Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

A place where you can chat about anything that isn't to do with games!
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Oh, this fucking idiot. I remember watching one of his videos about something and just groaning. The presentation is far too obnoxious to even want to take him seriously.
User avatar
Koa Zo
Posts: 1164
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:35 am
Location: Pennsylvania, United States

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Koa Zo »

Blinge wrote: which you won't see much of, because you won't see much of anything.
What does that mean mean?
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Blinge »

Alright, alright. I'm finished.

Part 5: I’m still banging on.
16:54 – ‘You gotta wait for a guy to stop talking’

Just like you have to wait for people to stop talking in Z3 ? A new player isn’t going to just wander Z3 getting bored, lost until they finally stumble upon the right way. They’re probably going to speak to people for clues or just for the love of speaking to characters in adventure games and seeing what they have to say. Is that such a bad thing? Jeez.

-Wait for the game to tell you how to use items for the 47th time..

With him on this one. Once is enough, really. The Zelda series got so much worse after the N64 for this very problem!

-Wait for switches to activate doors, wait for link to get up after being knocked down, wait for bombs to blow up.

The impatient rant of an overgrown man-child (takes one to know one.)

17:06 – How fucking long does it take to switch between worlds.

He’s starting to make more sense. Pretty long, yes. Good thing you only have to switch a minimum of four times in order to finish the game. Any more times than that are for the purpose of leisurely exploration of the game and presumably the player wouldn’t be bothered by it taking time due to a leisurely playstyle.

‘Watch the cutscene’
Rather short and therefore not a problem, but yes if I had my way you could skip even this, and every cutscene in the game for that matter. This of course, is for replays and much less likely to annoy someone playing for the first time.

‘Walk up to the master sword plot’
What? Did he say plot?

‘Walk out of the temple of time’
Hang about. You don’t need to walk out of the temple, do you? Dishonesty.

‘Walk all the way to you wanna be’
Video of the very short distance between desert warp pad and Spirit Temple lol.

A note here on holding up cutscenes and dialogue as examples of Ocarina’s flaws. I refer to my response to Koa Zo when I suggested OoT was merely an early adopter of an already moving trend. While you can accurately criticise OoT for these slower paced elements, it would be better to attack all of modern gaming with broad strokes.

‘Link to the past you equip the mirror, press a button you’re there’
While that is faster, many points in the game are built around puzzles involving flitting speedily between worlds. Ocarina on the other hand, is not about frequent time travel, the mandatory four times having been mentioned before.

17:35 -
‘You should never, ever, EVER, hit that point where you’re like, “I’ll check that room later,” In a game about checking rooms!

In any exploration game that is not entirely linear, you are by necessity fated to choose one room to check over another. You can’t simultaneously enter both so you’re going to ‘check that room later,’ if you check it at all.

17:54 - ‘They decide “hey we’re gonna streamline the dungeon process”’.

Did they? Are Ocarina’s dungeons ‘streamlined’ compared to Z3? I’m not convinced that they are. I might be if I replayed both games, I simply don’t remember. Good thing Hanson offers fuck all evidence to support his claim. He instead moves onto complaining about bosses.

‘You get an item that helps you through the other half of the dungeon’

Oversimplification, really. I think Mark Brown described it like this; the new item re-contextualises areas you’ve already seen, allowing you to apply your new skill to these areas and solve the puzzle-box of the dungeon.

18:00 Hanson attacks the Zelda trope of using an item from a dungeon against the same dungeon’s boss.

You can disagree with this being the Zeldo norm all you want, it’s not a bad point. Didn’t it start in Link’s Awakening, though? Just pointing that out.

It doesn’t happen every time though, as Hanson is suggesting. Lets look at the main, named bosses.

Queen Gohma – As a kid I actually used Deku nuts to fight it. It wasn’t till later I learned you can shoot it down from the ceiling with the slingshot.

Phantom Gannon – his second form is all sword fighting and doesn’t fit that formula at all. In fact Hanson’s argument was that you use the dungeon’s item on the boss to ‘Render it hittable’. The dungeon item in this case, the bow, merely moves you to the bosses second phase, it doesn’t render him “hittable 3-4 times.”

Bongo Bongo – Hover Boots not actually required to beat it, they just help you stay oriented. The Lens of Truth is not found in its temple.

Ganondorf – Light arrows aren’t found in his level. You also have to render him hittable with the magical tennis match before you can render him hittable with light arrows.

Ganon – Light arrows not required.

5 out of 10 bosses. OOPS!

18:14 ‘Can you please tell me what about this world is interesting if I know before I even finish the dungeon what the boss battle’s gonna be.’

What kind of absurd question is this. Even if you agree that use of the dungeon’s item means the boss will be predictable, (which it won’t) that still leaves the entire rest of the game. No one plays Zelda games just for the boss battles.

The Twinrova battle is awesome, by the way. How does getting the mirror shield spoil that? Sure, you might pre-empt that you have to use the shield to reflect ‘light’ as he says. That doesn’t tell you how, why, when, or what form the boss will take. If you predicted from the mirror shield’s description of reflecting light, that the boss would be about reflecting light; you would be wrong. Not to mention the fact that the puzzle of that boss is figuring out how to use the two sisters’ elements against each other. This is then followed by their melded second form which presents a different challenge in how you tackle it.
( One that, incidentally, was too much for Hanson in his recent playthrough I linked earlier :3 )

Ranting about predictability of Zelda items vs bosses would be more suited to other games in the series, the aforementioned Gameboy game, definitely post N64 games, these are far better examples of this effect. However I can only assume Hanson focused on this one rather than the series as a whole because tearing down a sacred cow gets you more youtube golds.

Part 6: I didn’t streamline

18:43 – Hanson talks about the ‘streamlining’ process Ocarina did to the Zelda formula.

‘Every little piece of this game is just hopping over some roadblock that need’s you to do some specific thing to make it to the next roadblock’

Isn’t that basically all video games? Honestly this one’s up for debate if you’re an oldschool fanboy or not. Sure, you can simply walk into some dungeons in Z1, which there isn’t much point talking about here because his premise is Z3 vs OoT. I think there are dungeons in Z3 you can simply walk into too, with no pre-amble. However there is pre-amble for some of the dungeons, which fits Hanson’s idea of roadblocks.

On a personal sidenote:
Growing up I tended to enjoy the build-up to dungeons more than the dungeons themselves. These moments were fantastic in Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask. It’s where the story came in, it’s where Link is more of a social problem solver than a literal puzzle solver. The combat in Zeldo has never been the main focus. Trying to find out what’s wrong with the forest, looking back to see your childhood village overrun. What happened to the Zoras? Where are they? Why is the domain frozen over? Lets finally reveal the secret of that well & the raised part of the graveyard that have been sat there ominously in Kakariko for the whole game. Lets finally see what the deal with this Gerudo valley place is, I went there as child Link and it’s another mystery.

Hell, I might even go as far as to say the little investigative build-ups to dungeons in the Zelda series is what really sets it apart from other action adventure games, you could even say we’re driving at the essence of Zelda here. “It’s about exploration,” has always been too simple, or done in a better/purer form in other games. The Zelda series offers exploration in at least three ways. Grand scale world exploration, more focused dungeon exploring, and the exploration of story elements found in the settlements and NPC interactions, arcs and sidequests. I've always been a fan of the multiplicity.

Back to this turd in video-form:

18:55 It’s a game about jumpin’ through hoops! Superman 64.

What a fucking cheap shot. Asinine.

The video clip shown is Link riding a brown horse in the ranch mini-game, which is nothing to do with the main story. Sorry, is that supposed to highlight what Hanson calls ‘streamlining?’ Showing optional and therefore unstreamlined content? Ok.. sure.

19:00 Another closed door, find a key. Another closed door, press a button.

What? This happens in Z3 also. His argument here is essentially “I don’t like Zelda.” In fact, he may as well be saying “I don’t like to do anything, except walk forward, slash my sword, and feel neverending progress.”

19:24 - Link to the Past had a little more variety.
Nothing really wrong with this section, it’s one of the few times he makes reasonable points.

JDE pointed out that if someone tires of the Zeldo formula of using the item to beat the dungeon you found it in + boss is tiresome to you, then remember the items you get earlier remain useful for the rest of the game. You’ll be using them in later dungeons too; this is something people conveniently forget.

I’ll also point out that Hanson’s complain about boss predictability can also be applied to the dungeons from Z3. Hurr, I got the hookshot, now I have to use it to solve the same dungeon, wow I’m so underwhelmed by this games’ predictability.

Part 7: Story
20:00
Hanson asserts that the narrative of OoT provides a story context to all the player’s actions, and that this detracts from the sense of exploration.

Well, the story context was already done in Link to the Past, serving the EXACT same function. They put the numbered dungeons on a map, there is always a GOAL to work towards to save the world. The only difference is that Ocarina is a bit less open and there are more words. The fact that it’s also present in Z3 nullifies his whole argument, but I’ll dig into it more thoroughly.

