Zelda Retrospective: Part VI - Majora's Mask - Day 1

Ahhhhh!!! Two posts in two days?! Holy crap! What's wrong with the world? There's fire and brimstone! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
Anyway, yes, I managed to find some time in my somewhat delirious sleep-deprived state to start playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. It is, in my opinion, the most underrated of all the Zelda games. There are exceptions, but it seems like whenever the subject of Zelda games comes up amongst friends and acquaintances, I hear the phrase, "I loved the Zelda games, except for Majora's Mask."
When I ask why, it always seems to be an answer like, "It's just weird," or "I really hated that time gimmick, it annoyed me having to start over all the time."
Yes, it is definitely a departure from the standard narrative structure of the other games in the series, but the originality of its gameplay and tone is what makes Majora's Mask so endearing to me.
From the opening title cinematic and into the first three day cycle of the game, especially in Link's initial pursuit of Skull Kid, the game sets up a moody and atmospheric take on the world set up by Ocarina of Time. There is a much more surreal quality to things here. In some ways, it's almost reminiscent of Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam, where things are both dark and absurd simultaneously. The game mixes in a lot more character drama (like the infamously long Anju & Kafei side quest), more humor (like the absolute bizarreness of the Mask Salesman) to the slightly disturbing (the mask transformation sequences or just the fact that so many people are going about their lives idly when the world is literally about to end).
In the terms of gameplay, I find Majora's Mask to be vastly interesting. It takes the now tried-and-true formula of Ocarina of Time and adds extra mechanics like the mask transformations and the time cycle to give it a unique feel. While, yes, it can be a little tedious to have to worry about the passage of time so much, I think it gives the game a dramatic urgency that was unprecedented and has never been replicated quite the same way in the series.
But that's enough of my prattling on, let's get to tonight's play time.
I admit, I find the first three day cycle in the game to be very annoying. Essentially, it consists of a few small fetch quests and then a whole lot of waiting. Plus, you have to play through until you can get the Ocarina of Time and reset the clock to save, or you lose all of your progress. If you already have a decent familiarity with the game, you can complete every task you have to do before the dawn of the second day, leaving a lot of time to have nothing to do. So I went around filling the time with talking to people (which I quickly remembered actually freezes the clock) or trying to find ways of making the time pass faster (like having dance parties with the scarecrow or having the old lady in the inn tell you stories).
Very quickly, we get a sense of the tension this game tries to instill. The urgency of the sped-up Clock Town music on Day 3 and the fact that we can actually watch the moon get bigger really adds a lot to this sense. It is odd that Skull Kid is so easy to stun in the first confrontation with him. One bubble hit does the trick. It would have been nice if this had been a little more like a boss fight, since this is the first time there's anything resembling combat in the game. Oh well, I'm about nine years too late for suggestions.
Also, we learn early on that Link has gotten far more agile since the end of Ocarina of Time. Look at those back flips!
I will say, I'm a little annoyed with the lag issues on the Zelda Collector's Edition GameCube disc that I'm playing the game on (on my Wii), but I long ago gave my N64 and copy of Majora's Mask to my sister.
I suppose that will be it for tonight, my delirium is growing and I need some sleep. I'll hopefully get some more game time in sometime soon, but it definitely won't be tomorrow. The Righs have a gig in Tulsa with The Toasters.

