whoshotvr
2016
Just fucking exceptional. All the times Trico wouldn't listen, all the times I let go and fell sideways, even that time Trico threw me on his back in a cutscene and I bounced off and fell to my death, all of that is forgiven because the whole of this game is a beautiful masterpiece, so consistently gorgeous and evocative that I say swears about it.
Technically I played this on the Switch NES Emulator. Full disclosure: I rewound a LOT.
I am about ready to go finish Tears of the Kingdom. I've done ~75% of the game, all the shrines, all the lights, most of the quests, all the stuff that I loved the most. I just need a dedicated two hour chunk to get in there and wrap that thing up. So of course instead of doing that, I played Zelda 2.
It's nearly impossible to actually rate Adventure of Link in 2023 because it exists outside of its context, and its context matters.
It's hard to remember that there used to be a time when there were no video game sequels. At that point, a few arcade games had sequels. You had your Ms Pac-Man and Stargate, but all those did were take the originals and add a new system or two. Ms Pac-Man added new mazes. That's it.
Zelda 2 was the first of the NES sequels in America (Japan got Real Mario 2 in 1986), and it blew our little minds. We didn't know what a sequel to Zelda would look like, let alone a sequel to any of the games we'd been playing. How do you make a new Zelda?
Well, the answer is you make something completely new, and for what this game is, it is pretty amazing. Yes, it's infuriatingly difficult, yes it's incredibly unfair, yes I never beat it as a child (friends did, and sometimes that was enough back then).
Zelda 2 tries to create a swordfighting focused video game. Instead of being able to swing your sword around wildly, you have to calculate the right time and level (high or low) to strike.
The world is much bigger than the Hyrule of the first game, but it's also much more fluid. Items you find in dungeons aren't meant to be used in the field, they are all keys to doors, and the flow is really elegant.
To get to the first dungeon, you have to go through a dark cave. There's a single beastie in there that you can't see, so you navigate the dark cave and take a single hit. You learn that the dark is bad (if you managed to miss this cave and explore too far, you'll find another dark cave that is much longer, nudging you back to the path). The first dungeon gives you the candle, which opens up the next cave, to a point.
You can't actually get through the second cave without the Jump spell, and to get that, you have to explore the limited world you have available to you to find a trophy. Someone in the second town needs that trophy, and once you give it to them, you get the Jump spell. This teaches you that people in town want things that will give you other things.
The whole game continues like this. It's really elegant design. Go to a place, get a thing, trade it for a spell, get to the dungeon, get the item, open the path to the next place.
What I truly love about the world map in Zelda 2 is that, once you get through it, it takes no time at all to get from one side to the other. The longest path is from the Temple to Death Mountain, because you have to go through the cave, then the swamp, but even that isn't long. After Death Mountain, the hammer will take you from the Temple to the Raft dock in under a minute.
Palace design is not as obtuse as the Dungeon designs of the first game, with fewer hidden or one-way paths, and the many forked paths encourage map drawing. Within the palaces are some solid platforming puzzles, ones that encourage magic use for full navigation. Enough enemies drop magic jars and there are a few red jars within each palace that you don't need to be too careful (but do be KIND OF careful!) with your magic use.
The escalation in the enemies is very well done too. Initially you meet slow moving guys that don't really stalk. This turns to quicker guys with weapons, then guys that can block, then faster guys that can block, then guys who throw but you can block, then guys who throw that you can't block, then guys who throw that you can't block but their <i>weapon comes back</>, then guys who block and throw and jump.
This is really where the design falters, because these guys are really fucking infuriating. They move fast and can block almost anything you try, so fights towards the end get tedious and are incredibly unfair (again, I rewound a LOT), but again, it was 1987 and this was the first sequel ever. They tried something new with very limited resources.
And that's another thing! The NES couldn't do a lot! Battery saves were a huge deal, but all they could save was player status and inventory. It's why these games don't start you back from where you left off, why you have to go back to the Temple when you get a Game Over or when you reset the game.
But within those restrictions, Nintendo was able to create eight very large temples, an overworld, multiple types of building exteriors and interiors, five different types of random battle areas (field, forest, desert, swamp, road) with four of those offering multiple enemy sets, including hard variants when you hit a big monster.
This game is an impressive achievement that is very easy to dismiss almost 40 years later because nothing on the NES aged well. I'll still play this again before I replay Skyward Sword.
I am about ready to go finish Tears of the Kingdom. I've done ~75% of the game, all the shrines, all the lights, most of the quests, all the stuff that I loved the most. I just need a dedicated two hour chunk to get in there and wrap that thing up. So of course instead of doing that, I played Zelda 2.
