The RPG Duelling League
RPG Debate => RPG Reviews => Topic started by: Meeplelard on April 02, 2011, 03:44:36 AM
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This is something I've been wanting to do for a while. The idea is looking at 3 games that are all of the same genre, and comparing them. The three games in question I picked specifically cause they all come from different eras. I merely am looking at things like what makes the games that did things right good, where the ones that didn't failed, and things like how nostalgia can go shut up and such. Before, I get started, remember one important thing:
THIS IS A MEEPLE RANT!!!!
Now that you've been warned? Lets get started! Oh yeah, feel free to comment and such.
INTRODUCTION
First off, what is a 3D Action-Adventure game in this regard I'm referring too? Well, you guys know Zelda? Of course you do; if you don't, you're obviously lying. Understood? Good! Basically, take that, and well...that's the kind of game I'm looking at...but of the 3D Kind. So not things like A Link to the Past or Link's Awakening, but stuff like Orcarina of Time, Majora's Mask or The Wind Waker. So naturally, its only logical I choose a Zelda game to work with, and as a result, I'll start off with the most logical one, the game that started this style of the game, that being The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time, here on referred to as all its nicknames; naturally, if I just say "Zelda" in this rant, I'm referring to the game, unless I'm referring to the character in question.
I am NOT using OoT to symbolize the ENTIRE FRANCHISE. I'm looking at the game by itself, unless I specify otherwise.
The second game of this style I'll be looking at is a game that has gotten similar level of critical success, but nowhere near the same commercial level, and is thus a sleeper hit. A game well known for its unique art style, the usage of art in the game, and well...ok, screw it, if you can't figure out that I'm talking about Okami, then you all suck. So yes, Okami would be the 2nd game.
The 3rd game is somewhat more contemporary, being only a little over a year old. Game is a little different than the above two, but its clearly the same genre, same...well, ok, I don't know how to get into explanation at this point, so we'll just say Darksiders and move on. Darksiders, like both of the above games, got a lot of critical acclaim, though worth noting it was released alongside Bayonetta, which ALSO got the same amount of critical acclaim, and both God of War 3 and Dante's Inferno were coming around the corner, so there was this big Action Game influx at the time. I'm not sure if that says anything, but I just thought I'd point it out.
So why these three games? Well, not only are they very obvious examples of the genre, but they also represent 3 completely different moments in time. OoT is considered a classic and is generally put up as this HOLY GRAIL of gaming by many people, believed to be the first and absolute best of its genre. Naturally, games like this also have to take into account the factor of Nostalgia, which I'll be analyzing how much that may or may not be factoring into it.
Okami is a game that's not exactly new...but not quite old enough to reach classic status, and even when it does, probably won't get it just cause of lack of genuine flair it created. Its from the era of gaming right after OoT in any event, so it makes sense to display, coming in at the tail end of the PS2 era.
Finally, Darksiders is a contemporary game, and thus the newest. If the logic of a genre evolving and that newer games should build upon older ones and thus be better, Darksiders should by this logic have all the advantages.
In short, OoT is an "Old" game, Darksiders is a "new"game, and Okami is somewhere in between.
So, LETS GET STARTED SHALL WE! Since I don't know where to start, I'll just start at the most logical place...the beginning of the games:
GAME OPENINGS:
How a game begins can make or break someone's interest in a game; it is important that a game have a strong opening for this reason. Now granted, there are games with absolutely stellar openings, but end up being weak overall; breaking away from the genre, a premier example that many people in the DL probably agree with is Final Fantasy 8, a game that has this spectacular opening FMV that really gets you pumped...and then the rest of the game fails to deliver. The reverse is true too, of course; there are games that have weak and iffy openings, but generally end up great experiences overall. Star Ocean 3 comes to mind, a game whose opening is long, boring and you aren't really sure what's going on, but once you get past that hurdle, the game delivers a strong experience.
So naturally, a game's opening is not indicative of the game overall, but its still a way to get someone interested and start things off on the right foot.
Of the three games, Darksiders is probably the best at this most definitely. It starts off with some basic info about the council and all that nonsense...shit no one could honestly care about, but its a necessary evil. Then you're tossed into the actual game, with an overpowered, practically invincible main character. Yeah, its just one of those "Now you're playing with power!" scenarios, and its nothing more than a tutorial, but its stylish, and you have fun. It teaches you the basics of the gameplay, and you get to kick ass while doing so; and the tutorials are quick and easy. Furthermore, it establishes you as this overpowered bad ass with no real morals as War, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Actually, the opening is basically the Apocalypse, and lets you do fun stuff in it like throw cars at demons *AND* angels, hit things with an over-sized sword that he uses one handed, etc. Its nice action-packed, interactive opening.
Okami, meanwhile, is probably the worst about this. It has a long narrative which isn't even visually stimulating, because it feels like just a lot of line art, and its introducing you to a lot of Japanese names that hard to keep up with, and there's Badger speak on top of it. Then when you're past that, you...still have a lot of exposition and talking from this forest chick. Then you're tossed into a generic tutorial, where its still a lot of text and little gameplay. Its slow moving opening, that's for sure. There is one saving grace about the game's opening and that's establishing that "Yes, the main character is an actual wolf", and it does well suggesting the game has a sense of humor, but the overall opening is kind of droll and boring; it really gets to the point of "can we get started...please?"
So what of the Legendary game OoT? Its...not really either. Its a simple humble opening of our silent protagonist, Link, waking up, meeting his long awaited Fairy, and then learning he needs to see this big talking tree, and its quick to lead you into the first dungeon. Yeah, there's some running around the town, but its nothing major. One thing OoT does that both Okami and Darksiders do not is have a very light-hearted, playful opening. Okami, the world is basically in shit and covered in darkness, the crisis has already started. Darksiders, ITS THE FREAKING APOCALYPSE (or is it!?!?!?). In OoT? The game hints that a crisis may be coming soon...after you do the first dungeon, but the world is still a nice place to live. You're in a nice lush, green forest, instead of some dark gloomy place. It almost makes the game feel like its intended for much younger audiences than the other two...
...ok, it is definitely the case when compared to Darksiders, but Okami is a game that feels intended for "all ages" like OoT, so the comparison is still apt. But in any event, OoT's opening doesn't really grab you the way Darksiders does, but it also doesn't turn you off the way Okami does; its very much just this humble middle ground, which is acceptable.
Since I brought all 3 up in this section, I mgiht as well move onto the next area using them:
PROTAGONISTS:
Given the game involves playing as one character the entire way, a game like this needs a strong protagonist. Also, since all 3 have a "Side kicK' style helper whose just kind of there to be a constant companion to the main, I'm going to assess them here.
So lets first off look at Link, the ever famous green tunic elven hero with a pointy hat and tights. Link is a classic design and supposedly, there's like 50 of him in the Zelda Timeline cause they each take place 100 years different to each toher and-...wait, WHY THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT ZELDA CONTINUITY!? IGNORE! I REPEAT IGNORE THAT STATEMENT!
...anyway, Link is an iconic character for the series. Given how popular the LoZ series is, Link gets immense popularity just cause of the representative value. Why do I say that? its cause Link is a silent protagonist, who does nothing outside of gameplay but maybe an occasional reaction. Silent Protagonists fail in RPGs, as we've seen multiple times; Suikoden 5 proved this exceedingly well in that it has very good writing, but some of the scenes are held back by the hero being silent. Now, OoT is not Suikoden 5, but Link being unable to talk DOES hurt the potential writing of the game.
Since Link doesn't speak, this means every plot scene ends up being monologues by the guy he's talking too. If anything, being a silent protagonist makes the game WORSE in these games, cause you have no allies barring the helper...except Navi barely talks in plot scenes either, so she's not exactly helping; she may as well be silent herself. So if we remove the iconic value of Link, gave him generic Hero Garbs, like say a vest, long pants, and an undershirt, maybe a bandanna or goggles or some cool necklace or ANYTHING, just cause we need something to make him stand out compared to the rest of the world, and renamed him Jimmy...the character would be completely unchanged...but wait, he's no longer this iconic figure! Suddenly, no one is going to like him, and he'll be completely forgettable.
So now I'm going to say a statement that if i said it on GFAQs or something, I WOULD get shot, burned, lynched, etc. My statement? Link is a shitty hero. There's no two ways about it. Completely silent, doesn't even have implied dialog, and his popularity stems from him having been a character from the NES days. There is no way to defend this character, and I feel the only reason Nintendo keeps bringing back is cause he IS an Icon. Mario at least gained a degree of comic relief and *SOME* dialog...and Mario in the RPGs proved himself quite capable DESPITE being a silent protagonist. Kirby is a Pink Marshmallow whose really cute and has a cool concept, and Samus is pretty much the first ACTION GIRL in a Video Game; all of these characters stand alone as being somewhat more interesting on their own merits, and don't rely on this icon status...sans maybe Mario, but he's well exceeded Link in that regard, and stands on a level of his own. Link, meanwhile, without being that Zelda representative, has absolutely NOTHING. Now, I'm not saying Link shouldn't be remembered, shouldn't be considered an icon, shouldn't be in Smash Brothers games...I'm just saying as a protagonist of a game that's somewhat story driven, he's really quite shitty.
Now, OoT isn't the only game with a silent protagonist; Okami too has one. So naturally, Okami screwed up as well? This is where things get interesting; Okami actually made its silent protagonist WORK. I suppose calling Amaterasu a "Silent Protagonist" isn't fair, cause the character in question is genuinely mute; she's an actual Wolf, in both appearance and actions. She's not capable of speaking. Right there, Amaterasu has a major thing on Link: Design. Link has an iconic design, but its not exactly interesting at the same time. People only accept it cause "He's Link" in the grand scheme of things. Amaterasu though? Look at just about ANY other game. The number of playable non-anthropomorphic canines is exceedingly low. I'm not including stuff like Dogs from Command and Conquer games, I mean games where you actually play as those characters. Characters like Blanca, Repede, maybe Red XIII. Its not a huge number. These characters often get acknowledged just cause "hey, an unconventional design for a character!" Its always cool to see these things, even if the character is a lamer...
But Okami took it a step further, and made this Canine the MAIN CHARACTER. Not only that, but the canine in question is suppose to be a goddess. Right there, Okami's got a bit of a sense of humor. A divine being said to be the "Mother of all that is Good"...has the physical appearance and mental capacity of your average wolf...and yet, she's your main character. Its a pretty gutsy move on the Developers parts, but that's part of the charm of Okami; you're playing as a Sun Goddess in the form of a wolf!
Okami, however, does something else in Amaterasu's favor, something many games with silent Protagonists fail at:
They treat her like she is. The game really sells you on the fact that you're playing as a wolf. You can dig, converse with some animals, you don't "talk" to people, but you "Listen" to them, and they talk to you like you are nothing more than another animal. Amaterasu is able to walk around certain areas cause hey, she's a wolf, not a human, she's not exactly a threat. You can even bite people. The plot scenes further show Amaterasu acting like a wolf, and even give her a bit of personality. Heck, right at the start of the game, Sakuya is giving a speech about what is wrong with the world...and Amaterasu starts falling asleep, getting bored. This little bit of action is more personality than Link exhibits the ENTIRETY of Legend of Orcarina of Time. AND IT CAME FROM A FREAKING WOLF.
So in the end, where OoT failed miserably, Okami managed to twist into one of its strong points. It took what seemed like a ridiculous idea of a main character...and made it work...and it is part of what adds to the charm.
So what of War, the Horseman of the Apocalypse, from Darksiders? Well, lets start off nice and simple and say that conceptually, the idea is cool. You need someone who can be suitably bad ass, but also can be twisted into a neutral figure who'd beat up Angels *AND* Demons alike. While I don't know much about the New Testament and all that, I do know that the Horsemen can at least be passed off as neutral entities, and War being the personification of violence works well as a Video Game Action Anti-Hero as a result. See, War's different than Ammy and Link; he's an Anti-Hero, not your archetypal Hero. The game makes him appear to be more awesome at his height, to the point where they drain his powers and then go "now regain them." Okami did something similar, as being the Japanese Sun Goddess, she should be this invincible creation being who can manipulate reality...so the game starts off by saying "You just woke up from a long slumber, go regain your powers." War is not much different, except its a twist of him being punished and he needs to regain his powers. Whatever, its mostly just a gameplay excuse to say "This is why he doesn't just trample over everyone."
So with a character like War, how can you go wrong? Well...easily...War is the kind of character who SHOULD NOT HAVE A PERSONALITY beyond "KILL THINGS. NEXT!" He should not worry about death and destruction; he's a personification of that shit, and should take MAD PLEASURE out of it. He shouldn't be a little angst bastard...but no, for drama's sake, EVERYTHING needs angst. See, here's War's problem; he has everything needed to be this original main. Well, ok, he'd be another take on Kratos, except War would not require some sort of pity and sympathy for his actions; the guy is a being from some sort of abstract reality, one who doesn't have to play by the rules cause he MAKES the rules. The only thing War should bitch about is early in the game when he gets drained of his powers; that's sensible at least. He's lost his ability to KICK ASS AND BE AWESOME SO HE CAN BLOW MORE SHIT UP. That'd be in character. But then worrying about the actual state of the world, about treachery, all that shit...no, now they're starting to humanize a character who has no business being human. War is hit too much with story tropes, and it really hurts what could have been a cool concept.
It is nice that War is NOT a silent protagonist, which puts him ahead of Link, but...they completely wasted a cool concept. Oh sure, there are moments where he does things that make him look like an asshole, to remind you that you ARE playing as War, but the issue is the game is not CONSISTENT about them. Its a cool concept that is pretty much wasted.
So in short, Link is a failure silent protagonist, Amaterasu is a bold concept that sounds screwed up, but is ultimately twisted in a way that works in the game's favor, and War is a bold concept that the game wastes and thus comes off as crappy.
But its important to take into account the allies of these characters two; the annoying helper buddy.
Not shocking, OoT yet again is the big loser here, but not cause of OoT itself, but rather, its the character in question. Navi. I don't know about you, but all the major fans I've met admit that if the game has a single flaw, ITS HER. She's a completely pointless fairy who does nothing but shout at you "HEY!" "LISTEN!" and such. Everytime you Z Target? She yells at you. Every-time you take too long to reach the next area? She yells at you. Every-time she sees a clue and you target it? Well shit, she yells at you! Oh sure, she gives you information about enemies and such, but its all generic explanations. There's no real attempt to making her a character; she's an elaborate tool whose annoying. And she doesn't even serve the purpose she feels intended for, that being a "voice" for the main character. If she talked, maybe OoT plot scenes could show a sense of interest; it would not be constant monologues, but maybe an exchange.
While I'm not analyzing the game, its worth noting that Tatl, Navi's successor in Majora's Mask, shows how you make this fairy companion work. She merely rings a bell when she wants to alert you; obvious enough that you hear it over what's going on, but subtle enough that you don't get annoyed. Her descriptions at least show SOME attempt at a character, such that its not like reading a manual, but an actual creature assessing another one, with comments like "Don't blame me if it bites your face off cause you didn't block it!" And she even talks in occasional plot scenes, meaning plot scenes can have...actual interaction!?
...but that's Majora's Mask, not OoT, so we don't care about that. What does matter, however, is that Navi is an annoying worthless fairy that OoT would have been BETTER OFF WITHOUT. SHE ACTIVELY MADE THE GAME LESS FUN. I cannot think of a more damning statement for a character without resorting to Xenosaga 3 level insults. When Navi left at the end of OoT, I think my friend said it best about the scene:
"And that is by far the best part of saving the world; the fairy leaves him alone!" Kind of defeats the purpose of what is suppose to be a somewhat emotional "farewell" scene or something.
So what of the other two games? well, moving on in time-line, we have Issun of Okami. Issun is worthless for combat, not serving the purpose of telling you about monsters and all that...but that's not Issun's role. Issun is the actual voice for Ammy. If the game needs character interactions, rather than them simply talking to Amaterasu, that's where Issun comes in. In Okami's world, the idea of a little sprite or whatever Issun is existing is apparently not uncommon, so we just chalk that up to the nature of that world. Issun is a character who when you first meet, you think to yourself "oh boy, this can't be anything good"...but Okami kind of plays to this. In what seems like a tease to Navi, they make Issun almost annoying ON PURPOSE. They make him out to be very clearly anything but a respectable individual;quite the contrary, he's a perverted, arrogant, snobby little prick. His intro, after-all, involves him coming out of Sakuya's cleavage. In any event, because the game is aware that Issun would be annoying to anyone, they kind of play to this, and what starts off as being annoying ends up being part of his charm. Ammy doesn't mind abusing Issun on occasion when he misbehaves (I believe she nearly purposely swallows him on a few occasions early game), and Issun does add life to some scenes. He is a constant player in plot too; yeah, he serves the role of "Tutorial guy" when you get a new spell, to point out things, but he also is an actual character in the story. You grow attached to the little guy, even though there really isn't much likable about him...
...again, this an example of Okami taking a questionable idea and making it work. First they did it with Amaterasu, and now Issun. Proof that it works is that I've seen multiple people say, including my little sister, that the scene where Issun leaves is such an emotional and sad scene. Even though they leave on a somewhat positive standing, its still kind of sad to see the only consistent companion Ammy had the entire game abruptly have to part; its like a part of the character is gone. Issun even gives us a nice big speech and shows that he doesn't want to do this, but he knows he has too. Compare this to OoT's equivalent where its just "Fairy Slowly Flies out."
Now, Darksider's is a game that could have gotten away without a helper figure, cause War is capable of carrying his own half of the conversation, being neither a Silent Protagonist or a dog. Yet, the Watcher was still instituted on him; I won't get into the plot details, but I feel they tossed the Watcher there only so War could have at least ONE person to converse with. Fair enough, I suppose; it gets boring if the person is constantly just thinking out-loud whenever there isn't another dude on the screen. Now, first off, the Watcher makes one thing very clear:
He is *NOT* on War's side. He's just there to make sure War is doing his job, and punish him if he gets out of line. Quite a bit different a role from Issun and Navi who just kind of exist to be miniature companions. The Watcher is best compared to Ryuk (SP?) from Death Note, basically. He's got an actual personality of being in short...well...he's evil. This is more just Darksiders trying to fuck with your perceptions of morals and trying to make it clear that "No one is a good guy, not even your protagonist! EVERYONE IS DOUCHE!" The Watcher has a sarcastic personality, and generally just yells at you and...yeah, there isn't much to him...but he does have one nice thing going for him...
MARK. FUCKING. HAMIL. I don't have to explain anything more. Yeah, its not his greatest job or anything, but he's still apparently the Watcher's VA and that's all that matters.
By the end of the game, the Watcher doesn't "Leave" War the way Issun and Navi leave their respective companions, but instead, the game does something a little different; they made it clear he's not exactly War's ally, just an overseer. Given this, its only natural War is going to turn on him eventually, or perhaps the other way around, but regardless, you know their relationship isn't going to end on a positive note, and the game keeps reminding you of this; at least the game gets points for originality, but I can't say the scene was especially well done or anything, but I think that's more a different kind of flaw than a flaw of the Watcher himself.
I guess in the end, The Watcher is hard to compare to Issun and Navi cause he fulfills a different kind of niche than those two. He's not likable in the least, but you're not suppose to like him, nor are you suppose to slowly grow attached to him the way you do to Issun. Its very clearly a different angle. So I guess he gets points for being original, Issun gets points for doing the archetype properly, and Navi gets points for...um...Memetastic horridness or something!?
in the end, I think its safe to say Okami did the two main character things the best easily, and OoT did it the worst. Both Ammy and Issun were characters who are very easy to screw up and make fail, but Okami turned them into an actual strong point. Darksiders you end up kind of neutral to borderline negative to overall, cause of the fact that they tried original ideas that could have been really cool but didn't use them to their potential, and in SOME cases, used them in ways that actually deferred from the potential rather than makde use of it. Lastly, OoT is a game that really relies on its hero being an icon to make you overlook the fact that he's a pretty bad Silent Protagonist, combined with an awful annoying little bitch you want to strangle every-time she shouts "HEY!" "LISTEN!"
With that, I guess the next section I'll deal with is all the OTHER characters in these games...but that will have to wait!
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The rest of this rant will be continued at a different point. If you want to comment on things now, feel free. Also, if you do, I should ask this:
Make a new post for additions, or just add to this one and merely make additional statements? I intended to do it all in one sitting but time restraints say otherwise <_<
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So lets move on with this rant, shall we? This next section is really big alone, so yeah, just one section for now.
EDIT: And because it was requested, I am adding visual aid to this section, just so you have any clue what I'm talking about! I apologize for any
SUPPORTING CAST MEMBERS
Now, the Protagonist and his/her helper buddy are not the only characters in these games. Naturally, like many story driven games, there are supporting cast members. The memorable, the unmemorable, the nameless generic freaks you question why they're even in this game...you get the point. Often, they are not crucial to the plot, but at the same time, these characters can add a little extra something to make stock plot scenes more interesting.
OoT isn't half bad at this actually. Its not amazing, but when you consider just how badly it failed with Link and Navi, its interesting how the game does a half decent job on its supporting characters.
(http://www.zelda-master.com/v1/Jeux/OoT/Peronnages/saria_oot.png)
Saria is established as Link's friend, and you can even talk to her at just about any point in the game using her own song. Sure its not a lot, but its something that the game establishes, and we can identify a hint of an energetic, enthusiastic personality in her.
(http://images.quizilla.com/Z/ZeldaTeam/1050672374_eszeldaoot.gif)
Then we have Zelda who-...ok, she sucks. She's a MAGICAL PRINCESS, then does NOTHING after she's introduced except get taken away from the villain. Then she hides under the guise of another character in Sheik, being all cryptic and special...then reveals herself! Ok, neat twist, except they completely fuck it up by making Zelda one hell of a Faux Action Girl. So until this point, she's shown as being this Ninja-like character...then she reveals herself, BAM, instant pwnage by the villain...after she's escaped him for 7 years. Am I missing something here? Considering her knowledge of the Triforce, and everything that happens in the game, you'd THINK she'd know that revealing herself would make Ganondorf find her? Its really just a huge psyduck moment, and establishes further that people who MATTER the series can't handle...at all...
(http://www.unlimitedgamer.net/coverage/oot/images/ganondorf.jpg)
Brings us to the next character, the villain, Ganondorf. Lets be blunt here; he's about as stock, generic, and bland as you can get. There's no mystery about him; he's just an evil guy whose evil cause...he's evil...and has MAGIC POWARS!!! They even make him LOOK obviously evil, and basically say "HE'S THE VILLAIN!!!" Ok, so I guess we can give the game props for not pretending that this guy has a chance of being a good guy, but at the same time, would it hurt to give him, I dunno...screen time? His entire role in the story is get introduced -> mock the hero -> XANATOS GAMBIT!!!! -> Sit in the Tower Playing an Organ. There's no motivation, no real explanation for him other than "he's some guy from a place of thieves." Ok, being a thief leader I guess makes him instant evil...except we meet those thieves and they're very clearly NOT evil, just a shady bunch. In the end, he's about as stock a villain as you can get, and there's nothing remotely interesting about him. Yet, he gets respect from Zelda fans cause...well...how can ZELDA DO WRONG!?