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 6

Okay, yeah. It's been a month and a half since the last update. This semester has been pretty busy for me, despite the fact I made this schedule convinced it would be an absolute breeze. I could have gotten to this sooner, but a lot of my down time has ended up being spent with friends, off doing things away from my apartment, watching Hulu or working on my next novel project, so I haven't really been playing much in the way of video games. There's even been plenty of movies and TV shows that I've seen that I could have blogged about but didn't for reasons unknown, like Zombieland (awesome), Surrogates (meh), Stargate Universe (it's trying to be both the next Stargate and the next Battlestar Galactica) and Flashforward (pretty interesting so far, though the writing is a little haphazard at times).
That being the case, I suppose this is really more of an "Ocarina of Time - Days 6-8" entry. Late one night following my last entry, I finished off the Shadow Temple. I got tired and decided to put off the entry until the next day, but things happened, as they often do, and it got back seated. I have since forgotten all the clever quips I had come up with about it.
Then, some time a few weeks ago, I sat down and went through the Spirit Temple. Again, I ended up putting off the entry. Sorry.
Today, however, I played through the entirety of Ganon's Castle.
I always found this section of the game relatively interesting. For one, we get a hodge-podge of the different dungeons from around the game, some of the rooms fitting the theme and some not so much. We get Shadow Temple elements in the Forest Barrier section, for example. Also, we get a glimpse at what the Light Temple, a dungeon originally planned for but ultimately scrapped in development, might have been like. It was very much like the Shadow Temple. Ironic.
I once again fell upon the muscle memory I've developed over the many times I've played Ocarina of Time and breezed through to Ganondorf. A few of the rupee collecting rooms, namely the ones in the Forest, Fire and Shadow sections gave me a few problems due to a few misplaced jumps that led to automatic restart of the room.
One touch that I've always loved about ascending the staircases toward Ganondorf is the way the ominous organ music builds in volume as you get closer to your destination. It's a very nice touch.
Maybe if Ganondorf had invested all his energy into music, he could have brought world peace like Bill and Ted were supposed to with Wyld Stallions? But no, the water pollution ruined that chance.
So, Ganondorf gives his obligatory villain monologue, we had our little tennis match and then he was down. Another detail Nintendo did a good job on is how you can see holes appear in Ganondorf's cape as you do more damage to it. I'm sure if it were an M-rated game, we'd be seeing holes in more than just his cape, but, then, who really wants to see an M-rated Zelda game? It'd be a bad business move for one. But I digress.
As I played the escape sequence, an idea which I bet the developers got from Metroid, I found myself getting typically annoyed with Zelda's incessant gasps as flaming rocks hit me. We passed that one annoyingly placed ReDead and then that part was over.
Then Ganondorf turns into Ganon, I shoot him in the face, hit him in the tail, rinse, and repeat until he's down. Really, after playing this game as many times as I have, fighting Ganondorf and Ganon is just a little boring. All the challenge is gone. Oh well, I still love the game.
One thing that particularly interests me is the ending of the game, wherein two separate time lines are created. There's the one in which Ganondorf succeeds in taking over and is defeated seven years later by Link and Zelda, and then the one created after Zelda sends Link back to his original time and then, presumably, goes to warn Zelda about what will happen. The sci-fi nerd in me loves this kind of stuff.
So from here, it's on to Majora's Mask, which I feel is the most underrated of the Zelda games. Not sure when I'll get a start on that, but I'll try to make it soon.

