“THE REASON YOU BOUGHT A STRATEGY GUIDE IN 1992”

My previous forays into Legend of Zelda have not been kind. Shortly after giving up on Zelda II, I decided – you know what? – let’s get into A Link to the Past!

I’d heard a lot of good things about ALttP. Many friends and longtime Zelda fans have claimed that this is where the series truly begins. This is where the Legend of Zelda gets good.

And well, hey, it’s definitely my favorite opening hour of any LoZ game I’ve played so far. For a fleeting sixty minutes I really believed I might’ve been playing the best Zelda game ever made. Captivating, deftly-paced, and a map with objective markers. Talk about an upgrade!

So what happened?

Honestly I haven’t been feeling very confident about my internal rating system as of late. Sonic 1 and 2 are a 5/10. Super Mario Land is a 5/10. Final Fantasy XVI is a 5/10. And now this. I can’t really reconcile with the idea that all these games are similar quality-wise, because they’re not. All scores are subjective. Maybe one day I’ll realize Super Mario Land is actually the best Mario game ever, and maybe I’ll revisit Sonic 2 and fall madly in love.

Likewise, a Link to the Past is not a bad game by any metric; for me personally, a 5/10 is not a bad score by any metric. I’m weighing everything but I’m also going with my gut here.

I believe that playing Link’s Awakening prepared me a little more for ALttP. Knowing that Link’s Awakening was released after ALttP makes me want to play through Link’s Awakening again at some point – but also, it makes me question some of that game’s mechanics/conceits a bit more.

There is a good amount of streamlining here, mainly with map markers and fast travel using the ocarina, but it’s still not enough. Link’s Awakening had Ulrira giving you hints through the telephone, which was a good way to give players some direction (or a necessary refresher if you took weeklong breaks like I did). ALttP has fortune tellers, which give you some hints and even refill your health to max when you consult them – this is great! I was very happy with the fortune tellers… until they stopped being useful.

Towards the second half of the game, I guess the developers decided that hints weren’t conducive to players making progress, and then relegated the remaining hints to optional side quests.

Unfortunately, I suffered from a lot of the same meandering in ALttP as I did in Link’s Awakening. I was always wondering, “Where am I supposed to go?” Even with a map marker, the exact sequence of steps needed to access some dungeons can oftentimes be a little confusing at best, and downright hieroglyphic at worst.

There was always a 50/50 chance that what I needed to do was tied to a puzzle within the vicinity of the place I was in – or it was on the complete opposite end of the world map. I hate playing games where I need to keep referring back to a guide to navigate. For this game, I only opened a guide when I needed to know – is the answer nearby or someplace else?

Unlike Link’s Awakening, however, I found that the answer was almost always close by. There were also only a few times where my progress was interrupted because I didn’t have X or Y items. You get the idea. It still ain’t perfect.

I really enjoyed the dungeons in the latter half of the game where I felt the difficulty was balanced more around a series of increasingly harder encounters and room-based puzzles instead of constant backtracking and guesswork. Or maybe I’m just getting better at the series’ vocabulary.

Sometimes, you push a block, and a door opens. Sometimes, you kill all the enemies in a room, and you get a key. Simple stuff.

Even so, and knowing full well this is a 30+ year old game that’s been endlessly reiterated upon, the game really should’ve been more explicit in its demands and expectations of players.

For example: in the seventh dungeon, Turtle Rock, the player gets a popup saying they shouldn’t proceed unless they have a magic potion (to refill their magic meter). What the game doesn’t tell you is that you need the Ice Rod to defeat the dungeon boss, which is an easily missable item on the other side of the Light World map that isn’t required for any other section in the game.

I understand most people that’ve played this game are speaking about it from a nostalgic POV. They played it growing up. Tips and strategies for certain areas were tribal knowledge. Games were journeys back then.

It’s a weird problem because I’m playing this game on my Nintendo Switch handheld, and I typically space out hour long play sessions over days or weeks. I feel like the average player back then would’ve spent double or triple the amount of time I did dawdling around looking for clues on how to progress. I would love to really soak in Hyrule and appreciate every pixel of the artistry on display here, but that’s just… not how I play games. Obviously I don’t like to rush through games either, but I have my limits. I don’t always need to know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’d at least like some more direction.

I don’t approach games or films or television shows or books with the goal of “consumption”. But with games, it’s also a matter of ability – both latent skill and learned experience. I mean, other types of media can be “challenging,” sure, but with games, it’s not like films or TV shows stonewall their audience if they don’t understand the plot or the script or the visual storytelling. Movies don’t stop if you don’t ace a pop quiz or whatever. Video games are different. You’re getting pop quiz after pop quiz and if you don’t pass each one consecutively, you get held back.

