Thursday, February 27, 2014

Monkey Business

Ok, so I've beaten the first real dungeon. It's the forest one, because that's where Zelda starts out.  Notable features include monkeys.

In the story, we're gathering artifacts to fight the twilight king.  One of said artifacts is here, so it's time to gather keys and beat a boss.

Individual Rooms

Each room includes some sort of riddle/puzzle.  This makes it less straightforward to move around.  It's pretty standard Zelda stuff otherwise.

Combat

Combat is secondary to navigation.  In fact, just swinging your sword wildly will beat most of the creatures here.  You don't even have to fight deku babas, just stay out of their range and walk around them.  There's no meaningful reward for killing things, so combat's best avoided unless you just want to beat stuff up.

If the combat is neither rewarding, nor an obstacle, why is it here?  What purpose does it serve?  It's reasonably fun, I guess, but part of the fun is supposed to be overcoming tough opponents. Zelda isn't the type of game where the player is supposed to feel overpowered.  Maybe it's because the combat mechanics are limited, so there isn't too much the game can throw at you.

Lack of Polish

Never thought this complaint would come up, to be honest.  Certain little things hint that maybe this section wasn't play tested enough.

First, the bomb bug things become really hard to pick up if they are against a wall. 

Second, certain vine walls don't cover all that they should, so Link goes jumping off when it looks like you're on the vines.

Little things, but annoying.

Difficulty

The temple was fairly easy from start to finish.  The hardest part was timing the jump to the boss room.

Speaking of which, I actually missed that enough to get a game over.  You get a full 10 seconds of music/menu to be placed back at the start of the same room.  Blatantly unnecessary and just breeds frustration.

Hated that part.  Had I made it myself, the hit box for the monkeys would've been huge, so that you'd catch it as long as you were in the ballpark.

Link handles terribly when it comes to jumping.  That should be accounted for.

An Aside

After coming back, there is something that must be said.  Skyward Sword is the better game mechanically.  The number of things I miss from that game is staggering.

Majora's Mask has a way better story.  Wind Waker has more interesting world design.

I'm not liking this one as much as I remembered, and I'm not sure why.  Could be that this is a second play through, and I know how things go.

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