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 5

Hello everyone, I'm very sorry for not posting in so long. I started getting really busy around the time of the last post with friends, birthday plans, band activities like recording and gigs and then school. I doubt I'll be posting as regularly and I might have to condense future posts in the series based on weeks and not days. I'm not quite sure yet. Anyway, on to the brief time I played Ocarina of Time today, before I set off to work on school work.
My hour-or-so jaunt through the land of Hyrule today was rather uneventful. I went through the somewhat arduous trading process that results in obtaining the Biggoron Sword. Now, in no way is the sword a necessary item for the game, it definitely comes in handy. If you equip it and Nayru's Love while fighting the Iron Knuckles that appear later in the game, you can definitely dispatch them much more quickly and easily. It's definitely more handy in Master Quest, where you encounter a lot more Iron Knuckles.
There's some definite weirdness going on with the trading process. I mean, the "punk guy" who you give the blue Cucco, Cojiro, to is odd enough looking as it is for a Hylian. And the relationship he has with his mother, the "old hag behind the potion shop," seems a little less than loving.
But it's the Kokiri girl who takes the punk guy's place that's the worst. She gives me the creeps, man.
She just looks up at you with that weird little grin and says, "That guy isn't here anymore. Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost. Everybody will become a Stalfos. Everybody, Stalfos. So, he's not here anymore. Only his saw is left. Hee hee."
Yeah, creepy.
Of course, if you talk to her again, she goes on to speculate whether or not you will become a Stalfos too. More creepy. Seriously, what's with that girl?
Then it's off to give a saw to the head carpenter, punk guy's father. From there, the prescription for eye drops, the eyeball frog (which the doctor at the lake wants to turn into fried eyeballs... okay...) and then the drops themselves. It's the last one that can be a pain. Getting the drops to Biggoron requires some pre-planning, because without the strategic placement of a magic bean plant at the mouth of Dodongo's Cavern, you might not make it in time before the eyedrops expire.
So, I got the Biggoron sword after playing the Sun's Song a bunch of times. I mean, really, do you expect me to sit around and wait for three days to pass naturally in-game? Hell no.
Then it was on to nab the Lens of Truth. This is where things are a little stupid. They set up the Well as sort of it's own little mini-dungeon, but the truth is, all you have to do is go in, play Zelda's Lullaby to drain the moat, crawl through the hole at the bottom of the pool up front, go through the door, fight the Dead Hand and get the Lens. There's absolutely no need to go into any other room besides nabbing any Gold Skulltulas that might be lurking about. Master Quest had it right in that you had to go through the whole thing to get to the Lens of Truth. Oh well, at least I've got it.Huzzah, I can see through bullshit now! If only I had one of those in real life...

- Nate

P.S. - I totally stole the fisherman's hat while I was getting the Gold Scale. Ha!

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 4

Sorry for not adding to this in a while. It's been kind of a busy week.

Okay, let's face it. Pretty much everybody hates the Water Temple, even after all these years. The layout makes it hard to remember where you've already been, especially if you made like me this time around and forgot to get the map until late in the dungeon. When you realize you're going to have to lower the water level to get that small key you need and then raise it back all the way to get where you need to go, it's just aggravating.Then, there's the boss, Morpha, another prime example of Hyrule's water pollution woes. I mean, if we're talking nutrient pollution, then all kinds of nasty critters can grow in the water. This guy's pretty much the king of them all. Seriously, people of Hyrule, you need to learn the ways of modern water treatment. Or sue the Zora's for polluting upriver. I bet the EPA would help out in that matter.
I don't know what it was about the fight with Morpha this time around, but it took forever. I think it took me ten minutes to beat him because I just could seem to reel him in with the Longshot and get any more than one sword slash in at a time. Normally this is quick and easy. I even fell in the water a couple of times and got picked up and thrown around by a water arm. I was just off my game.
Also, a bit of a dungeon plot-hole. Where did Ruto go after you run into her? Seriously, there should have been some sort of "Ahh! A creature created by the wanton pollution of water done by my people is grabbing me! Help Link!" or something. She just tells you that she'll lead the way, then she disappears.
In fact, after the way Link literally carries her most of the way through Jabu-Jabu's Belly, it would have been nice to have her tagging along and helping Link in some way. You know, marriage is a partnership and Ruto was pretty hung up about being engaged to Link. She should have shown that she could be a supportive wife. But, no, when Link's off doing the heroics, she probably just ran off to spend his ruppees at the Water Temple's gift shop. Looks like Link dodged a bullet when Ruto became a sage and the whole thing was called off. Aquatic women, hmph. Who needs them?

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 3

Questions for Link:
Question: Who changed your clothes and pierced your ear while he slept for seven years? Did Rauru just get really bored? Or does he like to play dress up? Oh jeez, I don't want to think about what else he might have done to you, you poor man.
Question: Just how awful was the seven-year-old half-a-bottle of Lon Lon Milk that you just drank?
Question: Have the fairies not wised up and pushed for some kind of Geneva Convention-esque deal where they write an agreement that it's against inalienable fairy rights to be imprisoned inside a glass container for an indefinite amount of time without a fair and proper trial?
Question: Where do you keep all that stuff? Seriously? Deep pockets? Or other, less pleasant places?

