After beating two games in one day the other weekend, I did take a few days off, away from the consoles and handhelds. But the call of Ocarina of Time 3D was too great for me to ignore forever. And then…my 3DS was almost hurled out the window.
I ran into two problems during a boss fight; one involved the frustration in trying to get Link to aim while moving and the other involved the lack of recovery hearts in the jars scattered across the room. I’m sure that was a game glitch, but the combination of the two was enough to make me rage quit. I’m sure that if I calmed down, bought some red potion, and tried again I would be fine. However, the thought of trying once again to manipulate where the hell Link is facing, while running and dodging, and while trying to get a correct target lock onto the boss makes me want to curl up into a fetal position and weep softly.
I ranted about this on Twitter, on the EvilCast, and in person to anyone who would listen to me whine. Numerous people told me that since I did not play Ocarina on the N64, I would not have the nostalgia to overlook the horrendous controls. While I can see some truth to this, I have to wonder if it also has something to do with the fact that I’m playing a console game on a handheld, and as such, that could be contributing to the difficulty. The handheld is not the most comfortable thing to hold during extended periods of gameplay, and I can’t help but wonder if the Z-targeting system is better than the L-targeting system, especially when it comes to camera controls.
The thought continued to eat at me, so I started to wonder about how well Zelda games have aged as a whole. Graphics-wise, games like Final Fantasy VII and even Final Fantasy VI have not aged well, but the gameplay is still tolerable, even to someone like me who didn’t play those at release either. So, I’ve decided to take on a Zelda Experiment, where I play all of the major/popular Zelda games that I never played and see if Zelda is an outdated concept. I mean, let’s face it: the ideas behind every Zelda game have not moved forward at all and all have about the same formula. Is nostalgia the only thing keeping this franchise alive?
Even though I’ve never beaten a Zelda game other than DS games–and I’ve been told those don’t count–I actually own all of the games (but not in their original platform formats, sad to say). So here is what is on the Zelda Experiment list: A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Link’s Awakening. I shall play each of them to completion or to rage quitting.
This will most likely take a better portion of a year, if not a year, as this will not get in the way of strategy guide reviews. And this is probably a major waste of time, as it will shatter my nostalgic pedestal of what these games represent to me from my childhood. But for science, this is a risk I’m willing to take.
I personally had no issues with the controls in OoT 3D. and if your problem is with Bongo Bongo, he’s the toughest boss in the game. You just have to quickly manually aim for his hands.
Nope, sadly, it was with a fairly early on boss. There’s always the chance that I just suck at Zelda games. I’ll accept that if it’s true. 🙂