The Lelda Of Zegend: Breath Of The Weath

I finally got a Nintendo Switch. It is adorbable and teeny-tiny and I can't handle that.

I have now played Breath of the Wild, seven million years after everyone else already moved on from it. I'm only about an hour through the game, but I'm going to see how long I can get through it without putting any pants on Link.

I was hoping to have paid for it from art commissions, but that requires a paypal account and a paying audience and not being in a ruined state in terms of artistic growth. So my dad bought it for me.

The shame at being such a pathetic baby that needs his parents to buy him his toys is palpable. But I seriously don't have anything else going on in my life, I've lost a lot of heroes in the last couple of months and I doubt I'm going to have a chance to be an adult anytime soon. If I'm going to waste the days until I'm dead, I might as well do some wacky shit in Hyrule.


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~A.H.

E3 2017

It occurred to me that Nintendo has a huge advantage during every E3, just due to nostalgia. All they really have to do to "win" an E3 is to announce games in franchises we recognize. Sony and Microsoft have a huge uphill battle, simply due to their properties not having been around as long. Announcing a new "Halo" or "Uncharted" will make some people happy, but not to the insane amount that happen when Nintendo goes up on stage and says the words "Zelda" or "Metroid".


Which might be why simply acknowledging the existence of a Metroid Prime 4 is more intriguing to me than something like "Anthem". It's not that it looks bad, it's just... I've never played Anthem. Well, I've played Destiny and Mass Effect, and it looks like it's just those two things combined. But I don't know who any of the characters in that game are. Even the trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 uses an all-new cast. Whereas a new Mario is like seeing an old buddy again, and I have to admit that does bias me toward the big N.

I'm just surprised it took me this long to realize it. This could explain why I got a big kick out of the Super Mario Odyssey trailer, as opposed to the cautious optimism I employed to just about everything else that was shown.


I'm sure you can deduce from this post which games I'm looking forward to. All things considered, at least I can't point to any one showing as being a laughingstock. That's bad news for memes, but if it means we get better games, then that's a sacrifice I can live with.


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~A.H.

Smash Bros. For 3DS

Smash Bros. for the 3DS has the worst control scheme I’ve ever experienced in a video game. I say this because within the first 2 minute match, my hands were hurting from the clumsy button placement. Nothing else has ever accomplished this.


It's so awful, I almost wonder if this was done on purpose so more people would buy the Wii U version, thus boosting sales for the struggling console. I can't believe a video game in this century plays this terribly. And worse, from a franchise that was heralded for its' near-perfect precision gameplay.

Majora's Mask: "Blue Shell"

Via zeldawiki.org

I never finished Majora's Mask. I always meant to, but either it was too "weird" for me at the time, or I just needed more time to recover from the impact Ocarina of Time had on me. But even having only gotten about halfway through, I still remember it leaving an impression on me. I've played more than a few horror games in my day, but this is one of the few video games I'd call "haunted".

After seeing some very thoughtful video analysis on it, I decided to give it another go. And that will surely lead to my own extensive, thoughtful analysis of its' themes, its' mechanics and the understated effect it had(or should have had) on the games industry, in the shadow of a giant.

Or I can just be really bitter about the Goron Racetrack.

Fucking Mario Kart isn't that cheap.

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~A.H.

Hiroshi Yamauchi, Dead At 85

Talk about your end of an era. This is the guy who was a part of Nintendo when it was mostly about trading cards and taxi services. This guy was there when they had to rewrite Popeye arcade machines to have original characters(who you may have heard of). The man who, as the old legend goes, had the foresight to see that a factory employee making toys on work hours would be one of his company's more valuable assets(Gunpei Yokoi). He oversaw the greatest Japanese video game developer during it's best and worst days.

The last major console he was involved in was the Gamecube. That's a risk-taker if I ever heard one. We could use a few more Yamauchi's in this medium and a lot fewer Koticks. It's a shame he's gone.


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~A.H.

Fire Emblem: "Smash Brethren 3"

There’s a downloadable mission in Fire Emblem: Awakening called “Smash Bretheren 3”. It’s one of the most insanely fuckballs hard Fire Emblem missions I’ve played. I’ve had to restart it well over ten times. The hardest missions in these games tend to be restarted maybe 2 or 3 times, for comparison. 


