This is not a review, but a cry for help.
you know what? i'm gonna write this this out of total frustration with myself. i cannot grasp this game. i'm completely and totally aware of my skill issue, but i got stuck and filtered on operation wallclimb and after like 4 hours of pushing to beat it i am just done. I cannot wrap my head around how to effectively change parts to fit the current mission and at this point i am done trying for now. This is where the cry for help comes in. if i get some good advice from someone i promise i will reinstall the game and give it another honest shot. I really REALLY badly want to enjoy this but its been so difficult for me to get my head in the game here. i dont want to leave this game that so many people are liking with a bitter feeling in my head but thats where its heading rn, and so i would really appreciate advice on how to actually play the game, because i clearly cannot find out for myself at this point...

I dunno, maybe I’m being too harsh but while this is impressive technically, I didn’t get that much more out of it. Viewfinder has some great ideas, but it barely develops them. It’s also really, really easy. Like, I didn’t have to think that much on any of these. This would be much more bearable if the vibe and dialogue of the game wasn’t just so uninteresting to me. Take Superliminal I guess, that game also has trouble developing its ideas and also is very easy. But that game has a sense of comedy that defines it, and so I still had a great time with it! Viewfinder on the other hand, really doesn’t have much for me. These all come together to create an experience that had me with my own music playing instead of what I found to be a very uninteresting soundtrack, breezing through every puzzle and occasionally saying “wow how’d they do that” while the game proceeds to abandon that cool thing that it just did. Definitely admire the basis for the game, again it is quite impressive on a technical level, but just kinda makes me sad.

Here’s a question literally nobody would ever ask, why did I even want to play A Link to the Past? This right here is the answer. Pure randomizer goodness baby, except when the seed I played was total trash. Seriously, who expects me to do suitless Maridia to get to Mama Turtle without hi-jump because fuck you, the answer is me and I did it just to prove myself and I feel SO damn good about finishing that seed. I’m just that amazing at Super Metroid.

I seriously love randomizers. Over the past couple months I’ve been playing tons of Super Metroid randos, solo and multiworld. SMZ3 always interested me and thanks to a certain friend invading my home, I finally forced myself to play A Link to the Past. Good game on its own, but I think it shines most in randomizer, especially when paired here with Super Metroid. It deepens both games immensely, not just because items from Super Metroid can be in ALTTP and vice versa, but also due to the routing opportunities it creates. Sometimes to get to where you want to go in Super Metroid, it can be faster to go through ALTTP for example. Or the fact that you can get to Misery Mire through Lower Norfair, negating the need for the Flute or the Titan’s Mitts. This is a huge rec if you’re at all experienced with both of these games, turning both on their head and giving a really fresh experience both randos alone might not provide.

Rest of this is a sort of diary on how my first seed of this went, so if you’re uninterested you can stop right here!

For reference, my settings were hard logic for Super Metroid, sword and morph anywhere, and 4 crystals needed to open Ganon’s Tower. If you’re a Super Metroid veteran like I am, these are the best settings for you and might even give you a nice challenge as it did me! Also, definitely use a tracker. A link to the past is insanely difficult to deal with without one.

The game always starts in super metroid, and I really didn’t get much there, so off it was to ALTTP. And so began an hour and a half long hunt for Morph, which I found at the buried flute spot, one of the last places I could have checked. Past this dogshit start (as my friend in call with me at the time called it), it was pretty smooth sailing for a bit. That was until I ran out of checks to do in both Super Metroid and ALTTP, or so I thought. My only choice was one I hadn’t considered, being Maridia, suitless and hi-jumpless. And so began my hour of pain, trying to get to Mama Turtle while freezing crabs and fish and doing precise springball double jumps to climb to the top of Main Street. Once I got there, grabbing the Magic Mirror was trivial. What wasn’t trivial, however, was the exit from mama turtle. Only having 75 health and no gravity suit, any hit would kill me, and considering plasma was behind the Master Sword check (hilarious by the way), I had no ability to kill the pink pirates. Needless to say, I died. A lot. Spending so long trying different jumps to get out of the literal hole I was stuck in. Finally, I escaped the hole and at that point, I was basically in go mode. All I had to do was find a couple more items, which all happened to be easily accessible behind the Magic Mirror. Finding Gravity Suit was basically the last big hurdle to get over, and it was found quite easily once I had Speed Booster from King’s Tomb in ALTTP. I finished Super Metroid first, and then finished ALTTP. I’m seriously proud of myself for pulling through that suitless maridia bullshit, I didn’t know I had that level of skill at SM, and being able to realize that was honestly great, and I felt really accomplished when I finished the seed after like. 8 hours. Here are my results if you're curious!