It's nearly impossible to actually rate Adventure of Link in 2023 because it exists outside of its context, and its context matters.
It's hard to remember that there used to be a time when there were no video game sequels. At that point, a few arcade games had sequels. You had your Ms Pac-Man and Stargate, but all those did were take the originals and add a new system or two. Ms Pac-Man added new mazes. That's it.
Zelda 2 was the first of the NES sequels in America (Japan got Real Mario 2 in 1986), and it blew our little minds. We didn't know what a sequel to Zelda would look like, let alone a sequel to any of the games we'd been playing. How do you make a new Zelda?
Well, the answer is you make something completely new, and for what this game is, it is pretty amazing. Yes, it's infuriatingly difficult, yes it's incredibly unfair, yes I never beat it as a child (friends did, and sometimes that was enough back then).
Zelda 2 tries to create a swordfighting focused video game. Instead of being able to swing your sword around wildly, you have to calculate the right time and level (high or low) to strike.
The world is much bigger than the Hyrule of the first game, but it's also much more fluid. Items you find in dungeons aren't meant to be used in the field, they are all keys to doors, and the flow is really elegant.
To get to the first dungeon, you have to go through a dark cave. There's a single beastie in there that you can't see, so you navigate the dark cave and take a single hit. You learn that the dark is bad (if you managed to miss this cave and explore too far, you'll find another dark cave that is much longer, nudging you back to the path). The first dungeon gives you the candle, which opens up the next cave, to a point.
You can't actually get through the second cave without the Jump spell, and to get that, you have to explore the limited world you have available to you to find a trophy. Someone in the second town needs that trophy, and once you give it to them, you get the Jump spell. This teaches you that people in town want things that will give you other things.
The whole game continues like this. It's really elegant design. Go to a place, get a thing, trade it for a spell, get to the dungeon, get the item, open the path to the next place.
What I truly love about the world map in Zelda 2 is that, once you get through it, it takes no time at all to get from one side to the other. The longest path is from the Temple to Death Mountain, because you have to go through the cave, then the swamp, but even that isn't long. After Death Mountain, the hammer will take you from the Temple to the Raft dock in under a minute.
Palace design is not as obtuse as the Dungeon designs of the first game, with fewer hidden or one-way paths, and the many forked paths encourage map drawing. Within the palaces are some solid platforming puzzles, ones that encourage magic use for full navigation. Enough enemies drop magic jars and there are a few red jars within each palace that you don't need to be too careful (but do be KIND OF careful!) with your magic use.
The escalation in the enemies is very well done too. Initially you meet slow moving guys that don't really stalk. This turns to quicker guys with weapons, then guys that can block, then faster guys that can block, then guys who throw but you can block, then guys who throw that you can't block, then guys who throw that you can't block but their <i>weapon comes back</>, then guys who block and throw and jump.
This is really where the design falters, because these guys are really fucking infuriating. They move fast and can block almost anything you try, so fights towards the end get tedious and are incredibly unfair (again, I rewound a LOT), but again, it was 1987 and this was the first sequel ever. They tried something new with very limited resources.
And that's another thing! The NES couldn't do a lot! Battery saves were a huge deal, but all they could save was player status and inventory. It's why these games don't start you back from where you left off, why you have to go back to the Temple when you get a Game Over or when you reset the game.
But within those restrictions, Nintendo was able to create eight very large temples, an overworld, multiple types of building exteriors and interiors, five different types of random battle areas (field, forest, desert, swamp, road) with four of those offering multiple enemy sets, including hard variants when you hit a big monster.
This game is an impressive achievement that is very easy to dismiss almost 40 years later because nothing on the NES aged well. I'll still play this again before I replay Skyward Sword.
This is really more of a 4 1/2. I've got some minor quibbles, but it's just about perfect.
Completed all cases yesterday, the epilogue today, only used hints on the last case. I did get hung up on a clue I missed in the penultimate case, but that was a me problem.
The last case maybe relies a little too much on an unexplained leap of logic, but I get what they were going for. They wanted the revelation to happen while working through clues that made no sense, and it totally did, but I was left a little frustrated by that.
But just a little! The story it ends up telling is delicious, especially in how the seemingly unconnected cases you're solving do end up tying together (and how they don't tie together), but never with a little bow. People disappear between cases, years pass, people show up once and never again. It's a lovely little bit of writing.
The puzzles themselves are essentially glorified logic puzzles, the ones where you have names on the top and professions on the side and you eliminate the impossible by reading sentences like "Sarah plays volleyball with the boy with the red shirt". It's so SATISFYING to complete a page and see it flip green, to see those words fade away.
