Who would've thought that a tribute game for those crappy Zelda CDI games would not only be an actual functioning product unlike those games, but would just be a fun game in and of itself.
I don't know if it fully captures the original aesthetic the CDI games had since I could kinda tell that most of the cutscenes were done by different animators and some tried adapting the style in various different ways; one even used 3D models for some reason. But if that is the case I'm more or less ok with that since I think it gives off more of a group effort project feel like those reanimated projects where individual animators reanimate a whole movie in their own style. (my favorite character is the Vinny vinesauce frog)
As 2D platformer goes it sure does play, some would say very well. It's properly tightened responsive and the levels don't overstay their welcome and flow really well which is something I feel most 2D platformers seem to have a problem with especially older ones. My only gripe with the level and game progression would be how cryptic it can feel sometimes. They did add in a side mission or progression indicator where once you found said item in a level it'll tell you which level you need to take it to, but sometimes I got stumped on progression not knowing where to go or where to look next which forced me to have to go back to older levels and replay them over and over again until I found out what I needed to do, and I think that's probably the worst part of the game tbh. Even if you know where you need to go or what you need from a level at that point you'll still need to replay through the whole level in order to either deliver an item or to unlock a new item, sometimes more then once. This result in times where I had to replay the first level of the game somewhere around 5 to 6 times just to make basic progression thought the game and it's side missions and the levels never change, it's just the same level over and over again with the same enemy placements and everything but this time you'll need to get one specific item. I feel like having midlevel fast travel points to NPC's would've imitated it entirely and would've made progression feel less like a slog but it probably also would've made the game like 3 hours shorter, a lot of the time going through the levels over and over again felt like extreme levels of padding for a game that's already pretty short (I finished the game in 5 hours). Again I don't hate the core gameplay, it just pisses me off that the game feels this need to pad itself out with replay the same levels over and over again just for the sake of basic progression.
For what it is; that being a tribute game made for bad games people like as a joke it's pretty fun and not much else. I played this like all the way back in February and never logged it since once I stopped playing it and moved on to something else it just seeped out of my mind. It's what it is and it does a good job making these bad games fun, but it's really padded out by the end and besides it's point and laugh nature it left me with almost no lasting feeling other then it randomly popping back in my head while I’m at work and think "oh yeah I did play that, that was fun I guess.".
It seems very fitting that Limited Run Games published this, I mean that in both a good and bad way.
I don't know if it fully captures the original aesthetic the CDI games had since I could kinda tell that most of the cutscenes were done by different animators and some tried adapting the style in various different ways; one even used 3D models for some reason. But if that is the case I'm more or less ok with that since I think it gives off more of a group effort project feel like those reanimated projects where individual animators reanimate a whole movie in their own style. (my favorite character is the Vinny vinesauce frog)
As 2D platformer goes it sure does play, some would say very well. It's properly tightened responsive and the levels don't overstay their welcome and flow really well which is something I feel most 2D platformers seem to have a problem with especially older ones. My only gripe with the level and game progression would be how cryptic it can feel sometimes. They did add in a side mission or progression indicator where once you found said item in a level it'll tell you which level you need to take it to, but sometimes I got stumped on progression not knowing where to go or where to look next which forced me to have to go back to older levels and replay them over and over again until I found out what I needed to do, and I think that's probably the worst part of the game tbh. Even if you know where you need to go or what you need from a level at that point you'll still need to replay through the whole level in order to either deliver an item or to unlock a new item, sometimes more then once. This result in times where I had to replay the first level of the game somewhere around 5 to 6 times just to make basic progression thought the game and it's side missions and the levels never change, it's just the same level over and over again with the same enemy placements and everything but this time you'll need to get one specific item. I feel like having midlevel fast travel points to NPC's would've imitated it entirely and would've made progression feel less like a slog but it probably also would've made the game like 3 hours shorter, a lot of the time going through the levels over and over again felt like extreme levels of padding for a game that's already pretty short (I finished the game in 5 hours). Again I don't hate the core gameplay, it just pisses me off that the game feels this need to pad itself out with replay the same levels over and over again just for the sake of basic progression.
For what it is; that being a tribute game made for bad games people like as a joke it's pretty fun and not much else. I played this like all the way back in February and never logged it since once I stopped playing it and moved on to something else it just seeped out of my mind. It's what it is and it does a good job making these bad games fun, but it's really padded out by the end and besides it's point and laugh nature it left me with almost no lasting feeling other then it randomly popping back in my head while I’m at work and think "oh yeah I did play that, that was fun I guess.".
It seems very fitting that Limited Run Games published this, I mean that in both a good and bad way.
Weatherby
1 month ago