Gaming Lounge

[senjen]

Grandma buys building in japan gets arcade machines within it

http://gizmodo.com/a-grandma-discovered-...85/+evnarc

[Vipershark]

Oh look, a Gawker site is making an article based of a NeoGAF thread from weeks ago again.

[recme]

i'd make a thread about this, but eh.



tbh, egoraptor does provide good argument on some cases, but maybe some stuff are his own preference. oot does have some flaws, which nobody realizes, that can slow the pace down and make the game overall boring. if you gave me a choice to play either oot or windwaker, id probably pick the latter.

[TomGuycott]

The only qualm I have with the video is how long it is, it feels like it drags on a lot. However, it's a valid opinion about the game. I don't agree with everything, granted, but there are two things that I definitely do agree with:

1. The Iron Knuckles are the most amazing Ocarina of Time enemy.
2. A Link Between Worlds is amazing.

[Vipershark]

For me, that video can basically be summed up as "Egoraptor is impatient and the problems he was having were simply from playing the game wrong"
I mean, he does bring up a couple of good points, but much of the video is him complaining about the game actually having text boxes and not being able to figure out things that require common sense.

[Sevenstitch]

To credit Egoraptor though, most of the things he complained about are things that myself as a child complained about

especially the "waiting" bits

coming from earlier versions of zelda to OOT really did make it apparent that my hand was being held, at least to me

its not that text boxes and "plot devices" are a bad thing, but they did kind of flood the overall layout of OOT and had a tendency to over explain or complicate progression,
which as far as im concerned is usually unnecessary backtracking, and unnecessary backtracking is never a good thing in a game that is supposed to have a open roam feel to it

TLDR: I agree with Egoraptor on pretty much every point he proposed, albeit perhaps not as fanatically as he proposed them

[Eno]

LttP isn't some perfect sacred cow either. I like the game, but the dungeons are very samey and, as much as Egoraptor seems to deny it, you're still being railroaded around to do things in a certain order.

You could sum up Sequelitis as "Overthinking It: The Series!"

[E-Man]

In my personal opinion, I don't mind doing thing in a linear order. In fact, doing a dungeon's puzzles with a fix path is why I prefer every game in the series starting with aLttP over the first two games.

[Phantom Killah]

a lot of the complaints he had are very general problems that could apply to a tonne of different games (sometimes even alttp, heh). There's definitely some good insight in there but it doesn't mean that OoT is at all a bad game.



(also, e-man: if you're going to say "I don't mind," then it's already implied that you're stating your opinion, so the "in my personal opinion" is unnecessary. Just a friendly tip for future reference, as your posts always seem a little verbose)

[Helmo]

my complaint is how he actually talks more about skyward sword than Oot :/

[BullockDS]

Jesus Egoraptor we get it anything after the mid-90s is crap to you. Oh, this is going to be painful, people. Fair warning for lengthy whining.

What really gets me is how he blatantly ignores some of the issues of the original LoZ and LttP. In LoZ, there is so much cryptic garbage for a newcomer that if you played it with a guide (as most people will at some point or another) you lose that mystical sense of adventurism crap that he goes on about, but if you were to try and play it without a guide you'd either get hopelessly stuck or spend mind-rattling hours meticulously trying any old thing in any old place until you get to progress through the game, and even LttP is occasionally guilty of this, such as the Ice Rod not being blatantly hinted at, at least not until you absolutely need it later on* (and he bitched about pretty much the same goddamn thing in Castlevania II fucking "oops"?). That's not real "exploration". That's tedium. Also, as Eno already said, LttP does also have a certain "set" order itself.
*I honestly can't remember if LttP does later on hint at the Ice Rod; I just remember that it doesn't early on.

Also, the bitching about the story in LttP vs. OoT. Christ. All he focuses on for LttP is the Master Sword aspect but bitches about OoT giving you a different motivation, that is to save the world and other people along the way, rather than aimless exploration (god forbid, right?). Never mind the fact that LttP makes a big deal about the Dark World and the Seven Maidens after getting the Master Sword. Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot, his complaints about the Gorons "needing rocks" in OoT: that much is true, but the biggest reason Link was made to go into Dodongo's Cavern by Darunia in exchange for the Goron's Ruby was to prove that he wasn't motivated by evil for wanting the Ruby (unlike Ganondorf, who had tried demanding the Ruby from Darunia beforehand).

And the letter in OoT was from Zelda, not. Fucking. Impa. Ugh. (Nitpicky yes, but Egoraptor makes this mistake like two or three times at least.)

I really love how he says that they should've changed the Zelda formula for 3D with OoT, completely forgetting how he already talked about how they already did so (i.e. with more focused combat). In addition, he made a huge point in the Castlevania series about CV1 being a "high class dessert you take your time with" and the Metroidvanias being "snacks that you mindlessly munch on repetitively". Wouldn't the simple mowing down of enemies in LttP be those repetitive "snacks" and the more strategic enemies of OoT such as the Stalfos be that "high class dessert" you take your time with? Which damn one do you want, Egoraptor?

The issue with the bosses in 3D Zeldas almost always needing the "dungeon item" is legitimate to a point, but again you can have problems like Trinexx in LttP needing the Ice Rod despite its acquisition not being directly put on your path. And the Silver Arrow isn't hinted at much either IIRC. I think the bigger issue is if items start to become massively useless after their "core" dungeon like Twilight Princess.

I can agree that some of the eye-switches and such in OoT aren't really "puzzles", but then again they're not really meant to be "puzzles"; the reason they're there is because the whole point of a 3D world is to take advantage of the opportunity to look around and observe your surroundings, especially for an adventure game. I do hate the treasure chest cinematics of 3D Zeldas (especially for Skyward Sword where they even happened for fuckmothering small keys).

I might have some additions to this rant later, but god this pissed me off. My problem isn't that he doesn't like OoT (hell, I think it's a flawed game myself and I consider Majora's Mask to be a far superior title). My issue is that he went in with such a blatant bias that it both affected the depth of analysis given to 2D/3D Zeldas and it made him contradict points made about games in general in earlier Sequelitiseseses. He does bring up legitimate issues at points, but he really could've given this better care, especially in the what, two years(?), he took to put this out. Basically, it really shows that despite trying to make himself out to be some wise guru of game design he clearly sometimes doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

[Eno]

It kind of annoyed me that he complains about getting blindsided by enemies and obstacles in the 3D perspective. Does he do the same if he gets flanked in an FPS? If a Goomba runs into him from behind in Mario 64? Having quick reflexes and avoiding unexpected enemies is something that happens in plenty of games, and observing your surroundings before running ahead is pretty important in 3D games.

Then he goes on to talk about how the jumping is tedious and pointless and claims that it'd make it more difficult if there were moving obstacles in your way...

[ancient golem john]

egoraptor is a dumb

jontron is bester than him

[Koh]

Here's my personal opinion...while I think OoT is a great game (with its share of flaws like any other game), I think the likes of Majora's Mask and the Oracles were better, simply because they were far more creative with their mechanics, and the puzzles were more intricate (except maybe in Seasons, since that one is more action-based).

I also get that want for an open world much like Zelda 1 and LTTP. You can have a world that invites you to explore every nook and cranny without it being cryptic, as LTTP shows. You can go anywhere except for Death Mountain right off the bat, finding treasures and such. Because of that the Ice Rod, although a required item, should've been something you found by poking around on the overworld. I can't recall ever having a problem missing it or anything like that as some mentioned above; if you just looked around your surroundings, you'dve found it anyway.

As for linear vs non-linear, I always favor non-linear more, because it makes the game much more replayable, and opens up varying paths of finishing the game. Zelda 1 for instance, I've done swordless, and that wouldn't be possible if they forced you to do every single level in the numbered order. It's nice to have mixing and matching options for a more customizeable experience. I'd say keep the level numbers with this design approach though, because the not-so-skilled players could be kept on a steady difficulty curve, while the more skilled players could tackle the 5th dungeon first, if they so desire.

[AuraLancer]

*I honestly can't remember if LttP does later on hint at the Ice Rod; I just remember that it doesn't early on.

There's a man in Kakariko Village that tells you about it. You can talk to him the first time you reach the village. Granted, he doesn't tell you what it is, just where to get it.

Something important to remember here is that Ocarina of Time came out two years after Super Mario 64. That's not a lot of time for developers to really figure out what works in what was then the brand spanking new third dimension of gaming. This was the first game with something like Z targeting. Hell, I remember reading a review of Jak & Daxter that teasingly referred to Jak as Link because of that game's targeting system. Nobody else used it much in the next couple of years, apparently.

I almost agree with him on the waiting. It's irritating now, but again you have to remember: early 3D gaming. The door opening/chest appearing cutscenes were a great idea at the time because of how easy it was for people to lose their sense of place within a room. That kind of thing just happens to people who haven't played many 3D games. Try to imagine someone new to 3D gaming, hitting a switch to open a door in a dungeon, then trying to find out where in the room that door was without a cutscene. Even harder if they hadn't acquired the compass yet. It would be irritating more than anything.

The chest opening cutscene though - can't argue there. And with all of the talking he complains about, I'm surprised he doesn't mention the owl.

Finally with the waiting, I don't agree with him about the enemies at all. He clearly didn't take much time to explore enemy interactions with his items.

I DO agree with his thoughts on the bosses though. To me, most of the 3D Zelda game bosses are pretty crappy. They rely too much on "stun somehow > do damage > repeat"