Nintendo has lost its touch.
May. 31st, 2004 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothI got a game cube a while back, and lately I've been *trying* to play Zelda Wind Waker. But the game is just so incompetently put together, that it's painful.
First of all, it has the same problem that most recent Zeldas have, in that you spend five hours doing boring fetch quests for every hour in an actual dungeon, only it's worse, because there aren't even any enemies on the overland to pretend to keep you interested. Here, it adds the frustration of not knowing what in god's name you're supposed to do next -- which of these people is an actual clue to advance the plot, and which is a red herring/side quest? Will something magically happen if I talk to someone now, or am I supposed to do something bizarre, or go in a place the camera didn't let me see an opening?
It's worse in that already in at least two places it's had a spot where it doesn't tell you what to do AND actively discourages you from retrying the thing you're supposed to do until you're standing in the magical spot that will actually make it work.
The first place was using bombs to blow up the fountain to get to the first dungeon -- you can't carry the bombs close, and throwing them makes them fizzle or bounce off the rock. Of COURSE the secret wasn't to get discouraged and look for someone else to help you, of COURSE you were supposed to keep trying until you got lucky and it blew up just as it bounced.
The second is the fricking deku tree, now, where chuchus appear on its face. Okay, I'm supposed to knock them off, right? The hook shot doesn't seem to work, but it's such a crappy weapon that it's hard to be sure. Maybe I can roll into the tree and knock them off? No, when I step off the leaf my little crystal rings and tells me I'm doing the wrong thing, and that I'm supposed to knock them off.
And of course, the secret is to run up a little root that doesn't look like it's somewhere you can run (similarly textured and shaped places just slid you off to the side, earlier) and hit him in EXACTLY the right place with a rolling attack, as opposed to one milimeter to the side, which won't work, or as opposed to rolling right at the base of the tree like you'd expect to work without running up the hidden passage first.
A walkthtough helped as far as knowing what to keep retrying with slight variations until it finally happens to hit the magic pixel that makes the pathetic game engine recognize a hit -- in the first case it said 'use bombs to blow up the fountain' and in the second 'roll into the tree to knock off the chu chus'. Yeah, thanks for the help, buttmunch.
I hate this game.
First of all, it has the same problem that most recent Zeldas have, in that you spend five hours doing boring fetch quests for every hour in an actual dungeon, only it's worse, because there aren't even any enemies on the overland to pretend to keep you interested. Here, it adds the frustration of not knowing what in god's name you're supposed to do next -- which of these people is an actual clue to advance the plot, and which is a red herring/side quest? Will something magically happen if I talk to someone now, or am I supposed to do something bizarre, or go in a place the camera didn't let me see an opening?
It's worse in that already in at least two places it's had a spot where it doesn't tell you what to do AND actively discourages you from retrying the thing you're supposed to do until you're standing in the magical spot that will actually make it work.
The first place was using bombs to blow up the fountain to get to the first dungeon -- you can't carry the bombs close, and throwing them makes them fizzle or bounce off the rock. Of COURSE the secret wasn't to get discouraged and look for someone else to help you, of COURSE you were supposed to keep trying until you got lucky and it blew up just as it bounced.
The second is the fricking deku tree, now, where chuchus appear on its face. Okay, I'm supposed to knock them off, right? The hook shot doesn't seem to work, but it's such a crappy weapon that it's hard to be sure. Maybe I can roll into the tree and knock them off? No, when I step off the leaf my little crystal rings and tells me I'm doing the wrong thing, and that I'm supposed to knock them off.
And of course, the secret is to run up a little root that doesn't look like it's somewhere you can run (similarly textured and shaped places just slid you off to the side, earlier) and hit him in EXACTLY the right place with a rolling attack, as opposed to one milimeter to the side, which won't work, or as opposed to rolling right at the base of the tree like you'd expect to work without running up the hidden passage first.
A walkthtough helped as far as knowing what to keep retrying with slight variations until it finally happens to hit the magic pixel that makes the pathetic game engine recognize a hit -- in the first case it said 'use bombs to blow up the fountain' and in the second 'roll into the tree to knock off the chu chus'. Yeah, thanks for the help, buttmunch.
I hate this game.
