At some point in the future, I really ought to write a great deal more about this duology, but having just completed my revisit I wanted to voice my initial thoughts. Whether or not I prefer certain aspects of Ocarina to this game, whether or not I resonated with one half more than the other, or whatever other gripes and nitpicks I have - as a conclusive, consecutive whole piece, that is both halves of this duology combined, I believe the Nintendo 64 Zelda duology very well may be Nintendo's magnum opus.

The Ocarina pairing carry themselves with a certain sophistication and solemness rarely felt in the company's other titles. What I felt these games have to say about the passing of time, of childhood innocence warped and cast aside, the process of growing up and the relationships, expressions and experiences that carry us through to adulthood... that's the sort of magic that this group of creatives was capable of in this era. The sort of knowing adoration poured into this duology, into Mario 64 and into MOTHER2. It's Nintendo at their absolute peak, and I don't want to get into my displeasure with the company as they stand and have stood for years now here... I simply want to commend them and express my gratitude for this two-headed beast, this totemic work of human expression they took the Nintendo 64 to its limits to produce. I'm not the Nintendo fan I was as a kid... far from it. But during those moments in Ocarina and Majora... yeah. I believe.

fans love to make erroneous arguments about how detractors dislike the game cos it's different, but the problem has always been that those differences amount to nothing of substance. if they're not completely insignificant they're fakeouts or walked back, if they're not fakeouts or walked back they're jj abrams mystery box bullshit to keep the online dustcloud with arms and legs kicking and howling about The Implications for another four years. this is a game more concerned with how to capture will they/won't they Engagement than its own thematic core; an impressively meticulous effort moored in goopy fanservice and speculation bait

control freak energy from top to bottom, sanitized to an extent that you'd think square report directly to the health department, and guided by one of the medium's most overbearing directorial hands. all slick and shiny bombast and spectacle, perfect skin, compilation pilled navel gazing, and endlessly wrested control. thirty long hours of red light green light meandering thru kidzbop cover acts of familiar events and environments before shunting all responsibility for unpacking anything it might have to say onto the next game

big win for folks who wanted tifa to be a noodle armed simp and sephiroth to have the presence of yakuza kiwami majima

Is and will always be my favorite game of all time. The gameplay, the story, the graphics, the propaganda for the military industrial complex; it’s all just perfect. The only thing that could be more fun than this game is making a dumb gimmick account as something to do when I’m bored during work and getting a surprisingly high amount of clout amongst a community I mostly chose not to engage with. Thanks for 10,000 likes.
Also, Fidel Castro is like the rawest video game character of all time and I wish he was real so fucking much.

This game pisses me off so much, it has some of the best pure action gameplay I've experienced in the medium, with beautiful graphics and a killer soundtrack.


THAT BEING SAID, it has so much wrong with it and for the first few hours I was hating on this game HARD; I still stand by a lot of those opinions which I want to go into below:

-The writing gets better as the game goes on, but those first few hours are actually insufferable, the plot in general is incredibly standard and by the books, it was fun to riff on with my brother but if I was playing this alone I think I would be skipping cutscenes. Its physical comedy is top notch but the actual joke writing is 80% miss and 20% hit (& that's being generous)

-The character design is generic at best and pretty damn uncomfortable at worst; Chai is about as forgettable a design this game could muster for a protagonist, 2 out of the 3 female characters wear denim booty shorts and the less said about Macaron the better. It's like the rejects of Overwatch.

-The pacing at which the game shows its full hand can be a bit off at times, not giving me a parry until a few missions in is an insane move!!! It's platforming is weak and I wish there was some better downtime other than what feels like the most base level busywork in-between fights.

And despite all of that, I can't bring myself to give it a lower score because the actual combat and flair this game has is just that good
The first impression it gives off is one of trying wayyyy too hard, and it absolutely does, but like the protagonist of the game itself, Hi-fi Rush wins over the player with it's nonstop energy and just plain good game-ing