Ok, so he does succeed in his goals, but only cause the Sages are idiots and decided to lock their hero of time up for 7 years, letting Ganondorf run around unopposed for 7 years. And that twist would have been better if FF6 didn't do it years before, and MUCH BETTER with Kefka, and in a much more stark and powerful way. I'd get more into this, except this isn't about FF6 vs. OoT, so that doesn't really do much; my general point is that Ganondorf's sole claim to fame is kind of botched cause its less him being good, and more EVERYONE ELSE being fucking morons.
(http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05/Characters/OfficialArt/Impa.bmp)
Following that is Impa who...umm...er...exists to...exist? Yeah, she basically shows up, "Yo, I'm Zelda's guardian", then disappears until she's apparently the SHADOW SAGE!!! or whatever, and...yeah...
(http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05/Characters/OfficialArt/Darunia.gif)
...then we have the Gorons, and notably, Darunia. Ok, these guys are pretty neat. They're big rock eating freaks who are TOO DAMN FRIENDLY. That's actually a pretty neat thing cause they're three times your size, yet they have big smiles on their faces, and just want to give you a huge. Racial consistencies are cool or something; jRPGs do it all the time, even well respected ones, so its clear there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Then we have their leader Darunia who takes it a step further, makes Link his BROTHER!!! or whatever, and even performs a completely ridiculous dance when you play Saria's theme. This is pretty awesome, in truth. Its also probably the highlight of ZELDA CHARACTERIZATION.
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1/19696/1387012-ingo_thumb.jpg)(http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05/Characters/OfficialArt/Talon.jpg)(http://www.adellacosplay.com/images/cosplay/malon.jpg)
...and it occurs to me I forgot about the Lon Lon Ranch characters. Well, Talon is amusing for being a lazy bastard, Malon is um...er...a bit creepy with her obsession over Link, Eggs, Cows and Horses or something, and that other guy is basically there to be a Luigi to counter Talon being Mario. Ok, lets be serious here; Talon and Malon are just there to be Link's Awakening references to Tarin and Marin, who were in truth, more fun characters...but lets not get into that. Honestly, Lon Lon Ranch is kind of pointless and just exists so you can get a horse later in the game.
BUT BACK TO PLOT RELEVANT KARACTARS or something...
(http://images.wikia.com/zelda/images/1/1d/King_Zora_XVI_Artwork.png)(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS61ZzpR5SDmk8MKWzpMKuZfBTjr2Mc0bnuCauW6VzHBW5U-oyd&t=1)
Next up, the Zoras. King Zora is basically Jabba the Hut if he were a good guy, so that's...something? I probably insulted Jabba there, mind you. The Zoras of course are a group of curiously attractive fishmen who have no actual personality whatsoever. Great, so after getting the Gorons amusingly right, they go and fail it up miserably on the Zoras? Good job Zelda, SHOW SOME DAMN CONSISTENCY. Now, yes, they don't have to be "GIVE US A BIG GORON HUG!" like the mountainous dudes, but at least give them some sort of personality. Like, I dunno, given how they look, why not make them all narcissistic assholes who obsess over being FABULOUS~ and only shun Link cause he's not pretty enough.
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/2492/242863-ruto_thumb.jpg)
Then we have the princess, Ruto. To her credit, she's actually USEFUL unlike the OTHER princess in this game, but even then, she still needs to be baby-sat by the under-aged Main, and when she's an adult, she's just kind of there to go "hey, remember me? Yeah, I'm the Water Sage now!" Whatever, Darunia didn't get much more as an adult, though they did try to make both seem badass by basically saying they went to single-handedly save their races (if they basically failed cause Link did all the work)...though, Ruto has one thing that's rather...creepy about her...
She's an inverse Furry. She's a fish-girl who wants to get it on with Link...when they're both 10. And this isn't some immature childhood crush, cause she OPENLY REMINDS YOU of their "engagement" when she's 7 years older and...*bleaches brain*
(http://images.wikia.com/zelda/images/3/32/Gerudo_Artwork_(Ocarina_of_Time).png)
Moving on from the creepy fishmen...we have I guess the Gerudos, a group of lesbian thieves whom the game does not explain how they pro-create, but somehow, every 100 years there's a male born and said male is the king of these girls, and it happens to be Ganondorf this time. Well, congrats Ganondorf, you are KING OF THE LESBIANS....
...wait wait wait wait...Ganondorf rules over an entire land of Lesbians...ones who aren't even half bad looking (well, ok, the the Bridge Guard is pretty atrocious)...and he's NOT SATSIFIED? What the fuck is WRONG with this man?
(http://www.zeldawiki.org/images/9/9d/Nabooru2.png)
...ok, jokes aside, they're basically the Elven Stereotypes of the game...even though we have a clan of forest people in the Kokiri (who don't really deserve their own section), and a race of pretty long eared people in the Zoras...you know what, I'm just gonna end the discussion there and move onto their leader, Naburu, I think her name is, who uh...well, she doesn't like Ganondorf, but is bound by traditions of her people to listen to him. Ok, that's something...and she evidently has a thing for younger men...is there ANY woman in this game who doesn't have some sort of screwed up mental issue?
...you know what, I'm done. no more talk about Zelda's cast. There are some shades of competence here like the Gorons, but a lot of "What the fuck moments" combined with a failure female lead (who is league ahead of Rinoa, granted) and a stock, generic, boring-ass villain. so with that in mind, ONTO OKAMI!
Now, Okami has a lot of random characters we meet throughout, so I'm going to be missing a bunch and trying to deal with the important ones only...
(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs45/i/2009/116/c/f/__Okami__Sakuya_Collage____by_H_M_W_Shiranui_club.jpg)
(ignore the picture used, it just happened to show examples of all 3 of her states)
First off, Sakuya, the Tree Spirit. She comes off as your generic Mystical Female Girl thing, but she's losing her powers, and can just barely restore Ammy. Then you restore her tree and she reappears...half naked. She's also a lot more energetic and cheerful, and less cryptic, and well...there isn't much to her. Granted, the game does make use of her design, involving that she shows cleavage regardless, and has Issun, the pervert that he is, TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF THIS. See, this is something Zelda lacks; the NPCs just monologue, so little things like this can't be taken advantage of. Issun at very least responds to the characters, and thus while not related to writing or personality of the character in question, it helps make them more memorable.
(http://www.zakelro.com/images/blog/Susano.okami.jpg)
The next character who matters is no doubt Susano. What can be said about Susano? Well, he's...some sort of weird fusion of BoF4 Kahn and FF5 Gilgamesh. You know, he's an incompetent moron who wields a useless sword...but is somehow ridiculously strong? He's also a total drunkard, and the cause of all the shit that happens, which is actually a nice twist cause you'd never expect HIM to be capable of such a failure (well, the early silhouette could be a give away.) The game does good dealing with his antics, which are humorous in that pathetic way, and then he appears in the fight with Orochi, somehow being a total commendable badass. See, Susano is the exact kind of character Capcom is great with, its no surprise he's well done.
(http://okami.neoseeker.com/w/i/okami/thumb/b/b2/Kushi.jpg/150px-Kushi.jpg)
Following that, we have Susano's love interest, Kushi. There's...not much to her. She's a nice girl who wants to make good sake, and despite Susano being...Susano, she truly believes there's a strong, commendable fellow underneath. Even when he reveals himself to be the cause of all the shit that goes down, she still holds out hope for him. She's basically the game's first Damsel in Distress, but she still tries to do SOMETHING useful, at least making the sake that is meant to counter Orochi. yeah, there's not much to her, she's mostly there to give Susano a reason to CARE about stuff.
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQ24hdh8m0IkTkrwIHscWgn0pHsMMe3K29I8Zw9WVNVNZhT8VJ&t=1)
Then we have a bunch of little generic humans interspersed. For characters with such little roles, they all have well defined personalities, between the little determined kid and his dog who love to fish, even lacking a fishing line, to Mr. Orange, the old crippled guy who somehow can do an elaborate Cherry Blossom Dance. I know OoT has some stock characters like that, but they totally don't leave as big an impression as Okami's.
So we next have Princess Fuse who-...ok, screw her, she's forgettable, the only GOOD thing about her is she has a team of SENTAI DOGS. She's not even worth giving a picture for!
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs25/i/2008/108/5/b/Sparrow_Union___Okami_Contest_by_Merinid_DE.jpg)
Though, it is worth noting that Okami has its own counter to the Zoras, shockingly enough. That being the Sparrow Clan. The difference? They're FAR MORE AWESMOE. Why? Cause they're a group of YAKUZA BIRD PEOPLE, ruled by basically a bird version of Marlin Brando. I really shouldn't have to say anything more, cause its all self explanatory. Again, Okami goes the extra length and makes its little minor tribes like that randomly awesome!
(I think the Sparrow Clan shot may be fan art, but whatever, not important here)
(http://okami.neoseeker.com/w/i/okami/thumb/f/fe/Otohime.jpg/200px-Otohime.jpg)
So next I guess we have the Empress of Sei-An. No, I don't remember her name, so shut up. She's basically there to be...well, a prophet like character. Ok, nothing useful here. Frankly, Otohime, the Dragon Queen, isn't any better. In credit to the Empress, the game does a gutsy thing in actually KILLING HER OFF. Why is this gutsy? Cause Okami is very much geared towards being a game intended for everyone, so the fact that they'd do something so dark in a game like this, even if its downplayed, deserves mentioning.
Contrast this to OoT, where they refuse to kill ANYBODY. If someone is "Dead", it was done between the 7 years, where Link is going to reverse that anyway and its not actually happening. Nobody dies in a Zelda game; they merely get "Sealed off" or "kidnapped" or "disappear." But The Empress? She actively gets killed by the Ninetails...
(http://www.firelilycosplay.com/cosplay/completed/rao/characterart_rao/rao1art.jpg)
...which brings us to Rao. Rao sends you on a fetch quest, sure, but there's that twist with ninetails it pulls. The game makes it kind of clear WHEN the swap occurs, but keeps it vague enough to imply that this may not be the moment. To add to this...busty babe. Again, here's Issun just adding a bit of color to the characters. Lets be honest; Rao becomes a lot more memorable just cause Issun constantly calls her "busty babe" and the game goes out of its way to focus ON her over-sized chest; I'll get to how that's a good/bad thing in a later section, cause that's not character work, but it is an example of how Okami helped make someone more memorable.
(http://www.cheatcc.com/imageswii/okami_5a.jpg)
Orochi and the Ninetail Fox, speaking of which, are both examples of evil villains that the game just doesn't pretend are anything BUT evil villains. It comes out and says "They're incarnations of evil, KILL THEM." Yes, its not more interesting than Ganondorf, but at least Okami isn't trying to make an established character out of them; they're just there to be adversaries. Ganondorf is a genuine character introduced early, and killed off late. Orochi is a faux-final boss, where you beat him then the game goes "NO, JUST KIDDING, GAME NOT OVER" so its sensible he's not got many scenes. Ninetails is basically just established as that "Guy after Orochi." You know, that person you need in between the faux-villain and the true villain, to say "There are other evil, super powered henchman out there." So yeah, they're not quite comparable to Ganondorf, but they're not exactly interesting either. They do have at least some sense of style, I guess, but that's cheating off "they're in Okami" more than anything else. Yami, the game's FRUE VILLAIN, is just a Space Flea From Nowhere...in an almost literal sense...who fights in a hamster ball...covered by a HUGE MECHA Ball. I guess he gets points for design?
(http://okami.neoseeker.com/w/i/okami/thumb/2/28/Oki.jpg/150px-Oki.jpg)
Next we move onto Oki, the wolf dude guy who...uh...is an emo prick. There's no two ways about it; the guy lost some contest, stole the big awesome sword, and wanted to prove his worth by mastering said sword, and is emo that he can't. Slowly he learns to be honorable as he is forced to deal with your hero, and becomes one of your stronger buddies. This character could have worked better if he was a prominent figure throughout, but he's isolated to the last 1/3rd of the game.
I'm...going to stop with the NPCs now, barring one more, who I just can't realistically ignore cause he's really important. And I mean this on serious merits for once. That of course being Waka.
(http://www.emploom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Okami-waka.jpg)
Waka is, lets face it, a well done questionable figure. He comes in, taunts our heroes, does things that seem to be basically screwing with the heroes, but at the same time, giving you cryptic advice you don't understand but suddenly ends up being true. YOu really can't tell if he's stringing you along into a trap, or trying to be helpful, but in a way to stay under the cover of evil, as well as a way of testing Ammy to see if she's worthy. There's really no way of telling just where Waka stands until the very end of the game, where it fully establishes him as being a good guy, but is a Failure Knight with Survivor's Guilt, yet is truly admired by how Ammy has waited patiently despite his failings and all that. It leads to some powerful stuff in the fight with Yami. And despite all his serious work...he's also amusing. The guy is, of all things, French. Why is that silly? Cause Okami is very heavily entrenched in this Japanese setting, and everything about the game says "JAPAN"...and its not subtle either. So having a random guy popping up saying "Ma Cherie", dressing like he does, dancing around and making weird prophecies...well, it just adds character. Even a character with as much depth as Waka, they manage to make a goofball in a sense, and its quite amusing to seem him go from "silly weirdo" to "seriously cryptic" in under 5 seconds.
So...Okami generally does the NPC thing better than OoT. The characters at least have defined personalities, though there are some forgettable faces that SHOULD be more memorable like, say, Otohime, but then it has some characters like Susano who are absolutely brilliant.
And finally, we reach Darksiders. Darksiders is nice in that it has a nice small cast of characters, so surely there's more focus, right?
(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbjT71ZCq-UM4N40UPCczfoezoaEjGlSFbqee8CqCxpUBK4HP1&t=1)
Well, first we get Samael whose basically just "Go there. Done that? Good, now go there. ANd yes, you can trust me horseman, I'm a doctor, I always keep my promise!" He'd be a cool character except outside of one scene where he goads War into releasing his true self, he's basically just pointing you to your next goose chase.
(http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/9/96150/1707198-ulthane_large.jpg)
Then we have Ulthane who...uh...well, goes from being your enemy to your ally in all of one single Angel invasion. I guess the scene with "Do I look like someone who fears death?" as he says that sticking his face right into point blank of War's new shiny gun is something. Honestly, I don't get the whole purpose of him being related to the sword with the angels and all that; that felt forced.
(http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/write.ign.com/16989/2011/03/abaddon-300x300.jpg)
Abaddon is next. IN Short, ANGEL LEADER WHO BETRAYS EVERYONE AND IS NOW SATAN. The whole "Would you rule in hell or serve in Heaven" thing is suppose to be the logic behind his character, but it comes out of nowhere and he's basically non-existent for most of the game. Its a lot like Ganondorf in that the game tries to act like he's super important, but he lacks any real screen time, and gets barely mentioned and you end up not giving a shit.
Straga, the big dumb demon guy you fight early on and...wait, he doesn't really count, does he? Screw him. Not even worthy of an Image!
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100102103923/darksiders/images/thumb/c/c3/Vulgrim_In-game.jpg/180px-Vulgrim_In-game.jpg)
One genuinely cool guy who pisses me off cause I can't remember his name and its bugging me is the Merchant (EDIT: Evidently, his name is Vulgrim...). He's a sleezey bastard who doesn't care for Demons, Angels, or really anything; he just wants Blue Souls and run his business, and the Council even acknowledges him. What gives him points is how when you buy stuff from him, he comments on what you're doing. Its kind of like the RE4 Merchant, but less MEMEtastic. Still, there's a certain allure to him having lines like "What would you ask of this humble merchant?" and stuff like "You are wise as you are powerful!" when you buy stuff. No, its not deep, but its a little extra flavor.
(http://images2.fanpop.com/image/polls/379000/379171_1266265611556_100.jpg?v=1266267232)
Following that, Azrael, the Angel who wants to repent for all the bullshit. He basically exists to say that "yes, not all Angels are self righteous dick-weeds." I suppose Samael kind of existed to prove something similar in Demons, by saying "Some Demons have morals and honor!" so I guess I should credit him for that? Just both are so trope-tastic and boring that I find myself not caring. That's really Darksider's issue; it tries to be more epic and SUPER SERIAL, but kind of falls short.
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/6/62830/1543723-darksiders_uriel_thumb.jpg)
Last character I'll bother with is Uriel, the ONLY REAL FEMALE CHARACTER IN THE GAME (ignoring the bosses where gender is completely irrelevant), who basically exists to be...a bitchy action girl who wants revenge on War. She leads an army of DICKWAD ANGELS and wants War's Head for being the cause of Abaddon's Death...even though Abaddon brought it on himself by faking the Apocalypse...and he's now the exact enemy she ultimately wants to kill but doesn't know that. OH BUT SHE LOVES HIM SO EVERYTHING IS JUSTIFIED. I don't think there's anything remotely likable about her; she's a bitch, and you stab her in the face a few times, and she ends up...being an ally in the end. Well, guess what? She fulfilled the cliche! That being "The only female in a sausage fest, enemy or ally, will ultimately survive til the end of the game AND be on the hero's side!" She leaves the game cryptically, but not to worry, War's Frat Boys Brethren Horsemen are coming to aid him!
...yeah, Darksiders, for all its epic build up, adult approach, and all that shit...isn't really that much better than OoT at this. Heck, in some ways its worse, cause it has voice acting, and more resources and stuff to work with, and higher expectations. OoT can at least say "I'm old!" as a defense./
Ignoring how good these games are its core in this regard, Okami is definitely the best at the supporting cast thing. If nothing else, it makes us remember the big characters like Susano and Waka, as well as having some gimmicky lesser characters like the whole Sparrow Clan. OoT and Darksiders can duke it out for whose next, both aren't really that good; I give OoT the win cause of the seniority thing as well as having lower standards and less technology, memory, etc. to work with, so it at least has excuses. And it wasn't TOO bad at it since it at least gave us the Gorons and a bunch of Lesbian Thieves. Darksiders mostly just gave us the Merchant, a pansy angel, a dickwad angel, a bitch, and an HONORABLE DEMON!!!
...yeah, I analyzed these casts far more than anyone probably should, but what of it?
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Though, it is worth noting that Okami has its own counter to the Zoras, shockingly enough. That being the Sparrow Clan. The difference? They're FAR MORE AWESMOE. Why? Cause they're a group of YAKUZA BIRD PEOPLE, ruled by basically a bird version of Marlin Brando. I really shouldn't have to say anything more, cause its all self explanatory. Again, Okami goes the extra length and makes its little minor tribes like that randomly awesome!
I think it's worth noting that I had completely forgotten that these things existed. Just 'cause something is interesting when playing through, does not make it memorable.
Contrast this to OoT, where they refuse to kill ANYBODY. If someone is "Dead", it was done between the 7 years, where Link is going to reverse that anyway and its not actually happening. Nobody dies in a Zelda game; they merely get "Sealed off" or "kidnapped" or "disappear."
Funny you should mention that. I've been replaying OoT lately and, in the part I was playing this morning, I found a random guard in Hyrule Market after Zelda escapes. He tells you that she was waiting to give you the Ocarina and then the text... slows... down. Tried talking again and it just said "He's not moving any more..." I was honestly surprised to find it, which kinda proves your point, but also contradicts it - apparently there is death in Zelda!
Yes, its not more interesting than Ganondorf, but at least Okami isn't trying to make an established character out of them; they're just there to be adversaries. Ganondorf is a genuine character introduced early, and killed off late. Orochi is a faux-final boss, where you beat him then the game goes "NO, JUST KIDDING, GAME NOT OVER" so its sensible he's not got many scenes. Ninetails is basically just established as that "Guy after Orochi." You know, that person you need in between the faux-villain and the true villain, to say "There are other evil, super powered henchman out there." So yeah, they're not quite comparable to Ganondorf, but they're not exactly interesting either. They do have at least some sense of style, I guess, but that's cheating off "they're in Okami" more than anything else. Yami, the game's FRUE VILLAIN, is just a Space Flea From Nowhere...in an almost literal sense...who fights in a hamster ball...covered by a HUGE MECHA Ball. I guess he gets points for design?
So, they're more comparable to Zelda bosses who, for the most part, are not mentioned at all. The only one who I think is is Volvagia, which is "Ancient dragon that has been revived to eat Gorons" - would be terrible, except, as you've already said, the Gorons were done well, so we actually really give a crap about him eating them.
Can't really comment on Darksiders, never played it, but otherwise, just casually agreeing with your assessments. I think OoT doesn't stand well on its own and was really designed to be a sequel to the older games - Link had some (albeit minor) characterisation in some of those, and Ganon(dorf) was established as a threat back in ALttP (more than the others, at least) - as a point, that is a Zelda game done right (for all that I prefer OoT or MM); it gets the established villain in Agahnim, the major threat in Ganon, a Damsel in Distress Princess who IS NOTHING MORE and... okay they still fail on the characterisation of Link. But that's what Link's Awakening was for, right?
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Volvagia isn't quite the same as Orochi, Ninetails, etc. I mean this in a more neutral way in that tehy're not quite comparable rather than being better/worse.
Orochi is established as the BIG BAD early on; he's the game's backstory, and clearly a big villain. The game really wants you to think he's the ultimate evil and even acts like he is the direct cause of all the shit going down. When you beat him, in the "Disc 1 Final Dungeon" scenario, complete with its massively epic showdown, the game then reveals that he is, fittingly enough, just "The Dragon" (both in the literal and figurative trope sense) who was guarding a much greater evil, which we ultimately learn, long story short, is Yami, the Lord of Darkness himself.
Ninetails is kind of like that too, or at least, someone the game wants you to think may be the cause of the problems, if briefly. This isn't like, say, Blight who we know is just the cause of one localized issue, Ninetails is clearly pulling strings and what not from behind the scenes. Its just a question of "Is it the cause of the problem, or is it just another herald of some greater force?" Again, like Orochi, we also get a big dungeon that sort of pretends to be the final dungeon, if in a different way.
They're also "Final Bosses" of their respective arches; Okami is split into 3 major sections, all based around different sections of the world and...well, I'll get to that part of the rant later. Generally speaking though...
Volvagia is just "A legendary Dragon" and not much more. They give him some backstory cause it doesn't hurt to at least give your bosses SOME plot, rather than them all being Generic-End Dungeon Guys. Its kind of like Blind in ALttP has a very barebones backstory, but at least he HAS one, unlike every other boss in the game. The entire game, especially in the 2nd half, we are to believe that Ganondorf is the big bad, and this stays true the entire way. Volvagia is just one of his minions he releases and something you need to stop. Volvagia is never your ultimate goal; just an immediate threat you need to take care of.
