Game Time - March 2017

Here we are on the precipice of April, and 2017 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for video games. However, I feel that while March had some incredible highs for me, there were also a few lows. To start, the Nintendo Switch came out alongside Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I love Zelda with very few caveats. Nintendo took a rick and tried something new. The payoff was a video game that's completely on another level. I recorded a podcast with my thoughts on the game, but it's always good to document them in text form as well.

Then there was Horizon: Zero Dawn. It released on the last day of February, so I only played it for a few days before moving over all of my time to Zelda. What's a bummer is that I don't know if I'll ever go back to it. Personally it didn't really grab me, which seems to go against the grain.

Finally, we have Mass Effect: Andromeda. This game causes me to get upset just thinking about it. It has so many issues, but somehow I can't seem to pull myself away from it. Perhaps my love for the original trilogy is clouding my judgement?

There's a lot to talk about, so let's get right into it. It's game time.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nintendo is a company that is famous for rehashing a lot of its ideas. While that has brought them a lot of success in the past I feel that myself and many others have been craving something new. I got my first taste of new Nintendo goodness with Splatoon and now they have followed it up with Breath of the Wild. Initially I was skeptical that Nintendo would be able to pull off a compelling open world, but somehow they nailed it.

See that mountain? YOU CAN TOTALLY GO THERE!

I feel like I say this all the time, but Ocarina of Time is the game I can point to as the one that got me to continue playing video games. The sense of adventure I felt while traversing that world is something that has stuck with me. Now they have replicated that with Breath of the Wild. You can go literally anywhere in the game with some effort. If you can see a place, then you can definitely go there. Link can climb up almost any surface, and stamina is essentially his only limitation. The world is vast, and filled with areas that are exciting to explore. While there certainly is a lot of empty space, there are also many hidden villages and treasures to be found.

In terms of combat and plot, Breath of the Wild isn't spectacular. At first the weapon durability annoyed me, but in the end I grew fond of it. Since every weapon is breakable it encourages you to use a ton of different kinds. It's functional, but exploring the world was the main draw for me. If you want to hear me babble on for close to an hour about the game and all of its systems I recorded a podcast, which you can listen to here.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Have you every felt left out, because you don't love something that everyone else loves? That's how I feel with Horizon. Initially I was super excited to see Guerilla games making something new. The reviews hit a bit early for the game as well, and they were all glowing. I still hear people talking about Horizon with a reverence that I don't know if I'll ever be able to understand. I would have chalked it up to being tired of open world games, but then Zelda came out and I absolutely loved that. I feel like I'm missing out on something and its very frustrating.

Horizon centers on a girl named Aloy who is born as an outcast. At a young age she finds a device called a focus, which is essentially a Bluetooth earpiece that shoots AR things around that explain the world to her. The world of Horizon takes place after the apocalypse where machines have taken over and humans have gone back to a much more tribal state. Things like the focus that Aloy found are considered forbidden relics from the metal age of humans past. The people of the world seem to believe that humans in the past ruined the world. I find all of this to be interesting, but in what I played it never really took off.

I hope you like shooting robots with a bow.

The gameplay takes place in third person and focuses around a bow. You can get different kinds of arrows, which will affect the machines in different ways. You gain other tools as well, but the bow seems to be the number one way to take down your foes. The combat seems to be the thing that most people praise above all else, but I personally find it to be tedious. Where I am right now the bow does too little damage, so I find myself running up to enemies and using a melee attack until they die. Eventually I'll get back to this game, because I honestly feel like there has to be something I'm missing. Hopefully the plot picks up in a way that I can get behind.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

I love the original Mass Effect trilogy. I'd be willing to go so far as to say that Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. As a huge fan of Star Wars it was awesome to see Bioware essentially create a new Star Wars RPG without the Star Wars license. I immediately found myself enamored with the universe and its characters. Yes, the ending of Mass Effect 3 is awful, but it was not enough to taint the journey I had along the way.

