The Nintendo Switch

heart-removing pits in lttp are distinguishable from drop-you-a-level pits by sight

Modern games do a better job communicating mechanics through design.

frequently "design" here means "constant explicit instruction"

That was a problem more-so in the early to mid 00s. I think overall games have been less relentlessly handholding.

yeah there's definitely been a swing back on that this gen

I knew a guy who had "link, listen" as his text message noise on his phone 😑

Holy crap, you want good looking games? I just started Ori and the Blind Forest, and that intro is straight up Bambi (in every sense, sniff).

See, re: Link to the Past. I get the master sword - fine - and go back to rescue the princess, but can't get to her because of the lightning wall. I swipe a few times with my sword, but nothing. So I look up what to do, and yes, I'm supposed to use the sword, but I was swinging in the wrong spot. Fine. So I go back, open the lightning gate, get to the wizard, he makes her vanish and ... that's it. I'm stuck in the room. Fine. But aha! They made a point earlier that the magic mirror will teleport me back to the beginning of any dungeon, which I do. Ta-dah! I'm out. But it turns out, despite being told the mirror can teleport me to the start of dungeons, in this case I was *not* supposed to do that. I was supposed to know I needed to stab a curtain to expose a door. Groan.

hehehe yup. Agahnim exits the room through the top middle of the screen. Otherwise there's no obvious clue at all.

Back in the day I thought that sort of bs was there to sell strategy guides.

super metroid is full of that too, i love the game but if i had played it as a kid rather than later as a teen with internet access i probably would have been frustrated

Yeah, I dunno, I think I might be done with this game.

Well, there are some trickier puzzles coming up, but if you’re tired already, you’ve played (in my opinion) the most rewarding part

It's kinda more annoying than rewarding tbh.

I wish I could set fire to or permanently blow up every roadblock.

It is important to be sure that you in fact enjoy games before endeavoring to play one

Like games are supposed to be boring or annoying and thinking either of those things is the case means you don't like games. It is more important to be sure you are enjoying a game before endeavoring to continue it.

puzzles aren't annoying!

Of course they can be. But beyond that, having to, say, constantly equip a translation book to read signs (rather than just have them automatically translate after you get the book) is for sure annoying. And so is having to constantly navigate or remove regenerating shrubs and rocks to get across the screen faster. Those aren't puzzles, those are just impediments.

I also think a lot of people call things "puzzles" in games that may be puzzling but aren't really puzzles.

i have equipped that book twice, I think. i also immediately rammed the bookshelf when i saw it on top, though, so maybe i'm just a goddamn zelda genius floating through this puzzling zelda life with ease.

Don't you need to equip the book every time you want to read a sign?

And yeah, some people are just better at these games than others, or more experienced. I don't mind challenges in games or things to figure out, but I like the problems that, when you're forced to look up their solutions, make you say "oh!" and not just a deflated, frustrated " ... oh."

super metroid is full of that too, i love the game but if i had played it as a kid rather than later as a teen with internet access i probably would have been frustrated

― ciderpress, Saturday, September 28, 2019 7:22 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's a very tricky to find secret wall which you'd never think of reaching unless you knew it was there which is pretty much essential to winning the game. although I think it actually came with a strategy guide at the time so maybe it was in there

Josh otm. I love several Zelda games but I've tried many times over the years to find something to hook me into lttp or justify its placement on best of lists and it's really not there. You want a 10/10 adventure puzzle game on snes, play power soukoban

i'd rate lttp above the NES and DS zeldas but below all the game boy ones

Games are supposed to be boring and annoying!

“Boring” and “interesting” are the same thing

*watches empire, eats popcorn*

they're both words that don't mean anything so by transitivity they mean the same thing

I dunno, this is my first time ever playing LttP, I haven’t had to look up anything strategy or puzzle wise. I think what leads to success is being comfortable with the question, “What happens if...”

and really, it’s about how you want to spend your time. Like, if you’re cool with trying shit out to see how it works, you’re going to have a good time. If you’re going to get annoyed that it isn’t always clear, it’s not for you. Fair enough. I’m cool with not always knowing the next thing I’m supposed to do, I have fun with that.