This is why I find it hard to compare Volvagia to Orochi or Ninetails, two characters who the game at least tries to pretend are the big evils. Volvagia is closer to, say, the 2 Owls you fight, who are clearly NOT the cause of the evil, just demons that got unleashed by the darkness who are a threat, and need to be stopped. Minor little plot for what is essentially a filler boss at the end of the dungeon; that's what these two are.
I suppose Twinrova (SP?) from the Spirit Temple falls under this category. Actually, I left them off the rant, but they deserve a mention only cause it is an example of OoT actually trying to be creative with writing; they did have an amusing Death Scene, after all.
...no, this isn't really part of my rant. I'm just going into depth about the response cause...well...that's what I do! The rant will always be preceded by the BIG BOLD LETTERS for the next section.
Funny you should mention that. I've been replaying OoT lately and, in the part I was playing this morning, I found a random guard in Hyrule Market after Zelda escapes. He tells you that she was waiting to give you the Ocarina and then the text... slows... down. Tried talking again and it just said "He's not moving any more..." I was honestly surprised to find it, which kinda proves your point, but also contradicts it - apparently there is death in Zelda!
...interesting. But then that begs the question of "Do Red Shirts count as people?" I guess it disproves "NOBODY DIES IN ZELDA" making me amend the statement to "Nobody with a remote degree of significance dies in Zelda." At least in OoT anyway.
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Ninetails is basically just established as that "Guy after Orochi." You know, that person you need in between the faux-villain and the true villain, to say "There are other evil, super powered henchman out there."
That was the part that made me think Volvagia, at least.
Idly, did the Fire Temple on my replay last night. I forgot how little a threat they actually made Volvagia seem - I thought it was more than "Big dragon, will eventually eat Gorons, has the power to destroy Hyrule." I actually thought they implied that he'd already been fed -some- Gorons, but apparently not. (Add in the fact that you can just ignore the Gorons and leave them standing in their cells, and, uhh, suddenly he's a whole lot less threatening.)
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Adding in pictures to supporting cast, just to help people remember who is who, and now to MOVE ON FINALLY!
SETTING
Ah yes, setting, that area of a game that is hard to really judge cause...ok, I'm not where I'm going with this. Either way, all three games have completely different settings from one another, so simply saying one is better than the other...well, cannot realistically be done. At best, we can focus on where they do well within their own framework, how good they are at building and establishing their worlds, etc. and all that generic stuff.
OoT, like most (all?) Zelda games, takes place in your typical Medieval European Fantasy setting (I guess you'd call that a Tolkien Fantasy Standard? I'm honestly not sure); this is probably one of the most used settings in these games, but to be fair, Zelda is the series that basically established that, and its kind of something you expect, so in OoT, its really just keeping with the tradition. Not only does it do that, as usual, it calls itself "Hyrule." Why Hyrule? Fuck if I know, I tend to assume it originated as a pun for "High Rule" or some such JUST BECAUSE I CAN, but honestly, I'm not sure why we care; its a name, it sounds good, we move on.
So what makes Zelda's world stand out from all those other stock Medieval Fantasy settings? Well, naturally, the Triforce. That's...basically its big factor in the world, for starters. There's others, but we'll get to them later. OoT establishes that yes, the Triforce is there and its basis behind the world's balance, blah blah blah, its your typical Macguffin. The game takes it a step further early on from other games, and tries to explain the origins of the Triforce by giving us what is apparently the Hylian Creation Myth. To be honest, that's actually kind of a neat touch; very few games go out of their way to talk about the nature of the world's creation, or at least the myth behind it. Its often just "There's a world, it exists, we move on." OoT, we get a full story about the 3 Goddesses descending, doing random shit for...well, they're Goddesses, is there EVER an explanation for why divine beings do things? Especially ones who play no real active role in the story? Anyway, they create the world, leave, but upon leaving, they set the Triforce down there, each representing a different Goddess and their powers, and the balance related to them. Kind of reminds me of FF6 again, except the 3 Goddesses in question weren't at each others throats, and there was no "WORLD WILL BE DESTROYED IF BALANCE IS BROK'D!" threat. yes, Zelda as a series predates FF6, but FF6 came up with that trinity divinity thing first...but this isn't about FF6 vs. OoT, so I really need to stop bringing up those parallels.
Now, the game begins off in a Forest Village...fitting seeing as Hyrule is NOT inhabited by humans, but by Elves, so frankly, we'll just assume that Hyrule has no human race and that the human equivalent are elves. Granted, I think the game just refers to them as "Hylians" and sidesteps the issue entirely, so...yeah, lets just go with "Hylian" from here on in. Of course, this village is NOT Hylian, its Kokiri, and its inhabitted by a bunch of children.
Why? We aren't told til much later, we just know they're all children, and they all have fairies and they apparently are watched over by a REALLY BIG TALKING TREE...who dies really early in the game. They also all dress entirely in Green, so I guess the game is trying to explain why Link has that attire for once, which is nice, but was it really necessary? Crap, getting sidetracked!
So we learn that the Kokiri never leave the forest, and there's only one REAL weapon in the entire Village, which is apparently hidden and only a CHOSEN BRAVE ONE or something can find it. Actually, its not really that hard to find, and I'm not sure there is a real legend behind it, just the game suggests "hey, its special cause its the ONLY SWORD HERE" and...yeah, ok, that's kind of a setting failure right there, cause I don't think the game actually explains where the sword came from, let alone why a weapon would exist in what seems to be a Utopian Forest Village of Children.
So Link leaves the village, and Saria sees him off, making it clear that Link's adventure outside of the village is exceptional, and that no Kokiri leaves the village. So we have it established that the Kokiri are isolated from the rest of the world, and thus probably never interact with anybody but themselves. That's neat cause I don't think many games before OoT had a scenario like that, but its wasted on Link being a silent protagonist. For reference, compare Link to WA4 Jude, who undergoes a similar dramatic culture change from "Utopian Isolated Society" to "Real World" and we actually see how ti effects him. Link's response?
...we get nothing. The game is nice enough, at least, to give us a nice picture of Hyrule Field, the Main Map Area of the game, and we can see a large scope of it. FOR ITS TIME, this was actually a pretty scene, but naturally, N64 graphics haven't aged completely well, so it may look stock and bland now, but I don't know. The game does play upbeat, fast music, which sounds like its going to lead into the Zelda theme but ALAS, ITS A TEASER AND AN ORIGINAL SONG. Those bastards! ...but we're not onto the OST section of the game.
Running around, it changes between day and night. At day, you're basically fine, at night, monsters pop up. I...can't say this really adds anything, cause there's no plot explanation, its just "AT night, THERE ARE SKELETONS. WHY? CAUSE SKELETONS ARE EVIL AND NIGHT IS DARK!" That's about the extent. Translation? Its stock, generic, and unexplained nonsense that was a missed opportunity to actually explain stuff.
Then we get to Hyrule Castle Town, and you get an...actual sense of a busy, upbeat Urban Town and...you know, I think I'm getting too in depth, but shut up, that's the point of this rant. I'll start being more brief here. From here on in, we start going to various places. We learn that each area of the world has a different race associated with it. The Forest has the Kokiri, the...generic urban terrain, I guess, has the Hylians, which there's a second village called Kakariko Village nearbye, which is small, but slowly building. Then there's a HUGE VOLCANO called Death Mountain, where the Gorons live, and far off on the other side of Hyrule Field, we have Lake Hylia, home of the Zoras, and the desert/badlands area called Gerudo Valley, home of the Gerudo (subtle anyone?)
While its cheap, and boring and not explained why none of these races really interact much on a regular basis OUTSIDE of the apparently Royal Family of Hyrule having connections with the Goron Chief and the Zora King, I guess it gets the job established that each race lives where they are most comfortable. Generally speaking, when it comes to setting, the first half of the game doesn't have much beyond the basics. It doesn't really build the world beyond what I said, and lets face it, its small. Its suppose to be only one country, I guess, but the game doesn't really establish other areas outside of Hyrule, let alone suggest they exist. This makes it seem like Hyrule is in this own little bubble and...well, I think you can see wehre I'm going with this. Its hard to tell if Hyrule IS the world being downplayed and thus we just sort of pretend the scope is much larger, or just a section of the world, and thus lowering the scope. Later games naturally establish Hyrule as being just a part of the world, and I guess Link's Awakening kind of did too. Though, I might be alone on this, but I can't help but feel OoT's version of Hyrule feels...smaller. Compare it to some of the earlier games and you'll see what I mean. It kind of hurts the Adventure feel the game is suppose to give.
Oh yeah, the game also establishes that 3 of these races have special objects that open up a big freaking door in a town not related to any of these and...you know, its just an excuse for going to 3 different dungeons.
Then kicks in the 2nd half of the game...the Adult arc. Here, Ganondorf has caused shit to go down, and now the world is in a crappy place. It tries to say that Ganondorf is basically the ruler of the world, and at first, it does it well by showing the once lively vibrant Hyrule Castle Town as...now nothing more than a Ghost TOwn with zombies Redeads running around. Its really a stark contrast to the original Hyrule Castle Town and paints the image well...the thing is though, how does the game follow up?
Kakariko Village shows...quite the opposite. It shows people basically going on with their lives, just elsewhere, and its lively and vibrant. I can understand the people moving, but if Hyrule really is in a shitty state, shouldn't the people there be showing more willingness to care about the outside world? Furthermore, regarding the outside world is more or less unchanged...ok, so now there are Poes running around, but in truth, they don't really do much. They're just "more enemies" and it doesn't add to much. Hyrule Field looks the same, and only some mild nuances like Death Mountain having a big red halo around it instead of its typical smoke cloud. Rather than go into details at this point, I'll just say Adult Arc is very hit and miss. Some areas are well handled with the "World is fucked" scenario, others...not so much. Take for example, Goron Mountain.
Yeah, it being deserted is neat, but...that's really all there is. No Gorons, it doesn't really feel bad, more...just weird. So what could have screwed this up? Simply put, the music that plays here is the same as the music that plays 7 years prior, where the city was booming and everything, and while yes, there was a crisis, it wasn't one that was an immediate threat (More treated like it could matter in the future and thus the sooner dealt with, the better). Again, I hate to do this comparison, but I can't help but compare it to WoR in FF6, cause it does such a similar scenario of "Villain makes shit go to hell" but does it so much better. Just look at just about any town, and the music alone, if not the appearance, tells you the mood of the town; yeah, South Figaro has the standard town theme, but when you talk to the Citizens, they've got a mood of "Screw Kefka, we're living our lives how we damn please!" so its completely appropriate there. In OoT, it doesn't deal with music transitions like this at all; its the same place in the end, only less lively, and when you do rescue all the Gorons, it doesn't really give you a sense of accomplishment. This is a primary example of failing to really capture the setting.
So I guess overall, OoT's setting is hit or miss. The Child Arc in general didn't have much to establish, which can be considered a flaw of the setting itself if you want to twist it, but does some neat things like the creation myth, the Adult section is some areas done well (Hyrule Castle Town) and some areas...not so much (Goron City.) The game didn't really try at setting too hard, I feel, perhaps because of worse standards, but again, I'm not willing to use that as a total pass to points where it didn't succeed.
So next up, Okami. Okami takes place in a feudal Japan setting, and its very much open about it too. It doesn't try to pretend to be anything but that. From the game's map having a strong resemblance to Japan itself, to the game calling its land "Nippon", the game does not try to hide its setting. This is a good thing since it means it readily establishes itself early, and the player knows more what to expect. The game is very good at keeping this Japanese feel too. The Music, for starters, is all very classical japanese style; I'll get into more of that later on, but I can't avoid talking about that, cause it helps sell the game in that regard. The art style is of that classic Japanese Paintbrush style in addition to that helping making the game clear "THIS IS ALL JAPANESE FOLKLORE!" Not to mention all the character names are very strongly Japanese...
Now, its worth noting that in the past, I have complained to some people about Persona 4 refusing to change names. They sounded way too Japanese, and I don't think that helped the game; its a game where I feel an effort of localization in the character names could have helped, cause I don't feel "Modern Japan" was really all that integral to the setting. "Modern" part? Sure. Japan? Not so much. In Okami, however, its quite opposite; the Japanese names actually help add to the game. And yes, I'm aware some people will probably find my stance on this completely absurd, but its worth noting that Persona 4 felt like it was trying too hard to be "PURE JAPANESE!!!" when it added nothing to the game (using Japanese Honoraries when they were speaking English sure as hell didn't help either, at least from my experience)
Now first off, lets get one thing out of the way; Okami did have some localization with names, but not in a way that detracted from its "spirit". For example, the legendary hero "Nagi" was, near as I can tell, "Izanagi" in Japan. "Izanagi" isn't hard to say, but its kind of a mouthful compared to "Nagi" which still sounds Japanese and is much easier to say and spell out, and is generally more concise, but at the same time, "Nagi" still retains some of its original name, being just a short hand version of that in a sense. By keeping the names at least retaining some of their Japanese origins, but making them easier to read and pronounce in English, it finds a good middle ground that doesn't detract from the setting, nor alienate the non-Japanese player. This is an ideal case of Localization. One could argue its insulting the player intelligence, but personally, I just find it easier saying "Kushi" than "Kushinada" only cause its 2 less syllables <.<
Considering all this, Okami really sells its Feudal Japanese setting well. There are even little minor touches like the consistent usage of Cherry Blossoms, the fact that your "bombs" are actually oversized fireworks, and heck, they even kept the enemy names in Japanese Writing when they appear. Yeah, sure, you can't read them, but...for once, I find myself not caring; it fits the game, and frankly with a name like "Okami" you should be expecting a lot of Japanese!
So with Okami getting its core setting down pact, what about the little minor touches? Well, you get a better sense of scope than in OoT. To giev you an idea, Shinshu Fields is about the same size as Hyrule Fields...well, no, that's overselling it, but it is rather large. And yet, there are at least 3 other areas of equal size in the game. It adds to the "Adventure" feel, certainly. Now that this meaningless distinction is made...
More importantly, what about the whole CURSED LAND factor? Well, the cursed areas really stand out and are very clearly cursed. When you purify the area, you get a big rejuvenation scene...giving you a strong sense of "You accomplished something!" and it doubles the size of the travers-able area. Towns that are under some sort of curse also give a strong sense of that curse, and in the case of Wep'keer, it actually feels like a really cold Mountain Town. I don't mean "oh, there's Snow!" but rather, there's actually a sense that its a cold area, as you can even see visual biting cold winds and such. Speaking of wind, a nice touch Okami has is that no matter where you are, you can see a black winds in the sky, sort of reminding you that evil is not gone, and can return to the area. Does it ever happen? No, not really, but its just a little nice attention to detail like that.
Its...really hard to explain how Okami really sells its setting; its something you just kind of need to see. The last little bit I guess I can touch up on is the actual names used; its not just Japanese names, but a lot of them are based off Japanese Mythology, Folklore, etc. Due to this, you can pretty much tell that the game is very spiritual in nature, and that's the nature of its magic, and all that. Its a mythological based setting, so that alone just kind of writes itself. Contrast this to OoT where, like many games, it just kind of fridge logics' it magical elements, saying "Oh, yeah, magic and fairies and such exist! Its a fantasy setting, deal!" To Explain it in Okami, you basically just look up Japanese Myths, Folklore, etc., twist what you learn into someway that fits a game and doesn't care about accuracy, and well...
...ok, easier way to explain? Take Valkyrie Profile. Got that? Good. Go look in Norse Myths and such for a better understanding of the game. Did that? Alright, you'll note that VP takes a lot of...liberties, but having basic knowledge of Norse Mythology helps in some areas of understanding VP's setting, and you just knid of assume things were changed for narrative purposes. Okami? same deal, just different part of the world.
And speaking of a different part of the world, we move from a setting who was strongly influenced by eastern factors to one that is strongly influenced by Western factors! Darksiders is a game based on playing as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...which basically means "yes, Judeo-Christian Roots ahoy!" Or at least, that's what yo'd think, but in reality, the game only bases it off that very loosely. There's a Heaven, ruled by God The Creator, and a Hell, ruled by Satan The Destroyer. Hell has demons, Heaven has Angels. They have names ranging from...all over the place. No, seriously; the first big demon boss you fight is named, afterall, Tiamat. Well, shit, that's a Sumerian Myth right there, and sort of kills any hope this game has heavily influenced by the bible beyond maybe some very basic factors (oh yeah, there's hints to Adam and Eve being created in the intro, but its just background...)
...actually, speaking of the intro, it does at least give us an understanding of the game's above factors, as well as establishing that the Council is neutral, wants balance, and that the Four Horsemen are just trump-card enforcers of it used in case either side breaks out of line. Of course, there's more to it than that cause neutral God-Complex Fucktards are NEVER totally neutral, and are ALWAYS corrupt, but lets not get into that. Anyway, the game establishes that its basically our world, in Modern Times, by showing a place that resembles New York getting hit by meteors and demons and angels start battling, and well, that's the intro. The first area is War running around in a city slowly collapsing around him, with people dying, Angels and Demons kicking the shit out of each other (and both wanting War Dead) and...oh hell, this is actually really cool and sells itself as being the Apocalypse. You can even make use of the setting by picking up things like Cars and hurling them at enemies, and both the Angels and Demons are enemies alike to you (but they'll sometimes fight each other...if only off in the distance where you can't interact, I can't remember. I seem to recall you fight a wave of demons and waves of angels alone, maybe to side step this potential inconsistency entirely.)
So after this cool establishing of the Apocalypse, you get shifted 100 years later, into a world that's completely ruined, ruled by the victorious demons, and humans are nowhere to be found. It does a good job in making the world look completely fucked over, and anything resembling a human is basically a zombie. The dungeons also help sell this, as you don't just do stock castles, caves, etc. but you actually travel to areas you'd expect to see in a ruined city. For example, the second main dungeon is basically a large array of subway tunnels, involving broken down train cars and such that you can smack.
Unfortunately, I feel Darksiders' setting is...shallow. It doesn't really go to the depths that Okami did to really establish "THIS IS MYTHOLOGICAL FEUDAL JAPAN!!!", but it shows the essentials and paints the setting well, but once you start looking for that extra something...its not there. To the game's credit, it does have a logical explanation for how Vulgrim can be wherever War is:
War travels over large areas using these spiritual tunnels that Vulgrim showed him too, and he can only enter through speaking to Vulgrim. So naturally, we just assume Vulgrim tags along. Neither Okami nor OoT have an equivalent character that needs this kind of explanation too; closest are Sheik and Waka, but they can be assumed to just be watching you from the side lines, appearing when they feel like. Seeing as Waka is really freaking old and knowledgeable about the world, its logical he'd be able to second guess Ammy's actions, while Sheik...she's a Ninja (or so we're to believe), its what they do.
Since I covered scope with the other games, might as well here. I wanna say that on one hand, Darksiders gives a strong sense of covering large amounts of terrain cause you really do go large distances, and the settings change dramatically, between a ruined city, to a lush forest, to your stock desert landscape. Yet...somehow, everything feels so...compact. While you do travel a large distance, sometimes so large you need to borrow a convenient Deus Ex Machina like a Griffon to fly you large distances (...ok, so this is only ONCE), you still get a sense of everything being compact to one small area of the world. Considering you're dealing with a completely ruined world, and running around what are suppose to be 4 corners of the earth collecting Macguffins, its by far got the least excuse for the lack of scope. At least in OoT, its established to be (if in later games) only one country, so it feeling smaller than other games is fair, though I stand by that it should NOT feel smaller than other Zelda games. Okami...didn't need major scope either, but it had it. Darksiders is a game that tries to sell your efforts, but comes short, and other times, it comes off as a it too surreal to really feel the distances.
So Okami really gets the setting right on like...all fronts. From the obvious factors to little extra details, it establishes what it is and makes effort to get details tossed in. OoT is very hit and miss; there are times where it does it well, other times where it just kind of shrugs and hopes it gets by, but doesn't. In Darksiders case, it gets the bare essentials right, most notably visuals, but doesn't really go beyond that, and does little to really establish its world beyond era, and its current state.
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At this point, I'm not sure what direction I want to take in the rant. I want to hold off on gameplay for a while longer, so do you guys have any suggestions of what to work with next? If I don't get answers, don't blame me for going off in a completely bizarre direction!
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Actually, its not really that hard to find, and I'm not sure there is a real legend behind it, just the game suggests "hey, its special cause its the ONLY SWORD HERE" and...yeah, ok, that's kind of a setting failure right there, cause I don't think the game actually explains where the sword came from, let alone why a weapon would exist in what seems to be a Utopian Forest Village of Children.
Actually, I think it's implied that it's some kind of heirloom - Mido seems to think it's a huge offence that you've taken the sword, and when you get it, it says it's a 'hidden treasure of the Kokiri, but you can borrow it for a while,' so I'd assume it's some pseudo-sacred object.
I...can't say this really adds anything, cause there's no plot explanation, its just "AT night, THERE ARE SKELETONS. WHY? CAUSE SKELETONS ARE EVIL AND NIGHT IS DARK!" That's about the extent. Translation? Its stock, generic, and unexplained nonsense that was a missed opportunity to actually explain stuff.
Kokiri who try to leave the forest become Skull Kids, while people who try to enter the forest become Stalchildren, if I remember correctly. Maybe the other way round. It is explained somewhere, I think it is a combination of Navi's monster descriptions and the Kokiri girl in the Biggoron Quest.
Though, I might be alone on this, but I can't help but feel OoT's version of Hyrule feels...smaller. Compare it to some of the earlier games and you'll see what I mean. It kind of hurts the Adventure feel the game is suppose to give.
Depends on how you look at it, honestly. ALttP's version of Hyrule was quite empty, with only two (I think? - Kakariko and the castle) areas with any contact whatsoever - the rest is just a load of generic landscapes with the odd dungeon thrown in. I feel OoT manages a lot more than that, and the earlier games had even less civilisation. I'd say the adventuring side is a lot smaller, but the world itself feels a lot bigger than most games in the series (including the later ones - but then, MM and TWW aren't exactly the best for that.)
100% agreed on the analysis of the adult world - Goron City having, say, the music from the Graveyard (or even no music at all) would have been amazing and really quite creepy.
Contrast this to OoT where, like many games, it just kind of fridge logics' it magical elements, saying "Oh, yeah, magic and fairies and such exist! Its a fantasy setting, deal!"
Hold up, wasn't one of your good points on OoT that it explained all of this? The Goddesses, the Triforce, all of that? That's why the fantasy exists. Now, I can see arguing that going 'world was created, we have proof of this' is a really easy way out, but then that's a negative where you said it was positive earlier. (Personally, I like that they explain the world, but hate the way that they do it, which is what it sounds like you're getting at?)
Liking the analysis on Okami - the setting is the exact thing that sold that game to me, since I thought the gameplay was pretty dull and bought it pretty much entirely for having interesting graphics. The fact that the setting managed to keep my interest for as long as it did is really something, and your analysis here really does it justice.