Now we come to the 4th entry in the franchise, Mass Effect: Andromeda. If you've never played the original trilogy then the conceit of Andromeda might not make sense to you. Without spoiling the whole plot, let's just say that things in the Milky Way went sideways, and a few of the races decided to try and settle a new galaxy, Andromeda. A little bit of me feels for Andromeda while it's being railed on by almost everyone. When you're making the 4th thing in a franchise beloved by many, it's automatically going to be hard for it to succeed. Even if the work stands on its own it will always be held up against the original trilogy. Despite that, Andromeda feels like a straight to DVD sequel that no one really wanted.

All the familiar elements are here, but it just doesn't feel right.

If Andromeda felt new, I would feel a little more hesitant to criticize it. The main issue I have is that every character and many of the locales are trying to be things from the original trilogy. For example, the Citadel was a space station in the Milky Way where many alien races gathered. It was a central hub where you got to experience all kinds of interesting scenarios. In Andromeda it's the Nexus, which is almost the EXACT same thing as the Citadel! The characters are the same, they each fit into an archetype of characters from games past. So far I've had fun talking to them, but no one seems particularly interesting. Hell, even the plot is about finding ancient alien tech again.

The one praise I'll give the game is that the combat is fun. It's essentially the same third person shooting of the original trilogy, but it adds a lot of mobility through the jet pack. You can jump and dash, which adds an additional layer to combat scenarios. It's fine, but that might be the only place that the game is "fine." I feel bad saying this, but Andromeda is the buggiest AAA game I've ever played. Yes, some of the animations are bad. I don't think that's a bug though. I've had issues ranging from not being able to talk to someone because their prompt won't show up to not being able to interact with literally anything in the game. It's crazy. Most of it is the kind of stuff that would never get through QA. I had the game literally become unplayable, how is that okay? Even with the bugs aside, the underlying game seems uninspired. I'm going to see it through to the end, but that's really only because of my love for the franchise.

IT'S HAPPENING!

My level of excitement if through the roof today! Persona 5 comes out in four days! I have been waiting for this game for years. Usually games I wait this long for don't live up to my expectations, but I knew from the very first trailer that Persona 5 was going to offer everything I wanted from it. I have been craving a JRPG with a compelling plot for a while now and now it's finally here.

There's a slight chance that I'll talk about something other than Persona 5 next month, but like I said it's a very slim chance. The estimated time to beat is currently hovering around 150 hours so I don't know that I'll have much time to do anything else. Find out what happens next month!

Podcast Episode 25 - Breath of the Wild

Who's ready to get wild? I have once again recorded a podcast. This time it is about the brand new Zelda game Breath of the Wild. Enjoy it!

Memorable Melodies: Kokiri Forest from The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time)

Song: Kokiri Forest

Game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Composer: Koji Kondo

This is a song that most people alive in the mid 90's have heard before. At this point I feel like the Ocarina of Time is so iconic that everyone on the planet has played it at least once. This is obviously hyperbole, but this video game has reached a level of reverence and cultural significance most other games can only dream of. It was revolutionary at the time and is still considered to be the best video game of all time by many. I don't want to have that discussion right now, but I do think that it's one of the most memorable video game experiences I've ever had.

I didn't get a Nintendo 64 until a year or so after Ocarina of Time came out. A few of my friends had the game and would often let me play it. Due to the fact that the game wasn't mine the save I used never lasted very long. This meant that I had to play through the opening of the game an insane amount of times. It's probably the video game I've played the beginning of most in my life. This means that the Kokiri Forest song is burned into my brain for life.

Link wakes up in his crazy forest hut and this quirky tune starts right up. It's fun and upbeat. The perfect way to start an adventure!

Game Time - September 2014

I played three very different games this month. The first was a sweet sweet rhythm game, the second was a Dynasty Warriors game, and the third was a loot based first person shooter. These games couldn't be more different than each other and I had a lot of fun playing all of them. Those are just the ones I'm going to talk about here though.

In case you missed it I put up a Game Time ID of the first Danganronpa. I'm currently playing the 2nd game and it's pretty damn good. I also decided to buy Shovel Knight on the Wii-U, because I got a craving for some retro platforming action. I won't be talking about either of those this month, but I figured they were worth mentioning.

