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Classic Games (Games) GameCube (Games)

Zelda Extravaganza 38

Posted by Zonk from the my-favorite-is-the-blue-tunic dept.
Richard Goodness writes "AllRPG.com is featuring several editorials on the Legend of Zelda series. The Zelda Extravaganza covers such topics as the rumors of the Triforce in Ocarina of Time, nostalgia for the original gold cartridge, and attempts at an overall chronology of the series."
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Zelda Extravaganza More

Zelda Extravaganza

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  • Ah, Zelda. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Captain Rotundo ( 165816 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @10:31AM (#10493457) Homepage
    I swear to this day if someone were to walk up to me and say "video game" and ask me to describe the image I get, its from the Legend of Zelda. This game was probably the only one I've ever played that completely surpased all of the hype I had for it when it was released. - Which is odd because the ads were absurd. I really think of it as the "Citizen Kane" of video games, it was complete in almost every way, there is simply nothing to complain about it.

    Even now when it should be horribly dated, and when I can remember every single secret I can turn it on and have a blast playing it.
    • mmm, I would reply to your post in an extensive-doctoral-essay maner, but I need to finish the turtle rock dugeon on my GBA, and get some work done before lunch time, so... just imagine that I'd done it ok?

    • Re:Ah, Zelda. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Washizu ( 220337 )
      You're right about the television ads. All I remember is a stuttering, hyped up guy yelling about "Pee-Pee-Pee-Pee-Hats."

      The Legend of Zelda was the best NES game by far, and there were a lot of good ones.

    • In the ads I remember some guy dressed up as Link walking around in the dark screaming "Zelda!!" Does anyone know a link to watch these at?

  • No Disappointments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jmole ( 696805 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @11:15AM (#10494006)
    IMO, I think it is safe to say that Zelda is one of the few series that has no bad games in the series. I think Nintendo has delivered the Zelda experience with each game and has never been a letdown no matter what the system. I am hoping that the new Zelda coming out for the GameCube has as much impact as Zelda64: OOT did for the N64. Those were some great times.

    • Re:No Disappointments (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ralin_JM ( 813496 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @11:30AM (#10494162)
      Someone has never heard of the Phillips CDi.

    • Re:No Disappointments (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RQuinn ( 521500 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @11:50AM (#10494456)
      Didn't you play The Adventure of Link? I'm willing to say that every other Nintendo-developed Zelda game was pure gold, but The Adventure of Link was a horribly diffcult and annoying experience. It had the makings of a good game, but the gameplay failed. After the great experience of The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link was a great letdown.

      • Re:No Disappointments (Score:3, Informative)

        by Naikrovek ( 667 )
        I liked The Adventure of Link. That one was the side-scroller, right? Yeah I liked that one. It is oft listed as the worst of all, and I'd probably agree, but if that game is the worst in the series then the series has done remarkably well.

        All the Zelda games are great games.
      • You played the series backwards?
        • Ah, no, I meant after how great the first game (The Legend of Zelda) was, the second (The Adventure of Link) was a huge letdown. Sorry for the confusion.
          • Sorry... I actually thought you meant the SNES game, which is what I regard as the best in the series :) Of course it's more commonly referred to as A Link To The Past. Don't know what I was thinking.
      • You say the gameplay failed, and I can't say I agree entirely. On the one hand, needing to walk onto a random forrest square is just very annoying and bad design. On the other hand, the battle combat is probably the deepest of the series, and choosing which stat to level up was actually quite well done; better than I've seen in a lot of modern RPGs, actually....

        Basically, if you could scrap the overworld or at least the annoying bits, then the game would easily be the best Zelda I've played.

        Horribly d

    • i really can't agree with that. to me, OOT, MM, and WW have all been major disapointments. i'll play the first 4 anytime, and the Oracle games Capcom released for GBC a few years back, but don't give me those 3D ones and call them Zelda. it doesn't feel right and to be perfectly honest, i'm glad that younger gamers have got into Zelda by playing them but they are a dramatically sad departure from the greatness that the series started out.