For the next section, I'd assume something like Graphics and/or Music are the best bet, given how many times you've commented on them and how much they affect the Setting. ^^
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Hold up, wasn't one of your good points on OoT that it explained all of this? The Goddesses, the Triforce, all of that? That's why the fantasy exists. Now, I can see arguing that going 'world was created, we have proof of this' is a really easy way out, but then that's a negative where you said it was positive earlier. (Personally, I like that they explain the world, but hate the way that they do it, which is what it sounds like you're getting at?)
They explain the world was created and the origin story. They don't explain anything beyond that. FF6 has the Goddess thing but they openly say "The Goddesses created magic." OoT just says "They created the Tri-force" and then kind of uses "its a fantasy setting" to make everything work from there. There's nothing even linking magic to the Triforce either; yes, the 3 spells are based around the 3 Goddesses, but it sort of goes away once you realize there's other magic like the twin sorceresses that have nothing to do with the Triforce Its not really a flaw of the setting so much as an example of a typical fantasy setting doing little to explain itself.
There's a difference between "This is the world's creation myth!" and "This is why there's fantasy elements!" One does not necessarily lead to the other; again, it says 'World is created...and its a fantasy world, deal!" That's about it. No real explanation of the nature of many things, you just kind of assume it goes from there.
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Going over the technical merits (graphics, music, and the like) might be worthwhile, but involves a lot of "good for the time" and "hasn't aged well", so not necessarily interesting. More detail on how the games use their music and things like that might be good? Otherwise it's probably best to move on to things like dungeon design and quest structure.
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Guess I'll go into Music, Graphics, etc, next so...
VISUAL STYLE
I figure that works better than "Graphics" cause graphics unfairly favors the newer games relative to the older ones (ie Okami and Darksiders have a huge edge on Ocarina of Time.) This section I'll mostly be discussing how things look, and be discussing graphics a bit in this context. This won't be a long one cause there isn't much TOO discuss, mind but I figure it can't hurt!
Well, first off OoT. Hailing from the N64 era where Polygons reigned supreme, OoT uses very elaborate, large, obvious polygons and well...honestly, its hard to look at some of the characters in that game and not just find them ugly. This ties nito the whole "DID NOT AGE WELL"; the graphics were not bad for its time, mind you, cause that was the standard. At least, I don't remember going "This game looks ugly" when I first saw it, like, say, a certain famous early PS1 RPG that is basically the most popular jRPG of all time worldwide, where upon the FIRST time I saw that game in action, I went "Oh god, these characters are atrocious" and I DID play it back during its "prime" (if you can't tell which game I'm talking about, you fail at life). OoT's graphics are more a representation of a time when such standards were much lower, but you look at the game and realize that its nice we moved on from that era. Its really quite ugly, and its the kind of game that if it were remade, a simple visual face lift using, say, Twilight Princess Graphics (which from what I've seen, while not TOP OF THE LINE, were certainly adequate enough.) The most obvious thing is how polygon characters have such oddly shaped faces, noses, etc. Its Polygons, I know, but the edges are really exaggerated on some characters; it really stands out with Nabooru whom I can only assume was meant to be attractive, but she certainly doesn't GIVE that impression now due to the graphical style!
Ok, so moving on from the whole "OoT's graphics didn't age well" how is it on art style? Well, I can't think of a better way to describe it other than "generic." This isn't a bad thing necessarily so much as the game just doesn't have any sort of unique flair in that regard. Characters look about what you'd expect (at least...going based off their conceptual art that doesn't get hit by Old Polygon Syndrome); villagers look like generic people, though the game did at least make a nice variety of them, as I don't think there's a single truly generic townsmen of Human/Hylian/etc. characters. This unfortunately doesn't extend to other races, as there are generic Gorons, Gerudo and Zoras; I honestly can't remember if Kokiri had a generic look to them, but being little forest pansies, I find myself not caring. So...here's OoT with the inconsistencies again! Honestly, OoT is pretty consistent about being inconsistent the more I look at it. It looks like its doing something rather well (in this case, generic human villager look) but then turn around and screw it up elsewhere (generic non-human looks.)
Its also worth noting that, like I said in the past, the game kind of fails at subtlety. You see Ganondorf, and you immediately go "HE'S THE BAD GUY"; yes, the game also tells you this, but it does lead to scenarios like "who the fuck would trust THIS guy?" Yes, it is racial profiling, but shut up. For the Non-Human-like races, the basic "If they don't look different, they are not important" thing kicks in here. This is especially prominent in OoT, cause jRPGs on the 2D era have used generic looking characters as semi-important figures; yeah, all they did was "take generic sprite, add a name to the character, now he pretends to be important!", but they still did it. Though, thinking on it, I wanna say ALttP didn't actually have any generic human sprites, and everyone looked different, which is...something...for that game. Now yes, not fair comparison; a lot easier and less spacious for a bunch of unique sprites to exist, compared to a bunch of polygonal figures, so I won't really hold that strongly against OoT in that regard, but would it have hurt to, I dunno, at least make a distinguished Male and Female version for Gorons and Zoras? I know Gerudos, the point is they are ALL female...and yet, they have two distinguished looks there (even if...the bridge guard looks really fucking ugly)...hence why they get a bye.
Designs as far areas go...nothing really stands out. Again, the game looks like what you'd expect. Volcano looks like the interior of a Volcano, a Forest looks like a forest, etc. There's nothing stand out in these regards. To OoT's credit, the scenery aged far more gracefully than the characters. While Hyrule Field certainly looks old and archaic, it still has at least some aesthetic appeal in it, and could pass for a DS game or something in modern times; no, it wouldn't be GOOD by today's standards by any stretch, but not being "ugly as shit" is certainly not a bad thing!
One last thing I guess is enemy designs and other things related to it. OoT, lets face it, uses about as stock enemies as you can get. Granted, its mostly taking from previous Zelda games and trying to adapt them to a now 3D look, but still, you fight stock enemies. Bats, zombie-like enemies, Skeletons, Lizard Men, you name it. The enemies are all pretty standard fair, and I'm not entirely convinced they have a unique Zelda-touch to them, cause the game just looks so much different than previous entries (this is not necessarily a bad thing so much as just indicating its not unique.) When enemies die, the game does try at least some sense of style, in having them burst into flames. That's a neat effect for the time, and shows a sense of "hey look, cool death animation" so props to that. Nothing amazing by today's standards, but I suppose all Zelda games had their own little unique death animations, so ist nice they tried to incorporate something like that in OoT.
So next up, Okami. Okami is a game that right from the start has a very unique look to it. Its a classical Japanese Ink Style and the game looks very unrealistic as a result. It very much tries to sell itself on the visuals, not for how realistic it is, but just based on simple artistic beauty. This isn't that obvious at first, cause the early stuff does not have much to really awe at. Yeah, its got a unique look, and good usage of colors, but the game does not really do anything to wow you. The characters also look awkward and weird. They have no facial figures outside of a nose, and perhaps facial hair if applicable; they're shaped oddly, and...yeah, the game just kind of makes you scratch your head.
You grow use to it, and start to actually grow fond of it even, but the initial reaction I found was something you needed to overcome, at least if you're not initially into that art style. Though, this happens notably after you start to appreciate Okami's artistic beauty. Branching away from characters, you still look at Okami, and once the first town is restored, you start to see some strong, nice looking scenery. Nothing overwhelming, but it shows that yes, this odd, unique look does have some merit. Then you reach your first root; you learn you're suppose to do this to get rid of the EVIL CURSE, and you use the Growth spell you learned. You expect to see a simple "Evil Mist Disappears" scene, maybe with the sapling growing big, cause most games do that. But what do you actually get? This is something that cannot be described, so I'll let Youtube doe the talking for the Rejuvenation Scene in Okami. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0SA9B_s2pU&feature=related)
THIS is the scene that makes you finally understand what you're in for. Its not a generic "evil disappears" but a full on scene of absolute artistic beauty that shows a strong sense of "we want you to appreciate this game!" Its absolutely stunning scene for something that could have gotten away with a simple "distance shot of mist disappearing." From this point on, you start to really awe in Okami's atmosphere. You start to notice all the nuances of the game's graphical style, and suddenly the oddities start to come off as aesthetics. Yeah, the game tried to make it clear it was a game of art early on with the Celestial Brush, but that could just be seen as a unique gameplay mechanic (and in some sense, it is mostly just that). Its stuff like this that make Okami really stand out.
The game has a love for a floral motif naturally; its a game about restoring nature, so it fits. When Ammy runs, a trail of flowers follows her; if she's in a cursed zone, a trail of withered flowers follows her. The faster she runs, the larger, and more elaborate the plans are. When you fight enemies, they die in an exaggerated explosive visual way, instead of just kind of casually disappearing. To add to this, the game even lets you attempt a "Floral Finish" and make their deaths even MORE of a visual sight. Enemies generally burst into huge flowers and explode. Speaking of battles, they're trippy! Zelda keeps battles happening in the same area as you are; Okami shifts to an RPG-like Battle Mode, with a surreal look and gives you this "You are in a battle! There are bad things!" around it.
Now, I slammed OoT for not being subtle, so what about Okami? I can't really say its subtle cause the game doesn't really have anything to be subtle about. I mean, there are no real human-villainous figures like Ganondorf, no consistent Damsel in Distress characters like Zelda, what have you. I suppose Oki does look like an emo-git of a Dog Warrior Guy so he's a clear case of "Design precedes the character" but yeah, I think Okami is more of an N/A there. I can't give the game points for appropriate subtlety, but at the same time, the game didn't really have anything to be subtle about.
Regarding NPC looks, Okami does do a good job of keeping characters looking unique, from what I recall. It also has a lot of named characters whom when you meet for the first time, it does a little cheesy "THIS IS A NEW CHARACTER. HERE IS HIS NAME. NOTICE HOW HE'S CENTERED ON THE CAMERA" thing to basically indicate "no, you haven't met this guy/girl before." I seem to recall everyone in Kamiki Village having a name and a unique design for example, though there's like 7 people in the entire village, so that wasn't hard. If there's one place to be filled with generic, stock looking characters, it'd be Sei-an and that's the one place I'm struggling to think about.
Other visual aspects about the game...well...look at setting; it covers a lot of what can be said well. The game really sells itself on visuals, though it does take some getting use to, be once you do, its quite a beautiful aesthetic experience. Honestly, its hard to do Okami justice on its aesthetics in a review/rant like this; its a game that really needs to be scene to understand appropriately. Now that I've said all that, someone is going to look at the game, and probably say "Meeple, you're an idiot and the game looks awful. shut up and go burn in hell."
Regarding graphics and its aging...the nature of Okami's style is one that should withstand the effects of time, cause it didn't try to be realistic or anything. It tried to capture a specific Japanese painting style, and basically needs to be judged on how well done it was in that regard. This is contrast to OoT where it was made during that era where they're trying to get more and more realistic with character looks each entry of gaming, and early Polygons are some of the worst graphics when it comes to standing the test of time.
Now, we have Darksiders. The newest game, on the 360 and the PS3, its a game that took towards the "realistic look" approach for a game. Ok, nothing wrong with that; if it looks realistic, it helps with immersion, and better graphics generally means better looking visuals, etc. Darksiders does not really disappoint in that regard either; game looks cool and realistic enough in those regards, some of the special effects are typical neat stuff you'd see in action movies, etc. What I'm getting at is "yes, Darksiders has good graphics."
The problem I have with this is...why are we aiming for realism in a game where NOT A SINGLE CHARACTER IS SUPPOSE TO BE HUMAN? Ok, so the Angels have a human-like appearance, but that's about as close as we get. Demons have nothing to be realistically compared too, so a realistic look doesn't really do much there, and War...honestly, War needs his own section, so lets get to that!
War maybe one of the most ugly designed characters ever. Lets just take a look at him.
(http://forums.3dtotal.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=142631&stc=1&d=1248158470)
Can you tell what the artist was aiming at there? Cause I sure as hell can't. I mean, yeah, Link is an elf with a green tunic, white tights, and a silly green cap, but that's a classic design, and you don't fuck with the classics; he'd probably be mocked NOW if he was created NOW, but as it stands, its what people come to expect of him, so nobody thinks twice for that reason (this is the case with a lot of classic designs actually; character looks silly when yo think about it, but they're so iconic, you just shrug and move on. I'm not trying to put down Link's design here) Amaterasu is just a white wolf with red make-up on her; simple, but a design like that doesn't need to be complicated to be memorable. War, though...seriously, I think Yahtzee explained his design best which I will paraphrase below!
"The artist was given a pen and paper, and started drawing, and didn't know when to stop. As a result, you know how in World of Warcraft, you get a whole lot of armor that doesn't look like it fits together, but you use it anyway cause of the awesome stat boosts, leading your character to looking like a fashion disaster? That's War!"
The Demons are...stock demons. I mean really, there's nothing special about them. They look big, evil, demonic, etc. The Angels...all have a similar look to them at least. They all have white/pale blonde hair, and dark-tan skin. This is actually a neat touch, cause instead of being the standard "Blonde Haired, Fair Skinned" pansies that are often depicted as Angels, it displays them in a little different manner. Furthermore, they're decked out in big shiny armor and energy based weapons (including a HUGE FUCKING HAND HELD ANGELIC PARTICLE CANNON), not in nice fancy white-robes, to sell us on the illusion that yes, Angels CAN fight, and they ARE prepared for war. So I'll give the angelic designs something. I'd give them more props if Uriel wasn't an ugly wench, which is important cause she's the ONLY FEMALE IN THE GAME THAT RESEMBLES A HUMAN (and really, might as well be the only female in the game, PERIOD.) I don't mind an occasional ugly female, but when you're lugging around War's ugly ass the entire game, it'd be nice to get some aesthetic appeal from a character, and I figured a FEMALE ANGEL is a prime target.
To give one thing to Uriel, she dresses presentably. Instead of being dressed in a way that says "I AM FANSERVICE!" and all that. No, she dresses as you'd expect a female would dress; sure, her armor has a breast plate on it, but that's a sense of realism, I guess; she's otherwise dressed entirely in heavy armor, like you know, how a female warrior SHOULD dress in such a setting. Not a skin tight outfit, with cleavage, unsupported breasts, completely unprotected outside of maybe shoulder pads. So good job on at least not trying to make your only female character nothing but a sex symbol, I guess.
The areas you traverse...well, they don't look out of place but outside of the Forest area, which is quite pretty, there's a lot of Grey and Brown in the game. I mean, yes, a desert should be brown, but its still pretty boring and monotone to look at it. A deserted, ruined city is similar in that regard, and the dungeons taking places in man-made structures are just so monotone in appearance, between the grey subway, or the dark-blue mansions. There's an occasional room that looks different here and there, like the fiery rooms, but its not enough. This makes all the dungeons in the game pretty forgettable, and they meld together. I don't have problems remembering what happened where in OoT and Okami cause each area had a unique look to it; the only exception might be how OoT has the twp Spirit Temples, but lets be honest; its the same dungeon, being done as an adult and as a kid, it SHOULD look the same and by nature, its hard to distinguish what happens during which, so that's not really a flaw of the game as much as an unavoidable factor of a dungeon of that style. Darksiders though, outside of remembering stuff like "oh, right, you use that tool, you don't get that til x dungeon, meaning it had to be in that dungeon!", its hard to remember what happens where.
As far as enemies go and such...they're stock evil enemy designs. The game takes a page from the book of God of War, and naturally decides "violence is justified if it looks cool!" The game loves to show blood, and gore, and things getting mangled if it can. Whether it be ripping a giant worm from the inside, to crushing a zombie's face with War's over-sized left hand, to his elaborate "Slice guys leg off then stab them IN THE FACE" to...you get the point, the game loves its gore. To credit it, the game shows a level of restraint that God of War does not show...I mean after all, I did acknowledge that Uriel dresses like what you'd think a female warrior would look like. If this was God of War, I'm sure Uriel's outfit would involve a bare midriff, probably at least one of her legs would be uncovered, and most likely have a see-through breast plate that we can clearly see her nipples. So props to only sticking to "VIOLENCE IS AWESOME" and not going into "TITS AND ASS!" territory, Darksiders; nice that some games can show SOME restraint despite wanting to rip off other games.l Either way, the game's sense of killing enemies is basically watching them get gorily murdered by war, turning into blue souls, then disappearing. Its like we've gone back to the Mortal Kombat philosophy that most gamers are adolescents who think VIOLENCE IS THE COOLEST THING EVER...well, no, perhaps they were trying for more of a 300 style violence, in going for a "Blood as a fluid, artistic visual effect", but I really can't tell. Frankly, I just think they tossed blood and gore in there for the sake of making the game look more adult.
So basically, Darksiders tries to be ADULT AND REALISTIC even though the game doesn't have any freaking humans, and a general lack of Human-loking characters and as a result, is the least realistic game by extension, which kind of feels like it contradicts itself. OoT is a game mostly running off an older time where they were still banging out the mechanics, and its hurt by its age, but for that reason, can be forgiven in that regard (for aesthetics, I am more willing to give credit to a "for its time" remark cause the nature of it demands it. Mind you, this assumes the game looked fine relative to the time frame it was made) as well; otherwise, its pretty generic. Okami...like I said before, to really do its aesthetics justice in a review is almost impossible; its a game that needs to really be seen to appreciate in this regard. The one scene I showed above is really just a taste of the game as a whole (though, at the same time, probably the highlight of the aesthetics, go figure.)
And...well, because I showed a big picture of War's ugly ass, I guess I need to give Okami and OoT some fair treatment in that regard, so here are generic pics of Amaterasu and Link!
(http://images.wikia.com/thelegendofzelda2/images/c/c9/Link_ocarina_of_time.jpg)
(http://images.wikia.com/okami/images/5/5e/Amaterasu_image.jpg)
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I honestly can't remember if Kokiri had a generic look to them
Sort of. There are about 3-4 different Kokiri (IIRC, there are two generic males and a generic female, although there might be two female ones.)
Also, idly, there are actually two generic types of Zora, they're just not that obviously different. >.> (It's basically face shape and nothing else, and all it is is an obvious attempt at adding different sexes)
Designs as far areas go...nothing really stands out. Again, the game looks like what you'd expect. Volcano looks like the interior of a Volcano, a Forest looks like a forest, etc. There's nothing stand out in these regards. To OoT's credit, the scenery aged far more gracefully than the characters. While Hyrule Field certainly looks old and archaic, it still has at least some aesthetic appeal in it, and could pass for a DS game or something in modern times; no, it wouldn't be GOOD by today's standards by any stretch, but not being "ugly as shit" is certainly not a bad thing!
Okay, this has to be the first point I've really completely disagreed with you on. I think OoT, even by today's standards, has amazing environments - yes, 'the forest looks like a forest', but it's done better than most other games today. Not only that, but the smaller areas (things like Zora's Domain, the Ice Cavern, the Bottom of the Well) are perfect for what they are and have so many little features that really add to the impact of the area - for example, the well has small piles of... something in random corners. They don't do anything other than look like something died there, but that is a huge impact for a small dungeon that you aren't supposed to be in for more than 5 minutes, but end up spending an age in because it manages the tension perfectly.
One last thing I guess is enemy designs and other things related to it. OoT, lets face it, uses about as stock enemies as you can get. Granted, its mostly taking from previous Zelda games and trying to adapt them to a now 3D look, but still, you fight stock enemies. Bats, zombie-like enemies, Skeletons, Lizard Men, you name it. The enemies are all pretty standard fair, and I'm not entirely convinced they have a unique Zelda-touch to them, cause the game just looks so much different than previous entries (this is not necessarily a bad thing so much as just indicating its not unique.) When enemies die, the game does try at least some sense of style, in having them burst into flames. That's a neat effect for the time, and shows a sense of "hey look, cool death animation" so props to that. Nothing amazing by today's standards, but I suppose all Zelda games had their own little unique death animations, so ist nice they tried to incorporate something like that in OoT.
Agreed for the most part, although there are the odd exceptions - Octorok death animations and enemies like Peahats and Dead Hands stand out.
Now, I slammed OoT for not being subtle, so what about Okami? I can't really say its subtle cause the game doesn't really have anything to be subtle about. I mean, there are no real human-villainous figures like Ganondorf, no consistent Damsel in Distress characters like Zelda, what have you.
Wait, you're penalising Zelda for having a human villain? >.> I don't see how a lack of subtlety in a villain depends on whether or not the villain is human. =/
The areas you traverse...well, they don't look out of place but outside of the Forest area, which is quite pretty, there's a lot of Grey and Brown in the game. I mean, yes, a desert should be brown, but its still pretty boring and monotone to look at it. A deserted, ruined city is similar in that regard, and the dungeons taking places in man-made structures are just so monotone in appearance, between the grey subway, or the dark-blue mansions. There's an occasional room that looks different here and there, like the fiery rooms, but its not enough. This makes all the dungeons in the game pretty forgettable, and they meld together.
Hah, reminds me of an old Gamecube shooter, PN03. Past the first area, every room was white. Everything. The game had something like 10-15 areas, and all but one were white. The one that wasn't? Brown, because you were outside. Seriously sounds like a bad case of 'Real is Brown' (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealIsBrown)
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Now, I slammed OoT for not being subtle, so what about Okami? I can't really say its subtle cause the game doesn't really have anything to be subtle about. I mean, there are no real human-villainous figures like Ganondorf, no consistent Damsel in Distress characters like Zelda, what have you.
Wait, you're penalising Zelda for having a human villain? >.> I don't see how a lack of subtlety in a villain depends on whether or not the villain is human. =/
You are misinterpreting this. He isn't knocking Zelda for anything there. He is saying that given that Okami's villains are a set of actual demonic beings they don't need to be particularly subtle compared to OoT which has a human villain who needs to show a reason for being insane and evil, which it does try to. Humans have more depth of personality than pure embodiments of evil.
It isn't a knock to OoT, it is more dismissive of the nature of Okami's villains.
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Except the villains in Okami (or, at least, some of them) are shown to have a decent level of intelligence and should, by rights, also need a reason to be insane and evil. Saying that it's a flaw on OoT's part that Ganondorf has no reason (although, consider that Ganondorf = Ganon = giant demon, so if that is the case, OoT's got the same cover) would make it a flaw on Okami's part as well.
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Except the villains in Okami (or, at least, some of them) are shown to have a decent level of intelligence and should, by rights, also need a reason to be insane and evil. Saying that it's a flaw on OoT's part that Ganondorf has no reason (although, consider that Ganondorf = Ganon = giant demon, so if that is the case, OoT's got the same cover) would make it a flaw on Okami's part as well.
The fact that they're intelligent is meaningless though. And the game basically says "they're incarnations of darkness"; its a cheap explanation but it explains that its basically their nature, so no explanation is needed beyond that.
