Archive for the ‘Games’ Category
11
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Zelda Month. Tagged: 10, 5, beautiful, destination, five, locales, location, places, pretty, ten, top, tourist, Zelda. 2 comments
If Zelda were real, humanity would have a lot of very pressing problems – despotic demon kings, gross inflation via plant-generated money and general civilian stupidity chief among them. However, at the very least there would be some pretty damn stunning tourist destinations to visit.
The art design in pretty much every Zelda game is exemplary and though it may vary quite widely in style (compare the acid trip of Majora’s Mask to the dark palette of Twilight Princess to the incredible imagination of The Wind Waker), each game has its own share of very pretty locales. This list is an homage to those moments in the Zelda series when I have just wanted to stop for a moment and just take it all in. I will be ignoring all of the (many) impressive locales that are designed to be more foreboding than inviting, because this isn’t that kind of list. Rather, these are places I would actually want to go and visit, were they real. There is potential for some real estate agent rhetoric here, so brace yourself.
Despite some great art design in the 2D games, this list is drawn only from the 3D ones, because let’s face it, they have a bit of a natural advantage in this department.
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VR ZELDA MONTH DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. Spoilers may follow.
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5. Southern Swamp – Majora’s Mask
The first item on the list even acknowledges its status as a potential tourist destination, as it actually features a souvenir house and a structured boat tour. Despite its slightly ‘off’ tone, owing mostly to the poisoned water flow and, well, the fact that it appears in Majora’s Mask, Southern Swamp is quite simply one of the most visually interesting locales in the entire Zelda series. It throws together some quite eclectic choices of flora, most of which would never be found flourishing in a real life swamp, and then dips them in LSD. As the first dedicated temple region of the game, the swamp was an obvious showcase of the power of the N64’s Expansion Pak that served to distance the Ocarina of Time sequel from its predecessor, but it achieved this on design alone long before graphical power came into the equation.
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9
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Zelda Month. Tagged: 10, boomerang, bow, items, month, shield, ten, Zelda. Leave a comment
Here’s a more conventional Zelda item countdown.
There is no doubting that one of the pillars of a successful Zelda game is a useful slate of items. The tried and true Zelda formula relies quite heavily on the regular appearance of items, which serve as handy progress markers, new ways of solving puzzles and, in the best cases, new approaches to combat. Though Zelda games are sometimes criticised for reusing much of the same set of items from game to game, the fact is that new uses for old items come up all the time, perpetuating the Zelda inventory tradition in a completely justifiable way. And, of course, there are always new items that each Zelda game brings to the fore – though some are hits and others misses.
This is probably self-explanatory, but nothing that was eligible for my last item list is eligible for this one. These ten items all stay in your inventory forever (well, except for that one bit in Skyward Sword) once you obtain them.
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VR ZELDA MONTH DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. Spoilers may follow.
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10. Mirror Shield – LttP, LA, OoT, MM, OoA, OoS, WW, MC
It has been almost a decade since the Mirror Shield, once a staple of Link’s arsenal, has appeared in a new Zelda game. That’s too long, because the usually final shield upgrade is an awesome item. It differs widely in appearance from game to game but never fails to look the part of a seriously pretty piece of back bling that almost always has the same property: the ability to reflect energy-based enemy attacks back at the user. In the later 3D games, the item’s capability increased to allow the reflection of light into new areas, giving birth to some very memorable puzzles in the likes of Ocarina of Time‘s Spirit Temple and The Wind Waker‘s Earth Temple.
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7
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Zelda Month. Tagged: 10, bombs, consumable, deku, items, month, ten, top, Zelda. 2 comments
Post number 150 on Vagrant Rant!
For all the “Top Ten Zelda Items” lists that are floating around the internet these days, the ten inventory fillers you’re about to see tend to get rather ignored (with one possible exception). They literally come and go, getting used up and forgotten without so much as a second thought. Yet I have a soft spot for all of them and believe that each has something memorable to offer the Zelda experience. So here we go: My top ten consumable items in Zelda games.
A quick note: This list does not contain any so-called “power-up” items, because they tend not to show up in your inventory. To qualify for this list, an item needs to both show up on an inventory screen somewhere and have a number in the corner of its icon. Also, ammunition items like slingshot pellets and arrows do not count, because each is forever linked to a non-consumable item.
