Twilight Princess, Session 1: A Retrospective of Zelda! Demiboy vs. Backlog, Game #6

The first hour or so of Twilight Princess is deadly boring. While it's charming to start a game with falconry and fishing instead of battle and exploration, it pales by comparison to the immediate action of almost every other Zelda game I've played. So what games have I played from the series? Glad you asked!

The Legend of Zelda (NES)

I was born in the early 80s. The NES was a big deal when I was a little kid. My parents knew all too well how I'd vanish into those games if I had unfettered access, though, so I never had my own Nintendo. The Legend of Zelda, then, was something I only got to play briefly when visiting friends. That gold cartridge was so shiny and enticing! Given the limited saved game capacity of the cart, I didn't have my own save either, so I saw only fragments of the game, not a complete playthrough.

Many years later, when I got a Wii, LoZ was one of a handful of games I nabbed from its Virtual Console. With the help of maps available on the Internet--not quite the same experience as a dogeared Nintendo Power, but just as necessary--I finished the main game. I'm glad I did, and I surely understand how the title kicked off a whole genre. But the relatively primitive gameplay isn't something I'd keep coming back to over and over, so it gets three stars in my games list, and I may never touch it again.

Ocarina of Time (N64)

I all but missed the Nintendo 64. I played a bit of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Super Mario 64, and Star Fox 64 on a friend's console, but found the controller unwieldy and confusing. Between obstructive camera angles and pressing the wrong buttons for what I was trying to do, I couldn't get past the Boba Fett fight in Shadows, and even early boss battles in Mario eluded my expertise. (Plus it just felt weird to have Mario doing punch combos. Wasn't he supposed to jump on things' heads and sneeze fireballs from his nose?) So I had zero experience with Ocarina of Time in its native generation, playing it for the first time on the Wii Virtual Console.

OoT is one of those games that shows up on almost every "Top X Video Games of All Time" list--and if it in some case doesn't, gamer bros throw a fit. I don't get why. I feel the title hasn't aged very well, making me a gamer heretic. The sound design is obnoxious, the boss fights more infuriating than memorable, and the controls calibrated such that "throw Link down the nearest hole" is the default action. I made it to the end, and was glad to be done with it when I did. My guess is it gets deserved credit for taking a 2D series successfully into 3D, but I have much greater respect for e.g. Metroid Prime on that count.

Phantom Hourglass (NDS)

The controversy over the cel-shaded aesthetic of Wind Waker mostly passed me by. I preferred the more "realistic" or epic-fantasy look of Ocarina etc., but didn't begrudge Nintendo a change of pace with WW. If anything put me off of WW, it wasn't the cartoony look, but the prevalence in preview material of a kid with an enormous gob of snot dangling from their nose. That grossed me the fuck out.

So when I had the chance to borrow Phantom Hourglass from a coworker, I had neither reservations nor preconceptions. It turned out to be a fun little episode, with storybook visuals and unassuming mechanics. I didn't especially enjoy the segments that combined stealth/evasion puzzles with time limits, but the rest of it was a good play.

A Link to the Past (SNES)

I left this for last not for chronology's sake, but to save the best for the end! I don't presently own a copy of Link to the Past, but if I did, it'd be a five-star entry in my list. LttP was a core part of my video game upbringing, along with Final Fantasy IV and Super Metroid.^* I played it at my best friend's house, thoroughly spoiled by his coaching but enjoying it anyway. When I got access to my own Super Nintendo, I played through it again. I honestly don't know why I didn't pick it up for Virtual Console, just to have it.

LttP has its flaws, yes. Poor cuing as to where to find crucial items makes it walkthrough-required, unless you enjoy "combing every inch" style exploration. There are items that look cool, but are basically useless save as keys to open specific doors (does anyone use those big flashy drains-half-your-magic AoE spells for a practical purpose?). But every other moment of the game is so beautiful, so clean, so on point, that to this day it stands out as a stellar example of tight design. In contrast to all the games above, I can still now remember dozens of LttP's puzzles, bosses, and locations in vivid detail. In contrast to Twilight Princess's rustic "herd my goats for me" opening, LttP begins with a daring infiltration of a castle during a nighttime thunderstorm, and keeps delivering similarly cool adventures throughout. If there's another game that nails Zelda's peculiar brand of exploration-puzzle-action-fantasy as well as LttP, it's (a) not actually another Zelda title, and (b) I want to play it!

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* Lest it be thought that I played nothing but "masterpiece" games as I grew up, I should also admit that I played more Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle than I would ever wish on anyone.

"Demiboy vs. Backlog" is a blog series where I play each game from my considerable backlog until I finish it or at least a week passes, writing here along the way! I typically grab games at random, but you can instead advise me on what to tackle next. Check out the play queue and leave a comment here if you want to nudge it in a new direction! Think my backlog still isn't large enough or is missing some must-play title? I accept gift games via Steam, and will slot any game thus received into the queue at the nearest opportunity!