pretty fun, compelling and stylish beat 'em up which is hampered by a few glaring flaws that get more obvious as the game goes on: unlocking new stages by increasing rank is fine at the beginning, when it means you can progress even if you can't beat a particular stage, but as it goes on and you only unlock one stage per two ranks, it begins to feel grindy. the other big problem is the lag: i played on normal for most of the game but i had to do the final stage on relaxed because the lag got so bad it felt unwinnable otherwise! my ranking would definitely be higher if not for that. also, given how much emphasis the advertising placed on the plot it would've been nice to have some coda showing that the protagonist had 'won'. maybe that's something you can unlock on higher difficulties (since again, lag made the final level frustrating rather than challenging on normal mode) but i doubt it. i enjoyed my time with it, and i'll probably come back to it every now and again, but it could so easily be a better game than it is.

four swords games (which i have no real way of playing) aside....this is my last zelda game. the difficulty with groundbreaking classics is that they're so often built upon by their successors, but the zelda formula is solid enough that i still had plenty of fun. helps that unlike oot it didn't have a direct sequel using the same engine that i can compare it to.

leaning between a 4 and a 4.5 for my rating. it's a great game but it can be a little obtuse at times (a holdover from the nes duo?). also i think this is a result of my formative zeldas being the two ds ones, neither of which have particularly hefty dungeons, but dungeons have never been my favourite part of the zelda experience - i like wandering around the overworld with new weapons, doing sidequests. being such an early zelda this one's fairly sidequest light, and OH BOY is it dungeon heavy. i actually enjoyed most of them once i got into the right mindset to do them, but i'd've maybe liked a bit more downtime between finishing one dungeon and going onto the next.

my aim next time i play it is to use the wii u restore point feature less. i'm sure i'll stick to that all the way up until that giant worm boss that knocks you down a floor.

there's something about the metroid gameplay loop that i find innately satisfying, idk. although the diggernaut can die a thousand deaths my GOD that was hard.

i haven't played the original yet so i can't judge this as a remake tho i 100% get why people feel it misses some of the narrative resonance of the original. on the other hand, the introduction of teleport stations was a definite improvement and made me more likely to willingly backtrack, and that along with the map percentage counters means this is the first metroid game i've gotten 100% on! the scan pulse might make that a little easy but idk sometimes i DON'T want to bomb every block on the screen on the off-chance i find something. at some point i will play metroid dread and tbh this has primed me for having a Good Time with that

a solid game. i appreciated the way it smoothed out some elements of the earlier ui (especially movement, which i'd always found tedious before). maybe felt a little too long at points but overall i was satisfied and i really enjoyed that final case. that being said i did sometimes feel like it had too many characters for its own good - klavier and pearl felt like glorified cameos (maybe pearl gets more to do in the dlc case? i didn't play any of that) and trucy was Just Kinda There. hoping that the 6th game juggles all the leads with a bit more effectiveness!

replaying this really reminded me how unabashedly i adore this game. i love the story, i love the setting and the items and even the motion controls, janky as the may sometimes be. also still looks great, albeit a bit fuzzy around the edges (at least playing on an hd tv) - the art style's held up really well. we probably aren't ever going to get a more 'traditional' zelda again, and i'm fine with things continuing in the direction of botw because this is a long running series and most things that old need freshening up, but i can still appreciate the stuff in this game that got lost with the move to a more open-ended format.

wow i love sports games (the baseball minigame in the legend of zelda: a link between worlds)

anyway this is an all round pretty solid zelda experience! exploring especially is super satisfying. it is also nice to know that i HAVE got better at playing videogames since i was twelve...i'm debating having a second go at hero mode, which i tried years ago but gave up on because i was dying so much. it's not the one i'm most deeply attached to, and especially because of the last two zeldas i replayed it's kinda a bummer how little she gets to do here...but hey, we can't all be spirit tracks (2009) and i think as the game it aims to be it succeeds pretty well.

didn't super vibe with this one even though i DO think it's a well-constructed platformer...whereas i got a lot of satisfaction from dkc and its difficulty here i enjoyed myself most when i was zooming through stages and that didn't happen very often, tho i did start to get into the zone more when i aimed to play for half an hour a day - so i wouldn't have to sink time into it if i was stuck but could still hopefully make progress. i don't think this is a bad game, just maybe not for me personally!

i think i am...slightly too impatient for the sort of timed puzzle game this is, especially the dialogue bits which often repeat every time you turn back time, and as a result i looked up answers a bit more frequently than i would've liked. HOWEVER there is some pretty satisfying puzzle stuff, and i really enjoyed the story - well paced with likeable characters and a great ending. super glad this got an hd rerelease on switch because i've seen it listed on a fair few 'best ds game' lists but it's uh...expensive to buy on that platform these days and i'm too lazy to get into emulation

i was gonna do the hard extra levels, completed the first two and then watched someone else do the rest and was like...nah, i'm good. they're all unlocked from the start so there wasn't that same satisfying feeling of progression and achievement for me, though i might go back and do them later. the rest of the game, aside from a few obtuse moments, hit a sweet spot for me of challenging my brain without being headbashingly difficult....a very nice change of pace from smb 3 which i played before this. also, even though it's a fairly linear game those gorgeous backdrops and the frequent sense of scale really created a great sense of discovery and exploration