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VR ZELDA MONTH DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome.
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10. Bombchus – OoT, MM
Mechanised exploding mice – what’s not to like? Bomchus are what happen when you put a motor on a bomb and set it free. It isn’t guaranteed to hit anything – heck, it isn’t even guaranteed to go in a straight line – but it sure is fun to put down and see what happens. Judging the timing for a successful run that ends in an explosion at just the right time is plenty satisfying, particularly when engaging in the Bomchu Bowling minigame of Ocarina of Time. Bomchus don’t play a large role in the main gameplay thread of either of the N64 games by any means, but they get a chance to shine in the special edition Ocarina of Time: Master Quest dungeons.
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5
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Zelda Month. Tagged: 10, 5, companion, fi, five, link, midna, month, navi, ten, top, Zelda. Leave a comment
Hey, I told you this list thing would be a comprehensive undertaking. Companions are important!
The various Links that have taken up the fight against evil across the many years of Zelda games are only struggling on their own about half the time. A large percentage of them are paired with what you might call sidekicks or companions, a feature that is especially common in the latter Zelda series entries. Ostensibly they are there to help newcomers with the unique features of each game and occasionally with navigation, but each one also serves a narrative purpose and has a unique personality. This has led to some of them taking on cult status. Here are my favourites.
I’m only counting companions that are with Link all the time, including in dungeons. So Linebeck and the King of Red Lions are out of contention for this one.
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VR ZELDA MONTH DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. Spoilers may follow.
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5. Ezlo – Minish Cap
Though I haven’t yet finished The Minish Cap, the game’s semi-titular companion, a literal cap who can talk and change Link’s size, is inoffensive and unintrusive enough to leapfrog the only other two companions eligible for this list into fifth place. I’ve seen people praise his wit and charm over the course of the game, but I am unable to comment on that myself. He does have a memorable introduction, though, and he’s the only Zelda series companion that Link actually wears. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when that was suggested during The Minish Cap‘s development. Ezlo is also almost entirely green, which is my favourite colour, so that’s a bonus.
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4
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Zelda Month. Leave a comment
Here we go.
Welcome, dear reader! If you’re a fan of the Legend of Zelda series, you are in the right place.
Over the next 30 days on Vagrant Rant, leading up to the October 5th Australian physical release of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD on Wii U (it will probably show October 4th on WordPress), you will see fifteen Zelda-themed countdowns. Not all of them are top tens; some are top fives and some top fifteens, but overall there will be 150 listed Zelda, er, things on this site by the release of that gorgeous-looking game.
I’m going to try to make this as comprehensive as possible, so some of these lists might seem a little odd. Honorable mentions are in no particular order. Also, I’m pulling 90% of my images from one excellent site, zeldawiki.org, which sometimes goes down. So if images don’t appear when you view a countdown, that is the most likely explanation as to why.
Before I begin, however, I just want to point out just what Zelda games I have actually played and finished, along with what systems they are available on in non-emulated form, so you know what kind of things won’t be showing up on any of the countdowns:
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3
Sep
Posted by vagrantesque in DS, Games. Tagged: DS, Game, hourglass, phantom, reputation, spirit, tracks, underrated, Zelda. Leave a comment
I can be such an idiot sometimes.
Kudos to Deviantart artist brumal.
So there’s this series of videogames called The Legend of Zelda– I dunno, maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s only one of the longest-running and highly respected franchises in gaming history. Anyway I consider myself a fan of the series. I haven’t played all sixteen of the games – far from it, actually – but it holds a special place in my heart as well as a number of my all-time favourite games. But, like any series, it has its “black sheep” – the one or two titles that allegedly don’t quite live up to its illustrious name.
Now depending on who you talk to, the identity of those black sheep can vary. It’s pretty universally acknowledged that The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the biggest outlier in the series’ history, because it takes on much more of an RPG flavour than the other fifteen games and is presented with a side-on viewpoint. That’s more of a style thing, however, and beyond that personal opinions on quality dominate the discussion of so-called “unworthy” Zelda games.
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30
Aug
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, K-Pop, Music. Tagged: Big 3, companies, Console, Gaming, kpop, trio, versus, vs. Leave a comment
I realise this kind of article probably has a pretty narrow audience, but on the plus side there probably aren’t too many like it on the interwebs.