Link's Answer: "..."
I went through the Forest Temple and the Fire Temple today, rather productive. The version of Ocarina of Time on the GameCube disc is the last version that was released. When I played the game on my old N64, I had one of the early cartridges that still had the Muslim chant with the Fire Temple music. That was way cooler than the pretty much non-existant music that's on this version of the game. I was totally humming the chant as I was playing the Fire Temple. Sometimes political correctness can be kind of lame. Oh well.

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 2

[NOTE: This blog is totally tongue-in-cheek, don't think I'm actually serious about this.]

I have a hypothesis to put forth.
All the troubles in Hyrule, were not caused by the evils of Ganondorf. The races of Hyrule have not suffered from generation to generation, game to game, due to the lust for power of one man.

The true culprit here is water pollution.

I came to this conclusion as I was exploring the Zora's Domain and talking with the locals, as I habitually do even though it's nothing I haven't heard before.
FACT: A Zora in the game claims that all water in Hyrule flows from the Zora's Fountain, where Lord Jabu-Jabu resides.
Now, let me get this straight - a giant whale-thing lives right on the mouth of the water source for an entire country, where all it does is apparently eat large amounts of food that are given to it by the Zoras? Well, what happens when any creature ingests food? It comes out the other side. So we've got Jabu-Jabu fouling up the water with his excrements right at the start. Then the water flows into Zora's Domain. And what happens in the Zora's Domain, the Zora's have to relieve themselves somewhere. There's more water pollution right there.
So all the water in Hyrule is filled with Jabu-Jabu and Zora crap.
We know that nutrient pollution in water can cause abundances of parasites like hookworms, bacteria and toxic algal blooms. These don't cause deformities in Humans, but we're talking Hyrule here, land of the Hylians, Zoras and Gerudos. Gorons are apparently not effected by these problems, because they apparently don't need water, just rocks. And let's face it, they're weird enough as it is for that fact alone.
Could Jabu-Jabu-Poo have been the reason why Gerudos can only produce one male every 100 years? Perhaps. Is an abundance of toxins making Hylians (and perhaps Zoras) a little less than bright? Quite possibly.
Case in point: Dampe. Look at him and tell me some part of your brain doesn't play "Dueling Banjos." [Yes, I realize the screenshot's from Majora's Mask.]Another example, somebody would have to be a little less than bright than to start a business where people have to swim through a lake to get there and then pay to fish. I mean, forcing your customer to swim just to get to your location is a little absurd as is, but when a customer has to pay to fish when there's a freaking lake right outside, that's just bad business. No wonder you were so surprised to see a customer in there, dude. It might also explain the baldness.

Another example is the poor business decision of the Zora who runs the diving game. I mean, okay, first you make someone pay twenty ruppees to dive what has to be sixty or seventy feet into three meters of water and then dive for twenty-five ruppees which they get to keep and then you give them a prize. So on top of risking lawsuits for endangering your customers, the ones that actually survive their swan dives would have a fairly easy time of making a little extra cash from you and then get a prize from you. Zora dude, I don't see how you can possibly make money this way.
Yet another example are the poor senses of sight and hearing of Hylian guards. I mean, seriously, you can make so much noise around them and they still just don't notice you. You can even blow up a bomb and they just stand there twiddling their thumbs.
There you have it. Water pollution. That is the greatest evil of all the Zelda games. I applaud Nintendo for making such an environmentally conscience game.


Anyway, I collected a few more pieces of heart and beat Jabu-Jabu tonight and nabbed the Master Sword before I quit. I'm sitting at nine hearts and ready to go get the Hookshot tomorrow before tackling the Forest Temple and maybe the Fire Temple as well.

