Tag Archives: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Blog: Poor Planning – 03/24/21

Over the past month or two, I’ve purchased a handful of video games that I’ve been dying to play for one reason or another. Often these are games that I just never had the time to get around to when they released but decided with this lull in the release calendar (at least in my eyes), I could finally see what all the fuss was about. The problem is, despite how much I enjoyed any single game that I purchased, I eventually bounced off of each of them and returned to doing nothing instead.

It started with me buying the “limited run” of Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D All Stars, a collection of classic 3D Mario games that has two really good 3D Mario games, and Super Mario Sunshine, a bad game included within. I started playing through Super Mario 64 and was having a blast. Aside from the camera control being shitty and some of the movement stuff not being as tight as I remember, Super Mario 64 is still one hell of a game.

*The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Nintendo*

Then I fell away from it when my copy of Luigi’s Mansion 3 showed up. Sorry “classic” 3D Mario games, but now it’s Luigi’s turn to shine… for a couple of levels before I dropped off of it. I don’t know why I bounced off of it so soon considering I was really enjoying the game itself. There’s way more dialogue and stuff that stops you from actually playing the game in Luigi’s Mansion 3 that I could’ve done without, but I still really had a good time with it and would like to see it through to its conclusion.

But how could I keep playing Luigi’s Mansion 3 when Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury just got released? Not only do I feel like I have to prioritize it because it came out this calendar year and it might be relevant to write something about it, but it also has one of my favorite 3D Mario games of all time inside of it along with this new open-world Mario game too. Sorry Luigi, but your brother won again. And to be fair, I annihilated the Bowser’s Fury portion of the package. Meanwhile, my partner and I are slowly working our way through 3D World itself, but I was also playing through 3D World on my own. But alas, that save file is just going to build up a thick film of digital dust from now on because I’ve finally decided to pull the trigger on a game I’ve desperately wanted to try for a while now.

That’s right, fuck off Mario, because Link is here in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake, and boy does it look pretty. Also, and this is something I’ll probably have to go into at some other point in time, but I’ve never really played many Zelda games, especially a vast majority of the top-down ones. It’s a big hole in my gaming portfolio, something that I looked to fix with trying this adorable looking remake. And hot damn is it good. Well, minus the poor performance on the Switch. But outside of that, I’m having a really good time with it and… it’s been 3 weeks since I’ve touched it.

Well I need to figure something out soon because New Pokemon Snap, yes, it’s really called that, comes out at the end of April and I am very much interested in playing it. But there is a fear that comes along with desire, something you might have picked up on while reading this blog. I don’t know if it’s something about playing on a handheld that just doesn’t provide me with a lot of motivation to play through the entirety of a game or if there’s something else going on, but the idea of dropping another 60 bucks on something I’ll play 4 hours of doesn’t seem like the best choice for me. I think I have to make myself earn the right to buy a new game by forcing myself to play through something I already own. That definitely isn’t going to lead to me just hating video games altogether or anything, so I won’t even worry about it.

Top 15 Games I Didn’t Play Because I’m Not Made of Money

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The money tree I planted in my backyard never really payed dividends, so I couldn’t fiscally find a way to play everything I wanted to this year. So in no particular order, here are 15 games I wanted to play but couldn’t, because I’m not made of money.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE

I like Call of Duty well enough, but hearing the positive reception it’s been receiving really ramped up my desire to play it. The original Modern Warfare was responsible for some of my favorite gaming memories with my buddies, and while I know I can’t ever recapture that magic, it would’ve been nice to revisit it.

14.) LUIGI’S MANSION 3

I’ve only ever seen other people play any Luigi’s Mansion game with the exception of playing some terrible mini-games in Luigi’s Mansion 3 with friends. I never owned a Gamecube or Nintendo DS, so I was pretty excited to get the chance to play this newest release on a platform I actually owned. But like most of the games on this list, life happened, and I had to prioritize other things. The reception on this one has been mostly positive with some people taking umbrage with the controls. From what I’ve seen, Luigi’s Mansion 3 seems charming as hell, and I definitely want to check it out.

13.) POKEMON SWORD & SHIELD

Okay, I’m not the biggest Pokemon fan, so I can’t say I was actively looking forward to playing this latest entry at all. But I was curious about what a Pokemon game on a more or less, home console, would actually look like. Not curious enough to drop sixty big ones on, but still curious. With this one, I was more just window shopping.