  • Reason for buying an NES (Score:3, Informative)

    by UsedToCould ( 740576 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @11:55AM (#10494526)
    The original Zelda was the reason for my recent purchase of an NES. I had to search eBay for about a week to be able to snag one. I have it now and about 20 or so other classic games, and I have to say that I probably play my NES more than my PS2. And for good reason.
    While the PS2 is technologically and graphicly superior, IMHO there is just no comparison to the quality of the games as they were once made. Developers are using more and more graphics and cool cut scenes to drive a game rather than, *gasp* story line or plot development. And don't forget solid game play. I have spent countless hours trying to defeat mario 3, and I still come back for more.
    Why? It's just darn fun!
    • The thing that makes for great gameplay is simplicity. Any game that you can just sit down and play, without any serious dedication is a great game.

      That's one reason that Pacman did so well, why the mario series does so well, and why games like resident evil only live until their sequel. There's not enough new games that you can just sit down and play anymore. Warioware is the newest one I can think of, and man, that game is great.

  • 255 coins - Geek Moment (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vonahsen ( 745394 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @12:06PM (#10494656)
    How ungeeky am I that after all these years it finally occured to me that 255 coins is an 8-bit unsigned int? It always seemed like a wierd number to me growing up, but now that I'm a geek, I see the truth :)

    • Re:255 coins - Geek Moment (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It took me awhile to realize that too. I remember that the first time I played through Zelda, the game menu said that I was on my "255th life" when I won. I remember treating this as my lucky/favorite number for awhile.

      Only when I was getting my cs degree in college did I realize that the reason that it took me 255 attempts was because I really sucked and the game doesn't count any higher.

    • Re:255 coins - Geek Moment (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mattintosh ( 758112 ) on Monday October 11, 2004 @12:49PM (#10495088)
      Hehehe... It seemed stupid to me at first, but I noticed after a couple of years that a bunch of stuff in these games I was playing had consistent numeric limits. Everything came as 4 elements, 8 medallions, 16 hearts, 31/32 life bars, 64 levels, 128 screens, 255 rupees...

      Then I started doing some research into the way computers worked. I started calling those numbers "binary" numbers. I've learned a lot since then, but these patterns are actually what sparked my interest in all sorts of computer stuff.

      And I still learn all sorts of stuff digging through the guts of old NES games with the cheat finder in FCE Ultra. You'd be amazed what they could fit in a byte back then. :)
      • My story is pretty similar... I couldn't have been more than 8 when I played Zelda for the first time (on a black and white TV, cuz the color one was being used by 'adults') and seeing that 255 limit. I saw it again in some other game (can't think of what it was - Zelda dominates my early NES memories). I decided then to go to the library and get some books about computers to see if I could figure out why there was this 255 limit on... been a geek ever since...

        Man I miss that gold cart. It would be awesome

        • You may or may not be aware of this but the Gamecube game Animal Crossing has an unlockable version of NES Legend of Zelda [zeldauniverse.net] in it, along with several other old NES games. [planetnintendo.com]

        • You can get GBA Zelda already! The NES Classics Series for Gameboy Advance has The Legend of Zelda. It's the real NES ROM being run in an emulator (some small changes, like a less typoed intro - the rest of the legendary lines in the game seem untouched =) works really well too. And it's cheaper than most GBA games too (I got mine for 25 euros).

          I wasn't too hot to get the other games in this series, but this one I had to get. Damn I've played this one a lot =)

          • I'd buy the GBA version, but I'm not paying $20 for a game I already own two copies of and is old enough to vote.

            • I'd buy the GBA version, but I'm not paying $20 for a game I already own two copies of and is old enough to vote.

              That was what I was thinking, too, but I thought that since it's relatively cheap, I'll just get it. I don't own any copies of it, and that's another factor =)

              But even if I would have had, I might have still bought it. First, Zelda is always Zelda, and then, I'm just a game collector. I have two or three copies of some games (the second or third copies usually budget releases or free copies

    • They were ruppees, not coins. Where I come from people get shot for mistakes like that.
  • My wife and I, both gamers, have a differing opinion on the subject of new games versus old.