I have a lot to say, so it's probably best if I get right into it. It's game time!

Theatrhythm: Curtain Call

The original Theatrhythm, Final Fantasy Theatrhythm came out in 2012 and I was absolutely in love with it. It was only natural that I would purchase the sequel and love it more than the first one. In an unsurprising turn of events Curtain Call is basically the same game as the original. It adds a few new modes and a whole metric shit ton of content. The gameplay remains essentially unchanged though.

Theatrhythm is a Final Fantasy rhythm game in which you slide and tap the stylus in line with the beat of a song. Curtain Call added the ability to use the buttons and the circle pad on the 3DS as an alternative control style. I tried it for a bit, but didn't like it very much. I've seen a ton of people saying that they have an easier time getting good scores using the buttons, but I already don't have a very hard time using the stylus.

The gameplay remains the same in Curtain Call.

Just like the original game you create a party of four Final Fantasy characters. As you play the game they level up and gain stats. The stats don't really matter to the gameplay unless you're challenging a particularly hard song. You lose health each time you miss a prompt, so the higher level you are the longer you can stay alive. There are a ton more characters to choose from this time around. Not only are there characters from the 14 main Final Fantasy games, but there are some from the spin-off games as well. Characters from Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, Type-0, and more now make an appearance.

On top of the new characters there are a ridiculous amount of new songs as well. All of the ones featured in the first game return, as well as every single DLC song from the first game. When you add in all the songs from spin-off games the total quickly jumps past 200 playable songs. If you're a Final Fantasy fan you'll recognize a vast majority of them. What's cool is that there is a such a wide array of songs to choose from, so if you're not a fan of a game there's plenty more songs to choose from.

Quest mode is a fun addition

There are also two brand new modes in the game. The game now has a versus mode where you can challenge other players to your favorite battle songs. You can battle the AI, local players, or players on the internet. I can't seem to get the online battles to work. Every time I try to join someones game I get a 3DS system error. I've seen other people complaining about it, and it seems to be fairly common. Hopefully it's something that gets fixed soon, because the battles are quite fun. You play the songs like normal, but after hitting so many notes you get an EX power-up and something bad happens to your opponent. Most of the effects make it harder for your opponent to hit notes, but some of them are totally worth it. If you just want to test your skills you can play on the hardest difficulty without power-ups as well.

The other new mode is a quest mode. Randomly generated overworld maps are created and each node on the map is a song. You choose which node you want to go to, and some of them will have boss characters. If you reach the end you have to fight a final boss, and if you kill it you'll be victorious. This is similar to the Chaos mode from the previous game, but it has a little bit more depth. It's trying to make you feel like you're on a Final Fantasy-like adventure even though it's just a rhythm game. This mode is how you unlock most of the characters, because it's the most likely to give you the shards necessary to do so.

You can hang out with fat chocobos now too.

Theathrhythm Curtain Call is an amazing game. I've played it for far too many hours already and I'll probably continue to do so. This time around each DLC song is only $0.99 as opposed to the $1.99 in the previous game. That means I'll be able to convince myself I need to buy way more songs. If you don't like Final Fantasy this game is absolutely not for you. It's essentially a nostalgia factory for fans of the series. If these games keep selling well hopefully Square will realize they need to make a similar game for all of their classic RPGs.


Hyrule Warriors

I don't know what there is to really say about Hyrule Warriors. It's a Dynasty Warriors game with Zelda characters. As you have heard me say many times in the past I love me some Dynasty Warriors action. Yes, I realize that the gameplay is super repetitive and not very complex. I also don't care. It's fun to slash through hundreds of enemies with little no no resistance while sweet guitar riffs happen all around me. The difference this time is that I get to to it as Zelda characters.

I don't really know why Nintendo let this collaboration happen, but I'm perfectly okay with it. I just don't really know how people who don't like Dynasty Warriors are going to take it. There is a buttload of Zelda references in the game, which are amazing. I just don't know if that's enough to get people to enjoy a Dynasty Warriors game if they don't already. It's the same formula, but now you can be Link.