Combine my mild desire to play a Pokemon game with the very mixed and sometimes angry reception of this latest entry, and I think I’m good on never playing it.

12.) DEATH STRANDING

Despite the miles of coverage on this game, I still just wanted to try it for myself if only out of pure curiosity. Most people are pretty split on it either loving it or hating it, but after seeing some of the stuff floating around the internet, mixed with my general dislike of most Kojima games, I’m 100% positive I made the right choice for me. If you like the game, great, but it doesn’t look right for me.

11.) HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW

I’ve been so close to pulling the trigger on this game 3 or 4 times now, but still haven’t for some reason. It’s this adventure game set in these facsimiles of old 90’s GeoCities pages where you play as a cyber cop that cracks down on infringements and infractions of cyber-law. It sounds great, but I just never found the right opportunity to go through with buying it. Luckily, one of my dear friends gifted me Hypnospace Outlaw for the holidays, which means I no longer have an excuse to not play it.

10.) SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE

I’m not a Dark Souls guy at all, but people told me that Sekiro, while still being tough, wasn’t as brutal as a traditional Souls game. Whether they’re telling the truth or not is pretty subjective, but deep down I knew what they actually meant was that this game would still relish in any opportunity to whip my ass. So I kinda decided to save myself the hassle and just skip it. Looks really cool though.

9.) FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES

Speaking of games that I definitely wouldn’t be into, the Fire Emblem series is an extremely popular role-playing, turn based RPG with an emphasis on crafting relationships with various NPCs in an effort to make them better fighters… I think. It’s certainly not a game I would enjoy, but all the praise people were throwing at it did make me curious enough to consider throwing money at it. Yet after hearing that the game could take upwards of 70-80 hours, I politely declined and moved on.

8.) MORDHAU

I really wish I had some friends who would’ve played Mordhau with me. I enjoyed games like Chivalry back when they came out, and Mordhau just looked like a more refined version of it which was a very appealing proposal to me. But it isn’t a game I would play unless I knew that I had a crew to roll with. Buying multi-player focused games is a pretty tough sell for where I’m at in life, but if my friends were down, Mordhau wouldn’t be on this list.

7.) CADENCE OF HYRULE

Crypt of the Necrodancer was so cool and unique that I’m surprised it took them so long to make another one. I’m even more surprised it came in the form of a Zelda-themed game. For those who don’t know, just like its predecessor, Cadence of Hyrule is a top down dungeon crawling game that has you move and act to the beat of music to attack and move around and all that. It’s such a neat concept, but I just never got around to picking it up.

6.) THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING

Two things basically stopped me from actually picking up Link’s Awakening. The first being that I couldn’t afford it at the time, and the second being that the performance of the game looked really bad. On top of that, people who had finished it were pretty lukewarm on the later game content. I’d still like to try it for myself, but probably never will.

5.) ANCESTORS: THE HUMANKIND ODYSSEY

This is just like Death Stranding to me in that they’re both fairly inscrutable. I really wanted to play Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, but after seeing it in action my desires quickly subsided. There appears to be no direction in how to play or progress which isn’t super enticing for me. I was ready to approach this game like I was on a fact finding mission and I would report my findings back to all of you. But yeah, I don’t know that I’m ever going to buy this game.

4.) ASTRAL CHAIN

So here’s the thing about Astral Chain that can probably explain exactly why I didn’t play it. Up until I went to make this list, I forgot it had even come out this year. I’d heard mixed to positive things about it, but I was on the fence to begin with. It looked like a cool action game and reports of the satisfying combat definitely piqued my interest, but it just kind of fell off of my radar so hard and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything big.

3.) GREEDFALL

I have wanted to like the games that developer Spiders have made in the past, like Mars: War Logs and The Technomancer, but found them to be clunky and mostly uninteresting. But Greedfall looked like the most comprehensive of all of their offerings and certainly showed well in trailer form. When it came out, the response was pretty mixed, but there’s still a part of me that wants to give it a fair shake. There’s also my weird desire to play a big meaty action RPG even though I know that I have a hard time seeing games through to the end. That is unless they’ve really grabbed me, which is something I doubt Greedfall would have done.