Ganondorf is just "Some guy whose evil." He doesn't become Ganon UNTIL THE VERY END, remember; even ALttP state that he was initially a normal human thief. If he wasn't very clearly evil prior-gaining power, you could at least use the "Power made him mad" excuse, but the game suggests he's been this way for quite some time, as I believe the Deku Tree notes about a lingering darkness and such. There's no explanation, no motivation, no nothing.
Darksiders actually had a semi-legit explanation here. Character wanted to kill the opposing side, FAILED MISERABLY cause of his own fuck ups, given the choice of basically absolute power if he defects, and seeing as he was basically going to receive the ultimate punishment, he takes it. The execution may be a different manner, but at least we can see a clear, defined motivation in the character.
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Okay, yeah, the incarnation of darkness part is very very important in all of this. Without that, the argument becomes human vs. non-human.
That said, if Ganon is argued to be the 'Great King of Evil', does that apply? Actually, I think that only happens after the time-jump, so yeah, probably irrelevant.
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Now for one of the more subjective parts of the rant!
MUSIC
For this section, I'll be using Youtube links in an attempt to help show what I mean, so we have some examples. I'll also note that when it comes to Darksiders, I don't remember the music as well there, so you might want to take what I say about the game here with a grain of salt. But anyway, lets get cracking!
Naturally, Music is by nature driven by tastes, so this may have a lot of controversial opinions. However, the music in and of themselves isn't necessarily the only thing I'll be discussing, but also how certain songs are used, etc. There is one nice thing about all 3 games in that the N64 era is about the time where Music Quality stopped really making notable upgrades in instrumentation. By which I mean, the jump from SNES to N64 is greater than that of N64 to later gens. This means I can compare the three games easier on a fair basis, as well as OoT NOT having to use that "I'm old!" excuse. I'm also going to try and avoid saying which I prefer and such, but I can't make promises <_<
I DO promise to, however, not just play random favorites of mine from whatever game. In fact, I am going out of my way to NOT use my favorite song out of all 3 games in this bunch, on grounds that I will totally fanboy over it and won't be able to avoid bias and-....ahem...anyway...
(if you guys know me, it should be obvious which song I'm referring too. If you don't...well, keep it that way <_<)
How Music is used well can help make songs better or worse than the song is at its base. Look at Marvel vs. Capcom 2. That OST may actually be considered Good Jazz...I wouldn't know, I don't generally care for Jazz much, but...most would agree the music is AWFUL for a fighting game, especially like that. Its slow, casual jazz music being used for one of the fastest, most intense fighting games ever. Add in an exaggerated female singer in the background with lyrics you can barely make it, it really leads to a case where "Muting the game may be better."
There are plenty of games that do the music thing very right and have strong base songs; the Wild ARMs and Final Fantasy games are both good examples of games that not only have strong OSTs, but the usage of their songs is good too, so songs stand out more, so I'll just use them as a general example, rather than finding specific ones.
ANYWAY, in this section, I'll be swapping between the games on the fly, rather than doing it in a block format. I figure comparing counterparts works best, so lets get started! First off, lets compare one of the least memorable songs from all three games, mostly cause very few people actually HEAR THEM in game, due to when they're played:
TITLE THEMES!
Zelda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tf7gu6hKkc
Okami: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFbKdz60Tg8
Darksiders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXYfawj-GNM
Well, as far as setting the tone of OST the rest of the way...OoT, lets be honest, is, for better or worse, not really indicative of the rest of the music in the game. How? Its very subdued and relies entirely on that wind instrument effect, which I guess is fitting for OoT, but when you consider most of OoT's Music is loud, prominent, and upbeat, this song really gives you the wrong impression. Yeah, I understand its trying to fit the animation of Link Riding on a Horse, but that doesn't change the fact that its a different style! This isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind...
Okami and Darksiders, though? Both are pretty strong indicators of their musical style. Okami has that strong Classical Japanese feel to it, while Darksiders sounds all massive epic percussion, with a melodic, gothic chant in the background. Both games use songs that follow these styles, so by listening to these title themes, you get a sense of what the OST has to offer, at least in terms of style.
Now, why are these title themes so forgettable irregardless of being indicative or stand out to the tracks? Well, lets face it, most don't hear the song beyond the first 5 seconds, and in OoT's case, I believe the game even takes a little bit of a time for the music to kick in, such that you can just skip over it. This isn't really the music's faults, the game's faults, or anything...its more just one of those quirks of being a title theme that plays nowhere else in the game <_<
So I might as well start with that: Musical style.
If I had to choose a style for Ocarina of Time, it'd be "generic Zelda music." I don't mean this in a bad way so much as I have no clue what to call it; it doesn't really follow any sort of theme, mostly just puts music that sounds good for the time and what have you. The songs are distinguished enough that they're memorable, and you'll probably remember where each play...except for maybe Dungeon Themes cause they're generic as hell from my memory, and really just ambiance background noise...though to be honest, all 3 games don't really have memorably dungeon themes, for the most part, so this isn't really something I can hold against OoT; it may be a genre thing in that the only music fitting for these dungeons is generic, dull background noise.
Onto Okami...really, just check the setting section. I've been through this a lot; if there's anyway Okami is going to sell itself as "THIS IS FEUDAL JAPAN", it'll do it and then some; the music is no exception, and if anything, is possibly one of the more obvious examples of Okami doing that. Its a clear defined style and the game adheres too it the entire way. One thing I guess Okami has going for it is that its unique in this regard; sure, games have had singular songs that sound of the same style, but to have an entire OST based heavily off this style? Not so much. Closest I can think of offhand are some of the Onimusha games, and even then, their music just sounds like stock Asian rather than really aiming for the classical feel...but that may just be Okami being made the way it was where as Onimusha was just trying to be "Resident Evil...IN FEUDAL JAPAN!"
Generally, both Okami and OoT do have one thing in common with their music. They tend to default to a "playful" feel in a lot of their themes, possibly cause by nature, the games are geared towards a wide age of audiences, and it helps keep the mood lighter when the music sounds more "fun" than actually serious. This isn't to say neither have their strong serious themes in the mix, and not to say there's anything wrong with this "playful" aspect.
Darksiders...heavy percussion everywhere. Its basically the "EPIC GOD OF WAR" style, where no matter what's going on, there's heavy drums, organs, etc. Big battle? EPIC DRUMS. Plot scene? EPIC DRUMS! Climbing a wall with no real special aspects happening? EPIC DRUMS! I'll be blunt here; this style of music kind of grates me, at least as far as basing the entire OST around it. Why? Cause there's obviously a case where this style DOES NOT WORK. DO you want these hard percussion sounds really going when a mundane thing is going on? No, not really; it just sounds really silly and out of place, to the point where there being no music but the ambient background effects like wind rustling through trees would have been a far better effect. This is a clear case of a game going "THIS GAME IS EPIC! FEAR THE EPIC! DON'T SEE THEN EPIC? YOU FAIL AT BEING EPIC!" Yes, there are SOME songs that don't follow this, but generally, they're relegated to singular plot scenes and tend to be forgotten cause you're too focused on the plot scene. Ok, sure, there have been some songs that are really memorable, that only play once the entire game, but typically, these songs need to KICK ASS, help sell the scene, etc. to really stand out. A good example? "You're Not Alone" from Final Fantasy 9.
The Epic feel obviously makes the game seem more adult, so I can see what they were aiming at there, but there's more ways to do that than just BIG PERCUSSION. Devil May Cry, for example, just did typical Hard Rock style music, which generally works in a lot more areas while not trying to make itself out to be bigger than it is. That's the problem with the EPIC approach that some of these game's OST's have; they feel like they're trying to compensate for something. Its almost like "our gameplay and plot isn't good enough to seem TOTALLY AWESOME at a glance, so we'll make the music BIG AND AWESOME to try and give the illusion that its so!" Whether Darksiders has crappy plot and/or gameplay...that's a different discussion entirely, but generally, the EPIC approach is rarely good as a consistent factor in OSTs, I find, and should be relegated to specific songs.
With style out of the way, lets look at another specific example, this time a more prominent song that you hear a decent amount and thereby, can actually be remembered and be wagered for genuine in game use! That being PRIMARY OVER-WORLD THEMES!
Zelda: Hyrule Fields (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lan9HuAAJS4)
Okami: Shinshu Fields (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wif3MEdRaPA)
Darksiders: Light Combat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZZDO7RmXHU)
Right here, we can distinguish a factor of Zelda's OST that I failed to a acknowledge before: it likes simplicity. The songs don't have quite as much going on as in Okami's music, and lack touches like the vocals Darksiders have. Now make no mistake; being simple is NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. I'm just pointing out that OoT tends to use a simplistic style of music; it might be because of the N64 factor and I could just have been wrong on my points before, but either way, generally, OoT themes have a more simplistic nature than the other songs.
But enough of that, what kind of impression do these three themes give? Well, OoT certainly starts off strong, gets a bit more subdued a few times out, but generally stays strong. This is actually pretty effective as it gets that "You're on an adventure!" vibes flowing, and generally works well with the wide area being traversed. One thing about Hyrule Fields is that its a dynamic song, unlike the other two; it alters based on situation that Link's in, time of day, etc. I didn't even notice this when I played, but my brother pointed it out; I honestly use to think it was more based on area and such, but no, apparently, it goes into that "intense" mode whenever an enemy is near-bye, it becomes more calm and tranquil during the sun setting, etc. Its...a neat touch that you wouldn't honestly expect, for all that its easy to miss. So yeah, Hyrule Fields is certainly a good example of what an Overworld Theme should be in a game like this, and from there, how much you like it depends on tastes.
Though, I do have a minor little complaint; OoT does NOT have the traditional Zelda theme anywhere in the game. Hyrule Fields has parts that kind of TEASE the notion of being the traditional theme, but it goes off in a clearly different direction. Just to prove my point, go listen to the Zelda theme from either the original or ALttP, then listen to Hyrule Fields, then listen to Termina Field (from Majora's Mask); you'll notice two of those songs are very clearly the same melody, the other...not so much.
OK, PET PEEVE DISAPPOINTMENT ASIDE, onto the Okami equivalent, Shinshu Fields. Shinshu Fields starts off in a more typical intro style relative to Hyrule Fields that just starts off strong, but...it works in a different way, as the song overall is more tranquil. Given Okami wants you to take in the scenery a lot more, where as Zelda wants to focus more on the adventure, it tends to play well with the setting around it. It still has a sense of "Running through large open fields", but it has more of a "Cute animals playing in the wild with children" feel to it, rather than "ADVENTURE HO!!!" feel. Its a different approach than Zelda, and I'll be honest, the approach would have failed in most games cause most games just don't really set themselves well in that. Okami...is not most games though; given you're playing as a FREAKING DOG, and the general graphics don't even try for a sense of realism, suddenly this playful tranquil feel is a lot more fitting. Maybe I'm jumping the gun saynig the song wouldn't have worked in other games, but I feel OoT went with a more "safer" route for style of Over-world, getting you pumped for the adventure. Okami's route works nicely for the game, which is all that matters, and it somehow blends tranquility and adventure into one song.
Then Darksiders...I uhh...don't know what to say about it. You'll note the song is called "Light Combat" which should give you an indication how much they don't care about soft tranquility, or adventure or anything. Then again, Darksiders lacks a true world map and I had to resort to the big city theme that you tend to return too, but that's nitty gritty. We can plainly hear that Darksiders is just more like "YOu're walking around...walking...walking...more walking..." and you don't really get much else from the image. Well, I guess this song would work in a montage of boring scenes suggesting War was traversing large terrain, but it really doesn't add much. Darksiders does have combat directly on its over-world, kind of like Zelda, so I guess they were aiming for a "one size fits all" theme with a generic background noise but I'm honestly not really impressed with the feel.
I guess BATTLE THEMES are next on the list for this? Well, Darksiders aint getting one cause the game lacks a true battle theme, since everything happens side by side with the journey. OoT and Okami have actual battle themes of sorts, so we can at least examine those two!
Zelda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV4dEftSf3k
Okami: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIF3Vxqn_oI
Darksiders: N/A (Just listed for completion)
Ok, this is the first time I think OoT kind of drops the ball on music. The music here is just boring DANGER feel, and doesn't really get going until 30 seconds in...which is sometimes longer than many of the fights in the game, and I didn't even remember the horn effect. The Horn when it kicks in...does little to add to the song, other than say "Yes, this is a song." It doesn't really get you pumped or into the fight; the song feels more like "WARNING. THERE IS AN ENEMY NEAR BYE" Appropriate for when there's a small bat or something on your ass that can ninja you, but when you have a big skeleton in your face that's impossible to miss, it kind of loses its meaning.
In Okami's case...first off, ignore that intro; that's not really in the game from my recollection or if it is, it plays just once. The part that's actually in the game kicks in at about 7 seconds. There's not much to say about the song; its a battle theme, and fits Okami's fights. More subdued than what you're use to, but that's Okami's music style kicking in more so than anything else. I'll admit the song doesn't really work well out of context, but it serves its purpose well in context. If Okami were like OoT or Darksiders, the song would not really work though; the reason it works is cause Okami thinks its an RPG in this regard, and isolates battles from the dungeons, maps, etc. So having a song that completely interrupts and is totally different than where you are is appropriate here. OoT, they could not afford this kind of song, I suppose, as it'd be weird going from "Background dungeon theme...OH CRAP BIG BATTLE" just cause a monster appeared, but that doesn't excuse the dullness of the above song.
Darksiders...like I said before, it doesn't have a battle theme for individual generic enemies, just keeps whatever music is playing. That'd have worked better if...well...see what I said about the overworld really. So I guess the next song we'll discuss is DUNGEON THEMES!
...except I have no clue how to find Dungeon themes for Darksiders or Okami, cause I don't remember the names of those dungeons well, and honestly, none of the dungeon themes really stand out in these games, so we'll just say "background noise of ambiance" and move on...I think I covered this already earlier in fact...
So obviously, at the end of each dungeon, we have a boss, so I guess Boss Themes are good!
Zelda: Volvagia's Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsAPO2UQtYA&feature=related)
Okami: Demon Lord Ninetails (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcMpSwvrgsg)
Darksiders: Battle With Griever (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJZt2Ixmmo)
Ok, lets start off by saying that OoT is the oddball out here cause it has a stock boss theme for the most part, while the other two games have unique themes that play for each of their bosses. This isn't really a flaw of OoT so much as showing a shifting in standards. After all, RPGs tend to have one primary boss theme, and no one complains there. Granted, in RPGs, there's often a lot more bosses than these games, so its more fitting but I'm willing to submit that's just OoT being made when the idea of "Character Specific Boss Themes" across the board was not a conceived notion. To OoT's credit, it DOES have a mini-boss theme, and to pretend Volvagia is actually important, gives him his own theme! I chose Volvagia's theme, mind you, just so we have a more fair comparison since the other games are dealing with songs also trying to match one specific fight (though generally speaking, the style of music is the same so it shouldn't change too much.)
Tangent aside, onto actually assessing the songs!
Zelda hits you with an intense battle theme that...honestly, is still generic. Yeah, OoT to be honest didn't do its standard battle themes too well; if there's a weak point in its OST, it'd be that. I guess it works in context of the game, but the question is, does it really add much to the fight? One of my issues with the direction OoT music took in fights is that it feels too much like "THERE'S A BIG THREAT LOOMING!" for its music, a style of music I'm not fond of for battles. I'm much more in preference of the Upbeat, Fast Paced battle theme that more gives the sense of "A big fight is underway!" OoT fails to deliver here for these songs. Part of the problem with Zelda music is also it gives you too much of a "HURRY HURRY!" feeling, when often the fights are approached in a more "Wait for opening and strike" manner; its a rather clashing of musical style with the nature of the battle. Basically, what I'm getting at is OoT Boss Themes would have worked better as "ESCAPE NOW!" style themes rather than battle themes.
So what of Okami? Well, like I said, Okami does the whole setting thing really well, and part of selling a fight well is getting the music right, and the boss themes all fit the boss in question. I should note I wanted to use Yamato No Orochi here originally, but that felt a bit too thematic given the nature of the fight (as in, while fitting really well, kind of needs the context to understand why), so I went with Ninetails instead, whose theme feels more universally applicable in that sense. Now yes, this is a song used for only one fight, but I do feel it'd fit most boss fights in Okami, since it is fast paced, and captures the "Intense Fight against a large monster", while not sounding TOO menacing to the point of "THERE IS A BIG SCARY MONSTER, IT IS SCARY, BE SCARED!" Basically, it sets the boss up for sounding like a major opponent, but doesn't make the boss sound like its anything you can't handle. It could be better, but I feel the general style of Okami's music limits what can actually be done in this regard, and they very much wanted to stay within that style, so it does a decent enough job considering that.
Darksiders...well, first off, failure number is how apparently half the bosses in the game don't even HAVE any music. The song I found for the Griever is one of the generic "End Dungeon" bosses and the song doesn't fit him in any sort of special way, makes you wonder why they didn't just apply it to EVERY Boss in the game without it? Anyway, for once, the style of music actually kind of works here; the issue is, of course, that since all Darksiders music sounds the same, it kind of ruins the impact, and you tend to forget about the moments where the music DOES fit, since it all blends together. IN this instance the music actually sounds like you're fighting a big monster of sorts, and...you're fighting a big monster! Now, yes, I did state I am not a fan of that style of boss music, but Darksiders does something right that Zelda doesn't in this case, and that's the pacing used. Darksider's slower, more subdued pace helps build up some power in the theme, to actually fit the boss, so it doesn't give you this sense of "HURRY!", more just "There's a looming threat, FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!" type feel if that makes sense. Basically, I don't see the music being better used in other areas in the game, so it works here; OoT, as I noted, I felt those boss themes may be better served as HURRY style themes.
At this point...I'm not sure what angle to take with music. I...umm...CHARACTER THEMES!!!
Zelda: Saria's Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVlqk9yZf2c)
Okami: Issun's Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knu3mIwdNXQ)
Darksiders: Vulgrim Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt2GjmbxKVI)
...I have not much to say here. The character themes generally fit the character. In these examples, Saria's theme is upbeat, cheerful, and has a youthful feel to it. Issun's theme is similar, only with more of a "little prankster" type connotation for lack of a better description, a factor fitting Issun. Vulgrim's theme just has a sense of buying something from a shady shop, and seeing as he's a demonic merchant who deals with souls, I'd say that fits.
And here, I have no clue what direct to take, so GENERAL DISCUSSION ABOUT EACH GAME WITH LINKS!!!
Generally speaking, OoT does a good job in keeping its music memorable throughout. It has a nice range of music for its "towns" ranging from the placid and playful Kokiri Forest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCH_v7InpwU) to that uniquely styled (I say that cause I don't want to call it the wrong style and get shot for it) Gerudo Valley (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy0aEj85ifY), the songs all stand out as memorable. Though, I did note that one problem here is the game's refusal to want to change music to fit the setting at that moment; Goron City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv37eOPYRdI) is a good example of that, as I illustrated earlier, but Zora's Domain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4i-ybuot-o) is no better in that regard. Both songs do well when the villages are in a relatively positive state, but when they're in their "screwed" state, they really should have had another song there; just cause its Zora's Domain doesn't mean we need that pleasant Underwater sounding theme if the entire place is frozen and the Zoras are nowhere to be found! Maintain the melody if you will, but make a darker version of it or something.
Other random things...well, Temple of Time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc7BCZFP9Ww) sounds like an actual temple. No, not the Temples OoT has with monsters and creatures and elemental shenanigans, but a place of an actual sacred area. The melodic choir (which I can't tell if its genuine chanting or a synthed effect...) adds to the fact that "yes, its a temple." I just wish they found ways to use the song more, especially considering the name of the game. I guess the last thing I'll note from OoT is all the teleportation songs, which are worth a nod cause they all have a unique style fitting of each area you go to, and apparently they grant Link the power to play multiple instruments using nothing but an Ocarina when he plays specific notes. I don't know what that has to do with music usage, but it sure is fun as hell to bring up!
So...onto Okami...
Well, Okami generally has a larger range of music, if staying to one style (where as OoT tended to spread out and hit multiple styles), so somehow, we can go from the mysterious, somewhat divinely sounding Sakuya's Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXYaUgcjPQw), givnig us the impression of a benevolent spirit who wants to help, but can't, to the simple playful sounds of Cherry Blossom Storm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNduffuSqZM&feature=related), DESPITE being the same melody.
This is actually one thing OoT was lacking; variations of the same melody being used within the game. I mean, the game's theme is effectively Zelda's Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0baRSevT74) but we only get one real variation of the song until the very end, and its still the exact same style. Okami, that melody IS the game's theme as well, but as we see it has great diversity in its melody. To be honset, I've always felt that a game's main theme should have its melody used throughout in a variety of fashions. Look at FF7, for example, and how many times its "Main Theme" is used throughout, ranging from the slow paced Over-world version to the fast paced, action-y variation used in the Tiny Bronco. It allows the song to actually be used throughout in multiple fashions and fully represent the game. Okami's main melody does that, OoT's...is mostly just such a well known theme that gets shoved down your throat cause you play the song "Zelda's Lullaby" throughout but when you listen to it, does it really represent the game as a whole, or just the character in question?
OK, away from that totally subjective tangent that I'll probably get shot on, BACK TO OKAMI MUSIC. Branching away from that melody, Okami also manages to completely go away from its generally calm, light hearted self, and deal with some actual intense, fast paced music for sequences. Giving Kushinada a Ride (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFf5Ac2bEMA) was the song that really stood out to me in this regard, cause while still keeping true to Okami's Classical Japanese Style, it just sounds so much different than everything else in the game, and just sells the "We must hurry!" sequences well; this shows the diversity of Okami's sound track well, when you place it alongside all the other light-hearted songs...well, ok, the Battle Themes aren't exactly light hearted but SHUT UP.
Then we have Darksiders which...umm...er...yeah, again, I struggle to come up with much from this game, cause of the usual "EVERYTHING SOUNDS THE SAME." The Griever's theme is just a happy accident cause it was bound to fit ONE area eventually! I guess one song that sounds different is Uriel's Theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dk4tjAW6lw) which sounds like stock "this is a soft sounding song" in a game with big epic drums, and tries to build up to drama...only doesn't really go anywhere. I guess Flight over Ruined Eden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4BDFqrTLqI&feature=related) is another song that actually realizes "yes, there are moments that you don't need to rely on MASSIVE PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS", and...is actually kind of nice sounding all things considered. Other than that? I think here I'll just show a few songs to further establish that "yes, all Darksiders music does the same thing."
Prison Break (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7B3tXZsn18&feature=related)
Empowered (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU1rlEA7mP4&feature=related)
In Prophecy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPfJoj9fHGs&feature=related)
Yeah, you can see Darksiders likes either its melodic chanting, or massive percussion, if not both, in most of its songs. Even the "DOOR OPEN!" theme uses heavy organs (OoT using the classic Zelda "Door Open!" fanfare, and Okami just going with a generic Japanese sounding instrument that's forgettable <_<)
Ok, I'll give Flight Path (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xPHMqFVLmQ&feature=related) credit for trying the EPIC!!! feel in a different manner, going for more along the lines of just fast paced string instruments and all that, which...yeah, I'm just kind of doing this as I listen to the music again, but god damn is this a forgettable soundtrack and you can see why!
So...yeah, I think its time I wrap this up...
OoT does a generally good job with its music and its usage. IT has a lot of memorable and I guess iconic music from it for a reason...well, part of that reason is "Its OoT, THIS GAME MUST BE HYPED IN EVERY REGARD!" but I'm trying to ignore the idiotic fanboy perception of it. There are some futz ups, like refusal of using the same melody in multiple songs which leads to awkward scenarios like "NICE ZORA CITY...except its abandoned and covered in Ice...BUT THE MUSIC IS PRETTY DESPITE THIS!" Overall, it does its job well enough, and shows a decent range in styles.
Okami, as I said, has one real style and keeps to it rather religiously, regardless of the song, never selling out for "OMG WE MUST HAVE THIS KIND OF SONG!" Yet, despite this, it shows a decently large amount of range in how its music applied. Given Music can really help a setting, and Setting is one of the points no one would dare say Okami did poorly, its a pretty safe bet to say Okami got its music done rather well.
Darksiders...umm...THE PERCUSSION! WHY IS THERE SO MANY DRUMS!? WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO BE EPIC BUT CAN'T BE!?!?
...I suppose its only fitting I end a Music evaluation post with links to the Ending Credits music of all 3 games, huh? Fine, be that way BUT DON'T EXPECT AN EVALUATION!!!
Ocarina of Time "End Credits": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCEYXAy897o
Okami's "Reset": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpuGNH75pUc
Darksiders "End Credits": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AJCJmtGnlM
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And again, I have a very minor problem with your OoT analysis. Zora's Domain, when frozen, has this nice kinda... harpsichord? Probably the wrong instrument. Whatever. This nice kinda glassy/icy/echo-ey effect in the background - it's the same song, but just a slight hollow echo over it makes it absolutely perfect for the icy environment - not that this is perfect from a design standpoint; it makes the ice seem like a beautiful environment when it's actually genocide in context, but the point is that the OST does change for the atmosphere and is fitting to what's happening, at least.
Also can't necessarily agree on the temples being dull and generic - Water Temple's music is ARGH OH GOD SO WEIRD. Love it and hate it at the same time. Works pretty much perfectly for the Water Temple and actually stands out (in my mind, at least >.>)
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First off, just stating that no, this is NOT a rant update, just felt I should say something since its been some time since I DID update...
This week has been hectic, hence the delays on the update (Passover, lots of random writing assignments, work being a whore, Hatbot is a whore, etc.), but just noting I have NOT given up on the rant, and update will come in due time! I just need the energy and inspiration to work on the next part.
Was originally thinking of doing Gameplay, but probably gonna do Plot and Plot Progression, since it segues better from plot and I've been dealing with a plot of plot-centric aspects. If someone has a better recommendation, by all means, speak up!
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PLOT
Before you say "How can you just compare plot so easily", this isn't just about plot, but about the general progression of plot, how well its shown, etc. If you question this again, you will be hit by a rhino.
Anyway, I'll be honest here: none of these games have stellar plot. Compared to most jRPGs, they fall short, and seeing as jRPGs are often cliche ridden, recycled plotlines that are often boring outside of the rare Suikoden 5 that tries to say "THERE'S STILL HOPE IN THE GENRE!" by actually having good plot, this is not a good thing. Why did I say all that? Just to establish the point that I am NOT hyping jRPG plot, but these games definitely have aspects in common with RPGs such as NPC interaction for example, and they should probably be compared likewise with RPGs for plot. So just so we're clear, I do not think highly of any of these game's plots, and I am mostly comparing them to each other here; so if I seem to be hyping a game, its mostly compared to the other two. Also, I do NOT mean to say these plots are UN-SALVAGEABLE BAD, just they aren't particularly hype worthy.
With that in mind...first off, OoT!
The game starts off with quite simple introduction of Navi and umm...ok, its off to a bad start RIGHT THERE. There really is no hope for the story, so I'll just quit talking about the game now!
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.....
.......
That's not going to work, is it? Ok, jokes aside, refer to my intro nonsense. As soon as the filler first dungeon that exists as mostly a tutorial is done, the game basically says "Evil is afoot" Soon after, we learn the evil guy is named Ganondorf from the princess who is apparently SPESHUL for reasons the game doesn't exactly elaborate (for now) and then you're told to go find two other gems, to open some random door for reasons the game isn't quite clear on.
...so its typical Zelda plot from the start, though, seeing as ALttP did the EXACT SAME THING BEFORE and better, I think it stands out. See, in ALttP, you actually had an intro of storming a castle, saving the Princess, then learning you need to get this super awesome sword to kill the bad guy, and to do so, get 3 pendants. Here, you already have one of the three, gained from a tree that died on the spot that should be an emotional scene, except we only JUST met the guy so its over before you have a chance to care, then you meet the same Princess (...kind of...) except in a completely unheoric fashion, and you're told what to do. To do a bit of a gameplay segue for a moment, I will also note to meet said princess, you must do the old "Avoid being caught by guards that you could probably beat the stuffing out of if you actually fought them!" stealth missions that are a waste of time, where as ALttP, it mostly just had a simple dungeon.
So you basically do a few misadventures to try and pretend there's a story getting these objects...yeah, I said "Try and Pretend" cause there really isn't a story. What's happening to the Gorons has almost nothing to do with the Kokiri stuff early game, and the Zoras sure as hell don't have anything to do with people outside of their domain. The only linkage is "Ganondorf is doing bad things, he is bad." And honestly, I can't even remember if he did anything bad to the Zoras, as I think the "crisis" was "Ruto is incompetent, and got eaten by a huge fish after she dropped her family keepsake (which happens to be one of the macguffins you're looking for) but its been a while. I guess you could argue that "its the child arc, its suppose to be light hearted" and that the point is just showing how Link is establishing bonds with random characters for later in the game, but would it hurt for the game to establish a PURPOSE behind these macguffins?
So you get them, then suddenly BIG EPIC EVIL GUY APPEARS chasing the Princess, he owns Link effortlessly, then decides to not kill him. Ok, so a kid isn't threatening, that's fair, but then he goes "Xanatos Gambit!" on you, which makes me question why he didn't just kill Link on the spot when the door opens, then go "VICTORY IS MINE!" I mean, he shows up RIGHT AS YOU PULL THE SWORD; if he really was on top of things, you'd think he'd kill any potential threats there and then. This IS a super awesome Master Sword we're talking about and...ok, really this entire complaint is meaningless, and not really serving a point; this is just one of those things you take for granted, but come on, I can have fun mocking <_<;
Then the game pulls the 7 year Time Jump, cause Link isn't old enough to use the Master Sword. During this time, Ganondorf takes over the world. Now, again, this sounds like a neat schtick of "villain wins" except, again, FF6 did it first and better. When Kefka won and blew up the world, your heroes were right there, and failed to stop him, and it establishes what every character was doing during that time. OoT just pulls magic bullshit and we sort of have to piece things together, which leads to questions like "Wait, why did the Sages have Link sealed off for 7 years rather than, I dunno, have him train with the Master Sword to become an even stronger warrior?" The game is also poor at establishing when Ganondorf took over; did it he do it immediately, or did it take him time? And for how long? We just know it happened within 7 years, and there's enough time for people of Hyrule Castle Town to have established lives in Kakariko, but then the crises in Zora's Domain and Death Mountain both suggest its only happened recently, and...yeah, game just kind of fridge logic'd EVERYTHING there.
It also introduces the Light Sage, who becomes COMPLETELY POINTLESS after this scene, and is basically there so you have one less macguffin to collect. So apparently our next goal is...to find 5 more Macguffins. Again, the ALttPness kicks in, and the parallels are just obvious, though honestly, I'll save that for a later section. So now you have an excuse to travel around the world AGAIN, and the game seems like its going to gain a coherent plot, right?
...not really, its the same thing as before, just with new dungeons, and they all end in "you saved the day, take this object cause I'm your friend!" At least there's a definitive goal this part of the game, which is "break down the barrier so you can kick the crap out of Ganondorf." Its not an intriguing one, but its enough such that there feels like an actual purpose.
The adult arc was obviously intended to be darker and more stark compared to the relatively playful child arc, but the issue is, OoT doesn't really do the writing thing well to get the point across; it has a few decent examples of setting (Hyrule Castle Town, Kakariko Village, etc.) to get the point across that things are going to hell, but when you meet characters, the scenes are basically "Oh, hi Link, long time no see! I'm off to save my companions!" then you don't see them again until you get the medallion and its all "Yep, I'm a Sage, here's this medallion!" And that's on a GOOD day. There are characters like Impa who don't even appear until the Medallion after her initial introduction, which makes you question how Link formed a "bond" with her or something.
Now, I do approve of the whole "bonds made as children end up helping you as an adult!" thing for a cute little twist or something, but OoT just kind of really fails at making this beyond painting who the sages are early. You do not really grow attached to any of these characters really, so it ends up being just a "Oh hey, I remember you!" and the only time its actually neat is Ruto, seeing as Darunia, Naburu, and Impa are all adults, and Saria doesn't grow up. Speaking of Saria, why was she the only one who went to the temple again? Game didn't exactly establish what made her special beyond "Link's Friend" and there's really no reason she'd know Link was the HERO and he needs her support. I don't think there's even a simple notification aspect like "Saria seems to have a special gift!" or "Saria's a lucky girl; she was chosen to be the Maiden of the Deku Tree!" or something. There's NOTHING special about her. Darunia and Ruto are both leaders of their clans (well, Ruto's merely a princess, but hush), as is Naburu, and Naburu was kidnapped ANYWAY, so she was kind of in a "didn't have a choice", and Impa...well, Impa has no plot, so screw her.
ONce you get all the Macguffins, what's the game do? Finally explain what the point of everything was. Well, gee, some hints before hand would have been nice! Then Shiek goes "By the way, you have the Triforce of Courage, Ganondorf has Power, and I have Wisdom...oh yeah, I'm also a princess!" You know, Shiek really being Zelda would have been better if Shiek was at all masculine in anyway shape and form like the game tries to pretend he was (seriously, I still think of Shiek as a female, and it wasn't til they used a male pronoun in the game that I went "Wait...Shiek's suppose to be a GUY!?"), but whatever, what really ticks me off about this scene is what I said before in Zelda's entry:
As Shiek, she's quite capable of evading Ganondorf, and being her own strong, independent person, and furthermore, she has the Triforce of Wisdom, so she should be really smart and such. Yet, somehow, the instant she reveals herself, she degrades to Damsel in Distress within a few lines of dialog, and is totally shocked that Ganondorf went after her even though she KNEW what he was looking for. This is really failure of writing; at least have Zelda say something at the end of the game like "Link, I had myself kidnapped on purpose; I knew he'd lower his barrier to lure you in to rescue me, cause he wants all three Triforces! It was a gamble, but it was the only way!" At least that shows Zelda was trying a gutsy plan, but no, it just goes "ZELDA IS A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS SAVE HER!"
For the rest of the game...well, I'll save that for its own section, but either way, OoT's plot is...just sort of not there. Its run around the world collecting macguffins for a vague reason, then something happens. See, again, ALttP did the same thing, but better, but again, I'll get to those strict comparisons later.
So next we have Okami. Okami starts off with a long boring exposition banter about Orochi, Shiranui, etc. We fail to care, like I said, Okami's intro, while a necessary evil, is boring as shit. The first dungeon does little to raise interest value too, outside of Issun's attitude. The game really lacks any sort of direction when it gets started, truth be told. The one thing we do know is that the world is being cursed, Amaterasu needs to purify it, and she needs to seek out of the 13 Celestial Brush Strokes (which the game is nice enough hand you a few off the bat) if she wishes to restore her full power. So...like Zelda, the game starts off us off with the appropriately named "Zelda's Axiom" only here its "Find Brush Strokes, recover strength!"
But...Okami does something a little different, and it helps the plot out as a result. The Brush Strokes are NEVER the primary goal; they're more something you're grabbing on the side, since they're helpful for Amaterasu. It ends up being just a gameplay/plot integration factor. Okami, in fact, does not follow the Zelda style plot much at all for "FIND THE RARE ITEMS TO SAVE THE WORLD!" due to the Celestial Brush Techniques being the only aspect like that. Instead, Okami just gives each section of the game its own short term goal, which sometimes builds off the previous section, and sometimes its just kind of self contained. Now, what is there in Okami is not really all that good, but at least the game proves you can do this style of game WITHOUT resorting on to "FIND ALL THESE ARTIFACTS!" and works more like a jRPG as a result. There's stuff happening, solve the crisis, and move on.
Its Dragon Quest like in that regard, except there's actual writing, so its much better, but then Dragon Quest is not exactly very good at this stuff anyway, so that's saying almost nothing. Okami's issue is that it takes a while for you to finally get something that actually feels relevant. For the first good portion of the game, you are really just running around the world doing jack all, slowly restoring things, but you have no real clue what the meaning of this is, and no real end in sight. The first boss you fight, the Spider Queen, pretty much comes at the end of a stock dungeon that's just there cause "So...we could use a dungeon here, couldn't we?" No, its not until you get to the second real village, with Princess Fuse and her Sentai Dogs that something resembling a plot appears. Now we finally learn of our first big demon (Crimson Helm) and have an established temporary goal to kick his ass! Its not going to last very long, so the game does whatever it can to draw this section out longer. Oh yeah, before this, we meet Waka whose being randomly cryptic; his scenes are amusing, but its hard to really say he adds to the plot this early when you aren't really sure what the hell is going on. At least in OoT, you knew you were searching for random objects; why? Cause a princess told you too, YOU DON'T QUESTION THESE THINGS! Okami's early game doesn't really have that much; its just "restore the world. No, we don't know how you're going to do it; something about those giant roots. JUST DO IT ANYWAY"
After Crimson Helm, the game FINALLY does something that feels significant in any sort of long term basis. It finally establishes that Orochi is actually back, making the game's intro actually serve a meaning, and finally an explanation for all the stuff that's been happening. With Orochi, the game finally seems to have a sense of direction and now things seem meaningful. Of course, he appears really early, and you only have half your spells, so you know either he's not the final boss, or if he is, you aren't killing him here (Its naturally the former.) The Orochi section is well handled, truth be told, if short, and the exact kind of scene OoT is completely lacking in. Its a good sequence of events, that feels suitably epic, action packed, and even develops one of the characters. OoT's equivalent is...basically watching Ganondorf instant gimp Link, laugh, and ride off. No, Okami actually tosses a legit villain at you, with plot, you fight him, and the game even has the gall to pretend the world is saved!
...then the intro's narrator kicks in again, and we learn "no wait, there's evil else in the world UNLEASHED CAUSE OF OROCHI!" Next is the Sei-an arc. Now, unlike the previous stuff which was all self contained quests, Sei-An actually feels like a string of events linked together. You restore the area, but wait, the City is still cursed, and you don't know why! At the same time, game suggests that the queen would be a useful person to speak too, but you can't get to her cause the curse is making people paranoid etc. You save the country by going through another dungeon, then talk to the Queen, the gives you a sense of what's going on. Then a few filler events ultimately leading to the twist of "BUSTY BABE IS REALLY THE NINETAIL FOX!" and well, now we're onto our second villain...who has only half the plot of Orochi if that. Now granted, the aspect with the Ninetail fox was meant to be a behind the scenes evil guy, so it having screen time would defeat the purpose, and its really only tossed in cause from my understanding, Yamato No Orochi was one of the biggest bad-asses in Japanese Mythology, and the Ninetail Fox is one of the few that could be considered similarly powerful. Oh yeah, during that time, you meet Otohime, the Dragon Queen, and learn how they're going down and...well, ok, while I appreciate Okami is trying to give us a sense of plot, its not really doing it for me here. Its better than the early game where you just run around doing random tasks, as here you feel like you're accomplishing something, but that doesn't make it good.
With the Ninetail Fox defeated, and going through a SECOND "Fake Final Dungeon", the game makes it clear you're getting close to the end. Why? Cause Issun reminded you that you found 12 of the 13 Celestial Brush Strokes! Now while you are not looking them as your primary concern, the game does show a sense of self awareness that they're basically a checklist for how far you are into the game. So the next section clearly can't be that long!
And well, its not, but its sure fillery. We learn of the emo that is Oki, get some shit with the AWESOME SWORD he has, and how he can't use it properly cause he's using for the wrong reasons, get sent back in time to fight Orochi again cause hey, Orochi was an awesome fight! It also shows us a bit of backstory and tells us who some of these characters like Nagi actually were (and see Nagi, while notably more serious than his descendant, is still a bit of a goof ball.) Actually, this section was a nice touch to setting cause in Kamiki Village in Modern times, everyone is all "Aww, what a cute white doggie!" In the past Kamiki Village, its all "HELP! SHIRANUI IS HERE!" and "GET AWAY VILE BEAST! YOU WILL NOT HAVE MY DAUGHTER!" Oh yeah, forgot to say, before being sent in the past, the game talks about EVIL OWLS and well, that's just the game's way of saying "yes, the Boss of this arc of the game are those owls."
The Wep'keer part of the game is stylish, I will give it that much, but it also feels completely fillery. I mean, yeah, seeing Shiranui appear, then seeing her appear in modern times and fight alongside Amaterasu, having the team combat dynamic against the owls, a chance to fight Orochi again who was one of the more creative, most involved fights in a game like this I've ever seen...its all pretty neat. Yet in the end, you're still trying to figure out WHY you're doing this. The only thing that comes to mind is "Trying to stop those owls cause they're creating a snow storm." Game does talk about the Day of Darkness, which is foreshadowing the final boss, and all that, but really, the game doesn't get into all the genuine plot and details until its LAST REAL DUNGEON, which it kind of overwhelms you with a bunch of new factors, finally establishes Waka's character, and basically finally we learn just why everything happened, but at this point, its hard to care, cause you just want to fight the final boss!
This is the fundamental failure with having plot that doesn't explain itself until the very end. By late in the game, you kind of just want to see what things are GOING to happen, not learn about stuff from the past; back-story should be built up throughout the game, by the last section of the game, all the big backstory reveals should be made, and now its about dealing with the shit that's going to transpire. Basically, late game stuff should be focusing on the "How to stop this!?" and not the "How did this all come to be?" Plot twists are fine, but they shouldn't be relegated to all end game stuff just for melodrama, for all that Waka's was well handled, mostly cause the nature of his character demands holding off until the very end.
So...for once, Okami does not actually kick ass in something. It does get points for keeping away from the Zelda's axiom, but throughout the game, there's a lot of "Ok, so what's the purpose of this?" It focuses a little too much on these temporary plot arcs, and there's no over-arching story other than "Save the world" and then there's the issue of not knowing WHAT you're saving the world from. Sure, you think its Orochi at first, but he dies half way in, and its obvious he's NOT the big bad, so you kind of go back to square one.
So what does Darksiders do will all this? Well, after a stylish entrance, the game establishes War's role in the story is that he's sent down to fix problems, because he's being held accountable for things, and he wants to find the truth. The game has something Okami and OoT does not, and that's actual ground work for a story. The game's intro establishes there a lot of shit going down and something is wrong, and War's general purpose is to basically put all the puzzle pieces together...in as violent a way as humanly possible of course. The game establishes some fundamental ideas...basically, Demons = Evil Douches sans a few like Vulgrim who don't give a shit and just want to live their lives, Angels = Self Righteous Pricks, kill both if they are at all obstacles.
So how do you go about doing this? Well, game just tells you "Find Samael first, he'll tell you what to do!" Ok, fair enough, having someone who actually knows what's up helps. Free him, and what does he tell you to do?
"Get the hearts of the 4 Chosen ones by the Destroyer, and you will be able to enter the Tower where the Destroyer lives!"
...excuse me, what was that again? Get the 4 Hearts of a bunch of super powered demons? Isn't that just another way of saying "Go through 4 dungeons, kill 4 bosses, and get 4 macguffins"? So basically...the EXACT SAME PLOT ADVANCEMENT STYLE AS EVERY ZELDA GAME EVER? Well, at least we have a sense of how much progress we're making in the game. To credit Darksiders though, the game establishes why you need these objects, and it also tends to explain more of the plot as you do things. As you give hearts to Samael, you either learn about the game from stuff on the way to the boss, or from Samael himself, such that by the time you get the fourth heart, most of the game is established, and the things you do not know are things it makes sense for these characters to not know, such as anything that happened in "The White City" cause that's where Angels live. Darksiders has direction, basically; sure, using the Zelda's Axiom is stupid and dull, but it comes off as more of a "how do we come up with an excuse to pad this game out further?" uses that as a vehicle for actual gameplay and tosses plot in between. Contrast this to OoT where its just "Medallion are good. Go get them to save the world!"
Once you get all the hearts, you're...already 80% of the way through the game. No, really, you are; the game has one more real dungeon, and then some filler, and the game is over. Like I said, it tends to intermingle plot scenes throughout, and helps give you a sense of an actual story, contrast to OoT just being an ADVENTURE, or Okami's "You're doing random tasks helping people out!", though Okami at very least hid its weak plot with cute writing and stylish scenes, so you tend to not notice, something OoT does not do. Darksiders' continues to reveal its plot gradually as the game goes on, so you have a full sense of what's going on and at the end, things come together. Contrast this to Okami where it kind of bombards you with information right at the end of the game, and you basically go "oh, so THAT'S what this game was all about"; no, Darksiders you know what its about, the game is just slowly giving you answers to those questions, which is how it SHOULD be.
Now, Darksiders' plot has issues in that its not very interesting, and downright boring at times...and its writing could be better, but from the perspective of actual direction and having a sense of purpose, it actually works. It uses the Zelda's Axiom, but its more of a cheap attempt to say "here's an excuse for 4 dungeons" rather than making its plot rely on it; the macguffins are just tools you get to advance the plot, not the purpose of the plot itself. Its interesting how I praised Okami for sidestepping the Zelda's Axiom by making the Brush Techniques NOT the main goal of your journey, but more something you collect along the way, but Darksiders which used the Axiom in the most classic of fashions somehow ends up doing the plot direction better. I guess the general point is that how you go about things doesn't matter, just so long as you go about them. Darksiders sets up exactly what it wants in the plot, and makes it clear you know what the story is about, while not answering all your questions immediately. Okami sort of struggles to tell you a full story; it comes off as more "The Adventures of Amaterasu and Issun! See how they vanquish the forces of evil!". Granted, a lot of TV Shows are structured like Okami, where the first 20 episodes or something are stand alone adventures, then the last bunch are a bit sequence of related events that lead to a climactic showdown or something, so I suppose Okami could just be taking that perspective...