Just an overall great few hours, worth every penny, and I'm thrilled to see what this team does next.
Completed all cases yesterday, the epilogue today, only used hints on the last case. I did get hung up on a clue I missed in the penultimate case, but that was a me problem.
The last case maybe relies a little too much on an unexplained leap of logic, but I get what they were going for. They wanted the revelation to happen while working through clues that made no sense, and it totally did, but I was left a little frustrated by that.
But just a little! The story it ends up telling is delicious, especially in how the seemingly unconnected cases you're solving do end up tying together (and how they don't tie together), but never with a little bow. People disappear between cases, years pass, people show up once and never again. It's a lovely little bit of writing.
The puzzles themselves are essentially glorified logic puzzles, the ones where you have names on the top and professions on the side and you eliminate the impossible by reading sentences like "Sarah plays volleyball with the boy with the red shirt". It's so SATISFYING to complete a page and see it flip green, to see those words fade away.
Just an overall great few hours, worth every penny, and I'm thrilled to see what this team does next.
Holy flarking scut, what a fucking game. I waffled on the ultimate score, because let's be honest, the actual gameplay isn't great. It's like every other 3rd person shooter you've ever played. It's Control all over again, where you go into an arena and you shoot things and use your special powers to win. Sometimes you die and it feels really unfair, sometimes there's a boss and it feels half baked. It's a PS2 era 3rd person shooter.
But the clothes, holy shit, the clothes. This is a 3 star game in 5 star clothes, and I didn't want it to ever end. In fact, in the first fake out, when I thought we were heading into the climax, when it turned out we weren't and we sang the Kartahtian war song together in the Milano, I had a huge grin just plastered across my flarking face the whole time.
What makes this game five fucking stars is the writing and the dialog and the characterization. It's all just stellar. Like, in ways I didn't expect it to be, stellar. There is constant dialog and conversation going on around you all the time, and it's all interesting and fun to engage in. You're prompted to contribute to conversations often, and those decisions you make actually build to stuff. But! Here's the important part:
The decisions you make, no matter what they are, never feel like they will actually hurt your progress in the game. I never once felt the need to look up my choices to make sure I picked the right one. In the tutorial, they tell you that your choices matter, but not that much. Sometimes, a choice you made hours before will come back and eliminate a barrier that you would otherwise have to cross yourself, but that's it.
And that freedom is so wonderful. This game was just a fucking joy from start to finish, and I never got tired of it, even as I got frustrated by the little things, like how I'd die without knowing I'd been shot at a bunch, or how I failed the first quicktime event because the game never showed me how those work in the first place.
I just loved being in this game, in the art, with these characters, just existing surrounded by this endlessly innovative, clever conversation. I don't want any more, because I don't think you could pull this off again, but I am SO happy this one is here.
But the clothes, holy shit, the clothes. This is a 3 star game in 5 star clothes, and I didn't want it to ever end. In fact, in the first fake out, when I thought we were heading into the climax, when it turned out we weren't and we sang the Kartahtian war song together in the Milano, I had a huge grin just plastered across my flarking face the whole time.
What makes this game five fucking stars is the writing and the dialog and the characterization. It's all just stellar. Like, in ways I didn't expect it to be, stellar. There is constant dialog and conversation going on around you all the time, and it's all interesting and fun to engage in. You're prompted to contribute to conversations often, and those decisions you make actually build to stuff. But! Here's the important part:
The decisions you make, no matter what they are, never feel like they will actually hurt your progress in the game. I never once felt the need to look up my choices to make sure I picked the right one. In the tutorial, they tell you that your choices matter, but not that much. Sometimes, a choice you made hours before will come back and eliminate a barrier that you would otherwise have to cross yourself, but that's it.
And that freedom is so wonderful. This game was just a fucking joy from start to finish, and I never got tired of it, even as I got frustrated by the little things, like how I'd die without knowing I'd been shot at a bunch, or how I failed the first quicktime event because the game never showed me how those work in the first place.
I just loved being in this game, in the art, with these characters, just existing surrounded by this endlessly innovative, clever conversation. I don't want any more, because I don't think you could pull this off again, but I am SO happy this one is here.
This scene perfectly sums up my feelings about this game:
https://youtu.be/WgLr6qlpec4
You can never go home, but I guess you can shop there. You can never actually go back to FF7, but it'll still give you an avenue in which to spend your money.
The good: There are a lot of great design choices here. Visually, it's a mostly stunning game that takes all the great visual concepts from the original and hews very closely to them. The weapon leveling system is also quite good, even though I never felt like I had enough of a window to make a mistake and need to respec my stuff.