Also, Greedfall? That’s the name that comes out of an idle game name generator. It’s a very bad title is what I’m saying.

2.) DISCO ELYSIUM

A lot of people have been singing the praises of Disco Elysium and even giving it their top honors this year. Since it released that’s kind of been the tenor of the conversation around it, so I was definitely intrigued. But seeing it in action quickly reminded me that it isn’t my kind of game. A CRPG is most definitely not what I’m looking for, and Disco Elysium looks to be a CRPG-ass CRPG.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t feeling some sort of FOMO with this game, especially because when I hear it described, it sounds awesome. I just know that Disco Elysium isn’t a game for me.

1.) SHENMUE 3

I just… like… I gotta know. I need to see this stupid game. I need to see if after almost twenty years this game is worth a damn at all. I don’t hate Shenmue games, they were impressive at the time, but they didn’t age well at all. Hearing that Shenmue 3 feels like a game made in the late 90’s but today, is a wild prospect. It sounds like the creator of the game, Yu Suzuki, stopped playing games after releasing Shenmue 2 back in 2001, and decided to make another one without looking at any advancement in the industry since.

Give me infinite time and money, and I will give you the review of Shenmue 3 that you all deserve.

Now even with an unlimited budget, I don’t think I would have had the time to dedicate to playing all of these games anyway. It’s a shame I missed out on some of these games, but I’m not balling out in a way that I can buy them all. Anyway, thanks so much for checking out my list, check back tomorrow for my Game of the Year list.

Blog: Coming Up Next – 07/17/19

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We’re over halfway through the year and I’ll be honest, there haven’t been any releases this year that have really blown me away. That’s why we’re going to look forward into the infinite void that is the remainder of 2019, and see what games are in store for us.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: THE BLACK ORDER – JULY 19, 2019

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I’m a big fan of those ladies and gentlemen that parade around in the colorful tights. I believe they’re called superheroes in some circles. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Ultimate Alliance games, mostly because of the very repetitive, brawler combat it boasted. It’s been a long time since I’ve played an Ultimate Alliance game, so maybe this time around I can find something to really sink my teeth into.

ANCESTORS: THE HUMANKIND ODYSSEY – AUGUST 27, 2019

On top of being one of the only games I can think of that have ever dealt so directly with the concept of evolution, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey just looks so delightfully weird that I can’t help but want to play it. I have no clue if there’s going to be any depth to it, or if it even will be fun, but I need to know how it shakes out. In my mind, there’s a version of this game that is 99% the same, but has the creature creator from Spore so I can make nightmarish visions in a game that isn’t absolute trash.

CONTROL – AUGUST 27, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MitDfKKVGW8

Nothing like a bit of telekinesis, guns, and psychedelic shifting environments to really get the blood pumping. Or at least, that’s what they say. Control looks like a game that could easily become a sleeper hit this year. With people coming away from demos of it celebrating not only the aesthetic and gameplay, but some more surprising aspects regarding the story and the agency you have, my excitement for Control has gone from none to some, fairly quickly.

NBA 2K20 – SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

Look, this isn’t something I expect most of my readers to give a shit about, but I do. The NBA 2K series has proven to not only be the games I play when I don’t want to play anything else, but the spark that got me back into following the league in earnest. There will be nothing monumentally different about this game, but I’ll take a slightly shiner version of the game I already own for sure. Besides, I’ve gotten way more than my moneys worth out of last years entry.

BORDERLANDS 3 – SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

Look, I’ve already said my piece about Borderlands 3 and how Randy Pitchford is doing his best to tank the game before it comes out, but it seems like the best candidate for a game that my friends and I can play together. I am a little disappointed by some of the changes, or more accurately, the lack thereof, but Borderlands games are mindless fun, and if this one can nail that, then we’re golden.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING – SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

The Zelda series has always been a weird dark spot in my gaming history. I’ve played the original along with A Link to The Past, but outside of those, I never really gelled with the traditional top-down Zelda games the way I did with the 3D ones. But once again, I’ve been somewhat taken with an adorable graphic style despite my spotty history with these kinds of games. I will buy The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening when it is released, the only question is if I’ll regret it or not.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE – OCTOBER 25, 2019

I’m so curious to see what a reboot of Call of Duty 4 looks like. I can’t imagine that they’ll manage to recreate the magic of the initial 2007 release, but I’d love to see them try. I think what I’m most interested in seeing is how this release is received both critically and commercially, and how the next Call of Duty game shapes up because of it. Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare casts such a big shadow over the franchise itself for being such a monumental step forward in terms of online shooters, it’s easy to see why you’d want to go back to this particular well once more. We’ll see how it all goes down when it comes out.