Thing is, it works better in a TV Show cause you only deal with these half hour at a time, and episodes feel separated by nature. Okami is one game, so it feels like things should be connected. Darksiders doesn't have this problem of connectivity, since everything feels related.
And yet, OoT manages to just fail as it doesn't really give you a purpose beyond "Get items, kill bad guy." The game doesn't really reveal any plot details other than "shit is going down, your actions will help remove the shit!" Now yes, OoT is an older game with cart limitations and all that, but it still came out after games that have "highly regarded plots" were made, so this excuse cannot go so far, especially since ALttP generally handled things better despite having limited dialog itself.
So while all 3 plots aren't very good, Darksiders ultimately wins in this category only because it had actual direction and knew what it wanted, and the player at least understands what their general purpose is.
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Having not played 2/3s of the games you've been reviewing for the past month now, I found the Plot section the nicest read, and you perhaps should have done this section earlier. When you post this monster review up on the main site, I would bump Plot up to the second or third part of the article.
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Well, I'm mostly doing it section by section to keep thoughts consistent about each game; if I do post it on the main site, smoe editting would be done. PLot should happen earlier, I agree, but I wanted to take everything into perspective that helps build plot and style, and such and get that out of the way, so I can isolate plot in and of itself. If I had jumped to plot immediately, I'd haev been taking too much stuff like "OKAMI'S SETTING FOR GODLIKE!" and such into account, giving it an unfair advantage. Doing it the order I did, for the purposes of sorting out thoughts, allowed me to isolate things better.
BUt yeah, I agree, for a finalized version, the order will change, and Plot should be bumped up; I'm mostly posting things as its easier for me to think about it and sort my thoughts out.
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EDIT: This post is useless, and should be ignored entirely cause it sucked. Everything that was written here is found in later, revised sections and therefor, better to just cut it entirely. I apologize for the...whatever.
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I'm no fan of OoT, but it seems like you're really biased against it. I mean, I remember that some of the cool things you could do with the bow-targetting and boomerang-targetting such that you could attack enemies in far-off parts of the dungeons that you couldn't even reach yet were just generally neat and the dungeon design lent itself to exploration (back when OoT graphics were exciting and worth exploring). There were probably other things that OoT did decently that you're not really giving it credit for. As bland as the game is, simplicity in tool use and the abusability of fairies and such aren't bad design decisions.
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Everything you mentioned though barely ever comes up from my recollection. Sniping at enemies is such a minor feature and often the enemy respawns by the time you get there by the nature of the game, and half the enemies you can snipe at are things you'd be shooting at anyway; you're going "its neat" but what does it really add. Its not really a major factor of the game and adds little.
And...while I didn't mention it in the rant, I forgot to do so...
OoT sort of dropped the ball on Tools in a different way: It reused a bunch. Bow and Arrow is really just a combination of Sling Shot w/ some flammable properties (this was about the most interesting thing they did with the bow, mind you)...so in a sense, the game is making you collect the exact same item twice. The Boomerang you get for one dungeon and then you basically never use it again; there's no real excuse for "Collect item...now never use it again!" in a game like this. I don't seem to recall the megaton hammer seeing much use outside of the Volcano, and the fact that Zelda can be sequence broken to hell generally suggests my memory is true (I know you can go to the Water temple before the Fire Temple with no negative repercussion)
Again, part of the thing about OoT gameplay is the nuances add little to the game, and its less simplicity more "Stops bothering and doesn't apply any creativity." How often do you really want to light those torches using Deku Sticks or Bows? How often are you going to shoot eyeball in the faces to open doors?M How often do you want to bomb random shit in hopes to find a new passage? There's no excuse for just re-using the exact same gimmick over and over again, and when you can't think of any sort of interesting extension beyond that, to just go "Screw it, lets forget the Tool isn't there!"
and then there's the fact that there's a bunch of optional stuff that...has no real applications. Now, optional stuff shouldn't be required of course, but stuff like Din's Fire or Ice Arrows should have some sort of reason to care about them. To give you a parallel, go look at the optional stuff in ALttP. While never necessary, its hard to deny that stuff like the Medallion of Bombos or the Ice Rod were handy little items to have availabe; I don't get that sense with OoT's optional stuff, cause the game is so direct about approach sometimes, it does little to promote creative ideas (at least intended ones. Speed Runs tend to abuse glitches within the physics)
Though, to be fair, I did forget about the entire Gerudo Fortress Siege part. That was actually interesting and creative relative to the genre, since while its a typical "Avoid the Guards!" scenario, the game does let you actually fight back either with sniping, or steathly smacking them (forget if yo have to stun them first, or just be out of their line of sight.) Its this scenario that really highlights the rest of the game, cause its actually something unique and different, but the game doesn't deliver stuff like this on a regular basis, so the rest of the game being so...monotone? kind of stands out (I'm not saying "We need more Gerudo Fortress!" so much as more areas that actually use the system but in ways that are more than the standard "solve puzzles, open doors.")
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I kinda like in Zelda games having the requisite "come back later with more gear, find cool stuff" aspects, since by and large they usually have dungeons that are easy to get around in once you have the dungeon tool. Requiring random usage of older tools in really obvious ways is usually inconvenient though, yes.
I actually did get milage out of long-range sniping though. You don't need it, but for whatever reason I got really into the archery minigame and thus the ability to shoot bats from halfway across the dungeon.
Edit: Actually, that's an aspect of Zelda games you didn't touch on much; collection-fests. When it's just for cute little bonuses like Hearts and bag upgrades, doing the little minigames or digging around the world for powerups seems to be one of the main appeals of the series, I think. Granted I dunno if the other two games have those aspects, or in the same degree/done the same way at any rate.
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I did forget about the collection thing, but at the same time, the other two games have it; I guess you can sort of hand-wave it as being "Part of the Genre" and thus something you kind of assume the nature of it; all 3 games even have Heart Piece equivalents in that regard, as well as other little minor things (Okami's Stray Beads, Darksiders' Abysal Armor pieces, etc.) So yeah, I guess we can just say "Item collection is a given in all 3" cause...well, its the way the Genre works, and you kind of it need it.
I didn't touch upon how Okami has a means of upgrading Ammy other than item collection through the Divinity Points. Though, I'm not sure what to say about it other than "Its there, and its a nice alternative that's convenient" so *shrugs*
EDIT For the record, I'm probably going to COMPLETELY redo Gameplay section at some point, cause I realized I handled it in a completely stupid manner. When that will happen...dunno, but it'll happen eventually.
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Everything you mentioned though barely ever comes up from my recollection. Sniping at enemies is such a minor feature and often the enemy respawns by the time you get there by the nature of the game, and half the enemies you can snipe at are things you'd be shooting at anyway; you're going "its neat" but what does it really add. Its not really a major factor of the game and adds little.
...
Though, to be fair, I did forget about the entire Gerudo Fortress Siege part. That was actually interesting and creative relative to the genre, since while its a typical "Avoid the Guards!" scenario, the game does let you actually fight back either with sniping, or steathly smacking them (forget if yo have to stun them first, or just be out of their line of sight.) Its this scenario that really highlights the rest of the game, cause its actually something unique and different, but the game doesn't deliver stuff like this on a regular basis, so the rest of the game being so...monotone? kind of stands out (I'm not saying "We need more Gerudo Fortress!" so much as more areas that actually use the system but in ways that are more than the standard "solve puzzles, open doors.")
Actually, this highlights what I was trying to say more solidly. It's not that I think that Zelda is this shining paragon of game design, but you chose it to be part of this comparison, and you're bias against it is just oozing from the tone of the writing. It might very well be that OoT isn't a very good Action game, but it becomes less of a real comparison and more of a "Okami awesome, Zelda BAD" praisefest.
I might be able to take the article more seriously if you didn't follow up every one of OoT's Good points with the phrase "but this just makes the rest of the Bad stuff look WORSE". That line really doesn't add anything besides a lot of bias. I mean, you haven't employed this phrase for Okami or Darksiders, so why is it in just about every Zelda description?
It's not that you're making bad points - I agree that OoT isn't anything special in this generation of Action games, but if you're going to include it in your comparison, you should try to be a little more unbiased when describing it.
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I don't seem to recall the megaton hammer seeing much use outside of the Volcano
Dark Link. Ganon. The only problem with the Megaton Hammer is that it's made redundant by Biggoron's Sword, but that's (obscure) sidequest and shouldn't be considered.
Also:
stuff like Din's Fire or Ice Arrows should have some sort of reason to care about them. To give you a parallel, go look at the optional stuff in LttP. While never necessary, its hard to deny that stuff like the Medallion of Bombos or the Ice Rod were handy little items to have available
stuff like Din's Fire
some sort of reason to care about them.
Din's Fire
reason to care
wut
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While the next section will NOT be related to that, I will however make note of this:
I am indeed going to redo the gameplay section at some point...entirely...probably split into multiple sections. Disregarding the actual content, its just poorly written and its clear I was trying to cover way too much in one section, and I should probably split it up. I'm thinking doing it Combat (this would include boss fights and such), Puzzles/Dungeons, and Miscellaneous Others for Gameplay related things. If someone has a better way to split it up, or some alternative suggestion, etc. by all means, speak up!
But that'll come later! As now we have...
END GAME SHENANIGANS
I wanted to call it "Final Showdowns" but then realized I'm more talking about things that surround the final dungeon through the end of the game, where as Final Showdown would suggest "Final Boss only" and regardless of game, there's not THAT much to talk about! Why does this part get its own section? Cause I gave a full section to Intros, intros for at least 2 of the 3 games were pretty boring to talk about, so LETS GET ONTO THE ACTUAL RANT!
OoT's End Game we'll say starts the instant you walk into the Temple of Time with a full collection Adult Macguffins achieved. Here, the scene is...actually, why were you heading back to the temple and not right to Ganondorf's Castle? Whatever, its not important; what is important is what happens in the Temple itself!
Here, the game reveals that the Triforces are actually relevant in OoT! I honestly can't remember if the Triforces are even MENTIONED anytime after the initial game's backstory, which is mostly "The gods created the world, then they shoved the Triforce as a portion of their power to keep balance!" and sort of moved on. I know in the first Zelda game, the Triforce was the Macguffin you were trying to restore, in ALttP, it was brought up several times throughout the game, I believe, and was essentially the key element to all the shit that happened, and restoring it. OoT, it kind of says "yeah, Triforce we should probably have that in this game, shouldn't we?"
...though, really, that isn't a big deal, cause being Zelda by nature, you know what the Triforce is and all that, so I got the feeling the developers were making the game with "Zelda = Triforce = YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS AND ITS IMPORTANT SO SHUT UP!" and well, for a lesser series, that'd be dumb, but I suppose LoZ can get away with it, cause the Triforce is a pretty big icon for Video Games in general, so yeah, I suppose its a case where that assumption is actually fair. That said, we learn that Sheik, the badass Ninja Girl Guy who...doesn't really do much but say cryptic stuff and teach you songs...is actually Princess Zelda. Please refer to my earlier mockery of how OoT really failed at making Sheik appear Male, cause I'm not going through THAT again.
Now, regardless of Sheik's gender issues, Sheik = Zelda is a neat little surprise cause in previous games, Zelda's been pure Damsel-in-Distress. Oh sure, in ALttP, she actually served a purpose of sorts, but she still existed mostly to just be rescued. Here, Zelda's actually trying to play an active role! I can respect that they're trying to have Zelda break away from her former "SAVE ME LINK!" role, and try to make at least one of their primary princess figures actually a respectable female figure (Peach at least is a lot more humor tone by nature, so its not someone you take seriously, much like Bowser is not a villain you take seriously, so its more just a 'have fun" case, not trying to illustrate great writing or something.) It seems Zelda finally is an actual respectable female figure and deviating away from the Princess Stereotype here. we learn there are 7 Sages, not 6, and that the 7th is the most powerful and the one that kind of brings everything together, and she's herself is actually the 7th Sage (I forget if she tells us or we just kind of assume that without the other Sage's, the 7th Sage's powers are compromised, hence why she didn't just stand up to Ganondorf on her own, but whatever, whether game tells you or not, you can come to easy logical conclusions on your own.) Its a scene meant to be a heart touching re-union which...well, ok, I really am not going to speak about how well its played, cause its subjective but at least the music is appropriate, so that's something!
She reveals she's the representative of Triforce of Wisdom, Link is of Courage, and Ganondorf forcefully nabbed Power (I wanna say the plot says Ganondorf grabbed the Triforce of Power, and the other two sort of escaped his grasp before he could get them? Whatever, its not important.) Ok, so now we're finally getting into some actual god damned plot that isn't FIND MACGUFFINS. About time Zelda! Oh yeah, I think she hands you Light Arrows cause hey, its a Zelda game, you need MAGICAL ARROWS to beat Ganon for some reason they never really explain. Frankly, I thought it was more awesome when the villain was weak to Butterfly Catching nets. Ok, joking about silly traditions aside, the game basically says "Yes, we're now ready to kick Ganondorf's ass!"
None of this stuff stands out for the most part one way or another, Zelda reveal aside (which as I said is a neat twist), outside of one instance in the end of the scene, which I ranted about earlier, but I can't stress it enough:
Zelda getting kidnapped.
Again, as I stated in the past, she's obviously skilled as a warrior, Triforce of Wisdom suggests she must have a large amount of brain power, and the game even hints that with the 6 Medallions collected, she's probably at the peak of her power, meaning she's at the least likely moment to be actually vulnerable (Especially with Link RIGHT THERE), and she's managed to evade Ganondorf for 7 years as is. Now suddenly, just cause she takes off the ninja outfit and dons the pink dress, she gets kidnapped nearly instantly? And she can't even do anything to resist his actions? That's just kind of cheap, honestly. Again, as I said before, it'd be fair if Zelda let herself get kidnapped, cause of some Deus Ex Machina bullshit requiring her to get caught so Ganondorf would lure Link in by lowering a barrier or some shit like that, meaning she'd be playing a gamble, but that's clearly not what happens.
So suddenly, after Zelda displays herself as being something more than a DiD...she jumps back to the old Zelda = DiD! This is really quite a stupid scene for that reason alone, and as I said, if she's representing the Triforce of Wisdom, she'd probably know that revealing herself = GANONDORF WILL GET HER! Again, if the game made it clear Zelda got herself kidnapped on purpose as a gamble of sorts, then that'd at least be fair, since hey, its all JUST AS PLANNED or something, but no, its just "ha, found you, I WIN!" scenario from Ganodorf's perspective, with Zelda basically going "Gasp! He got me!"
So that stupid scene aside, the end sequence is off to a poor start...the question is that indicative of the end game as a whole, or just one fail moment that suggests nothing? Well, lets continue on shall we!
After getting into the actual final dungeon which conveniently is right near-bye, we're treated to a multi-path dungeon which is basically abbreviated versions of the elemental dungeons, with one extra dungeon to fill in for the Light one that we never actually went too, so they make something up that was never used before (I think its related to Light Arrows.) At the end of each of these mini-dungeons, you shoot a random object with a Light Arrow and move on. To be honest, that had me confused for a little while cause I wasn't quite sure what I was suppose to do at those things, though I did catch on that I think all pots in those rooms gave Arrows and Magic and said "Screw it, lets fire a random Light Arrow at-...huh, it worked!" Dunno if others had the same experience as me with this, so I'll just leave it at that. Anyway, after you shoot the random God Knows What with an arrow, the respective Sage appears, and a part of the barrier breaks!
So what do I think of a Final Dungeon? Well, it...is actually pretty neat, all things considered. It gives full respects to the game as a whole (or at least the 2nd half of the game), tries to make the Sage's seem like they're meaningful in your progression rather than getting brushed aside after they give you the Medallion(god knows Rauru needed more screen time, stupid fat useless ugly old man...), and tries to summarize each dungeon style (while not FULLY capturing the dungeon in question; this is a GOOD THING in the case of the Water Temple I think we can all agree)
One thing I do have to slightly complain about, (and don't worry, I'm not actually holding this against the game, this is more just me side tracking) is that they give you an item in the final dungeon...a near useless one at that. Ok, Zelda Games give you items in the Final Dungeon, this isn't new, but they're usually good USEFUL ones. In the first and ALttP, it was a damage reduction item for example, which while not necessary, certainly comes in handy for obvious reasons. This game hands you...the Gold Gauntlets, which exist to just continue the dungeon you're in...umm...er...ok...thanks, I guess? They are stylish and do lead to a damage reduction power up if you back track a little, but I honestly question why they didn't just make the Damage Reduction Power Up in the dungeon itself, and have it hidden away? Seems like it could have saved a little bit of time! And maybe I want Link's Gauntlets to stay looking Silver instead of Gold >=( </useless point is useless>
Now, the last part of the dungeon is just a nice straight forward tower climb with a few battle sequences. Ignoring how I stated that battles in Zelda are pretty generic and stock, this just works for a last stretch of the game, cause at this point, I think people are done with puzzles, and just want to reach the final boss, so having nothing but battles does kind of say "YES, THIS IS THE END!" in a sense. The tower being a spiral stair case is cool just cause...well...spiral stair case! Also makes it feel like an actual tower with height and such. More importantly though is the music; playing Ganon's Theme from ALttP in a newly redone style not only fits, but how its handled is quite cool, with it slowly getting louder as you ascend the tower.
Then you enter the room and sure enough, Ganondorf's actually PLAYING THE GOD DAMN SONG HIMSELF on an Organ. Well, Ganondorf's got musical talent, who'd ever have thunk it? With Link's Orcarina, Zelda's Harp, and his Organ, they could create some sort of really fucked up band called "CHOSEN OF THE TRIFORCE!" and go on a world tour and...
...er...wait, what was I talking about again? Oh, right, final confrontation, not musical qualities of the Big Three of OoT (But damn, I'm sure that'd be far more awesome to talk about!) The sequence starts with us seeing Zelda caught in her own oversized Rupee cause...well, I guess it looks magical and cool, and its pink cause that's what color her dress is. We see the Triforces appear cause...umm..er...I guess all 3 are re-united now so it makes sense? Whatever, tis just stylistic nonsense, and one of those "if it looks cool/pretty/neat, nothing else matters!" so I'll just assume its that. Ganondorf does his little "NOW I WILL WIN!" rant then...COMMENCE BATTLE!
Before fighting, Ganondorf asserts his MANLY DARK POWERS on Link, Link resists it easily, Navi gets punted back. So wait, how is Ganondorf a villain again? He just got rid of the biggest nuisance in the game! Ok, jokes aside, the explanation is just there to say "NO Z-Targetting on Ganondorf!" even though you technically can under a specific circumstance though at that point, its useless. I'm not sure Z Targetting serves any real purpose against him anyway, but whatever.
Now, Ganondorf's fight is the exact kind of fight OoT needed for a boss:
Its a neat stylish gimmicky fight that's actually kind of fun. He hurls projectiles at you, you smack them back; yes, Phantom Ganon had this before, but it didn't look as cool, and here its more of an endurance run rather than "get use to the acceleration"; you don't know when Ganondorf is going to screw up the shot. Then you Light Arrow him, he gets stunned, then you slash the crap out of him...then he smashes part of the floors away, which I'm sure is some sort of ALttP reference, so its clear they're trying to get the FULL GANONESS or something. Either, its a nice little dynamic fight cause he's actually aggressive, and you're constantly doing something. Contrast this to, say, Volvagia who I seem to recall involves you just sitting around waiting for him to stop flying around and actually DO SOMETHING. Yes, Ganondorf has cool downs between attacks, but that's mostly just to give you enough time to recover if you screw up.
He even has a desperation move that tries to deviate the fight a bit, forcing you to try something different. Personally, I found "Spin Slash = yay!" was the way around it, my brother discovered "Light Arrow to the Face during big charge time!" but hey, whatever works, nice to know there's multiple ways to approach it and they're both viable.
Also, another thing to this fight's credit? The Music unlike all those previous boss themes actually kind of fits. While its the same pace and "hurry' feel, it feels more appropriate here due to the dynamic nature, and has more of a stronger dramatic feel. Its not perfect, but its a notable step up compared to the stock songs used before, so its worth noting, as it does add at least SOMETHING to the fight.
Ganondorf gets beaten, shows a bit of...wait, was that BLOOD!? Like, seriously, blood in a Zelda game? Its a minor spurt and you can barely tell what it is, but its there! HOLY SHIT! After that, Ganondorf tries to pull an Andross of "IF I GO DOWN I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME!" only to just destroy the top of the palace, leaving Link and Zelda just kind of gawking as he falls over and Zelda defies the laws of physis as his cape falls RIGHT THROUGH HIS BODY </old school polygon mocking>. That's a pretty cool final confrontatio-....
"OH no! Ganondorf was a load baring boss! WE MUST ESCAPE!"
...great, a timed sequence where its just run out of castle, WITH A SLIGHT ESCORT FACTOR involved, where Zelda needs to pretend she's useful and open doors, but becomes useless whenever an enemy appears, compromising the whole Sheik thing and...seriousyl, Zelda, you suck. You showed promise and then decided to spit on it by becoming a generic magical princess whose completely useless. If she really was THAT powerful, she could at least, I dunno, restore Magic or cast healing spells on you or something, but instead likes to get caught in a ring of fire long enough for Link to kill enemies.
Ok, to be honest, I have to go out of my way to say this:
The castle Escape Sequence should not have been there. It interrupts the flow of the sequence and doesn't really add anything; yeah, its suppose to add intense drama, but its just an attempt to cheap out more game play, and doesn't explain stuff like "Wait, why can't just play my Orcarina and teleport out of here?"
So after a COMPLETELY USELESS CASTLE ESCAPE sequence followed by a castle crumbling sequence that's kind of neat for its time, but sort of generic by today's standards...we get a brief "yay, we won!" scene, and before Zelda can say something meaningful...
"hey Link, sorry I couldn't help you before, please forgive me."
FUCK YOU NAVI GO TO HELL I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD :(. More importantly, why the fuck do you have like 10 lines the entire game for plot and 3 of them are about being useless in the final battle against Ganondorf? And...wait, I ranted about Navi before, MOVING ON...
Then the sequence is interrupted by rubble moving, LINK GOES TO INVESTIGATE OH SHIT ITS GANONDORF! Then he transforms into Ganon, cause apparently removing "Dorf" makes him more menacing and...wait, why does Ganon look different than in all his other appearances? If nothing else, he's not a BLUE PIG! CURSE YOU FOR CHANGING THE FINAL BOSS DESIGN! Then he whips out two huge fuck you swords and knocks away Link's Master Sword, creates a wall of Fire, which apparently is Zelda's weakness cause she can't do shit despite magical prowess if there's a wall of fire in front of her, and now Link has to fight the final boss without his Legendary Sword!