Dynasty Warriors: Link Edition

There are actually some cool new additions to the game that I hope Tecmo Koei takes back to their other Dynasty Warriors games. Hyrule Warriors has a lot of giant monsters in it, as do a lot of other games in this series. The difference here is that all the monsters are weak to specific items. The Gohma Queen shoots her laser eye and then it's weak to an arrow show. Once the monster is knocked down they're left open to attacks, If you hurt them enough you'll do a crazy powerful move on them that takes away a ton of health.

I think that the addition of collectibles on the map is great as well. Zelda games often have you searching for Golden Skulltullas or things of that nature. They appear in this game as well. A web appears on the map and then you have to search the area. They're often obscured by a rock or something. When you attack them they give you some lame concept art, but the idea behind having collectibles in each map is cool.

Defeating large monsters is actually pretty fun.

There's only so much I can say about the game. You push the same button over and over to kill hundreds of enemies as Zelda characters. I think it's amazing, but a lot of people don't.

Destiny

Bungie is almost exclusively known for creating the Halo franchise. So when the news that that would no longer be making Halo hit it was a pretty huge deal. That was years ago, when the world found out they were making Destiny. There's been a huge amount of marketing about the game and I feel like people have been talking about it ever, It's Bungie's first non Halo game in a super long time, so it's only natural that people would be excited. In fact this is the first PlayStation 4 game that almost everyone on my friends list has. So the real question is it a good game? Yes and no.

I want to like Destiny, and I do to a certain extent. However, in the games current state I think that it's repetitive and boring. For those who don't know it's a first person shooter with MMO trappings. It also has some elements of Borderlands and Phantasy Star Online as well. It has shooting that feels very good and is easy to control, and you get guns that vary in terms of how they shoot and how much damage they do. One of the problems the game has is that the guns aren't varied enough. Sure they get better in terms of damage, but all the auto rifles are still basically the same exact thing. It's a shame, because the game is all about collecting weapons and armor in order to get better.

Get ready to shoot lots of aliens!

Playing Destiny with friends is great. It's super easy to get into a group and do whatever. There are always missions and things to do. That's where Destiny is kind of not doing it for me. The part where I have to grind the same levels and missions over and over is not exactly what I would call fun. The games story is an absolute joke to boot. Every single mission involves you putting out your little robot buddy to scan something. Immediately following that enemies attack and you fend off a few waves. That's literally the central crux of every single mission in the game. To make it even worse all of the lore isn't even accessible in the game itself. You have to go to Bungie's website to read cards you've unlocked by playing the game...

The level cap at the moment is 20, but you can advance to level 30 by grinding for loot that has light on it. When I say grind I mean it. I've done the same story missions dozens of times with friends just to try for a chance to get better armor. These missions aren't really that fun either. The act of shooting enemies is satisfying, but I find all of the bosses to be super tedious. Most of them are nothing more than bullet sponges. Shooting the same enemy for twenty minutes until it dies and maybe drops something that's worth a shit is not appealing to me. What's even less appealing is fighting those same bosses over and over to try and get faction reputation so that I can buy better armor and guns.

This is my hot Destiny character.

Destiny frustrates me, because it has flashes of brilliance in it. It's also extremely flawed, especially the loot system. When your players would rather find exploits to get loot to drop rather than play the actual game then you have a serious problem on your hands. If I didn't have friends playing the game still I think I would have given up on Destiny by now. When playing with people I'm still having quite a bit of fun, but that tends to be because I'm normally not focusing on the game. I think that Bungie can turn my feelings around with the expansion packs they're going to release. More varied missions, and a tweak to the loot system could do a lot for the game. In fact this Tuesday they're changing the drop system quite a bit. The game has so much potential and I hope that eventually it can be fully realized.

