. Kabula notwithstanding, she deserved to be back in the spotlight ❤️ This is also the grand starring role of Bandana Waddle Dee. I beat bro's ass. Then Dedede's. Sure happened. There is kind of a nihilistic undertone to that whole ending sequence. The antagonist always loses... we will never see his likes enslave his citizens like that again 😢

Numerous other additions! World Premiere! Just a droplet in the grand scheme of Nova's great plan. New Arena just dropped, with NPCs getting their fill. Don't you think Kirby might be too violent a game, sometimes? Eheh surely not, it's not like there is a sub-game where we destroy the pla- there is a sub-game where we destroy the planet. Oh wow! Nothing new ahah. Who knows whether they updated Capsule J because my boy deserves this much or to avoid copyright infringement. A perplexing paradox... But of course, it dont mean none in the judging eyes of the uncultured. I must admit, I scarcely noticed it. And I seldom played the sub-games, so don't ask me about those! Let me be silly doin main game activity

society was wrong. society was wrong to clockwork-orange forcefeed us mario-flavored drivel and tell us that it was the best this genre had to offer. i come to you all tonight to tell you that i have seen the face of the god of kart racing and it was spiky and orange.

if i had to sum up what makes ctr so much better than the Big N's blue-shell-blaster-dick-smasher flagship racer (rip f-zero) in 2 words, i would say "skill ceiling". fact is, high-level mario kart gameplay is b o r i n g. in the most mechanically expressive entry (which i would argue is mario kart ds), you are still getting a party game. i don't go to parties. i don't even have a social life. and there's not enough diversity in mario kart, handling OR content-wise, to warrant single-player sessions past the 30 minute mark. enter this godsend of a racer and its immaculate drifting. kart racers live or die by their drift, and this is as good as it gets. i would describe the crashperience as a semi-orgasmic trance of rhythmically tapping the bumpers and rocking the d-pad. there's no "saving up" boost here, you will use it when the game gives it to you or you won't get it at all. this timing-heavy approach is such a refreshing change from mario kart's "hold button to boost" bullshit.

there's still ONE thing i prefer in the marioid, and that's the art. i've never been a fan of crash bandicoot's 90s irreverent boyhumor cartoon shit. it's what kept me from playing this game for so long, despite everything good i heard about it. fwiw, i think the secondary characters are very cute - big titty anime bandicoot girl is a certified banger design - and the exaggerated cartoon style makes for strong visual feedback. ultimately, any complaints i could have are PALTRY in the face of how gnarly you can get with the drift boosting. my fingers are cumming, dawg. if you haven't already, go right now and buy/download/boot up a copy of crash team racing and play it like your life depends on it. my words cannot begin to do justice to its awesomeness.

edit: i spent 3 hours tonight crunching adventure mode challenges and then forgot to save before i turned the game off. i hate my life

3 years later, after the relative success of Mario land 1, yokoi would return and give us a Mario land sequel we all deserved. A sequel that improved on the original in quite a few ways. Its sequel would also end up being quite a hit, with the game getting a lot more inspiration from the recent Super Mario World and going above and beyond to make the game as ambitious as possible. So let’s dive into it shall we?

So this time, Mario land 2 actually does take place in Mario land. While Mario was away, his rival Wario took over and now Mario has to take it back by finding 6 coins in 6 differently themed areas and then facing up against Wario. This was the game to introduce Wario and would end up being the precursor to that of the Wario land games, which I promise, I will get to one day.

In terms of gameplay, it takes both a few steps forward and a step back. I said it took a lot more inspiration from Super Mario World and trust me: it really does show. The sprites match that of it and the power-ups also reflect it. This time there are two: the fire flower and…a carrot…which helps you fly. The fire flower is a lot more traditional, with the carrot being very similar to things such as the tanooki suit and the cape feather. Then there are the 6 different areas which are all accessed by a world map, which is very similar to the world maps of Super Mario Bros. 3 and obviously World. The 6 worlds include the Tree zone, the space zone, the macro zone, the pumpkin zone, the turtle zone and the Mario zone with them each having different bosses and amount of levels.

After all this we finally face up to Wario in a pretty interesting final level. Personally, this is probably one of my least favourite final levels, mainly because of its random bullshit thrown everywhere. You survive a pool of lava and then whoop- looks like you got hit by a random mechanical fist. The bane of my existence. The Wario boss is also pretty annoying but it isn’t all too bad. He just uses the different power ups you used and you have to adapt to them and hopefully not die. But then, Mario finally gets his castle back, and harmony is restored.

Something quick to mention is the zoomed in camera. My problem with the first Mario land was it was way too zoomed out which would probably be tedious to play in the wrong lighting conditions. But thankfully for this game they zoomed it out! Well…maybe zoomed it out a little too far. This was the step back I was talking about earlier. The camera is a pain to deal with. The only thing you can control is what is above you and what is below you, anything to the sides you’re just gonna have to risk it and hope an enemy or spike isn’t there. I didn’t have that many problems with it but when it annoyed me, it annoyed me.

Overall, out of the 2 games I’d say Mario Land 2 is a great improvement over the original. It applies a lot more inspiration from its console counterparts whilst still doing its own thing. While it is still quite flawed in areas, I have to admit it’s a very fun time. Whether I’ll get to the Wario land games I’ll definitely see.

Quirky sequel to a quirky game boy game, music still slaps, nice sprites, cool areas, shit camera, and fuck the mechanical arms

My first introduction to the Etrian series was with III and while I felt like it had a lot of amazing qualities and took old school dungeon crawlers into the present, I also found it a bit irritating and would tend to lose interest a third of the way in or so. I attribute that mostly to having done all available side quests, caves, and all I had left was some boss in the way of progression.

Well I can't say that much has changed here, but I'm really digging the story and there are enough ways to grind so it doesn't seem too sloggy. But let's face it, these games are meant to be grind fests. If you're not into that, do not apply.

The bosses and tougher enemies here don't bug me as much, if I die I simply go grind a few levels and come back. Some of them are still pretty rough no matter what your level, but hey, there's an easy mode I believe if you really want it.

These games are all gorgeous combos of 3D and 2D.

I'm about 75% of the way through it and I can't say I'm having much trouble yet as long as I grind it out every once and awhile. I'm sure the final dungeon will be some kind of hell but we shall see.