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chuckroTerrifying rifts in space keep opening in Hyrule and swallowing up everything…including Link! Fortunately, Princess Zelda has a magic duplication wand and a magical buddy and she’s coming to save the day.
This game marked a terrifying moment in my life: By the time I got around to playing it, ARR had thoroughly conquered it. So he was giving me tips and pointing out secrets.
The vibe of the game is really weird, between the open-endedness combined with traditional 2D Zelda puzzles and non-traditional solutions. I feel like I'm cheating at every puzzle. And I'm having fun with that, but every time I stack three beds and a tree to reach something I'm like “This can't be the intended solution. I must be sequence breaking.” (I wandered up the Eldin Volcano area before I did Hyrule Castle and got Fire Octos, and those really did make a difference for several areas.) There are a bunch of things you wouldn’t realize are insanely useful for getting around, like water blocks or clouds or Crawtulas; and I spent a lot more time thinking about maneuvering than battle tactics. Then again, battle difficulty isn’t really a concern here, because you can summon a bed and heal to full any time you aren’t in the middle of a fight, you can buy potions and collect fairy bottles, and you can carry 20 health-restoring smoothies! (I also spent a chunk of one of the final boss segments drowning, and it didn’t do me any harm.) This is an action-puzzle game and the fighting is extremely secondary.
The map isn't quite the Link to the Past map, but it's hauntingly familiar. It’s like they started with that map, but then needed to add all the areas that were the actual plot/dungeon zones for this game (the expanded desert, the swamp past Lake Hylia, the expanded Zora lands, the icy mountains and the volcano that collectively replace Death Mountain).
Though there are only six traditional dungeons, there’s plenty to do, and 20 hours for the main quest and a bunch of wandering/sidequests is a solid length. Though honestly the “gathering Tris in Still World” gimmick got tiring for me after a while. I’ll also admit, I was moderately annoyed that apparently a third of the heart containers are locked opaquely behind minigames. And I will complain about the stealth sections. Even though you can “cheat” somewhat by climbing over things, I HATE unskippable stealth segments.
Random 80s kid complaint: The “wisdom” goddess is depicted as blue and the “courage” goddess as green. Back in my day, those two were flipped.
Overall: I give them a lot of credit that it’s a 2D Zelda game but it’s also something new and different.
This game marked a terrifying moment in my life: By the time I got around to playing it, ARR had thoroughly conquered it. So he was giving me tips and pointing out secrets.
The vibe of the game is really weird, between the open-endedness combined with traditional 2D Zelda puzzles and non-traditional solutions. I feel like I'm cheating at every puzzle. And I'm having fun with that, but every time I stack three beds and a tree to reach something I'm like “This can't be the intended solution. I must be sequence breaking.” (I wandered up the Eldin Volcano area before I did Hyrule Castle and got Fire Octos, and those really did make a difference for several areas.) There are a bunch of things you wouldn’t realize are insanely useful for getting around, like water blocks or clouds or Crawtulas; and I spent a lot more time thinking about maneuvering than battle tactics. Then again, battle difficulty isn’t really a concern here, because you can summon a bed and heal to full any time you aren’t in the middle of a fight, you can buy potions and collect fairy bottles, and you can carry 20 health-restoring smoothies! (I also spent a chunk of one of the final boss segments drowning, and it didn’t do me any harm.) This is an action-puzzle game and the fighting is extremely secondary.
The map isn't quite the Link to the Past map, but it's hauntingly familiar. It’s like they started with that map, but then needed to add all the areas that were the actual plot/dungeon zones for this game (the expanded desert, the swamp past Lake Hylia, the expanded Zora lands, the icy mountains and the volcano that collectively replace Death Mountain).
Though there are only six traditional dungeons, there’s plenty to do, and 20 hours for the main quest and a bunch of wandering/sidequests is a solid length. Though honestly the “gathering Tris in Still World” gimmick got tiring for me after a while. I’ll also admit, I was moderately annoyed that apparently a third of the heart containers are locked opaquely behind minigames. And I will complain about the stealth sections. Even though you can “cheat” somewhat by climbing over things, I HATE unskippable stealth segments.
Random 80s kid complaint: The “wisdom” goddess is depicted as blue and the “courage” goddess as green. Back in my day, those two were flipped.
Overall: I give them a lot of credit that it’s a 2D Zelda game but it’s also something new and different.