Written guides feel like cheating if you ask me. But also, what else are you supposed to do? Spend countless hours trial-and-erroring your way towards victory? You do you, man. If you’ve got that kind of time – by all means, go for it. Thing is, I didn’t grow up with this. I’ve got hundreds of games I want to play. I’ll do guesswork until I’m red in the face and then I’m just using a guide because I need to progress.

Just tell me where I need to go. That’s it. If I need an item in the desert, tell me. Give me a popup that says, “Hey [playername], you might need an item from the desert to access this dungeon”. That’s all I need.

I also definitely abused the rewind feature on this one. Too many ridiculous traps and combat encounters to contend with later on. Way too much combat for my tastes. The i-frame windows are not generous at all, some enemies practically stunlocked me to death in some instances.

Maybe you’re a fan of the cryptic puzzles. Maybe it makes you feel like a real adventurer. That’s great! I love that for you. I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum.

My enjoyment of the game was split 50/50: on one hand, when I was able to figure out a puzzle solution or traverse a dungeon on my own, I had a blast; on the other hand, whenever I ran into the myriad progression-halting puzzles or trial-and-error boss fights, I felt like I was banging my head against a wall. My score reflects this experience.

You might want to play this one with a guide.

Fever dream fever dream fever dream

I went in Mario's peanits!

NSO Gameboy

I suppose there has to be a Mario game which is considered the worst, and by default that is Super Mario Land (I forgot about The Lost Levels when writing this, which speaks for itself about that game). I've come around on this game just because I've got more experience in older games now than when I first played this and really don't think it's a bad game anymore, but the physics and controls do hold it back to the point where there's no other Mario game which could be considered worse. This game does actually have some really good ideas in it such as the theme being a desert, the vehicle sections which are the best way to incorporate auto-scrollers, the music is very lively and even though it was outdated only 3 years later by Mario Land 2 it's still worth trying mostly due to how short it is, and now that it's on the switch it's more convenient to play too.

I would buy this game if I could.
I can understand how opinions could vary on this game, considering there isn't a story mode or a campaign to tie these courses together. It mainly relies on the gameplay loop being entertaining enough to keep players interested.
But I cannot express how much more fun this game is than I was initially expecting it to be since I haven't found much interest in the other 99-player games made during the Switch generation.
But the amount of content, the variety of customizable items you can get, and the legitimately really great online play and balancing make for a really addicting game to play.
Some might not consider this a mainline F-Zero game, but with the amount of engagement I have seen with this game, I would legitimately be surprised if no new F-Zero came of this.

This was my introduction to the the great and holy video game genre that is the Metroidvania. It was truly an eye-opening experience; how could I have not known about a genre so divine for so long? I shall now make my formal apology to the Metroidvania genre for my years of ignorance of its qualities, such as its maps, its abilities, and its secrets. From now on, my heart is truly devoted to the Metroidvania genre and all the amazing games it has given us.

(im joking but this is an amazing game and it did introduce me to metroidvanias)

So you're telling me this version...
- has better graphics
- has less annoying text speed
- has aiming that isn't garbage
- has a hint system for all those cryptic moments
- has a much less tedious to navigate Water Temple
- and has the Master Quest, an entire hard mode with not only harder enemies but also harder dungeons, included
...and yet some people say the N64 version is better?

I have never understood the love for Mega Man 2. Among many fans of the Mega Man series, as well as fans of platformers and retro games in general, Mega Man 2 is often considered the best game in the series. Of the original classic games for the NES, it sold the best by a considerable margin. Some would say that is reflective of the game’s quality, but to me, that sales figure just reflects why the game is so beloved. It’s the most popular, and most people’s first entry into the series before the Legacy Collection came along. I think Mega Man 2 is the worst of the eleven classic Mega Man games, and I will try to explain my numerous issues with this game. Unlike in Mega Man 1, where most of the issues were systemic and affected many different parts of the game, in Mega Man 2, a lot of the issues are caused by a single bad decision that just casts a wide shadow over the game.

Full review at https://medium.com/@QueenEmilysCourt/mega-man-2-the-worst-classic-mega-man-e9c0c3c342ca

HOT TAKE WARNING

Look, I get this game was phenomenal for its time and was very influential that it paved the way for future 3D action games but calling it the greatest game of all time that has been topped by no other is quite a stretch, especially when 1. this game has a few flaws (cryptic moments, clunky controls, the water temple) that other (especially newer) games don't have, and 2. quite a lot of games I've played HAVE topped it in my eyes, including other Zelda games. I'm aware of the contributions this game has on the industry and I respect it for that but that doesn't have any effect on how much fun I have playing it. Mario 1 and Mario 64 were also very influential but you wouldn't catch me dead saying they're better than Odyssey or the Galaxy games.

With that being said it is a great game tho, not the best Zelda on the N64 tho