The reason I bought this DLC is because if you beat it, “Lyn” from Fire Emblem 7 joins your team. This is my favourite female character in any game, and now she’s got a snazzy redesign:



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E3 2013: Nintendo

A more thorough write-up is below the cut:

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Operation Rainfall: "The Last Story"

Two down, one to go. 

It occurs to me that perhaps this was Nintendo's plan the whole time. Making people think they wouldn't release these stateside to drum up interest. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, but if true, I'm sure they could have chosen a less dickheaded way to play us all like a fiddle.

That said, XSeed are good people. They're the reason we got Fragile Dreams, and I look forward to giving them all of the moneys again.

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~A.H.

80% Chance That Navi Was Better

To the people who swoon over Ben Croshaw like he's video games' Gene Siskel, here's a podcast about the Zelda series(Skyward Sword in particular), demonstrating how to properly criticize a game while being British. See, they put in the effort. They tried to like it. They acknowledged its few successes, but don't let it get away with being(what sounds like) a really annoying waste of time, AND for treating the player like a complete imbecile. It also features one of the guys from Extra Credits, so there's that too.

Yeah, it's schadenfreude. But if any series deserves to be taken down a peg, it's this one. We haven't had a decent Zelda game since Wind Waker, and even that had to throw in pointless padding scavenger hunts in the last act. Even with that fucking Ocean, at least it knew what it wanted to be and came close to hitting that target. It didn't suffer from an identity-crisis like Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword.

Maybe the reason people look back so fondly on WW is a simple one: It's the last Zelda game that doesn't have a sidekick in the dungeons. That's right, that's the last major title in the series that didn't assume you've suffered brain damage, or just paired you up with a useless bitch.

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~A.H.

Handhelds: "AA Games"

An interesting(to me at least) blog post about the rise and fall of level design in video games got me thinking. Big games cost more, so they take fewer risks. It takes longer to make levels, so they can't be as complex or time-consuming to make or play, so we get prettier levels that aren't as fun. Dirt-cheap iPad games have only superficial, passing substance while on the bus or something. They don't have the budget or motivation to make something more than immediate satisfactory impulses.

Where did the fun go? When did we trade the artistic integrity and adventurous spirit of this medium for more brown pixels? Where is the middle ground? Where are the games that aren't AAA, big-budget bald space-marine shooters? Where are the games that aren't about matching coloured gems? Where are the products that can tell a story with unorthodox settings and staples, on a budget that isn't retarded, doesn't need to rely on the most expensive, time-consuming technology to look good, and can still be loads of fun? Where are the games big enough to be about something, but not so big that they have to circumsize the creative heart and soul?

The answer came to me while playing Mega Man Zero Collection on the Nintendo DS. The handhelds!

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Smash Bros. Brawl Remixes

Super Smash Bros. Brawl has the most soundtrack of anything that's ever needed music. It was a gargantuan project, assembling pretty much every name in eastern video game composition into one project, to remix classic Nintendo songs. Pretty much any song I ever enjoyed from all across this companies franchises were represented, sometimes by composers I've admired and followed over the years.

Oh, and they got my favourite composer, Nobuo Uematsu, to compose the main theme song. Nothing that awesome and nerdy will ever happen again.

Here's my 10 favourite song remixes from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in no specific order(not including original tracks like Final Destination, or songs that were included but not remixed):

Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright

Nintendo's reluctance to bring Xenoblade, The Last Story or Pandora's Tower to the west told me, in no uncertain terms, that it doesn't want my business anymore. That my money is no good to them. And I can respect their decision.

And by "respect" I mean "face-palm".

I really don't want to give up on this company or its products. Honestly, I'm not trying to boycott this here, but I'm not convinced they haven't given up on me. That said, if they ensure the release of THIS GAME in the States, they will do a lot toward rebuilding some of the goodwill they've lost.

Image courtesy of portablegeneration.com

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~A.H.

Classic Friday: Footprints

Since I've lost a lot of the material I was hoping to use for Classic Friday, I'm still deciding where to go with it from here. While I probably won't miss my reviews of Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect 2, I just realized yesterday that my writeup for Chrono Trigger is now erased from the world.

GOD DAMNIT.

Fortunately, I still have one series of articles saved. And while it's been a while since I've written them, they're very dear to my cold and shriveled blood-pumper. If you think my blog has been a sea of angsty vomit so far, know that if I ever unleashed this content you'd get tired of my unflappable optimism before long.

While I figure this stuff out, here's something I liked about the Diamond/Pearl Pokey-man games: