This game was never going to be exactly my thing. But I must acknowledge it succeeds at everything it is trying to be.

The fact that the overworld is a retread of Link To The Past's, the fact that dungeons are designed around the bare minimum items you could have to enter, the fact that it's on the whole just aiming to be a simple breezy good time adventure, all of this put a ceiling on how much I could enjoy this. Had a friend not got a second-hand 3DS he was willing to loan me in exchange for me buying this game, I would have happily gone on without ever touching it, confident it would just not wow me. But there's a lot more going on here than just its headliner tweaks on the Zelda formula. What I found was maybe the most polished, smoothly-executed, relentlessly fun entry in the series.

By way of example, I'll say that I never once had to look at a guide and my natural gathering of rupees over the game left me with literally the exact amount to permanently purchase all my items right before I went into the final dungeon (excluding Lorule Castle). Everything feels perfectly balanced and paced, all its systems in synchronicity at both the micro and macro level.∆ Having jettisoned anything that might interrupt or distract you from forward progress, what's left is a lean cut of prime Zelda with basically none of the fat/bone/gristle fans had been complaining about upon its release.

This is easily the best-controlling 2D entry, and while I like the visual style slightly less than the Link's Awakening remake it shocked me multiple times with how a dungeon unfolded or certain effects hit. I had spent a decade assuming the 3D in the 3DS was coming out of the screen; that it was the exact opposite impressed me so much more, playing as much as I could with it on.

Thing is, it's just all a bit too smooth. The characters are charming and endearing but merited nothing deeper. The world is so good at steering you onto something new and giving you means to speed along that I never felt a desire to hang out and take in a space (again, being a retread of LttP harms it on this front). When it dawned on me at the end that I never had to look at a guide, I felt mixed emotions; if you're never stumped, you're also never elated to have solved something.

Like Wind Waker before it, I think Link Between Worlds is a beautiful introductory Zelda; straightforward, charming, just enough of the formula that a player can discover what they like best of it, just enough unique features to keep you wondering what else it has to offer. Playing it as someone experienced with the series, I appreciate everything described above plus the many subtle fixes it brought (quick item selection, collectibles being linked to useful item upgrades, fast travel is an adorable witch, etc.), but I must admit I have never liked filet mignon best.

∆ The one exception is it's fairly easy to circumvent the item loss on death mechanic through bottled fairies. They are reduced in how much HP they recover compared to most games, but it's very easy to collect multiple bottles and then refill on fairies with no rupee cost after each dungeon.

It is ludicrous that these games work as well as they do. Capcom taking the reins of Nintendo's second-biggest series, attempting to build a multi-game narrative on a nearly-dead 8-bit portable system using an 8-year-old game's blueprint, featuring a rocky development that went from remake to trilogy to a pair of games releasing simultaneously. In most realities, these games either died on the vine unreleased or were dead on arrival with a reputation approaching the CD-i games. But what we got in our reality is arguably the peak of 2D Zelda in terms of pure gameplay.

Oracle of Ages doesn't quite meet my dream vision for a puzzle-focused Zelda. Over time I've increasingly wished for dungeons that forego combat altogether and just focus on navigation and manipulating the environment/architecture. Look at the opening dungeon of Dragon Quest VII and tell me they couldn't do the same with Zelda. Ages gets close at times: Jabu-Jabu attempts to translate the Ocarina Water Temple to 2D and is largely successful, but it insists on littering the excellent design (which incredibly actually resembles a whale in terms of shape, unlike Ocarina) with annoying electric jellyfish that are frustrating to fight underwater. It also leans a bit too heavily on room-specific puzzles (all of which are good to great), and its one time-jumping dungeon is a bit more tedious and obtuse than one would hope.

In the overworld, I genuinely don't understand how the puzzle-focused game got a simple two-state switch as opposed to the four-way switch of seasons. As in similar implementations of such a mechanic like Link to the Past or Metroid Prime 2, it's usually just a matter of getting as far as you can in one world then flipping over and continuing or clearing some obstacle, rinse and repeat. Difficulty mostly becomes a matter of how many hoops you have to go through to switch between states, and I've yet to play a game that has a satisfying curve for this type of thing. There are a few fun riffs on time travel as in Ocarina, but it's not nearly as fleshed out as the seasons mechanic in its counterpart.

I'm a being more critical than is representative of my experience, which was largely excellent. Basically just a case of expectations being inverted for which game I'd connect to more, and wanting the reviews to maintain the distinctness of the games themselves. (And why not see how distinct the other review is, hmm?)

What these games unlocked for me is the way the Zelda series has cultivated a spectrum with one end being "you are an adventurer" and the other being "you are The Hero". I'd say the adventuring side is embodied by the original Zelda, Breath of the Wild, and the Oracles; even when you are technically constrained in terms of dungeon order or how much of the world you can access, you feel like you're making your own way based on your sense of direction and curiosity. When you're The Hero, you are driven instead by what needs to be done and have situations and setpieces placed in your direct path rather than feeling like you came across them organically. Both games cultivate that sense of adventure well: you're self-reliant and using every tool at your disposal to untangle knotted and unfamiliar dungeons. If you're into 2D Zelda and especially the adventuring end of the Zelda spectrum, you owe it to yourself to play them.

Loose thoughts:
-this one definitely got more love on the story front, with more ongoing plot development (some of which might be a result of playing this second) and a nice little emotional twist at the end.
-very funny that there's one Zora who's whole job is just to explain they aren't like River Zora, even though the Ocarina Zoras were in a river.
-I would play the shit out of that one minecart shooting minigame if it had longer tracks, why wasn't it expanded in Minish Cap??
-Nintendo absolutely fumbling the opportunity to build excitement for the series as a whole in the run-up to Tears of the Kingdom. You could have had these from launch on the NSO Game Boy library, plus Four Swords multiplayer with the NSO GBA. These are the origin point for the guy who's made the three most recent 3D entries, that's pretty important!

It is ludicrous that these games work as well as they do. Capcom taking the reins of Nintendo's second biggest series, attempting to build a multi-game narrative on a nearly-dead 8-bit portable system using an 8-year-old game's blueprint, featuring a troubled development that went from remake to trilogy to a pair of games releasing simultaneously. In most realities, these games either died on the vine unreleased or were bungled products with a reputation approaching the CD-i games. But what we got in our reality is arguably the peak of 2D Zelda in terms of pure gameplay.

Despite always being more drawn to the puzzle aspects of Zelda than the combat, I ended up enjoying Seasons slightly more. Playing it first certainly helps (slight burnout set in during the back half of Ages given the length of each game), but despite the action branding it has excellent dungeon design, creative items, and a much more puzzle-focused overworld via the season-changing mechanic. Both games owe a tremendous debt to Link's Awakening though I would say Oracle only fails to surpass it in theming, charm, and flow; were those not so important to me, Seasons would safely be my favourite 2D entry.

This is an expert case of playing to your strengths. Returning items like the feather and boomerang are expanded upon to keep them fresh, new items like the magnetic gloves are multifunctional, the rings and seeds allow for more fine-tuned customization than the series had ever seen (becoming a fixture of Fujibayashi's later games in the series). More so than in LA, you find yourself in situations where you put away the sword to employ a combo of items to progress rather than just need one item at a time. The story is kept simple enough to thread together the familiar overarching quest of the two games, but the team was willing to get weird with the Subrosians and animal companions. Every iota of juice is squeezed out of the Game Boy Color, with screens that can now scroll and colour-coded puzzles and an extra underworld in addition to the four season overworld and eight full dungeons, yet it never overreaches (aside from somewhat annoying item swapping).

You do feel the absence of certain qualities other 2D games do better: more cohesive overworlds like in Link's Awakening and Link to the Past, or the expressiveness of character design in Minish Cap and Link Between Worlds. It also loses the sense of progressively setting things right that you get in Ages, as the seasons remain disordered and changeable all game despite that ostensibly being the problem you're solving. Like I said, it's a narrow edge over Ages. (speaking of, why not take a gander at my review of that game)

What these games unlocked for me is the way the Zelda series has cultivated a spectrum with one end being "you are an adventurer" and the other being "you are The Hero". I'd say the adventuring side is embodied by the original Zelda, Breath of the Wild, and the Oracles; even when you are technically constrained in terms of dungeon order or how much of the world you can access, you feel like you're making your own way based on your sense of direction and curiosity. When you're The Hero, you are driven instead by what needs to be done and have situations and setpieces placed in your direct path rather than feeling like you came across them organically. Both games cultivate that sense of adventure well: you're self-reliant and using every tool at your disposal to untangle knotted and unfamiliar dungeons. If you're into 2D Zelda and especially the adventuring end of the Zelda spectrum, you owe it to yourself to play them.

Loose thoughts:
-the lingering elements of the initial Remake Zelda 1 pitch really underscore how much more palatable I find the action in LttP and the following 2D games compared to the original. Swinging instead of stabbing greatly cuts down on frustrating misses, extra mobility with jumps or increased speed balance the scales, and the smaller screen real estate caps just how many enemies you're facing at any given time.
-the linked game secrets were a bit of a letdown, and they seemingly disproportionately impact the first game you play. You can't benefit from the secrets until you complete the first game and link, and then in the second game you get secrets to go back and get upgrades that are kind of worthless in the game you've already beaten.
-god they're leaving money on the table not remaking these games as they did Link's Awakening. The quality of life improvements there would be even more meaningful here with stuff like types of seeds and being able to permanently commit the jump to the pegasus boot button, not to mention being able to organically implement the secrets rather than relying on codes.

Feliz aniversário Super Mario RPG ! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Hoje esse incrível jogo faz 27 anos, SMRPG foi um grande impacto na minha vida, é o meu RPG favorito do Mario e um dos meus RPGs favoritos de todos !

Foi o meu segundo RPG do Mario, o primeiro foi Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time do DS, mas ainda assim o SMRPG é TÃO melhor, joguei ele pela primeira vez no emulador de SNES e lembro que eu ficava perdido lá em Mario's Pad por causa que eu não sabia que era só conversar com o Toad (nessa época eu nem sabia LER), apesar de eu ficar preso naquela aérea, aquela música e aqueles lindos gráficos me faziam feliz mesmo eu não avançando na história, mas algo que eu via em várias imagens e vídeos do YouTube eram dois personagens bastante específicos, Mallow e Geno, no começo eu não fazia menor ideia de quem podia ser eles e só ficava curioso para descobrir eles no jogo, depois de alguns anos (acho que foi em 2012), finalmente consegui jogar o jogo de uma maneira que eu conseguia prosseguir mesmo demorando porque eu não sabia inglês e foi um enorme prazer eu finalmente descobrir quem era Mallow e Geno, Mallow é o primeiro parceiro do jogo e consegue ser um dos mais marcantes por isso, o Geno é o segundo parceiro do jogo e é com ele que a trama fica mais envolvente, os dois são incríveis, meu favorito é o Geno, ele é de longe o personagem mais foda daquele jogo, além de ter uma arma laser no braço, ele tem uma grande importância na história, possui golpes bem diferentes em relação aos outros personagen, tem um design simples mas charmoso, o momento em que conhecemos ele e quando nos despedimos dele são os momentos mais marcantes do jogo, até mesmo a origem dele (ele é na verdade um ser que se chama ♥️🎵!? e esse ser possui um boneco chamado Geno), ele é um personagem bastante diferente de tudo o que eu tinha visto antes, mas além deles, temos vários personagens marcantes, como o Booster, os Axem Rangers, o Croco, o Smithy, o Chancellor (que é basicamente a primeira versão do Toadsworth), o Exor e até mesmo o Culex ! Um chefe secreto que é uma clara referência ao Final Fantasy !

Quando eu zerei o jogo pela primeira vez, percebi que o SMRPG não era apenas mais um jogo incrível do Mario, era algo especial, a trilha sonora composta pela Yoko Shimomura é bastante importante para mim, Beware the Forest's Mushrooms é a minha música favorita do jogo, eu tenho vários motivos, mas os principais são que além de ser muito boa e marcante, a Forest Maze é primeiro local que a gente vê o Geno em ação e eu adorava um Remix feito por fãs que supostamente estava no Super Smash Bros. Brawl (na época existia um rumor que era uma música cortada do jogo mas é mentira), no geral a trilha sonora é bastante diferente dos outros jogos do Mario mas ainda assim combina bastante, o sistema de combate é simples mas super divertido, os gráficos são excelentes e os personagens novos são sensacionais e a história mais complexa comparada com outros jogos da série.

Além disso, eu adorava ver vídeos e fanarts no Newgrounds relacionados a Super Smash Bros. Melee e Super Mario RPG, principalmente a animação chamada Super Smash Bros. Murder (que era o Capitão Falcon e outros personagens matando geral com muito sangue desnecessário) e a Rawest Forest (uma animação com um remix da Beware the Forest's Mushrooms em que os personagens cantavam), apesar de não serem a melhor coisa do mundo, eu tenho muita nostalgia, porque era uma época mais simples em que animações daquele tipo eram o auge da internet dos anos 2000.

E pra terminar, na época em que o Super Smash Bros. Brawl era hype ainda, muitas pessoas na internet começaram a falar e fazer vídeos de quais personagens elas queriam que entrassem pro Roster dos próximos jogos, muitos personagens eram pedidos, tínhamos Banjo & Kazooie, Ridley, King K. Rool, Sora, Isaac, Shadow, Cloud, Megaman, Pac-Man e claro o Geno, ver outras pessoas que gostam não só do Geno mas do Super Mario RPG ao todo me deixava bastante contente pelo fato de não ser apenas eu que tinha essa paixão pelo jogo, no fim das contas o Geno virou um Spirit e uma Mii Costume nos dois últimos jogos da franquia, então meio que conseguimos uma pequena vitória.

Mas por todas essas razões que meu personagem mais pedido ainda é o Geno, porque o SMRPG representa uma parte da minha vida de quando eu era bem novo e os personagens daquele jogo NÃO podem ser esquecidos, a Nintendo e a Square podem nem se lembrar direito deles, mas nós fãs vamos lembrar para sempre !