The Nintendo Switch

i played lttp not that long ago (like within the last decade) and iirc it holds up very well. i know this is the laziest retort ever but some of the criticism seem like genre criticism like in terms of difficult puzzles lttp is significantly easier + more obvious than almost any adventure or text adventure game. it sounds to me like josh is impatient bc he wants an action game and zelda really is an action adventure which is totally understandable bc sometimes i don't have patience for that sort of thing either but when i do i think lttp is pretty fantastic tbph.

I'll totally cop to being impatient, but also reiterate that imo the rewards didn't warrant the effort. I never had or even played a GameBoy or SNES or Nintendo 64 or whatever, so just decided to give this much-lauded game a shot while I had it for free on my Switch. And it didn't even seem particularly difficult, just ... not for me. Don't know if that's a genre thing.

Again, I have a very limited frame of reference, but stuff like Hollow Knight and Ori clicked immediately, and Dark Souls and Breath of the Wild got richer and richer the more time I put into them. Can't wait to explore the sequels to all of them, as available.

LttP is maybe the fourth-best 2D zelda

In other news, I’m concerned about what we saw in the last Nintendo Direct about the upcoming core Pokemon games. The features they showed are what I would highlight about a game if I didn’t think it was going to be very good.

still gonna buy on launch day tho.

Wow thomp! An amazing opinion on one thread and a terrible opinion on another!

LA is my favourite 2D Zelda and I rate OG LoZ higher than most but do extrapolate your views

but the pokemon can make a curry now xp

Wow thomp! An amazing opinion on one thread and a terrible opinion on another!

bwahahahaha

if i had a long flight to kill and had to play a top-down zelda game rn (nb i do not know who is forcing this restriction upon me in this hypothetical) i would choose above it:

link's awakening
minish cap
that first DS one with the dungeon you go back to several times
original zelda
oracle of ages / seasons

though the last one is just because i never got round to it.

link's awakening does everything lttp does better; the dungeon designs are cleverer, the funny-shaped-key quest structure is more satisfying in the all-someone-else's-dream context; it has something that feels more like a satisfying narrative. (but then i did have the authentic experience of playing it on an original game boy over several family holidays in the halcyon pre-internet days: not having had the requisite mental functions at age eight or whatever when i originally played it, and being eventually old enough to make it through the less hand-hold-y later stages of it. whereas lttp i played as an adult after having read about it as an eight-year-old but being a sega kid, so.) (obviously not enough of a sega kid to have had the game gear, that thing was useless)

minish cap wasn't developed in-house and wasn't re-using an engine and has a different feel to it, so while it has a rather dreary overworld it's a fun romp, middling-to-decent dungeons. most zelda games feel a floaty abstraction away from actually functioning as action games and it feels a little twitchier.

original zelda i admire more than enjoy but i feel abstractly more committed to its aesthetic principles

I think I’m gonna pick up Ori while I’m stuck on Hollow Knight again. The intro was indeed :_____(

I’m personally loving LTTP but it’s better for quick plays rather than all-day luxuriating like most Switch games

Yiiiiikes. Oracle of Ages/Seasons was TRASH. Mostly for the single reason that the rooms were slightly larger than the screen and so you had to poke the frame in each direction to see where the entrances/exits were.

I love original Zelda and compared to the rest of the NES game library at the time it is so, so, so incredible. I played it when I was 7 or so and remember feeling like I was reading Moby Dick or something.

I don't know the DS one you're talking about. A Link Between Worlds? It's great! I don't care for the other ones (The Phantom Thread, Spirit Of The Beehive or whatever they're called)

Minish Cap was Capcom, yes? I loved it. But I think Wind Waker cel-shaded Link is the best Link of all. I love his surly pissed-off expression.

And yes LA is so, so special. I haven't bought the new version yet just because of the price tag.

i liked the oracle games, i don't remember the normal sized rooms being a different size than links awakening though there might have been some multi screen ones

capcom made both the oracle games and minish cap

the important issue is where this game falls in the zelda rankings:

https://i.imgur.com/B899m1v.png

I assume first.

Phantom Hourglass, I think, is the one where you keep revisiting the same dungeon to eventually get to the bottom. That one's pretty great. I remember thinking the sequel, Spirit Tracks, but was not as good but still fun. They both benefited by being semi-sequels to Wind Waker.

