Dunno. I live in the UK where we have a statuary returns period on everything.
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Zelda: A Link Between Worlds |OT| All in all you're just another Link in the wall
- Thread starter Frolow
- Start date
Dunno. I live in the UK where we have a statuary returns period on everything.
LTTP is not really story-focused at all (I wouldn't say the story is good or bad - it's just there). It's all about the dungeons and exploration. It has my favorite 'world map' of any game with all its secrets and how well the light and dark world intermesh with each other.
PhoenixDawn
Member
Things get significantly more interesting after the first few dungeons, it follows a similar structure as OOT. It's not an earth-shattering story, but if you're already a fan of the stories of other Zelda games it'll be enjoyable I'm sure. It's interesting to see a lot of the parallels between characters and locations in this game and future Zelda titles.
Ocarina of Time's story is basically exactly the same as Link to the Past. Replace the time travel to the future with travelling to the dark world and replace the sages with the maidens. Done.
The thing is, it doesn't shove the story in your face. Look around. Explore. Talk to people.
Zelda never had an in-depth story until Majora's Mask. And after that point, the games greatly suffered for it imo. I don't want to watch tonnes of boring ass cutscenes - let me explore!!!
Because Zelda stories are fun. Usually not very deep or surprising, but fun. LBW has shown plenty of cutscenes in trailers, so its story will probably be pretty fun too.
Use your bow. Easiest boss in the entire game.
Technically, you don't get hit by them at all as long as you don't run into them.
Posts like these make me wish I played LTTP, but I was -3 years old when it came out. I'm sure I'll still love LBW but it'd be awesome to have that extra layer of nostalgia.
Reeeeaaally wish the Club Nintendo Reward was for 3DS instead. >___>
Burning Justice
the superior princess
As I recall, a lot of ALttP's backstory is contained in the game's manual, which of course you won't get if you're playing the VC version.
Used to love reading that manual when I was a kid. Though I've heard it did change a few details from the Japanese version.
Yeah. For example - Ganondorf Dragmire.
I guess you're kind of joking here. But for clarity's sake, the stories for the two games aren't the same at all. The general plot structure is. But the actual themes, messages, and you know the stories the games tell are not basically the same at all.
just trying to get the dude interested, that's all. both OOT and LTTP kick off at the same point (after first three dungeons)
WiiredShawn
Member
That seems kind of silly as a complaint to me. The "exploration to cut-scene ratio" of any particular Zelda game - even ones like SS or TP, which are probably the most intensive in this regard - is not very high. At most, 60 minutes of scenes across 30-50 hours of game time? At worst, like 5% of the game experience? I'd hardly consider that "tones of boring ass cutscenes," especially when those scenes can be useful for punctuating certain important moments or offering character development.
Zelda can have interesting stories and characters alongside world exploration; it's not one or the other, and I don't personally see (outside of bad examples like Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks, which didn't particularly excel on either front) that the inclusion of story has squeezed out Zelda's other appeals. Besides, what's the point of exploring without some thematic principles to contextualize the experience? In my mind, that's what the best Zelda stories accomplish - establish a thematic framework (for Ocarina of Time, growing up; for Majora's Mask, the struggles of adult life; for Wind Waker, the tension between past and present) and integrate that framework throughout the game to give the whole experience more meaning and emotional depth, even if the plot itself is relatively simple and straightforward.
Anyway, we are bunkering down over here in preparation for this game. Five days cannot pass quickly enough.
I'm the kind of person who absolutely cannot stand cutscenes. I don't play games to watch them, I play them to...play them.
It's one of the main reasons why I view modern gaming with such distaste. I want to be able to run around and explore, to discover myself. I don't want to be watching the equivalent of a b-grade movie when I could be controlling the action myself.
Basically, I've got gaming ADHD.
I am a fan of old school games, and find a lot of modern games to be crap. That being said if there isn't a decent story almost all of the time I won't even look at it. Only games like Mario and Super Meat Boy get passes on story for me. I even find the story in Metroid Prime to be pretty compelling.