THE OUTER WORLDS – OCTOBER 25, 2019

So let’s get this out in the open: I don’t like Bethesda styled RPGs. There are a myriad of reasons why, but let’s just truncate this thing by saying the word “bugs” and leave it at that. So imagine my confusion when I saw the trailer for The Outer Worlds and was actually into it. Maybe it was the setting that piqued my interest, or the possibility that this game engine might actually be able to sustain the weight of the game, but I can’t be sure. All I know is that I’m cautiously optimistic about The Outer Worlds and hope it isn’t too broken.

LUIGI’S MANSION 3 – OCTOBER 31, 2019

I only really got to play the first Luigi’s Mansion in short bursts thanks to me never actually owning a Gamecube, but it was easily the game I was most curious about playing on that console. Now that I own a Nintendo Switch and the third game in series is finally coming out on it, I can make up for that lost time. I don’t actually know what to expect from Luigi’s Mansion 3 aside from busting some ghosts with what I think is literally a vacuum cleaner, but hell, I’m up for it.

POKEMON: SWORD & SHIELD- NOVEMBER 15, 2019

I remember being a kid and playing Pokemon Red when it came out. After that I got Pokemon Yellow and was just as into it as the first one. Fast forward to 2018 when I played Let’s Go Pikachu, and we’ve just covered my entire history with Pokemon games. My experience and love for the Pokemon games are very low, but after enjoying the Let’s Go games as much as I did, I’m at least curious to see what all the fuss is about. I enjoyed the more streamlined version of Pokemon I played last year, and I know that this isn’t going to follow suit, but I’m still interested enough in it to possibly try it out. But man, when I hear things like “Dynamaxing” and “EV-Training,” my eyes start to glaze over, and my interest suddenly runs dry.

STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER – NOVEMBER 15, 2019

It’s a Star Wars game. I like Star Wars. I like lifting fools with my magic powers and slicing my way through everything with my laser sword. I’ve heard that this game will allow me to do both, and then some. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a real Star Wars game, now only time will tell if this one is good or not. I’m a big fan of everything I’ve seen in the footage they’ve revealed, but I’m curious to see more of the game. This might be one of the few games this year that I’m actually excited about.

UNTITLED GOOSE GAME – 2019

There’s no need for me to explain myself here, just watch the trailer.

We’re only halfway through the year, and this isn’t a comprehensive list of any kind, but I’m still hoping that something between now and the end of the year manages to really blow me away.

E3 2019: Nintendo

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Ah Nintendo, it wasn’t too long ago that everyone made fun of you for making the most backwards decisions possible. While you still make some absolutely bonkers choices, you’ve earned a ton of goodwill since the Switch launched. Personally, I want to know more about Animal Crossing, Super Mario Maker 2, and hopefully some information on the future of Nintendo’s online service, whether that’s new NES games or even SNES or N64 stuff to their offering.

Well, let’s see how wrong I was about all of this, and shine the light on Nintendo, for this, the last of our conference coverage for the week.

SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE

What better way to kick off E3 than by announcing a new character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Or maybe 6 characters? They weren’t incredibly clear about how many characters are joining the fight, but my guess is it’s just one character with a couple of different costumes.

Oh, it’s a Dragon Quest character, probably should’ve mentioned that. For those of you still playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I hope this is what you wanted. Another anime character in Smash. I hear the Smash community loves those.

LUIGI’S MANSION 3

I never had the chance to play the second Luigi’s Mansion on the 3DS, and in the face of this announcement, I now realize how upset I am by that fact. Luigi’s Mansion 3 looks so charming and pleasant, adding in a bunch of new features in terms of ghost hunting and multiplayer modes.

I always appreciated how Nintendo was able to make a lighthearted game in a spooky setting while also constantly just giving Luigi the short end of the stick. I look forward to it releasing later this year.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING

Here’s another one I never got to play, back when it made it’s initial debut. The top down, 2D Zelda games never did the trick for me like the 3D ones, but this one looks so darn cute and adorable, that I’m willing to give this game a shot.

Also, they’re putting in a dungeon maker mode? I hope this is the backdoor pilot to Nintendo actually releasing a full Zelda maker in the vein of Mario Maker. It’ll be out on September 20th, 2019, and I will certainly be getting it.

THE WITCHER 3

It’s impressive as hell that they managed to put The Witcher 3 on the Switch and I don’t want to detract from that. But I’ve spoken about The Witcher 3 before, and while I do genuinely like the game, I don’t know that the Switch version is going to be the best way to experience it. That game had trouble playing on modern consoles as is, and I can’t imagine what it will be like on the Switch. Otherwise it’s a fantastic game that I ended up turning on god mode for most of.

Hopefully it works great and people can enjoy that game on the go. It’s due out later this year.

NO MORE HEROES 3

I have a confession, I’ve never played a No More Heroes game, but I’ve always heard good things about the series, but never got a chance to play it. I have no idea what to expect from the third title, but from my understanding, they’re traditionally fun third person action games. I think it also is a game that has attitude, for whatever that’s worth. With a nebulous 2020 release date, we’ll see how it shapes up.

ASTRAL CHAIN

From what I can gather, in this cool looking action game, you capture the enemies you’re fighting to use their abilities in combat. It looks cooler than I’m describing. You’re basically fighting these big monsters, throwing a chain at them, and then taking control of them at utilizing their abilities in combat while you’re chained to them.

It sounds interesting enough. It comes out on August 30th of this year.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3

I always had a hard time getting into the Ultimate Alliance games for various reasons, and lower on that list was the camera angle. I know that the point of the game is to see your allies and cooperate with them, but it always left me feeling a little disconnected from the action on screen. This one seems to have a more traditional 3rd person camera angle while continuing to trade in the same basic action loop the past games did.

Otherwise, I’ve always enjoyed the pitch of the Ultimate Alliance games. All of these superheroes team up to fight an even bigger baddie. It’s a simple concept, but one that manages to hook me every time.

It comes out on July 19th, and I will certainly be checking it out.

ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS

Welcome to my deserted island that’s overrun by enterprising raccoons. Animal Crossing New Horizons looks incredible, not only visually, but mechanically. It seems like it’s going for a slightly more survival focused gameplay loop. The player crafted a “flimsy axe” which leads me to believe there’s gonna be some sort of item degradation in it. Also there seemed to be an emphasis on changing weather, which I’m into.

This is all just me speculating, but it seems like they’re trying to add more emphasis on moment to moment gameplay, making you think about your items and needs in the short term, as opposed to just thinking about long term goals.

It’s a shame that it isn’t coming this year, but it won’t be too much longer of a wait, considering it releases in March of 2020.

BANJO KAZOOIE!

They’re putting Banjo-Kazooie in Smash. Everyone can finally shut up and be cool for once… right? This is great, everyone has been clamoring for this for a long time, and it was this inevitable thing that just needed to happen already. They’ll be added to the game this fall.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD SEQUEL

In what could be the spookiest announcement of the conference, a sequel to 2017’s monumental Breath of the Wild, was announced to be in development. It’s safe to assume that it’s going to play just like Breath of The Wild, so if you didn’t like that, too bad. That’s really it for info, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

More exciting is the prospect of how Nintendo hopes to recapture what made Breath of The Wild so engaging in the first place. The sense of discovery and exploration was incredible, but if we’re traipsing around the same map, I wonder how that sentiment holds up. I’d like to see maybe a new map, or a map so remixed it’s barely recognizable. Also, I think it’s time to let us play as Zelda.

Without a trace of Bayonetta, Metroid, new hardware or any info on their online service, some could look at this presentation as a whiff. I thought this presentation was great though. Still upset about Animal Crossing and it being delayed, but whatever. Nintendo’s lineup for this year looks great.

And that’s it folks. Thanks for riding with us for these conference overviews. There should be some more E3 coverage this week, but not a ton more. After all, I am in New York and can only do so much, but thank you again for sticking with us. See you around.