‘Refuses to acknowledge the player’s innate sense of wonder, and drive to quest’
What would he have the game do? Pay lip-service to exploration? The game already gives you wondrous things, and a quest to be driven for. This is Hanson’s casuistry at its finest, and we’ll see a lot more of it. Man, Casuistry. What a word! Wish I knew it at the beginning of this whole tirade.

‘they want to enter a dungeon, see what’s inside, and succeed against enemies’
In other news, players want to play games. Actually as I mentioned earlier the parts I grew up loving were the uncovering of dungeons, places and little plot threads, the searching and investigative legwork beforehand. That’s why I love Majora’s Mask so much, and why the latter half of Twilight Princess sucked for me – that game was reduced to “Go here, do dungeon, move on.”

20:21 – but you gotta put that [desire to quest] feeling aside. There are more important things at hand, the Shiekahs, or Hylians, or save the Hylians whatever.

No, you don’t have to put that feeling aside. Story context doesn’t take away someone’s desire to play the fucking game unless they inherently dislike games having stories. Moving on..

20:38 What we’re left with feels like a formality, dungeons with doors that need to be opened..

Really? We’re back here again, what’s this guy's problem with locked doors in dungeons, Z3 DID THAT. IT HAS DOORS WITH DUNGEONS. I’m as incredulous that people see this wank as worthwhile as Hanson is incredulous that people love the 3D Zeldas. His various meltdowns on playthroughs attest to this.

He’s circled back to his point from earlier in the video that players shouldn’t be told what to do by a game, seemingly including small-scale instructions or big ones like ‘go save the world.’ That’s neither here nor there, really. It’s not particularly egregious in OoT, and can be applied as an argument to all of gaming. I’m not weighing in on this topic right now.

21:25 – Why was the inclusion of so many semantics necessary?

Forgive me for arguing semantics here myself, but this guy needs to read a dictionary once in a while, or anything really. In fact he seems to have a strong aversion to reading of any kind.

21:34 – Adding those contexts to the situation is devaluing design aspect.

Casuistry ^_^.
His example of the game ‘literally’ stopping for you to complete a story task is to play Saria’s song to Mido so he gets out of your way. You haven’t found a temple yet, you’re looking for Saria. This is a form of exploration. It’s a cynical older gamer that might say “Oh I’m looking for the first adult dungeon, Shiek mentioned some temples earlier. I know about Zelda, it’s about doing dungeons.”

You know what, the actual story context here does enrich the gameplay. I still remember the excitement I felt as a kid when going back to the woods, knowing this is where Link came from, knowing the game began here and that I wanted to speak to his childhood friends and see if they’d remember him. What do you call this kind of gameplay and motivation, does this not also fall under the umbrella of exploration?

I was looking for Saria, Navi’s hint is for you to find Saria; maybe she’ll know something about the forest sage or temple. Kokiri Forest is now overrun with monsters and you can find the Kokiri hiding in their treehouses. We’re pointed in the direction of Saria’s special place in the woods, we remember the Sacred Forest Meadow where she taught us her song. Mido, who bullied young Link stands in our way, says he’s stopping people from entering at Saria’s behest. The choice of playing him Saria’s song to show your connection to her is a mini story puzzle in itself. We see a different side to Mido in his devotion to Saria. He doesn’t recognise Link (Kokiri don’t reach adulthood) but is reminded of him, he expresses regret at the way he treated Link seven years ago. That’s a lovely little character arc for a bit-part such as Mido.

If you consider having to play one song to advance through the woods as the story unnecessarily “stopping” the game, you’re either a crusty old cynic who doesn’t like any story in games, or you’re a fucking idiot.

20:40 Hanson Rails against not getting through Kakariko rails.

Hanson’s obnoxious rant about how he doesn’t care about the story conveniently misses out that the game needs to funnel off areas like Death Mountain so the player can be directed to the castle infiltration section, which is an interesting change of pace whether you like it or not. (absolutely loved it as a kid, not so much now).

Also OoT is Ganon’s origin story, they had to establish him as a character at some point; the fact that you see him bend the knee to Hyrule’s king at the beginning is interesting, you’re trying to stop his rise to power. He’s more than some shadowy formless evil to be met at the end of the video game as a final boss.

22:08 Grown man has a temper tantrum.

Nobody cares!
-I mean.. thousands probably do..

22:25 -Purposefully misinforming the player about why they should care about what they’re doing displaces their values.

Must I use the C word again? The game does not purposefully misinform the player of anything. Fuck off.

Saharahrahrjhahgralsla also tells you what to do in Z3. Just sayin. There’s even little stone things you go and talk to him from.

