Foliorum Viridum said:
I don't know, the whole charm of the game for me is the fact that the gameplay mechanics are based on the retro classics. It'd be a bit weird if I died in a room and respawned there or something.
I get annoyed with outdated game design in a lot of games, so I understand your complaint, but this is one of the rare instances when I'm not. It was honest about being a homage to that era and that's what I got. Managed expectations, I suppose.
See, I think the overworld is pretty fantastic and not at all difficult to get around, and that's in part thanks to them not being 100% retro about it. I mean, if the overworld was supposed to be like Zelda 1's, there'd be less caves, less townspeople, very few sidequests at all, and no directions on where to go next. Aside from that, it's really the only part of the game where you use any of your items aside from the anchor/wire rod, which is kinda strange. I was hoping there might be some puzzles with some of the other magic spells, but it's pretty much the first two that ever get used, and occasionally the freeze spell is needed. The burn rod was almost unnecessary.
I guess I'll use this to segue into my final thoughts about the game since I just beat it:
I really do like this game a lot. It feels like something From Software did because they couldn't get permission from Nintendo to make a Zelda game and decided "fuck it, we'll do it anyway." And instead of being a cheap knockoff, it feels like a loving homage. And I'm sure part of it was due to Atlus's localization too (I'm not sure if "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!" and "It's a secret to everybody" were in the Japanese version, but they were nice touches). And man, I called this game "Lego Zelda" months before release, kinda jokingly, but I didn't realize there'd be Death Mountain, Moblins, or blue centaurs. At the start of the game, I felt like it had this cool Link's Awakening vibe, probably due to the overworld, but now that I've beaten it, the overall experience felt more like the first game due to how long you stay in the dungeons.
It's weird, but in my mind I sorta consider it a Zelda game in the same way the Oracles or Minish Cap were. Not Nintendo's Zelda, but a pretty good approximation with some good additions. Of course, that's a little unfair to From Software to say that it's "like Zelda, but!" There are so many sidequests and things to do that the world feels more alive than any recent Zelda game. There are probably too many swords to go after, especially if you just wind up taking care of the Giga sword or Hero's sword, and I don't get the point of all the key items, but that stuff is optional. Regardless of how necessary some of that optional stuff is, others being actually useful, like the Hero Shield, empty bottles, and getting the three fairies (well, that's probably more of a neat extra than being useful), make exploring feel like you're actually accomplishing something... something else that I don't think has really been touched upon in an EAD Zelda since Majora's Mask.
And I guess it wasn't all Zelda, but a little Final Fantasy too. The character designs resembled them in parts, and stuff like Lake Garland and setting out to collect orbs from a castle are clearly references to the first game in that series (and starting the game by waking up is a classic video game cliche).
If From Software ever makes another one, I think it would be fun to go after the 16-bit world next, since I think they did a damn good job in the 8-bit. Not sure how that'd work though.
Overall, this is one of my favorite PS3 games. Right behind Valkyria Chronicles and A Crack in Time. It's just the type of game I like (probably because it's a video game and From Software made it to be a video game). Numerically speaking, I think it's an 8/10.