When the game sticks to the plot and area details of the original game, it's a lot of fun. That's about all I can say about what is good here.
Much of this game is a waste of time. Side stories are pale copies of Yakuza side stories, where you go to a place and fight a thing for someone, but all the characters are so devoid of charm and the objects you get as a reward are generally pointless.
The detours are frustratingly thin, like the one time you go topside. I was really looking forward to that conceptually, but it was just a drab suburban town, where you don't even get to go in and meet people.
And then there's the final five hours of boss rushes and plot dump, and it did nothing for me. The music would swell and I'd feel nice, but then I'd have to grapple with the frustrating battle system that was trying to do ATB, but in real time, where I can get juggled and trapped and then killed, but I can't do the same to my opponent, where enemies can just drive further up the road and stay away from me while I slowly wait for my bar to fill up so I can use my one long distance attack.
The whole thing took me 42 hours. That's 5 times longer than the original Midgar section took me back in 1997 and 10 hours longer than the entire original game took me. And for what?
And you know what? In five years I'll spend $15 on the sequel and I'll spend another 42 hours on it and I'll be just as incensed (more so, likely, given how the ending here implied major shifts in the narrative), because I guess Square is the only company that can still do this to me, me a goddamned adult man.
https://youtu.be/WgLr6qlpec4
You can never go home, but I guess you can shop there. You can never actually go back to FF7, but it'll still give you an avenue in which to spend your money.
The good: There are a lot of great design choices here. Visually, it's a mostly stunning game that takes all the great visual concepts from the original and hews very closely to them. The weapon leveling system is also quite good, even though I never felt like I had enough of a window to make a mistake and need to respec my stuff.
When the game sticks to the plot and area details of the original game, it's a lot of fun. That's about all I can say about what is good here.
Much of this game is a waste of time. Side stories are pale copies of Yakuza side stories, where you go to a place and fight a thing for someone, but all the characters are so devoid of charm and the objects you get as a reward are generally pointless.
The detours are frustratingly thin, like the one time you go topside. I was really looking forward to that conceptually, but it was just a drab suburban town, where you don't even get to go in and meet people.
And then there's the final five hours of boss rushes and plot dump, and it did nothing for me. The music would swell and I'd feel nice, but then I'd have to grapple with the frustrating battle system that was trying to do ATB, but in real time, where I can get juggled and trapped and then killed, but I can't do the same to my opponent, where enemies can just drive further up the road and stay away from me while I slowly wait for my bar to fill up so I can use my one long distance attack.
The whole thing took me 42 hours. That's 5 times longer than the original Midgar section took me back in 1997 and 10 hours longer than the entire original game took me. And for what?
And you know what? In five years I'll spend $15 on the sequel and I'll spend another 42 hours on it and I'll be just as incensed (more so, likely, given how the ending here implied major shifts in the narrative), because I guess Square is the only company that can still do this to me, me a goddamned adult man.
Technically, I completed this within the Castlevania Collection on the Switch, but it's an NES faithful port, and the first time I ever beat it was on the NES, so we'll go with that?
You can't really rate Simon's Quest anymore, not this far in the future. It's not really fair to it, given how advanced it was for its time and how well it technically still plays (unlike, say, Dracula X, which was made AFTER some of the best Castlevania games and still managed to play worse than the first one).
It's so hard to imagine what this period in video game history was like. Video games didn't get sequels, you didn't really get MORE of them. Sometimes an arcade game would get one, but it was either a more challenging version of the original (see: Millipede or Stargate) or something 100% unlike the original (see: Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3).
What Nintendo/Konami did with Mario 2 (I know), Zelda 2, and Castlevania 2 was, in retrospect, courageous and fascinating. Each game has little to no connection to the one before. In Mario 2, you can't stomp, you pick things up and throw them, and there are no timers, Zelda 2 is a side-scroller, and Castlevania 2 is, well it's a proto-Symphony of the Night.
You are Simon, you start in a town, and you can go left and right. People talk to you and give you obtuse/poorly translated clues, and you figure them all out (or you don't).
There are five dungeons in the game, each one a more complex 1 to 2 screen maze that are actually fun to navigate, there are 7 towns, with people who sell you upgrades and tools, and there is an actual sense of progression to the game, ending in an actual ghost town outside Castlevania.
Judging it today, after who knows how many Castelvania games there have been, it's not great, on par with the original in difficulty (in exploration and progress rather than gameplay), movement, and overall experience, but in 1987? It was fucking fantastic. It took us all year to figure out, making progress through schoolyard whispers and Nintendo Power magazine (with the occasional phone call to their hotline (don't tell my mom)).