@josh To some extent, it sounds like you were fucked by trying to look up tips. The game didn’t tell you that you were supposed to use mechanics in certain ways; your faqs did, and you got frustrated when they didn’t work

Also, no one even responded to my post about N++ so I’m going to reiterate: it’s on switch, and I stand by the claim that it is the best 2d platformer of all time

I will say, I don’t think fgti’s assessment was right. They mentioned the difficulty ramps up effortlessly; I didn’t feel that at all. The devs were clever coming up with mechanics that would increase difficulty, but they haven’t aged well.

I can totally see why the game might have been an important evolution.

N++ was made by my 1st year roommate and her partner. Well, not really my roommate, she lived across the hall and I was there all the time playing cards and smoking inside

Anyway idk there are lots of "classic" games that I play for 30-60 minutes and I'm like "wow this is boring"-- Uncharted 2 comes to mind

What is more boring, Zelda or JiC’s posts about Zelda

Anyway. Ori is exceptional.

i played the heck out of the original N back in the day but dunno if i want more of that now

ori is cool and anyone who doesn't like the escape sequences is boring a.k.a. interesting

I definitely played N Game in the computer lab in high school a couple times, I probably tried the original N+ on Xbox at someone's dorm at some point for a few minutes but I'm not sure. N++, maybe someday.

i played lttp not that long ago (like within the last decade) and iirc it holds up very well. i know this is the laziest retort ever but some of the criticism seem like genre criticism like in terms of difficult puzzles lttp is significantly easier + more obvious than almost any adventure or text adventure game. it sounds to me like josh is impatient bc he wants an action game and zelda really is an action adventure which is totally understandable bc sometimes i don't have patience for that sort of thing either but when i do i think lttp is pretty fantastic tbph.

I'll totally cop to being impatient, but also reiterate that imo the rewards didn't warrant the effort. I never had or even played a GameBoy or SNES or Nintendo 64 or whatever, so just decided to give this much-lauded game a shot while I had it for free on my Switch. And it didn't even seem particularly difficult, just ... not for me. Don't know if that's a genre thing.

Again, I have a very limited frame of reference, but stuff like Hollow Knight and Ori clicked immediately, and Dark Souls and Breath of the Wild got richer and richer the more time I put into them. Can't wait to explore the sequels to all of them, as available.

LttP is maybe the fourth-best 2D zelda

In other news, I’m concerned about what we saw in the last Nintendo Direct about the upcoming core Pokemon games. The features they showed are what I would highlight about a game if I didn’t think it was going to be very good.

still gonna buy on launch day tho.

Wow thomp! An amazing opinion on one thread and a terrible opinion on another!

LA is my favourite 2D Zelda and I rate OG LoZ higher than most but do extrapolate your views

but the pokemon can make a curry now xp

Wow thomp! An amazing opinion on one thread and a terrible opinion on another!

bwahahahaha

if i had a long flight to kill and had to play a top-down zelda game rn (nb i do not know who is forcing this restriction upon me in this hypothetical) i would choose above it:

link's awakening
minish cap
that first DS one with the dungeon you go back to several times
original zelda
oracle of ages / seasons

though the last one is just because i never got round to it.

link's awakening does everything lttp does better; the dungeon designs are cleverer, the funny-shaped-key quest structure is more satisfying in the all-someone-else's-dream context; it has something that feels more like a satisfying narrative. (but then i did have the authentic experience of playing it on an original game boy over several family holidays in the halcyon pre-internet days: not having had the requisite mental functions at age eight or whatever when i originally played it, and being eventually old enough to make it through the less hand-hold-y later stages of it. whereas lttp i played as an adult after having read about it as an eight-year-old but being a sega kid, so.) (obviously not enough of a sega kid to have had the game gear, that thing was useless)

minish cap wasn't developed in-house and wasn't re-using an engine and has a different feel to it, so while it has a rather dreary overworld it's a fun romp, middling-to-decent dungeons. most zelda games feel a floaty abstraction away from actually functioning as action games and it feels a little twitchier.

original zelda i admire more than enjoy but i feel abstractly more committed to its aesthetic principles

I think I’m gonna pick up Ori while I’m stuck on Hollow Knight again. The intro was indeed :_____(

I’m personally loving LTTP but it’s better for quick plays rather than all-day luxuriating like most Switch games