SUUUUPER SMASH BROTHERRRRRSSS

This coming Friday Super Smash Bros. for 3DS will finally be released. I tried not to get excited about it, but I ended up getting psyched anyways. Yes, I hate the way the circle-pad feels on the 3DS for playing Smash, but it will still be a fun time anyways. The new characters are all pretty cool and the game itself is pretty fun. I've played the demo a few times to get a feel for it and I definitely like playing it a lot more than Brawl. It's not quite as fast as Melee was, but it still feels pretty good. It's just a damn fun game to play. When the Wii-U version comes out I'll be 1,000,000 times more hype, but until then I'll be content playing as Peach on the 3DS.

Before Friday I'll be receiving Shadow of Mordor, which is also super exciting. It's been getting crazy good reviews, so hopefully that will be awesome as well. There are a bunch of other games I'll be getting in October as well, but for some reason they're all coming out on the 24th or later. So I'll have a huge gap between when Smash comes out and other games I want to play. I'll try to fit something in there, but it's entirely possible Shadows of Mordor will be long enough to fill that void.

These next few months are going to be hot. I need to go prep myself mentally, so I'll see you guys next time.

     -Manny

Game Time - January 2014

During the previous Game Time I mentioned how I had gotten a Vita and was playing a ton of games. At this moment I am still playing a ton of games, which is why I decided to forgo the December 2013 edition of Game Time. Christmas happened and now I'm being further drowned in video games. I even bought a few games that I know I won't get a chance to play for a long time. Anyways, there's a good chance that I won't talk about some of the games I'm playing. I will give you a handy list of all the games I've tried out and purchased.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Shin Megami Tensei IV (Haven't played)
The Wonderful 101 (Haven't played)
Devil Survivor 2 (Haven't Played)
Skylanders Swap Force
Gravity Rush
Soul Sacrifice
Persona 4 Golden
Spelunky
Starbound

Since I completed both A Link Between Worlds on the 3DS and the hot new Skylanders game Swap Force on the PS4 we'll talk about those. To round out this edition I also played a bunch of Soul Sacrifice on the Vita. It's super weird and kind of creepy. You'll probably love hearing about it.

It's a brand new year and it's time for the first edition of game time in 2014! It's going to be an exciting year. I can totally feel it already.


The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

When Nintendo announced that they were going to make a sequel to Zelda: A Link to the Past I didn't quite believe it. Nintendo has been doing a lot of crazy stuff lately though, so why shouldn't they create a sequel to a beloved SNES game that was released in 1991. This kind of game always gets me worried, because there's almost no way it can live up to the original game.

I played A Link to the Past when I was fairly young. It was before I had gotten super deep into video games, but I remember liking it quite a bit. I still remember playing it for an entire weekend, because I needed to complete it before Video King required me to return the cartridge. So my nostalgia for the original game isn't particularly strong, but I do have it.

It looks oddly similar to the original, but different enough to stand on its own.

The last time I played it was over ten years ago, but the intro to the new game still made me super excited. The title screen is almost exactly the same as the original. When the triforce appeared on screen and the music swelled I knew Nintendo had done something right. It may not be as good as the original, but I think that they did a good enough job of following up a true classic.

As you may have guessed A Link Between Worlds is very similar to its predecessor. You play as Link in a top down isometric world. It's weird, because the world is very similar to what it was before, but just different enough to feel fresh. The music is all excellently remixed, and the sounds of sword hits and enemies are almost the exact same. Normally Nintendo would just cash in on nostalgia, but instead they tried to do some new things as well. The main new feature is that Link can turn himself into a painting to merge with walls. This allows for you to traverse very large gaps and adds a whole lot of new puzzle elements.

I'm not a fan of the way Link looks as a painting.

The other new thing is that Instead of traversing the dungeons in a certain order you can do them in any order you want. A freaky rabbit merchant takes up residence in Link's home. He will rent you all of the equipment you need in order to complete the dungeons. If you die while you're renting the merchants pet bird will swoop down and take your items back, so you need to be careful not to die. The game isn't super difficult. I was able to complete it without dying once. Late in the game you can buy the items and keep them, but it doesn't really matter.

In the end it's still largely like the original game, but it has changed in some key ways. You still travel between the light and dark worlds while defeating bosses in dungeons. In a way though, this entry seems to be a way of testing out new ideas for the franchise. Hopefully they learned something, because the Zelda franchise has been getting a little stale lately.