Today, armed with just an annotated world map, you'll be fine, can even finish it in just a few hours. It's not difficult to actually play, the world is actually small enough to traverse from one side to the other in under 10 minutes, and it has amazing music and a desperate, oppressive vibe. If Iga said that he had never played this game, I'd call him a goddamned liar.
You can't really rate Simon's Quest anymore, not this far in the future. It's not really fair to it, given how advanced it was for its time and how well it technically still plays (unlike, say, Dracula X, which was made AFTER some of the best Castlevania games and still managed to play worse than the first one).
It's so hard to imagine what this period in video game history was like. Video games didn't get sequels, you didn't really get MORE of them. Sometimes an arcade game would get one, but it was either a more challenging version of the original (see: Millipede or Stargate) or something 100% unlike the original (see: Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3).
What Nintendo/Konami did with Mario 2 (I know), Zelda 2, and Castlevania 2 was, in retrospect, courageous and fascinating. Each game has little to no connection to the one before. In Mario 2, you can't stomp, you pick things up and throw them, and there are no timers, Zelda 2 is a side-scroller, and Castlevania 2 is, well it's a proto-Symphony of the Night.
You are Simon, you start in a town, and you can go left and right. People talk to you and give you obtuse/poorly translated clues, and you figure them all out (or you don't).
There are five dungeons in the game, each one a more complex 1 to 2 screen maze that are actually fun to navigate, there are 7 towns, with people who sell you upgrades and tools, and there is an actual sense of progression to the game, ending in an actual ghost town outside Castlevania.
Judging it today, after who knows how many Castelvania games there have been, it's not great, on par with the original in difficulty (in exploration and progress rather than gameplay), movement, and overall experience, but in 1987? It was fucking fantastic. It took us all year to figure out, making progress through schoolyard whispers and Nintendo Power magazine (with the occasional phone call to their hotline (don't tell my mom)).
Today, armed with just an annotated world map, you'll be fine, can even finish it in just a few hours. It's not difficult to actually play, the world is actually small enough to traverse from one side to the other in under 10 minutes, and it has amazing music and a desperate, oppressive vibe. If Iga said that he had never played this game, I'd call him a goddamned liar.
I finally finished this one. There were 300 puzzles total, and it just kept going and going and going, far more than I expected, but hey! It was 300 picross puzzles, so, great.
There were ones in the last few sets that were actually hard, where you have to start trying to predict, and that's not my favorite. Picross should never have guessing involved.
But! In the Wario puzzles, the last option in the menu yellows out blocks, like using a pencil, and if you select the left option when you are done, it completes them for you. Select the right option, it'll undo all your moves.
There were ones in the last few sets that were actually hard, where you have to start trying to predict, and that's not my favorite. Picross should never have guessing involved.
But! In the Wario puzzles, the last option in the menu yellows out blocks, like using a pencil, and if you select the left option when you are done, it completes them for you. Select the right option, it'll undo all your moves.
2022
About as perfect as a game like this can be. I had some minor frustrations (there was one thing that locked away half the game that I didn't find because I trusted a sign that said "SEALED FOREVER" and didn't pay attention (Rule #1: PAY ATTENTION)), but they were all ME problems.
I did just about everything, found all the stuff, got both endings, and some of the late game puzzles were about as satisfying as anything I've ever put together (Rule #2: Don't be afraid to look for hints, and don't be afraid to give up on puzzles completely because they don't interest you (like reading, for me, personally)). In many ways, this is an evolution of Fez, being one thing, then actually being another, then actually actually changing how you interpret the world around you, and learning those new interpretations just felt so goddamned good.
Its ultimate ending is bittersweet, because, like Fez and The Witness, and Shutter Island and Jacob's Ladder, I only get to experience it one way once. Every other time, I'll know. (Rule #3: Sometimes you just have to let something go)
I did just about everything, found all the stuff, got both endings, and some of the late game puzzles were about as satisfying as anything I've ever put together (Rule #2: Don't be afraid to look for hints, and don't be afraid to give up on puzzles completely because they don't interest you (like reading, for me, personally)). In many ways, this is an evolution of Fez, being one thing, then actually being another, then actually actually changing how you interpret the world around you, and learning those new interpretations just felt so goddamned good.
Its ultimate ending is bittersweet, because, like Fez and The Witness, and Shutter Island and Jacob's Ladder, I only get to experience it one way once. Every other time, I'll know. (Rule #3: Sometimes you just have to let something go)
1987
This review contains spoilers
Full Disclosure: I played through this will full on Game Genie cheats because I wanted to experience it without having to experience it the way I did when I was 10.