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part V - Ocarina of Time - Day 1

I have arrived, my friends, at the game that started my love of Zelda. In fact, it was the game that probably started the love of many Zelda fans around the world. Many have called it the greatest game of all time, and I can often see why.

Let me be straight with you folks. I have played Ocarina of Time so many times that I have this game memorized. I don't need walkthroughs (unless I'm trying to find all 100 Gold Skulltulas, something I've yet to ever take the time to do) because my brain is its own walkthrough. This is a game that I always come back to. When I got a GameCube and my sister wanted my N64, I refused to give it up until I had ensured that I could play Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask via GameCube discs. I could give up the system, but I couldn't stand the thought of not being able to play the games any time I wanted.
Before I booted up the disc today, I was convinced that I wouldn't have much to say on the game. I can't make all kinds of jokes about my desperation at the game's difficulty, because Ocarina of Time has long since stopped being difficult for me. There's no longer a way for me to accurately gauge the game's difficulty. Also, since I've played the game all the way through before, I was afraid I'd have little to comment on because there was nothing new for me to experience.
So it surprised me that, when I started playing today, it felt as if I was playing with fresh eyes.
I guess having just played through the first Zelda game, trying to get through the second and failing, and then playing through A Link to the Past, I suddenly saw what this game might have seemed like to people who had played through the other Zelda games and then booted up Ocarina of Time for the first time in 1998. In comparison to the 2D originals, this game is simply breathtaking. It completely revamped the gameplay and came with a gorgeous presentation with far more detail and story to it than any Zelda game before.
I found myself realizing just how much more was put into this game than its predecessors. Many of the side characters began to take on personalities of their own, since they had more than just one or two lines of dialog through the whole game. The game takes time to establish exposition and makes you more fully understand why your quest is so important and what the stakes are.
The first time I ran out onto Hyrule Field and realized I had this huge open space to run around in without having screens scrolling over to the next area of the field was glorious. I simply felt that I was more free and unrestricted within the game world.
It really was like seeing with fresh eyes and I did not expect that feeling at all.
In any case, in the three hours I played today, I beat the first two dungeons, gathered about six heart pieces and killed off a fair amount of Gold Skulltulas and got the adult's wallet. Pretty good for three hours, but then, I know what I'm doing.

- Nate

Zelda Retrospective: Part I - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest

Okay, so this is going to be the first in a series of blogs that overlook the Zelda franchise. I just recently finished playing through The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest and it gave me inspiration. This is an announcement that I will embark upon a journey through the various console Zelda games, namely The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. This will be a long on-going series of commentaries that will review the games as games themselves, analyze how the franchise and games in general have evolved over time and maybe to have a little bit of fun at the games' expense. I expect this series to take a long time because we're talking about a lot of long games, and since I'm trying to get a job and will be going back to school in a little less than two months. Also, I'm leaving out the Zelda titles that were released on Nintendo's handhelds, because that would just take even more time. But perhaps later on? Anyway, on to Master Quest.
Back in 2003, as an incentive for pre-ordering The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the GameCube, Nintendo offered up a free bonus disc. This disc contained two versions of the same game. The first was the standard version of Ocarina of Time, the game that kicked off my love of the Zelda franchise and ignited the burning desire to own a Nintendo 64 that consumed my ten-year-old heart. The second was what made me want this particular disc so badly: Ocarina of Time Master Quest. Back in the late 1990's, Nintendo was working on the 64 Disc Drive (64DD), a disc-based add on for the Nintendo 64. Master Quest was known in Japan as Ura Zelda, but it was never released since the 64DD was sold at very underwhelming numbers. Essentially, Master Quest was meant to be in the same vein as the second adventure in the original Legend of Zelda, in which you could go through harder dungeons by naming your character "ZELDA" after completing the main quest.
Master Quest isn't really a different game from Ocarina of Time. The story, dialogue, cutscenes, items and everything are the exact same as the regular Ocarina of Time. When you get into the dungeons, however, all bets are off. Though the maps are identical, with the rooms layed out in all the same positions, the puzzles, enemies and progression through the rooms is drastically changed. This version is meant for Ocarina of Time veterans, because you have to be very familiar with the original game to stand a chance of getting through some of the game's more merciless puzzles and also because there are several sidequests from the original that now become mandatory if you hope to get through a dungeon. Items like Din's Fire and the Fire Arrow and the Scarecrow's Song are now essential if you hope to solve certain puzzles. Harder still are the many extremely well hidden switches that I often spent large amounts of time trying to track down or missed completely and had to look up on a walkthrough to understand what I needed to do to move on. It's interesting to note that now, there are less enemies overall within the dungeons, but there are a larger number of harder enemies that take multiple hits like Lizolfos, Dinolfos, Stalfos, ReDead and Iron Knuckles. Also, because of the progression changes, you might find yourself completely bypassing certain rooms or unable to get into them until you've gotten an item from later in the game. This, of course, tends to mean that there are Gold Skulltulas in those rooms. While the Gold Skulltulas outside the dungeons remain in the same places that they are in the original quest, they are in drastically different places in Master Quest and are often much harder to find.
The various changes make a huge change to the overall difficulty of the game - everything is now much harder.
The switch to GameCube also allowed for a few minor upgrades to graphics. The game runs at about 24 frames per second (according to some articles I read on IGN), as opposed to modern games which run in at least 30 frames per second but tend to aim for 60 frames per second. This means that movements on screen might look a little rugged and choppy, especially if you're used to the high definition games that are on the market today. But you'll get used to it after a little gameplay and, really, the game is still great to look at for something that essentially came out eleven years ago. Plus, the GameCube disc can run in progressive scan, so if you have a 'Cube or a Wii set up on an HDTV with the right cables, you can get a slightly better picture out of it.
The gameplay of Ocarina of Time was revolutionary back in 1998, with its Z-targetting system, such a huge game world, and an unheard of camera system that could move into a 1st person free-look. This all worked fantastically on the N64, but on GameCube, it misses a few points. For one, I had the problem of forgetting that this particular Zelda came before the free floating camera that could be manipulated to any position via the C-Stick, as it can in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. When I first started the file, I kept finding myself trying to manipulate the camera only to bring out an item, since items have been mapped to the C-stick and also to the X, Y and Z buttons. I found myself always using the buttons rather than the stick for my items because it is a much more intuitive and responsive way to do it.
The mapping of C-Button functions from the N64 controller to the GameCube controller's C-stick is most problematic in the use of the ocarina within the game. Because there is no button assigned the the C-Up button from the N64, the ocarina's C-Up note must be played via the stick. This makes many of the songs that use that note much more difficult to play. If a song didn't use C-Up at all, I would always use the X, Y, Z and A buttons just for the sake of convenience. This would be a minor gripe, but considering the prolific use of the ocarina throughout the game, it's tedious. It also makes the ocarina mini-games with the Skullchildren in the Lost Woods and with the Frogs in Zora's River much more difficult.
I hadn't played Master Quest since I first received and played through the disc in 2003, so I've come back into it with fresh eyes. The game still holds up remarkably well and is still very challenging. It's not for Zelda newbies, but veterans who haven't played it should take a look. The game disc is pretty hard to find these days, I'd recommend checking around local or online stores that sell used games. Luckily, the Wii is backwards compatible, so, so long as you have a GameCube controller and memory card, you can play the disc on a Wii if you still don't have a GameCube.

Oh, also, I discovered while playing this that Ganondorf has Obama ears. I'm serious.


Tommorrow's post will be on the first day of play of Legend of Zelda for NES (I'll be playing it on the Collector's Edition GameCube disc). I've actually never played all the way through the NES Zelda games, so this should be interesting.