There has to be a point for me to want to keep playing, and to me a story is the point.
I understand your point of view, but if I shared it then I'd miss out on some of the greatest games. Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the greatest game ever made, and it's story is essentially "bowser's got big and kidnapped the princess again lol". I mean hell, what about something like Tetris?
ah well
I'm with you here. I would love an hour of Zelda cutscenes if it was bottled up into its own mini-film on the side. Nowadays the breaks between gameplay suck me out of the experience and give me excuses to turn the game off.
WiiredShawn
Member
I can sympathize with that feeling - there are a number of games that I would like more if not for the developer's stubborn insistence on forcing me to watch multiple cutscenes, especially since they're not particularly interesting after the first viewing (looking at you, Dead Space, Shadows of the Damned, Remember Me).
I suppose I just haven't felt that way much toward Zelda games, since they don't usually last very long and only usually occur at particularly pivotal moments. I am grateful that SS introduced the skip function to cutscenes, though. Options are appreciated.
Like I said games like Mario get a pass. But an adventure game like Zelda to me needs to have at least a decent story. I thought the stoy in the 3d games were pretty great to be honest.
I still remember the day I got LTTP as vivid as it was yesterday
Got taken to Littlewoods Extra to spend some birthday money. Went upstairs to the SNES/Sega section. I wanted Ren and Stimpy, and my mum insisted no, and refused to buy it as it looked shit. She said "right, I'll choose then" and bought Zelda because it looked like a decent adventure.
I was angry and was a dick all the way home because I wasn't allowed to buy Ren and Stimpy and my birthday money had been wasted. Later on that evening my mum convinced me to play the game.
as soon as I stepped outside into hyrule with that rain...fuuuuuuuuuu
I shall never forget that sense of adventure and sheer discovery that I experienced first playing LTTP
heh, not quite. Twilight Princess introduced the skip function - you can press START (or whatever the Wii version has in it's place) to skip any cutscene right from the beginning.
Skyward Sword actually took that function away, and didn't give it back until you were on hero mode.
Got taken to Littlewoods Extra to spend some birthday money. Went upstairs to the SNES/Sega section. I wanted Ren and Stimpy, and my mum insisted no, and refused to buy it as it looked shit. She said "right, I'll choose then" and bought Zelda because it looked like a decent adventure.
I was angry and was a dick all the way home because I wasn't allowed to buy Ren and Stimpy and my birthday money had been wasted. Later on that evening my mum convinced me to play the game.
as soon as I stepped outside into hyrule with that rain...fuuuuuuuuuu
I shall never forget that sense of adventure and sheer discovery that I experienced first playing LTTP
heh, not quite. Twilight Princess introduced the skip function - you can press START (or whatever the Wii version has in it's place) to skip any cutscene right from the beginning.
Skyward Sword actually took that function away, and didn't give it back until you were on hero mode.
Preach on!
Just put a story teller NPC in different towns and if people are into that they can go to him and he can tell stories through cutscenes or whatever.
That's one way, but the best way is through natural means - Metroid Prime and Dark Souls do this amazingly.
Don't take control away from me and then force me to watch my character do a load of things that I can't do normally! Let me discover shit out myself.
At the beginning of the game I enjoy them because I enjoy character and world building. This whole "If I'm not playing the main section of the game within 10 minutes it's not a good game" thing never sat well with me. I bought the game and I own it. I'm going to keep it forever, and I enjoy when my games have more content, so I don't really care if the game starts after a lengthy introduction. I'm strapped in and ready for a long adventure with Zelda games, so cutscenes aren't gonna bug me. Of course, I think it's important that on subsequent playthroughs I should be able to skip large portions of those introductions, since I've seen them before. Certain Zelda games are really good about that, others not so much.
And throughout the game I really like cutscenes if they're paced well. If I just finished a dungeon, I enjoy when the game gives me a cutscene. I enjoy the down time before I get back into the adventure.
But cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. Yeah, that's no good. Thankfully, even the story heavy Zelda games are pretty sparse on cutscenes. The only crimes the recent ones have committed is the horrendously slow text speed and the overbearing handholding. That's what REALLY screws with a game's pacing in my opinion.
That said, player controlled pacing and skippable cutscenes do make games better overall, I think.
People don't want to just read a story. Games are in unique in that the player takes an active role. I agree that story shouldn't replace gameplay, and thankfully that's not what Zelda games have done by a long shot. Zelda has actually made pretty effective use cutscenes.
Nostalgic overload. I could just work all day with this in the background. It's such high quality too.
I know it's been mentioned a hundred times already but
You know it's a download code right? Even if you got the console, you wouldn't be able to play the game until friday.
Yeah... but I wanted to get it taken care of early. Also, figured there's a slight chance that the DL wouldn't be blocked so that they could not have to worry about people who do manage to get it early calling support. Average kid/mom would see it there, buy it, and then call when the game didn't work I'd assume..
Nah. Nintendo's gone pretty fucking secure with their downloads ever since GAME gave a load of people Pikmin 3 two days before release date. Now they're all date locked.
The release date for the game is probably listed on the download code slip too for customer notice, so calling up wouldn't do anything.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Finished it earlier tonight. Wrote a few comments on my Twitter, so I'll just paste 'em here:
- Finished #ALBW. My favorite Zelda since Majora's Mask, maaaaybe since ALTTP. So, so good. Post-clear playtime:
- Lots of powerful nostalgia for peeps who played ALTTP, and of course much of it comes from the music, which was just phenomenal.
- I wouldn't give it a 10, but prolly a 9 or 9.5. Big steps in the right direction with regard to (lack of) hand-holding and linearity.
- Dungeons could've been a little longer, I think. Or just give us more of 'em in exchange for them not being quite as large.
- This guy is listed in the credits as the composer, BTW. Dude deserves a medal: http://www.mariowiki.com/Ryo_Nagamatsu
I did not 100% it, just kind of went through the story, and I know I missed a few items...
never did find the Pegasus boots
My clear time was 13:35. Loved the game, but I do agree with you about dungeon length. Had a great time and the game did ooze charm and nostalgia.
A worthy successor to the best Zelda game ever, and yes, the music was great.
Just realized: The composer for this game composed Melty Monster Galaxy, Fleet Glide Galaxy, and Puzzle Plank Galaxy for Super Mario Galaxy 2. This explains everything.
I can finish both LA and LTTP in under five minutes using glitches
I wonder if LBW will have similar glitches. hm
Awww yea!
Let me amend my previous comment:
Legitimate non-glitch-exploiting speed runs are going to be fascinating.
Let me amend my previous comment:
Legitimate non-glitch-exploiting speed runs are going to be fascinating.
How many possible combinations are there? Let's just use the main 7 lorule dungeons.
By my calculations...that's 5040 possible orders of tackling the dungeons.
Really hate this idea. REALLY hate it.
I like my story in Zelda games. I like the ratio of gameplay:cutscene in Zelda games. I like the contextualization of what I'm doing in Zelda games. AND I like the thematic framing of many Zelda games, and think they would suffer without it.
Nintendo can give you guys a skip button, but let's not take away one of the few story-based franchises they have.
Like the hat?
Banned
Bummed that amazon doesn't have release date delivery
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Problem is WM's computer will lock out the sale and it's very unlikely you'll find a WM that will sell it to you.
brandonh83
Banned
Holy shit.
UncleSporky
Member
How so?
Speed runs naturally need to avoid revisiting the same area multiple times if possible, so it's probably going to involve renting almost all the items at once. After that, it'll just be a matter of visiting each dungeon as quickly as possible in a circuit.
I don't expect there to be much debate on the most efficient purchasing order or anything like that. Heck they'll probably just do the rupee garden minigame over and over until they can rent everything (a high payout game I heard about on a review podcast).
Sure. As a Japanese Club Nintendo exclusive.
UncleSporky
Member
When you can buy every necessary item right from the start of the game, do you really expect to see them tackled in any order other than something like this:
