Well I beat the import Zelda for Gamecube last week.
This is not a review, just my thoughts on the game.
First let me start off by saying I own a 34inch 16X9 HDTV and playing this game in progressive scan was amazing. Ok I feel better now I got that out, anyway on to my thoughts. The first thing that hit me when I loaded the game up was WoW, The Legend of Zelda has become a Saturday morning cartoon.
As we all know the new Zelda is cell shaded, I remember when I first saw the images on my PC the night of SpaceWorld 2001, when Nintendo of Japan introduced the new art direction for the game, I was extremely angry. I thought how could they do this to my beloved Zelda series, I began to question Nintendo's commitment to the mature gamers that day. I wondered how they could think that this game would sell to the over 15 casual gaming crowd over here with such a cutesy look. Plus how the big time Zelda fans would take to this new look. Now we all know if they made Zelda in black in white,cell shaded, or whatever we would buy it, but this was a bold move on their part. So after getting over the intial shock, here I was about to play my beloved Zelda franchise in all it's Gamecube glory.
The gameplay is styled around the N64 games, with a lock on target, 3rd person veiw point, automatic jumping, and 1st person viewing for shooting arrows and what not. If you have played the N64 versions of Zelda you'll feel right at home with the controls. As with previous installments in the series the game takes place in an over world, with dungeons scattered through out the land, and of course it's our hero's job to traverse the world, meet new faces, unravel the mysteries of the dungeons, and get the nessasary power ups to finish the game. Typical Zelda style, you will not be dissapointed, as there are many mini games, and side quests to engage in as well.
The main focus of the story this time around though is, Hyrule has become flooded 100 years after the story of the N64 game Ocarina of Time. So now instead of having the normal overworld to travel on by foot, or horse, we now have a land of water. An endless ocean, with the mountian tops of old hyrule peaking through the water as islands. The main way of transporting yourself around this ocean is by sailboat, and let me just say this is very,very cool. Later on in the game your sail boat will take on new attachments to help you along in the quest. O did I mention the boat is actualy a living,breathing, talking character. Pretty cool stuff indeed. Now to put into perspective how large the overworld is, think of a square divided into 8 squares across and 10 squares down, well in this game to sail thru one square takes about 2 min to sail thru, no joke, this game is huge. I was very overwhelmed early on in the game at the sheer size of the ocean, and thats not even thinking about the islands, and the many towns and dungeons on these islands. So I thought wow, this game may take a while to finish, and in the end it did. It took me over 50 hours to complete the main quest, and thats not even getting into any of the mini games, or sidequest's.
The developers put it best about the game, they said " this game takes place in 3 acts". The begining act being to find 3 orbs, the middle act, well I wont say due to the spoiler nature of it, and the last act powering up the master sword, yes the master sword is in the game and if you think that's a spoiler it's really not considering the damn sword has been in every Zelda game ever.
Now that I've brought those up to speed on the game who had little knowledge of it, I want to let ya guys know how I really felt while playing the game.
Being a huge Zelda fan, the minute I stepped into the fist dungeon I was loving it. Everything about this game screams quality, the graphics, the sounds, the music, and the gameplay, and for the first time in my opinion the STORY was excellent! Like I said before the game took me around 50 hours to complete, and alot of that time was spent in the dungeons, one dungeon I spent 3 hours in till I beat it. 3 hours in one dungeon!!! For the record I am no dummy either, these puzzels in the game are pretty thought provoking, I recommend never cheating by going online, or reading a strategy guide, play this game without those items and your gonna be in for one brain hurting ride! One of my complaints, with the game is the bosses were all very easy, I guess when you consider the dugeons are a bitch it kinda evens itself out though. One thing I can't stress enough though is, is the story in this installment is very good. In fact this game is a direct SEQUEL to Ocarina of Time. This is a first for the Zelda franchise, and if you never played through Ocarina on N64, I suggest you do before this new game hit's USA shores in March. It'll help you understand the story much better if you play through Ocarina. I havn't really said much about the graphics, and thats because it's a mixed bag with me. I saw the first tech demo's for the Zelda GameCube game and it looked super realistic, using all the tricks the Gamecube could do. I was anticipating the game to have that look, and go for the realistic art style that Ocarina had taken. So when I saw the cell shaded direction the game had taken, like I said before I wasn't much of a fan. In the end yes the game looks amazing, it really does look like a cartoon has come to life on your TV that you can control. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't marvel at the look of the game. With that said though, I still would have rathered a more realistic looking game. I don't want Zelda to be cute and funny, I want it to be dark and moody. Overall though the game is another Nintendo masterpiece, and I had lots of fun playing it, and in the end I think thats all that matters. I highly recommend this game, and if you have a GameCube you have to pick this up on it's north american release date of March 24th, 2003!
Thanks for reading my immpressions guys.
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Originally Posted by digitalpress
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