23:42 Hanson suggests that turning OoT into a fucking escort mission would make it better.

Great, just.. A++. Top marks!

24:11 Imagine if you had to walk across your house back and forth three times before you could turn the page in a book you’re reading.

Dis iz dumb!!!
What does turning the page mean in this situation, in a book it means progressing the story. Hanson argues that story detracts from/ gets in the way of gameplay. So does his analogy mean story gets in the way of progressing the story??
If turning the page simply means progressing the game, then does walking around in the house refer to backtracking/ walking through the game? You do a fair amount of backtracking and walking in Z3 also. His video example is of Link walking around, so do we assume this is what he meant?
Does walking around the house refer to doing gameplay tasks that don’t immediately progress the game? Well who decides what constitutes progress or not? Bringing Ruto’s note to the Zora King would be described as stupid, boring busywork by Hanson, but it is an act that immediately progresses the game. In short, this point is just more clever sounding fecal matter.

24:28 Link to the past added a story to make everything a little more epic.

Oh okay. So when Z3 does it, it’s just for that reason and is A-okay.
Here’s a controversial little point, and not my personal view. Hanson always talks about the 3D Zeldas wasting your time, what exactly fits his definition of time wasting is either all-encompassing or incredibly poorly defined. My best guess is that any action that doesn’t immediately translate into measurable progress through the game is considered time wasting. By that metric – wandering around and exploring an open world is the fucking essence of time wasting. Every single wrong turn, every step away from a dungeon, enemy or item that could progress the game means the game will take longer, or no gains are made; ergo, time wasting.
Gosh, it’s easy to be a game critic.

25:10 Not even gonna hate on his Skyward Sword stuff. I would say he’s on the money if it wasn’t for personal repulsion.

Yeah I’m pretty much done. Woo!

30:14 Oh look it’s me.

Just cause you like Ocarina of Time and I don’t, doesn’t mean that you’re not a beautiful person.

Eat a dick.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Marc
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:27 am
Location: Wigan, England.

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Marc »

Cheered me up on a miserable morning that Blinge. It's also immediately made me want to go home tonight, plug in the 'Cube, and start up OoT. Except I don't think I can, because I'm pretty certain my cheap-ass TV doesn't have composite, scart or component ports :cry:

Just finished the Ice Temple in LttP. Again, like yourself, it's bees a long time since I played OoT, but I don't remember the dungeons in that being any less complex that these. The only sticking point in this one was the switch to the boss door - took me a little while to cotton on that I had to push a block down from a few floors up.
XBL & Switch: mjparker77 / PSN: BellyFullOfHell
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Blinge »

Marc wrote:Cheered me up on a miserable morning that Blinge.
Haha that's a good outcome man. =]

Here's a point I'll concede. The dialogue can be hella annoying on replay, namely my 5th replay or whatever it'll be when I play Ocarina again. Wish I could skip the cutscenes now.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Marc
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:27 am
Location: Wigan, England.

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Marc »

So we're getting a Link's Awakening Remake.... looks sweet. Wait, I forget, is that one considered a walking simulator yet?
XBL & Switch: mjparker77 / PSN: BellyFullOfHell
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Blinge »

Eurgh! What the hells up with Link's face! T

They've given him the Earthbound treatment!
https://youtu.be/5lxO08PcqS0

Also lol at Marin not trying to revive link in the remake, what's this? Disempowerment of women!
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Sumez »

Why are you creating this thread during my temporary leave of absence? :|

I'll read through all of this and be back soon!
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Blinge »

Image
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Sumez »

Image
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Zeldo Nerdfight Thread: Burinju's Reevenge

Post by Blinge »

Heh, been messing about recently.
Did some temples out of order just to see if it can be done glitchless.

Water, Forest then Spirit.

Image

Edit: Here's lttp scoring some points though, in that you can do more of the dungeons out of order if you so wish.
The annoying thing is Sheik, really. She won't move from the pedestal and allow you to travel backwards through time until you beat Forest Temple. So you can't get the Eye of Truth from the past, which unlocks Spirit, until you beat Forest.
She also won't appear in Kakariko for the cutscene than opens Shadow for you until you've beaten Forest, Fire and Water.

I can understand not letting the player immediately return to the past because that undermines the gravitas of being in the ruined future. They could've let you do it after getting the hookshot though; after all this is the first place Sheik tells you to go.

The Kakariko cutscene trigger is dumb, they could've walled off that progress by making the longshot, found in the previous dungeon, necessary to get up to the Shadow Temple instead.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
Post Reply