I watched some balding manchild on the internet say piss shit and fuck while looking angry at the camera on youtube and found the cutscenes funny so clearly this must be one of the worst games ever made because I can't think for myself.
Yes, my favorite Zelda Game is Breath Of The Wild, how did you know?
Yes, my favorite Zelda Game is Breath Of The Wild, how did you know?
I honestly feel like the basis for a pretty decent game was in here if there was a stronger direction in its design, but thankfully the end results became something much more interesting and historically fascinating. There’s just such a juvenile glee in seeing an official Nintendo Product made with so little polish, such a disregard for their image of Quality Control. The bits of engineering and game design tricks that you always hear about developers at Nintendo coming up with to make a game as enjoyable and accessible as possible are avoided here so much it’s kind of surprising it isn’t an intentional “i want to be the guy” type of Dadaist anti game.
The controls, the enemy placements, the bosses, the thematic incoherence of each level and the mechanics involved. You’ll get an item as a reward for one level and won’t end up using it until several levels down the road. Bombs are the most expensive item at the shop but you use the fire projectiles way more, which are only obtained through killing fire enemies, which can only be killed by snowballs obtained from enemies in the ice levels. Every boss fight is mechanically the same thing and the final boss is an instant kill and the easiest fight in the game, it’s actually insane.
The misplaced effort is where so much of the beauty and tragedy of the game resides. The backgrounds are painted with such care and detail, but often that makes them impossible to navigate, as platforms are unclear and death pits are frequent. The cutscenes are bafflingly bizarre in a way that’s so iconic, with strange animation and an offbeat sense of humor that I fully believe is intentional, but when so much of the game is incompetent, it’s hard to blame people for thinking the humor stems from nothing but an accident.
While there are things to like about this game (the surreal animation, its bizarre & quirky sense of humor, the beautifully detailed backgrounds and at times charmingly cheesy synth soundtrack), these positive qualities don’t add up to much more than the sum of their parts. The game is a tragedy, but is also one of the stronger arguments for comedy being birthed by tragedy.
The controls, the enemy placements, the bosses, the thematic incoherence of each level and the mechanics involved. You’ll get an item as a reward for one level and won’t end up using it until several levels down the road. Bombs are the most expensive item at the shop but you use the fire projectiles way more, which are only obtained through killing fire enemies, which can only be killed by snowballs obtained from enemies in the ice levels. Every boss fight is mechanically the same thing and the final boss is an instant kill and the easiest fight in the game, it’s actually insane.
The misplaced effort is where so much of the beauty and tragedy of the game resides. The backgrounds are painted with such care and detail, but often that makes them impossible to navigate, as platforms are unclear and death pits are frequent. The cutscenes are bafflingly bizarre in a way that’s so iconic, with strange animation and an offbeat sense of humor that I fully believe is intentional, but when so much of the game is incompetent, it’s hard to blame people for thinking the humor stems from nothing but an accident.
While there are things to like about this game (the surreal animation, its bizarre & quirky sense of humor, the beautifully detailed backgrounds and at times charmingly cheesy synth soundtrack), these positive qualities don’t add up to much more than the sum of their parts. The game is a tragedy, but is also one of the stronger arguments for comedy being birthed by tragedy.
(Bottom 5) You know... When I first played this I had high hopes. "It looks like it plays like Zelda 2 and I like that game". "The Internet says it's bad, but they hate Zelda 2. It can't be that bad". Man, oh man, was I ever wrong. It is absolutely that bad. Everything fun about Zelda 2 is stripped away. You can't tell what is background and what is floor you can walk on, the puzzles are nearly unsolvable, the control scheme is a nightmare, and the cutscenes, while incredibly memorable (not in a good way) and meme worthy, are utterly horrendous. If this is why Nintendo hadn't licensed their characters until Mario + Rabbits, I would completely understand.
Somewhat worse than its predecessor, somehow.
Link: The Faces of Evil is a sequel to Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and it's pretty much the same game but with Link this time and different characters, the gameplay is the same, the poor level design is still here and the clunky controls are here as well.
There's no real reason to play this game other than playing all Zelda games like I'm doing just for the sake of completion. You can read my review of Wand of Gamelon here since it's exact same game.
Thinking about it, isn't The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon like Oracle of Seasons and Ages? Nah...
Link: The Faces of Evil is a sequel to Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and it's pretty much the same game but with Link this time and different characters, the gameplay is the same, the poor level design is still here and the clunky controls are here as well.
There's no real reason to play this game other than playing all Zelda games like I'm doing just for the sake of completion. You can read my review of Wand of Gamelon here since it's exact same game.
Thinking about it, isn't The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon like Oracle of Seasons and Ages? Nah...
I've played worse games, to be completely honest. It's still terrible but I mean, I would rather play this over Castlevania Legends. At least this game is about 30 minutes long. At least this game actually has kinda nice backgrounds! Also, at least this game actually makes me feel something. Playing this game in this current day and age of the internet is a surreal out of body experience that everybody should go through.