Skylanders Swap Force

I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden I found myself deep into Skylanders Swap Force. The desk in front of my television is completely covered in Skylanders. For the original game I only had 8 figures, but now I have 22 Skylanders and it's out of control. I liked the original Skylanders well enough, but I felt like I had my fill of it. I skipped Skylanders Giants, but something pulled me back in. Perhaps it was the fact that I desperately want games to play on the PS4.

Anyways, Swap Force is a great game for what it is. Yes, it's a game built to sell children toys, but that doesn't make it any less cool. I mean come on, you put a toy on the portal of power and then you're playing as that character in the game! It's mind blowing technology. What's even cooler is that it's a halfway decent dungeon crawler. You hack and slash your way through each level gaining experience, skills, and collecting sweet loot. It starts off easy, but actually gets fairly challenging.

I think Grim Creeper may be my new favorite.

The new figures for Swap Force are crazy awesome. Unsurprisingly they're called Swap Force figures. What's special about them is that they split in half. So for example the starter set comes with Washbuckler and Blast Zone. Washbuckler is a squid with two cutlass, and crazy tentacle legs. Blast Zone is a knight who throws bombs with rocket legs. All of the swap force figures get skills specifically for their tops and bottoms and the best part is you can swap them. Put Washbuckler's top on Blast Zone's bottom and you get a squid with sweet metal rocket legs called Wash Zone. I can't even imagine where they're going to go next.

The weird thing to me about the game is that the levels are so ridiculously long. There are around 16 levels and each one is an hour or longer, so you have to really commit if you want to play. So now that I've beaten the game I've been continuing to play. Once you beat it you unlock score attack and time attack for every level, which unlocks more rewards that make each of your Skylanders stronger.

Want to play as a skunk with rocket legs? You can totally do that!

Yes, I'm 23 years old, and yes, I play Skylanders on a regular basis. I'm not ashamed of it! It's an awesome series with a cool concept. A lot of the figures are cool looking and I like things that let you level up and purchase skills. Plus it's fun to play co-op with friends. I bet if you have children it would be super fun to play it with them. Sadly I do not have any kids, so I guess I'll just have to settle for playing it on my own, or with my friends who I can force into it.

Soul Sacrifice

One night recently I needed a game to play with a friend, and it just so happened that they own a Vita. We decided to give Soul Sacrifice a shot, because it was free on PlayStation Plus a few months ago. I had heard about the game, but I had never seen any gameplay. It's a super weird game. It's kind of like Monster Hunter and God Eater had a baby. It just turns out that the baby is into creepy monsters, blood, and talking books. Also, the creator of Mega Man Keiji Inafune was involved...

You start Soul Sacrifice in a prison cell waiting to be killed by the great sorcerer Magusar. I guess the world has ended and now Magusaur rules over everything. You see a prisoner next to you get taken and realize that you have very little time left. That's when a talking journal begs you to read it. He claims that it will give you insight into Magusaur and give you strength in order to defeat him. Each chapter in the book acts as a battleground where you'll need to defeat enemies as fast as possible. The monster designs are all super disturbing. They're normal animals that have been mutated by evil.

Yeah, just wipe away the book's tears. It's not creepy at all!

You're a sorcerer, which isn't the same in Soul Sacrifice as it is in other works of fiction. The are allowed to carry six spells with you and they all have a limited number of uses. For example I use an ice sword a lot. It lasts for about a minute and has five uses. If you use the spell the maximum amount of times it will break and you'll need to repair it after the battle. There's a wide variety of things from spectral weapons to healing herbs that you can use as spells. You're not totally screwed on spell uses during battles though, because you can sacrifice souls. You know, the name of the game.

For some reason sorcerers have crazy arms in the Soul Sacrifice universe. When you kill an enemy you can either save its soul or sacrifice it. If you sacrifice an enemy you'll gain evil experience and get back some of your spell uses. If you save a soul then you'll get good experience and regain some lost health. When you get enough experience with either alignment the arm will go up a level. Dark levels give you attack, while good levels give you defense and health. You can choose to keep both levels close to each other and have a neutral arm, but if you have one much higher than the other you can gain extra bonuses. If you have either a dark arm or a good arm you can carve special sigils into the arm to give you bonuses.

Will you have a creepy mutilated hand, or a glowing blue one?

The game is just really weird. There's a lot of blood all over the place and blood curdling screams can often be heard when selecting things on the menus. Also you can talk to the talking book and wipe tears off of its face, which can be used as a special currency to repair spells... I'm having fun with it, but it's just kind of creepy and a little off-putting. It's like a fast paced Monster Hunter.

Hard Games

I've started playing a fair bit of Spelunky recently. I've gotten okay at it, but I'm still not very good. I try to play at least once a day so I can get some practice. Perhaps someday I'll actually be able to make it to the end, but for right now I'm just having fun discovering strategies and ways to survive for longer. I've even been watching a weird amount of Spelunky get played on the internet so I can find out new stuff.

I used to think Spelunky was impenetrable, much like Monster Hunter. Now that I know it's not I've gotten it in my head that I want to have a go at Dark Souls. I've borrowed it from a friend and am thinking about starting it. Since the second one comes out soon I might just play that instead, but I just don't know. If I start it I'm going to have to finish it, which could become an issue. Bravely Default comes out for the 3DS in February and I think I might end up getting lost in that.

Either way February will be an interesting month. Like I said back at the beginning I think that 2014 is going to be pretty sweet in terms of video games, so we all need to get ready for it.

    -Manny

What I Watched: The Legend of Zelda Animated Series Episode 1

Recently I got lost in the bowels of Amazon Prime's instant video section and somehow found myself watching the the Super Mario Brothers Super Show, which I recounted in an earlier post.

This past week I dove into a new animated video game inspired show, The Legend of Zelda. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show would trade off its Mario cartoon every Friday for a Zelda cartoon. The freaky live action stuff aired with Zelda too, but for some reason amazon has that cut out.

I'm not going to lie. I really like Zelda games. In fact, I'm confident in saying that it's one of my favorite video game franchises. The games all have the same basic premise. A silent hero named Link in a green tunic has to save or help the princess (Zelda) from an evil villain (Who is named Gannon most of the the time). It's not a hard concept to grasp. Link wears a green tunic and doesn't talk. He fights evil and saves the princess. It seems like it would be hard to mess up a Zelda cartoon, but somehow The Legend of Zelda Animated Series manages to be horrible despite that.

Check the intro out here.

The show's intro has Princess Zelda explaining everything to Link while a familiar tune from the game plays in the background. Zelda has the triforce of wisdom and the evil wizard Gannon has the triforce of power. Whoever gets both of them will rule the land! Link must help Zelda protect the troforce at all costs! Up until this point in the intro everything is fine and dandy, except for the fact that there should be a triforce of courage as well, but whatever I'll let that slide. 

Everything was going fine until Link lets loose the phrase "Excuse me Princess". It doesn't sound too bad out of context, but it's long, drawn out, and sarcastic in the show. It makes him sound like a total douche and his actions in the show prove that he's a total douche. I had heard the phrase prior to this viewing, but I always associated it with the awful Zelda CD-I games.

The episode begins with Link waking up for the day. He then immediately begins complaining about how boring Hyrule is. Apparently making sure the world doesn't suck isn't very fun. As he continues complaining he makes his way over to the window for a breath of fresh air. He looks out to see Princess Zelda on the balcony below wearing her sleeping garb. Link let's out a whistle as tells her that he has a nice view, especially from his angle. Now, I may be a little immature, but this remark sounds extremely sexual. Zelda gets offended and then her fair helper Sprite brings her a robe and they leave.

Mourning the loss of his view Link lingers at the window only to be pulled away by a moblin. While Link was sexually harassing Zelda they came in to steal the triforce. Link doesn't have his tunic, or pants on but that doesn't stop him from fighting back. He quickly grabs his sword...and a pillow to defend himself. As he's fighting Link decides to start up a pillow fight with the moblins.

Link's always ready for a pillow fight, especially when he has no pants on!

Link continues to not wear pants as he defeats the moblins. When he's done Zelda comes knocking. He's expecting a kiss for all his hard work, but instead she smacks him, just as she should. He explains that the moblins attacked to try and steal the triforce, while trying to make himself sound really cool. Zelda gets worried and tells him to stay inside for the day and protect the triforce. She can't stay with him, because she needs to judge the magician's competition.

The camera cuts to Gannon, who is not pleased by the failure of his moblins. He decided that if he wants to get the triforce he's going to have to get it himself. He teleports around a bit before deciding to enter the magician's competition in Hyrule. Gannon hides himself underneath what seems to be a blue sheet. Gannon looks like a green pig man and the blue sheet does little to hide it. It's a good thing the inhabitants of Hyrule are dumb in this show, or he'd be found out in an instant. Gannon then summons a few skeletons covered with blue sheets so that they can carry him to Hyrule on a chair. Pleased with himself he sets to enter the contest.

At the magician competition things aren't looking so hot. The only spell they show is a magician making a tomato grow until it bursts. I'm not a magician, but that spell seems like it's pretty lame. Gannon shows up just in time and summons a bird so the princess allows him to enter the competition, because obviously if you can summon a bird you're an amateur magician. Gannon then turns his bird into a bat and sends it to look for the triforce. It returns to tell him that Link and Sprite are up in the tower. Gannon then decides to create a distraction, which ends up being a dragon. It attacks Zelda. Link hears and see's it as an opportunity to get a kiss from Zelda, so he rushes to the scene.

Link defeats the dragon and then tries to claim his reward from Zelda. Much to his dismay he finds out that Gannon is escaping with the triforce. Zelda throws down some seeds and has a wizard cast a growing spell on them. One turns into a tree, which Link and Zelda use as a slingshot so they can get to Gannon.

Link get's denied a kiss...again.

Link lands in the forest first and Zelda lands on top of him. Link demands a kiss, but she refuses. They see Gannon on his chair and quickly jump into action. Link shoots a beam from his sword to slow him down. Gannon quickly sends his goons after them while calling for reinforcements. Link pulls a bow out of his bottomless item pouch for Zelda to use in battle, but they quickly become outnumbered. Link brilliantly says that they should get back to back, but they already are. Despite that he unbuckles his belt and ties them together, which there is no reason for.

They beat all of their enemies and manage to get the triforce back with a well timed bomb throw. When the battle ends it becomes clear as to why Link buckled the two of them together...he wanted a kiss! He begs Zelda for a kiss and she yields. Right when they're about to lock lips the stupid fairy sprite appears and unbuckles the belt causing them to fall to the ground. Link doesn't get his kiss and everyone laughs. The episode ends and they all live happily ever after

Link's perviness pays off and he almost gets a kiss.

The whole thing could have been decent, but instead it ends up being slightly creepy and hilariously bad. Much like the Super Mario Bros. Super Show live action segements I found myself laughing uncontrollably at many points during the episode. My sub-par synopsis of the episode can't capture the hilarity or creepiness that the show has.

The reason the show falls apart is because Link is a complete douche, but it's also the reason it's so funny. I wouldn't say that unless it was true. He complains about everything and is so full of himself it's painful. On top of that he has a creepy obsession with kissing Zelda, which leads to many awkward situations. Most of Link's lines seem like they're jokes, but they clearly aren't supposed to be. Every time he opens his mouth it's cringe worthy. I'd be willing to bet that whoever wrote the script for this show had never played Zelda and if they did, they had a totally different experience than I did. 

I can't recommend this show in good conscience, but if you're low on sleep and looking for a good laugh you should try it out. It's no longer available for free to prime members, but you can find full episodes on youtube. I even found an HD version of this episode. Someone must really like their animated Zelda. 

While the show isn't good, it's certainly a good example of what not to do with a Zelda cartoon. I guess creepy borderline sexual things were standard fare for Nintendo shows in the late 80's. Perhaps that's why they stopped being produces.

     -Manny