    She thinks that at the age we were when the so called "classic" games were prevalent, we thought that anything like that was fun. I think that I can tell a good game from a bad one, and that I could tell the difference between gameplay and just another pretty box. Comments?

    • I like to think I could tell the difference- and, thinking of the NES in particular, most of my favorites are games that still seem quite playable to me - Super Mario Bros, Kung Fu, etc.

      But then I think of how much time I spent playing Commando.... I actually beat it, repeatedly! I try to play it now, and it's impossible, and doesn't seem terribly fun. But I think that it may well have been a decent game, at the time, in the context of what was available.

      I think that some genres stand the test of time

  • Comments on FF vs Zelda (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rritterson ( 588983 ) * on Monday October 11, 2004 @12:40PM (#10494993)
    On one of the linked pages here [allrpg.com], one of the editors compares the Zelda series to the Final Fantasy series. (From a pro-Zelda footing).

    In one of the paragraphs he says (speaking of zelda) "but when a videogame manages to hit both the mark of delivering a fantastic experience and spring up the nostalgia factor at the same time, by maintaining that great charm and story we know so well, with past, rejuvenated characters".

    I think he just hit upon the main appeal of Zelda- while you have several different stories, it's almost like playing in a series of linked (no pun intended) universes. Personally, the SNES was as good as it gets for me. When I was playing WindWaker on my roommate's game cube and [spoiler alert!] The ship decended into the underwater castle I immediately started jumping up and down saying "Holy Shit! It's the Palace from A Link to the Past" and then I started looking at the topography of the world, and noticed subtle similarities between it's geography and that of the SNES game that only someone who had played both in great depth would notice, and had such respect for the game's designer.

    It doesn't just happen once. I was playing Four Swords recently (which also takes place in a world very similar to the SNES version) and, after being locked in a jail cell, thought "Great, 8 years of video games and I'm back in the same @$(%*&$#(*%'ing jail cell again." It was awesome.

    Later though, he remarks about Final Fantasy: "Chances are more people from way back when would recognize Link in a heart-beat, whereas Square simply hasn't given any of their FF characters the opportunity to really be remembered oh so many years later--much less decades.".

    On that point I disagree. I never had a sense that Link had a real personality, or had real emotions. Yes, he was gasping when Zelda was captured, and got mean faced when looking at Ganon, but he never seemed to have any dimension to him. Contrast that to Final Fantasy 3 (VI in Japan). Even now, 8 years or so after the game first came out and I beat it, I still remember the emotional response the game provoked as it described the story of Terra (the half magical Esper/half human) and her quest to feel love. Remarkably, that's not the only complete story in the game. Almost every playable character has a back story and you get emotionally linked to each. How many of you were soo goddamn pissed you couldn't keep General Leo from dying, no matter how hard you tried. The man was the only sane and compassionate person in the entire empire- it was just injust for him to be slain! Or what about the story of Shadow, the mysterious Ninja who you never know much about. I remember being so curious who he was and what in his life made him so solitary- he was the most callous yet most self-sacrificing of any of the characters.

    I don't know- It's interesting to see just how much a video game- a virtual world - can affect you,even so many years later.

    Just a few thoughts from this wandering mind...

  • The hidden triforce reminds me of Aeris (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wheany ( 460585 ) <wheany+sd@iki.fi> on Monday October 11, 2004 @02:33PM (#10496227) Homepage Journal
    The hidden triforce story reminds me of the stuff you had to do to revive Aeris in Final Fantasy 7. Although it seems the hidden triforce stuff went on a lot longer.
  • The wonderful gold cartridge. And not just gold, but metallic too. Who had ever seen a game set up like that before? And let's not forget the small slit in the box in the shield, allowing the cartridge to shine through.

    As a kid, it really grasped me with wonder and excitement. To this day, I can still feel that way when I see it.

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