Like with my review of Zelda 2, there is no way to accurately explain what it was like playing this in 1990. When this came out, we had played through Dragon Warrior numerous times (everyone had that game, in part because Nintendo Power gave it away (my childless uncle got me whatever game Toys 'R Us said was the best every Christmas, which was how I got it)) and Dragon Warrior 2, and we fought their limitations and quirks.
But Final Fantasy was different. It was bigger, it came with maps and monster guides (because we weren't as good at video games as Japanese kids were), and you got FOUR characters!
It had its own limitations, however, like how you could only save in towns or on the field with an item, and how you always had to walk out of caves or dungeons and then all the way back to town, making every single trek terrifying.
Here was our loop: grind, buy the best stuff, overlevel, run away from every battle in dungeons, beat the boss/get the thing, run away from every battle on the way back, breathe a sigh of relief back in town (one time, only our White Mage was still alive and we stupidly saved with a HOUSE outside the Marsh Cave (there was only one save file) and it took us dozens of tries to make it back to town).
But what really made this game great, what really made it stand above the rest, was the story. On the surface, it is very bare bones, yes, but it has a lot of variety, and there are, for the time, remarkable moments of wonder and depth.
The moment that I still refer back to when explaining this is the Waterfall Cave. At this point in the game, you should have three orbs lit and an airship. You have walked through a very dangerous forest to Lemuria, and you have figured out how to speak their language, because they are an advanced and ancient people.
In the cave, there is a robot. Why is there a robot here?!? That robot gives you a cube, which will take you to the Space Castle. Why is there a Space Castle?!?
In 1990, this blew our minds. The PS1 remake tragically changed the decrepit, metal Space Castle into a regular castle, removing that feeling of wonder that came from going from a medieval setting to a futuristic one in a single move.
And then, at the end, you have to, in a single run, go 2000 years in the past and refight all four fiends and THEN the final boss. This took us numerous tries, and when we finally delivered the killing blow, with a near death Black Wizard, we jumped on those fucken beds and cheered and yelled like idiots.
And you just can't get that feeling anymore, but I sure as hell have been trying, through practically every entry in the series.
Like with my review of Zelda 2, there is no way to accurately explain what it was like playing this in 1990. When this came out, we had played through Dragon Warrior numerous times (everyone had that game, in part because Nintendo Power gave it away (my childless uncle got me whatever game Toys 'R Us said was the best every Christmas, which was how I got it)) and Dragon Warrior 2, and we fought their limitations and quirks.
But Final Fantasy was different. It was bigger, it came with maps and monster guides (because we weren't as good at video games as Japanese kids were), and you got FOUR characters!
It had its own limitations, however, like how you could only save in towns or on the field with an item, and how you always had to walk out of caves or dungeons and then all the way back to town, making every single trek terrifying.
Here was our loop: grind, buy the best stuff, overlevel, run away from every battle in dungeons, beat the boss/get the thing, run away from every battle on the way back, breathe a sigh of relief back in town (one time, only our White Mage was still alive and we stupidly saved with a HOUSE outside the Marsh Cave (there was only one save file) and it took us dozens of tries to make it back to town).
But what really made this game great, what really made it stand above the rest, was the story. On the surface, it is very bare bones, yes, but it has a lot of variety, and there are, for the time, remarkable moments of wonder and depth.
The moment that I still refer back to when explaining this is the Waterfall Cave. At this point in the game, you should have three orbs lit and an airship. You have walked through a very dangerous forest to Lemuria, and you have figured out how to speak their language, because they are an advanced and ancient people.
In the cave, there is a robot. Why is there a robot here?!? That robot gives you a cube, which will take you to the Space Castle. Why is there a Space Castle?!?
In 1990, this blew our minds. The PS1 remake tragically changed the decrepit, metal Space Castle into a regular castle, removing that feeling of wonder that came from going from a medieval setting to a futuristic one in a single move.
And then, at the end, you have to, in a single run, go 2000 years in the past and refight all four fiends and THEN the final boss. This took us numerous tries, and when we finally delivered the killing blow, with a near death Black Wizard, we jumped on those fucken beds and cheered and yelled like idiots.
And you just can't get that feeling anymore, but I sure as hell have been trying, through practically every entry in the series.
2017
Absolutely gorgeous, tightly scripted 90 minute (if that) puzzler. All hand drawn and smoothly animated, this game was clearly made with love and perseverance, and it shows.
The puzzles were all very clever, the few timing based ones give big windows to move the pieces around in, and there was never a point where I felt like my failure made me backtrack or undo/redo anything. The whole experience was very thoughtful and respectful of my time and energy.
The story, in as much as there is one, was lovely as well, about life and aging and memory and regret and, really, anything you think it is about.