Still gotta play the Oracle and Capcom ones, hopefully they end up on Switch eventually

I remember the overground train stuff in Spirit Tracks being tedious, but the dungeons being lots of fun. I found a copy for £1.50 in my local charity shop last week so maybe it's time to revisit it.

(who am I kidding, into the endless backlog it goes)

just finished "gone home" - I mean, it was.... fine... ? I guess. not sure I want to play any other rummaging sims

Gone Home gave me a lot of feelings when I played it, but I might have been drunk and in the feels already.

My wife and I got through about 2/3 of Untitled Goose Game over the weekend. Pretty fun, but definitely not very long. I love that no matter how much of a dick you are in the game, nobody takes a swing at you or even tries to kick you. The shopkeeper lady pushes you around with a broom a little, but that's it.

I had the groundskeeper fellow give me a bit of a kick!

other moments from my week and a half of the switch life:

zelda breath - ~expansive~, can imagine I'll just wander all over
tetris 99 - absolutely infuriating, best I've come is sixth
outrun - glorious. was the arcade version this smooth? surely not
virtua racing - look outrun is more replayable, but I now have a superior to the arcade version in my hand of a game that I ploughed god knows how much into
mario maker 2 - played a couple levels, yet to dig in deep
SNES emulator - here I am, playing super metroid again (still rulez obv)

then I went on a bargain hunting jag on the eshop last night and bought like six things. street fighter 30th at 80% off? whyyyyy yes...

speaking of sales, is there a clear winner of the FFs on sale in the US currently? Haven't played one since the original.

FFIX is an old fave; I may buy that.

tetris 99 is the best game of all time

Agree on Tetris

I’m GOOD at Tetris and am excited to delve into the “you are only playing against missing winners” mode

We’ve as a household vetoed a PS4 purchase. I haven’t played the four forthcoming flagship 00s RPGs— Baldur’s Gate et al— and I’m excited to dive in when I have the time

xxp FFIX it is. Thanks!

Phantom Hourglass, I think, is the one where you keep revisiting the same dungeon to eventually get to the bottom

Fucking HATED that. Punitive BS and it kept coming back and I was all AGAIN!!? and gave up on PH. :(

LA is kicking my ass now too. I never played the original. The Marioesque platformer bits are the worst, I'm not a button masher! Time this thing *just so* so you can dash under this big angry rock dude but then jump up a ladder so you can land on his head FUCK OFF I TRIED IT 10 TIMES I AM ABOUT TO KICK A ROCK.

*ahem* suffice to say I do not find it as relaxing as BOTW ;)

it seems i've been tricked into buying some sort of "lizard man" card game

not actually mad about the card game. vivi is such a recognizable character. surprised i haven't played this until now.

oh man, i love Tetra!

yeah, i've stopped playing the main game until i'm down to < 5 cards though

at the weekend i caved and started playing Tetris 99 and i just won my first match this morning but also now i am going into work unshaven

oh wow it unlocks a mode where you can play exclusively with other winners

omg

played a bunch of gato roboto last night, that is fun as hell! metroid + cat in a mech suit, how can you go wrong really

Return of the Obra Dinn out on Switch (and Xbox One and PS4) on 10/18, stoked!

prepare a notebook

if that's true, forget it

notebook essential. i didn't use one, and very much wish i did

ain't nobody got time for that. then again i hated having to do that in the '90s too with some games

the only thing that annoys me about the notebook is that there's already one in the game that automatically populates as you figure out things, but the UI is completely fucked and it doesn't let you write in your own notes (i don't think), so you're forced to supplement it with irl notes

btw it's one of the greatest games :D

so as noted above i've had problems with corrupt data and such, and i think i need a new ssd card -- what's the best way to go about swapping it in? just archive everything and then re-download from the store?

yes i think so

saves are stored in system memory so you shouldn't lose those

Haven’t played Tetris99 since around release, when I was crushing nerds.

Seems like the normies left and only the hardcore players are still around. I’m getting utterly demolished.

I’m surprised Invictus mode fills up so slowly. I’m not getting near full games.

yeah it's kinda dispiriting when there are computer players in the top twenty. wish it would just let me play against 35-70 humans.

i am not surprised it fills up so slowly tho, what percentage of players of tetris 99 i. have won a game and ii. are still around?

I assumed all winners would just switch to Invictus, which would mean a gradual general migration over. Guess I was wrong.

winners probably switched to one of the like 50 good games that came out in September

Boy do the clips from Luigi's Mansion making the rounds look good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvlkCu64ur4