Entertainment media is big business these days. Like, BIG business. Big business breeds big companies who survive because they happen to be the best at what they do. Each of these companies may emphasise its own supposed competitive advantages, but when push comes to shove the entertainment media juggernauts are still around because deep down they are really similar, whether they sell movies, TV shows, videogames or music. This hit home for me recently when I happened to notice that the apparently different worlds of console gaming and Korean pop music shared the phenomenon of a dominant “Big 3” who control market share. And public (read: internet) perception of these companies within their own contexts is kind of unnervingly similar.
So for the hell of it, I paired them up and tried to find as many similarities between the most obviously corresponding members of each trio as I could. Of course they tout many differences as well, but the amount of similarities I did end up finding is perhaps a little scary. For the sake of uniformity I’ve referred to videogame franchises and Korean idols/groups alike as “brands” here, cause that’s what they are, really.
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27
Aug
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Wii U. Tagged: 3, nintendo, olimar, pikmin, Review, three, Wii U, WiiU. Leave a comment
As of today I’ve had this game for a month, so I think it’s about time I posted this review. To be honest, I wish I could spend some more time with it, but hey, there are actually more Wii U games to play now! I finished the story mode this morning.
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Platform: Wii U
Developer: Nintendo
Rating: G
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What adorable little murderers.
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Finally!
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Here, dear readers, is the first brand new, single player Wii U game that might actually have a case to justify a purchase of Nintendo’s newest home console by itself. It’s taken almost nine months to appear, but Pikmin 3 is a reminder of why Nintendo fans love the quirky Japanese company so much. It’s beautiful, it’s charming, it’s an absolute blast to play and, over a decade after the first game in the series debuted on the GameCube, there is still nothing else quite like it.
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16
Aug
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Movies. Tagged: Film, Game, in, Movie, reviews, spoilers, Videogame. Leave a comment
Over the last few months I have been fortunate enough to start getting some constructive feedback on my blog, whether written or in person, which means people care enough about it to lend me their two cents. This is an amazing thing and it truly is moments like those that help me to keep on posting. So thank you to everyone who has done so!
Having said this, one of the more popular comments I get concerns a topic that I’m sure nearly everyone who has ever written regular reviews in history has dealt with: spoilers. So allow me, dear reader, to comment on my side of this topic.
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9
Aug
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists. Tagged: basic, Game, ten, things, Videogame. 2 comments
Because I’m not a game designer, I will act like everything in this article is super easy to do.
Modern videogames do a lot of things right. The so-called AAA blockbuster games are more cinematically engaging than ever before and despite the at times stagnant annualised releases of mega franchises, there are new and exciting things to be found within big releases all the time. And of course the indie game development scene continues to serve up some real gems.
However, all types of games to this day are guilty of not including some simple practical features that surely must count as rudimentary by now. In my book including these miniscule but super-convenient features makes your game just that little bit better, no matter what, even if their presence won’t fix any major problems with game design. What’s more, they require little to no creativity to execute. I’ve noticed enough of these regular and baffling omissions to write up a decent-sized list. It’s certainly a subjective list but I’m sure I speak for a lot of people on some of these in particular. And sure, there are some modern games that nail all of these bread-and-butter inclusions (or at least all the ones they can), but I still find it more than a little weird just how rare these games are.
I’ll admit that some of these entries may be harder to execute in practice than they are on paper, but from where I stand it’s hard to see how they could be any more difficult to implement than any other aspect of making a game. Also, about half of these things are specific to a certain console.
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1. Include an hour counter.
Really, this is the feature that inspired me to write this list. It is the one basic thing that I see most frequently left out of games these days and surely one of the absolute easiest things to fix. Being able to tell just how long you have played a game helps you judge its worth and makes conversations about said game involve a lot less guesswork. This is especially handy for RPGs, which tend to involve a great deal of time sinking, but a counter really should be included in every kind of game, because really, where’s the downside? The likes of the Pokemon franchise have been doing this for decades but the best recent example of great usage I can think of is Tales of Graces f, which not only has an overall time counter at your fingertips whenever you bring up the menu, but boasts a second counter right underneath the first to gauge the length of individual play sessions. Top form, Namco Bandai.
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