Just lovely.
The puzzles were all very clever, the few timing based ones give big windows to move the pieces around in, and there was never a point where I felt like my failure made me backtrack or undo/redo anything. The whole experience was very thoughtful and respectful of my time and energy.
The story, in as much as there is one, was lovely as well, about life and aging and memory and regret and, really, anything you think it is about.
Just lovely.
1992
This was one of the few Game Boy games I had that weren't RPGs (Final Fantasy games specifically (actually SaGa and Mana games)), so this one was a constant for short car rides and flights. It takes about 20-30 minutes to finish, there's a hard mode that's actually challenging, and the level design and boss fights are tight, especially considering the size of the screen and the speed they had to work with.
Replaying this on the Switch's Game Boy emulator was a fun way to spend an hour, and I still enjoy everything about this little game. It builds out four distinctly different areas that all have their own specific level designs and, most importantly, doesn't overstay its welcome. It's just a solid example of GBA platforming and may be among the best examples on that little handheld.
Replaying this on the Switch's Game Boy emulator was a fun way to spend an hour, and I still enjoy everything about this little game. It builds out four distinctly different areas that all have their own specific level designs and, most importantly, doesn't overstay its welcome. It's just a solid example of GBA platforming and may be among the best examples on that little handheld.
2021
What a lovely, lovely little game. It's a simple puzzle game about taking pictures and helping people on your way to see the Toem, a journey your grandparent underwent when they were young and now it's your turn.
I did everything in the game in about 4 hours, but I don't really know why. The last few things were kind of a big PITA and they added nothing at all to the game, so I'd say this is a thing that is best played to the end rather than to completion. Play as much as you want, do the tasks you want to do or find along the way to get to the next town, and just enjoy being in it.
I did everything in the game in about 4 hours, but I don't really know why. The last few things were kind of a big PITA and they added nothing at all to the game, so I'd say this is a thing that is best played to the end rather than to completion. Play as much as you want, do the tasks you want to do or find along the way to get to the next town, and just enjoy being in it.
Technically I played this on the Switch, but it was via their SNES emulator.
After Tunic so completely satiated me, I needed something familiar and warm, and this, the best Zelda, called to me. It only takes a few hours at this point, and it had been a few years, so I ran through it.
Everything that really needs to be said about this game has been said over the past 30 years, and across those decades, I have played this game, or parts of it, at least that many times. The first time was on release, back when the internet was still the schoolyard (see also: The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link). Its evolution of the completely obtuse NES entries into something still challenging yet easier to read was wonderful in its time, and I feel like it still stands the test. I never look back on this one and think "How in the fuck did we ever do this?!?" when I absolutely do with its earlier entries.
Sure, following this, the entries got cuter, liked to hold your hand more, until they shouted answers into your ear, leaving nothing to the imagination.
But here, in Link to the Past, there was still a little shred of the feeling that you discovered something no one had ever found before, all the while knowing that that thing you found would give you an edge against whatever horrors you had to face in the next hole in the ground.
This time through, I played it through completion, and I saw the ending for probably the sixth or seventh time in my life (I had seen the first six dungeons two dozen times at least) the sharpest memory of that Ganon fight was not my first time, but almost ten years later, an adult in 1998, getting the game from a Software Etc. and playing it through in a weekend on a girlfriend's tiny CRT, shocked at how much better I was at it then, only to return it for my precious $10, in order to grab something else off their used games shelf)).
I guess what I'm saying is that playing this game is history, is memory, is not actually playing this game, but desperately grasping at the few shreds of that history that remain, those people I experienced it with, or near. Where are they now? Are they even still alive?
I'll probably play Soul Blazer next, because my heart aches, and no one did melancholy like Quintet in the 90s.
After Tunic so completely satiated me, I needed something familiar and warm, and this, the best Zelda, called to me. It only takes a few hours at this point, and it had been a few years, so I ran through it.
Everything that really needs to be said about this game has been said over the past 30 years, and across those decades, I have played this game, or parts of it, at least that many times. The first time was on release, back when the internet was still the schoolyard (see also: The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link). Its evolution of the completely obtuse NES entries into something still challenging yet easier to read was wonderful in its time, and I feel like it still stands the test. I never look back on this one and think "How in the fuck did we ever do this?!?" when I absolutely do with its earlier entries.
Sure, following this, the entries got cuter, liked to hold your hand more, until they shouted answers into your ear, leaving nothing to the imagination.
But here, in Link to the Past, there was still a little shred of the feeling that you discovered something no one had ever found before, all the while knowing that that thing you found would give you an edge against whatever horrors you had to face in the next hole in the ground.
This time through, I played it through completion, and I saw the ending for probably the sixth or seventh time in my life (I had seen the first six dungeons two dozen times at least) the sharpest memory of that Ganon fight was not my first time, but almost ten years later, an adult in 1998, getting the game from a Software Etc. and playing it through in a weekend on a girlfriend's tiny CRT, shocked at how much better I was at it then, only to return it for my precious $10, in order to grab something else off their used games shelf)).
I guess what I'm saying is that playing this game is history, is memory, is not actually playing this game, but desperately grasping at the few shreds of that history that remain, those people I experienced it with, or near. Where are they now? Are they even still alive?
I'll probably play Soul Blazer next, because my heart aches, and no one did melancholy like Quintet in the 90s.
2013
This is my third or fourth time through this game, second time through on this specific edition. I needed a short palate cleanser after the two FF 7 versions and before Tunic comes out on a platform I could play it on.
I grew up in the obtuse era of video games, so I'm maybe a little more okay with how little Ys 1 tells you. There's a point about halfway through where a boss is made intentionally near-impossible (although if you are stubborn, you could probably brute force it), and it's done this way to make sure you are ready for the next chunk of game. But in order to be ready for that chunk, you need to have performed a lot of other tasks, tasks which are discovered only by talking to everyone and exploring every corner.
This was how video games used to push their technology to the limits: fill out the data with world and people and monsters, then have the player explore every single corner of it. That's what prevents Ys 1 from only being 3 hours long.
I've played through some of the translated NES version via emulation, and this edition is very clearly a labor of love. It's virtually identical, but with new graphics, music, and translation, and it's a really beautiful, engaging package. I am kind of sad that the bump fighting disappeared after these two, because I'm a big fan. I miss that time when Zelda clones all tried to do something different and new, when we were still figuring out all the different ways video games could be played and still be fun.
The story that isn't there is more interesting to me than the story that is, and I love how it continues into Ys 2.
I grew up in the obtuse era of video games, so I'm maybe a little more okay with how little Ys 1 tells you. There's a point about halfway through where a boss is made intentionally near-impossible (although if you are stubborn, you could probably brute force it), and it's done this way to make sure you are ready for the next chunk of game. But in order to be ready for that chunk, you need to have performed a lot of other tasks, tasks which are discovered only by talking to everyone and exploring every corner.
This was how video games used to push their technology to the limits: fill out the data with world and people and monsters, then have the player explore every single corner of it. That's what prevents Ys 1 from only being 3 hours long.
I've played through some of the translated NES version via emulation, and this edition is very clearly a labor of love. It's virtually identical, but with new graphics, music, and translation, and it's a really beautiful, engaging package. I am kind of sad that the bump fighting disappeared after these two, because I'm a big fan. I miss that time when Zelda clones all tried to do something different and new, when we were still figuring out all the different ways video games could be played and still be fun.
The story that isn't there is more interesting to me than the story that is, and I love how it continues into Ys 2.
2022
In lots of ways, Stray feels like an old, PSX or PS2 era adventure game. There's a lot of talking and exploring, some fetching and trading and distracting, and some clumsy action sequences, and if that's all there were, then Stray wouldn't matter at all.
But thankfully it's set in a gorgeous, built out world, one that tells its own story as much as the residents do. It's (mostly) fun to play, motion is fluid and responsive, and nothing is very obtuse.
I'm not quite sure it entirely earned its ending and I was left wanting more from its final scene, just a little bit more.
But that said, it took me about 6 hours total and I did everything there seemed to be to do. Apparently I didn't get all the badges, which you seem to get for completing sets of tasks, so I am now wondering what I missed.
While I am sad they didn't stick with their original idea of setting this within the Kowloon Walled City (that's this team, right?), I get why they made some changes. Their story can be free of any political connection, they can build out their own environments and plot, and they can still evoke the feeling of that city and SE Asian slums in general without it needing to be real.
But thankfully it's set in a gorgeous, built out world, one that tells its own story as much as the residents do. It's (mostly) fun to play, motion is fluid and responsive, and nothing is very obtuse.
I'm not quite sure it entirely earned its ending and I was left wanting more from its final scene, just a little bit more.
But that said, it took me about 6 hours total and I did everything there seemed to be to do. Apparently I didn't get all the badges, which you seem to get for completing sets of tasks, so I am now wondering what I missed.
While I am sad they didn't stick with their original idea of setting this within the Kowloon Walled City (that's this team, right?), I get why they made some changes. Their story can be free of any political connection, they can build out their own environments and plot, and they can still evoke the feeling of that city and SE Asian slums in general without it needing to be real.