Fight's stylish enough, and its straight forward "Smack enemies weak point with whatever weapon you find that works", and retains his Light Arrow weakness, only now its optional just encouraged cause its a massive stun on him while also putting him in a position where you can roll under him. Knock him around a few times, Wall of Fire Disappears, get your Sword back, then the fire wall conveniently respawns and you go for Round two, which is...the same thing as round 1, only now you have the Master Sword. That actually does make a big difference cause its a weapon you're familiar with, hits his weakness, AND you can use your shield to block him, so oddly, Round 2 is easier than Round 1! For plot reasons, that's fitting, so yeah, fight getting easier as it goes on makes sense there. Finally beat him, Zelda FINALLY does something useful and BLASTS GANON BEFORE HE GETS UP with a Pink Shinku Hadoken, which stuns him, she then tells Link to kill Ganon with one final blow...
Here we learn an important factor about Link's character: He can't count. Why do I say that? Zelda said deliver the final BLOW, its singular! What does Link do? Slash him at least 3 times in the face! Ok, more seriously, its just the game's way of saying "yeah, TAKE THAT YOU EVIL GUY!" Then Link stabs him in the face on the final hit, and he's dead right? NOPE! He just goes ballistic, and then Zelda goes "LET OUR POWERS COMBINE!" and the Sages summon Captain Planet use their powers to...seal Ganondorf off in another realm? Wait, seriously? After all the holy weapons we hurled at him, the macguffins used, the power of *2* Triforces, and several beats downs, not to mention stabbing him in the face MULTIPLE TIMES WITH A SUPER LEGENDARY SWORD...all they can do is seal him off? God damn it, you Sages suck at plot power shenanigans!
I think its safe to say that if there's one thing the End Game Arc unintentionally does, its display Zelda as a completely useless and incompetent character, whose only use was to OPEN GATES in a sequence that need not exist. Maybe they were trying to make Zelda look bad and its intentional, and if it was, well, good job Nintendo, you made Zelda look completely worthless! I don't know why someone would want to do that for a Non-villain character, though, so I'm going to assume its just crappy writing.
True, we can't kill Ganon off cause he appears in later games, but there's definitely a better way this could have been done. Check this redone sequence out that does not compromise the Sage's (or Zelda's) competence, but gets Link in the action...
When Ganon first appears, Zelda tries to seal him off, but he's still too powerful, or she needs actual time to stop him. So Link goes into to either buy Zelda time, or just weaken Ganon to the point where Zelda can overpower him and seal him off. So now the scenario doesn't have Link fighting to kill and failing after the game gives you several "HE SHOULD BE DEAD MOMENTS", but rather, Link's fighting until the circumstance allows Zelda to make her move. Furthermore, this would also give a good explanation for why Zelda was actually not acting; seriously, Fire Wall doesn't seem that threatening if the person in question can do stuff like create barriers, Teleport, have immense DEM powers, etc, so its kind of a cheap gimmick, but if we just say "Zelda can't act cause she's concentrating on some big spell" or something? Yeah, fits better. Its still cheap, but we need some reason to have a final boss fight, and it keeps Zelda not looking totally worthless, AND it keeps Ganon alive for later games. And the thing is? This entire sequence could easily be done with Zelda's quality of writing, so its not a "for its time" defense. Simple dialog like "let me try to stop him...oh no! He's too strong right now! Link! Please! I need you to hold him off until I'm ready!"
Anyway, after Ganondorf NOT being killed, he curses all the good guys in what appears to be purgatory. Then Zelda gives Link a little farewell, and plays the Orcarina of Time one last time to send Link back to the original time so he can live out his lost 7 years. What song does she play? Zelda's Lullaby. Cause that totally makes more sense to play than the Song of Time for the sake of sending someone back in time, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, I know; its just there for a musical cue into the game's credits, but its kind of irksome for something called "Song of Time" to have...very little to actually DO with Time (Majora's Mask fixes this at least!)
Oh, right, musically, the fight with Ganon is...got that subdued EPIC STRUGGLE that really just makes it clear "yeah, its the final boss, no more teasers." Again, like Ganondorf's theme, its fitting...probably even more so actually...though the music does kind of get drowned out by the sound effects in the fight, which isn't so much the song's fault just the nature of some of these intense fights in anyway (See: Any Star Ocean 3 Fight), combined with its more subdued nature, its easy to not remember it. Still, again, it adds a little bit of extra oomph to the fight stylistically, so its worth noting.
Credits start off nice and placidly just showing us simple scenery of the game, then we get a big bon-fire in Lon Lon Ranch of multiple colored flames, showing just about all the NPCs in the game that aren't the Sages doing random things, like a bunch of Carpenters singing with Malon. Works about as good as anything for visuals when watching credits, cause hey, something to get through the boring credits rolling is nice! After that, we get a brief epilogue, which shows Link as a kid, and...wait...doth my eyes deceive me? Or is Navi...leaving Link?
...I think its safe to say that this is the best reward Link gained for saving the world is losing his annoying companion! Seriously, this scene is suppose to be emotional farewell, but its not really done well for a few reasons, one big one being Navi is just really fucking annoying, its hard to CARE. The other being "No dialog, and its just kind of sudden."
The final scene is just Link stalking Zelda as she's stalking her father and umm...er...ok, lets just end it at that.
Now, let me make this clear...despite how i was mocking it a lot throughout, I actually respect OoT's ending sequence for the most part. The mockeries are mostly just me playfully teasing to make this a more interesting read, and I don't actually hold it against the game much. Stuff I do hold against the game though are the following:
-Zelda's idiocy momeny in the temple
-Tower Escape sequence of uselessness
-Sense of futility in the dramatic beat down of Ganon for the sake of merely sealing him off (This is admittedly minor and pretty much something you'd only really notice in Hindsight)
Its a good final sequence of events overall, and an appropriate way to end the game, so yeah, well done. Things could have been better, but its work rather well in the grand scheme of things, and certainly one of OoT's finer points that I can see being deserving of hype. It shows that when OoT tries, it really can do stuff right, and if there's one moment in the game to not fuck up, its the final parts, since that's the lasting impression often, and that's where the Climax usually occurs (...unless you're Shakespeare, then the Climax occurs like half way into the story <_<)
So lets move onto the next game, shall we: Okami!
Now, if you remember, Okami did a poor job in its intro. I'm not sure how that's relevant here, but I felt like I'd point that out! Anyway, the place I'll start with Okami is, naturally, when the Ark of Yamato appears and you're about to enter. Anyway, the Ark of Yamato is something the game sort of eludes to a bit I believe throughout the last 1/3rd of the game noting "THIS THING WILL ARISE ON THE DAY OF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE!" Solar Eclipse being bad normally is a pretty dull thing, cause frankly I always though its cool, but Okami's case is a bit exceptional, given the main character in question is the Sun Goddess, so a Solar Eclipse would naturally be a sign of bad things to come. Nice little tie in for the whole "Day of Darkness" thing by keeping it topical. The Ark of Yamato appears and its...some really big ship that to enter you go over a rainbow bridge. Getting past all the little exposition nonsense that's meaningless...
You walk on the Rainbow Bridge but get a plot scene right before you enter the Ark itself. It starts off with Issun stopping Ammy before entering, and he goes into details about the quest, and how he was only in it for the 13 Celestial Brush strokes, which he has now seen, and its time for him to leave. Now, its very obvious Issun is just trying to come up with excuses to leave Ammy at this point, but at the same time, you can tell he really doesn't want to. its displaying that Issun knows he no longer belongs in that dungeon, and thus feels now is the time to leave, and does whatever he can to try and talk Ammy into agreeing, even so much as drawnig his sword. Its clear that Ammy doesn't want him to go, its definitely a scene that portrays conflicting emotions. Its a pretty effective scene, all things considered, cause Ammy is now losing the only constant companion she had the entire game...right before she goes off to face her biggest challenge yet. See, it really contrasts the Navi scene where its like "THANK GOD SHE'S DEAD!" as when Issun leaves, its actually sad. I know its not just me though, cause I've seen people say they've actually nearly cried at this scene (I...think that's going a little overboard though. Sad, sure, but tear jerker? Not so much, but whatever, to each their own.)
But the scene hits you with one last mockery after the Issun decision, and that's Waka shows up, again, in his usual cryptic nature, and basically taunts Issun by saying "even if you wanted to go, you can't! Glad you realize that!" pushing Issun to try and prove otherwise by jumping into the Ark...then getting rejected, showing us that Issun is still himself, and that...well, you get the point. Here is the first moment where we get a sense of what Waka's true motives are, as his statement while seemingly cryptic, was actually straight forward for once; he makes it clear that only Gods and Celestials can enter the ark, and Ammy being a God can enter; we natuarlly figure out that Waka is a Celestial not that we know what that is at this point. The scene ends on an awkward comical note with him grabbing Ammy in a dance stance and saying his last prophecy of "It takes Two to Tango!"
Oh yeah, after Issun gets rejected, he falls into the cold water below, and Ammy, standing from the Ark takes one last look at Issun as he can merely watch Ammy walk away. It really sets the scene well that "yes, the two are gone, Issun is no longer with you."
So now onto the actual dungeon. Calling it a dungeon isn't...realistically fair. First off, you get one more shop (with a new guy introduced randomly in the usual Okami manner!), and he's clearly angelic! Throughout the dungeon, you also meet other spirits of celestials, learning that Celestials are basically angels, and they were all wiped by some evil darkness centuries ago, and the Ark of Yamato was a ship used to escape the Darkness but it too got eaten. Yes, its ironic that the enemy strong hold was originally a vessel meant to ESCAPE said evil, but given as I said before, Okami doesn't really build up much to this moment and hits you with a lot plot stuff out of nowhere in this final dungeon, it makes it hard for this plot point to have any real impact. Honestly, the celestial stuff COULD have been neat, if it was actually expanded upon throughout the game, rather than slamming you with everything at once, but I ranted about this earlier, so I won't repeat it. That's easily the worst part of the game's end game sequence granted:
The fact that it hurls a lot of plot details that have little baring on previous stuff, existing merely to explain stuff that would have worked better if you learned it earlier and more gradually.
Anyway, OoT's final dungeon was bringing back all the former dungeons in an abbreviated manner as its way of using a final dungeon, not putting any of the bosses in, so what's Okami do? The opposite! In true Capcom fashion, Okami takes a page from Megaman and makes its final area one big boss rush of previous enemies, maintaining only the plot relevant ones sans the two owls (who by the nature of the team dynamic in that fight, with Oki and Shiranui, you can't realistically put them in a boss rush.) It even follows Megaman's style of letting you heal between each (only far more lenient!) and letting you take them on in any order. Unlike Megaman, the game is nice enough to have indicators of what boss you'll be facing with cave paintings.
Now, what's nice here is that it lets you use all those big awesome weapons you just got on actual enemies worth dealing with. Yes, you know how to beat Spider Queen now, but wouldn't it be fun to try some of your new tools on her and see what kind of nonsense you can do? Though I will admit fighting Orochi a third time is kind of silly, albeit at least they removed the Quick Time Event related stuff, and as I noted earlier, Orochi was basically the highlight of Okami combat until that point, being a very well structured, and involved boss requiring you to use a lot of what you learned thus far, so yeah, it'd be kind of weird to leave him out, for all that you already did a refight with him! Regardless, this section helps highlight just how unique each Okami boss was, and how the fights were just fun and not actually tedious.
After defeating the 5 refights, we get one last bit of plot from the Merchant celestial, who then fades away like the others. Then we enter the final boss sequence. At first, you can't even see what Yami, the Lord of Darkness is; its just a big shadow ball with Waka attacking it, and doing nothing to him. Waka here exclaims how everything is his fault, and his goal was to try and make amends, by helping Ammy get back to the Ark, such that Yami could be defeated once and for all, but at the asme time, he wanted to try and defeat Yami himself. Waka gives it his everything, and even takes a hit for Ammy...after Ammy got her powers drained by Yami, where we learn Yami has the power that "even the gods can't defeat." Well, that's a pretty damning statement!
We also finally see Waka's hair! That's more kind of "oh, cool" rather than actually significant. When Waka is seemingly finished off, and Ammy is standing up to Yami, with all her powers gone and in that basic wolf form, your general response is probably "Wait, I have to fight the final boss...WITH NO POWERS WHATSOEVER!?" If you've ever fought with 0 ink or in cursed zones, you know how painful that is, but Okami actually makes you do it. You also see that Yami actually is nothing more than a HUGE FUCKING BALL (though, really, there's apparently a little tadpole inside a hamster ball there, and that's probably the real thing and the ball is just some huge suit of armor, but whose counting?)
So starts the final battle, and what seems to be total bullshit...stops being bullshit faster than you think. After a few hits on Yami, you get your first Celestial Brush Stroke back, Rejuvenation...which is also like the most useless one in the game that you probably forgot existed (or alternatively, have used without realizing which power you were using, like in Fishing Lines.) Still, though, gaining just ONE power restores Ammy's weapons and all her little skills like say, the dodge maneuver and double jump, are back, as well as other little quirks like her running speed is back up. So you're now feeling like you can do SOMETHING. Naturally, it shatters the ground to give you a reason to use Rejuvenation, and I think rewards you with free ink if you restore it (and more running room.) Its pretty obvious at this point how the fight goes down:
As you attack Yami, you gain more of your spells back. Yami goes through 4 forms here, each with new gimmicks, attacks, etc. Musically, the song that plays for Yami is...really weird. Then again, you're fighting a HUGE FREAKING BALL that fires MISSILES, has slot machine based attacks and...geez, there's nothing NORMAL about Yami in the grand scheme of things...then he turns into a giant mech with tentacles. No, I'm not making it up, he really does do this! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_7SfZ-ymKA#t=2m5s) (yes, that's from TvC, but its the same guy and easier to just show that than an Okami scene.) The fight encourages use of all the Celestial Brush skills, smoetimes giving them unique uses in this fight. For example, the Moon Spell which turns Day into Night is naturally useless in a fight like this...so it summons a Fake Susano in the middle of combat to slash the thing, as a stronger but less versatile version of Power Slash.
Yes, granted, there is the whole Cat Walk spell which is only useful for getting a few extra items yo probably won't need in this fight from the corners of the map, but Cat Walk is probably the single most forced and useless skill in the game as is, whose surprised? The fight is dynamic and takes a while to go through, and you just get stronger as it goes on, but so does he. The final form (the mec I showed above) even feels like its a suitable final boss form. The music that plays...well, its kind of weird. I'd explain it, but its easier to show it; no, I'm not trying to hype the song, I just lack the words to properly describe it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XugG82XlAOw&feature=related
I guess it sounds evil and dark, but not really final boss-esque...it feels more like its a horror theme than a battle theme. It still fits in a way, though really needs context unlike Ganon's 2 battle themes where you listen to them and go "Yeah, I can get an idea of what's going on"; Okami's gives you a "...this is a final boss theme?" but when you see it in action, it works better.) I will note that Yami being a HUGE FUCKING BALL is rather fitting of Okami as a whole, cause the game's playful nature and all that, why not make the boss have a vaguely weird design? It's not so silly that you laugh at it, but it does give you a "...figures" kind of reaction.
So with all your brush powers restored...wait, there seems to be one missing...but there were 13 powers restored! Must be your imagination...ok, that's me sucking at drama, so I'll end that. More importantly, with Yami beaten and Ammy regained her stolen powers from him, Issun pops up telling Ammy to do one of those Victory Howls she always does. Well, shit, you just beat the big bad, so if there's a more appropriate time to do it, I'll be damned!
Game cues the victory theme then...right before Ammy howls, Issun fades from her nose and it was just a projection of her memory, so the subsequent howl isn't one of her mighty victorious ones, but rather, a melancholy, lonely one. See, again, that's what makes Ammy work but not Link as a protagonist who doesn't talk; Ammy actually displays emotions in her own kind of way, and works around being silent; Link we get a few facial expressions, but its really hard to connect. You really get a sense of the kind of loneliness Ammy's feeling here, like a "was it worth it" and all that, which leads you to-...
WAIT! SHIT! YAMi"S STILL ALIVE! Yep, in the middle of the sequence Yami grabs Ammy, saps her powers AGAIN, basically pulling a "FOOLED YOU!" much like Ganondorf did, and then Yami reveals his TRUE form, where the ball seems to shrink, but he grows a HUGE FUCKING HAND with an eye in it. I must say, while description wise, it sounds like a downgrade compared to the mec...the coloring used and the general scenario, and all that make it look a hell of a lot more threatening, so well played Okami, and using your best feature (the art) to your advantage. Ammy just fought against a weakened Yami and regained all her powers...now Yami's at full power and she's back to the starting point, and its very clearly a hopeless scenario. IT really feels like Ammy doesn't have a chance in hell of winning this fight, and the solar Eclipse even adds more to the general "Hopeless" feel. Oh yeah, it only NOW does Yam's appropriate Intro (every enemy in Okami gains an intro when you first meet them), basically saying "Now the REAL fight begins." Now I don't know about you, but the last thing I want to do is fight Yami EVEN HARDER and regain all of Ammy's powers from scratch again. But that seems to be the case...
...until Ammy starts hearing voices of people talking. Suddenly, we start hearing the sounds of people around the world. THIS is the scene where the ending sequence really picks up; the stuff before it was cool, but here's where I think Okami's end game stuff starts really shining. Just about every single NPC Ammy has interacted without throughout the game (if not...every NPC period whose still alive) starts saying something...almost as though they're praying. Its not just that, but there's some powerful comments here that actually got me quite emotionally. one that really stands out is when one of the little girls says "Is that doggy crying? Is that why the sunshine won't appear?" The scene starts off sad and somber, but slowly builds up to hopeful as the scene goes on. This scene reminds me of something from another game actually...
FF4's fight with Zeromus. Its similar cause Zeromus kicks your ass, then Cecil barely musters strength to challenge him, with 1 HP, and then everyone starts praying and slowly restoring your team's health. Thing is, in FF4, its just a cheap "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP HEALS YOU!" No real explanation, just sappy cliched nonsense. So Okami's the same way, right?
No, see, Okami has something FF4 doesn't have; its actually using a plot detail that its been consistent with the entire game, and it fits in beautifully here. Okami early on, the game says the more people pray and the more they believe in Amaterasu, the stronger she gets. This is illustrated in gameplay that the more miracles Ammy does, the better she can raise her stats and such, a bit of gameplay/plot intergration to incorporate that point. its a consistent factor and it fits nicely seeing as your character is a deity; contrast this to FF4 where its just a generic "WE WILL LEND YOU OUR STRENGTH! No, we aren't explaining how it works, just take the full healing and stop complaining!"
So as the scene goes on, we see each character and they all have something relevant to say...I could go on hyping this scene for a while, but I need to cut back. Instead, I'll just say what really sells the scene is the music. Just listening to it gives you a sense of what's going on.
Reset (Thank You) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRx9gnY0Mp0)
Oh, and the scene ends with who better but Issun, of all people, being the one to do this. Finally Waka's final prophecy is fulfilled; the "takes two to Tango" was referring to how Issun still has his part to play, and Issun gives a whole uplifting speech, both the world saying "pray for Ammy's success!", but also saying "Come on, Ammy, you never give up, we believe in you!" Now, one thing you have to remember is that no matter where you are in the game, Issun seems to show little respect for Ammy, cause well, that's just who he is. So here where Issun has nothing but the highest praise for Ammy and actually belittling himself (he really does equate himself to nothing more than a simple side kick, basically saying Ammy is the real hero), despite his general arrogance and self-obsessed nature. Its the perfect way to give Issun one last "Hurrah!" after leaving Ammy, to show he can still be of help to Ammy even as they are parted.
...I think its safe to say that's certainly better than anything Navi does during the final sequence but beating Navi at stuff is not what we call hard <_< >_>
I know, I'm going into depth about this one scene, but it really is just that well done, and really sets up the best part of the ending anyway. After they do that, you see all the divine energy slowly flow back nito Ammy, then suddenly, all the constellations that gave her the Celestial Brush skills appear, then a big flash and suddenly...Ammy changes...in short, its the equivalent of "Super Sayajin Amaterasu" in Appearance. The game really makes it clear "Yes, Ammy is now REALLY back at her peak power!" The music changes to something atmospherical for a bit, then suddenly, one strong Howl of Hope, at which point, the real final boss theme kicks in...
...a song NOT based around Yami, but a rare case of a Final Boss theme built around the Main Character. Yes, I'm referring to The Sun Rises (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZxK58tPU4I&feature=related), which is the perfect song to play now. Now Yami's final form is not hard at all, but in some way, that's a good thing. Why? Because the way the fight feels, between Amaterasu's look (which has no gameplay merits, so its a pure stylistic thing) and the music that plays, the agme really gives a sense of how Amaterasu is ready to kick ass, and really Yami has NO CHANCE...so suddenly a hopeless scenario for Amaterasu has jsut shifted its weight entirely, and now it seems like there's no chance you can lose. The beginning of the fight even helps show that, where to do stuff, all you do is draw, of all things, the Sun spell, the one thing you did NOT get back in the previous part, and naturally, its only fitting for Ammy's own personal power to be the key to victory (other Celestial Brush skills can help, but that's the only necessary one), to the point where he just goes completely ballistic and the stunning is far more dramatic than other moments. I can't stress how well it gives you this one sided feel, that if this were an animated cutscene, Amaterasu would just be kicking Yami around like an over-sized soccer ball. What makes this fight really work is how big and impressive Yami's attacks are too, cause it makes him seem really strong and like he's throwing EVERYTHING at you, from Meteor Showers to big seismic smacks, his moves certainly seem more impressive than stuff he's using in the previous fight, but you're kicking his ass ANYWAY, so it just makes Amaterasu look that much more awesome relative to Yami.
And naturally, after Yami dies, Amaterasu gives one last victory howl, this time with the sun shining right on her, as an appropriate "YOU WIN!" Games ending is pretty under-played, but honestly, after all the drama built up for that last form with Yami, that's kind of expected. IT gives a nice little "Amaterasu ascends to the heavens with Waka" only done in Okami's kind of playful manner (as in, they board a space ship and fly off...no, I'm not kidding, that's actually what happens), and the game just goes to the credits. I think there's some cheering with the humans and such but honestly, this stuff is relatively forgettable.
The Credits...well...its a nice little homage to the whole game. The song "Reset" is a nice vocal, and reading the translation of the lyrics, it fits Okami well enough talking about the seasons how yes, the Summer leaves and the winter comes, but that's cool, cause its a cycle, and how nature goes on, etc. It shows scenes throughout the game, while showing Ammy walk on the ground slowly across them. SOmething about this ending credits, while not impressive on visuals in any stand out way, really does give you a sense of the amount of effort and work put into the game. Its hard to explain, but it really does make you feel like the devs really left the game satisfied with the results.
The game has an epilogue like OoT, for one last thing. It finally brings back the Narrator, and has him talk, but as the narrator ends, he takes a different tone...suddenly going from scholarly bland "I am a narrator" to a more playful, familiar tone, and it soon becomes obvious WHO the Narrator was. Its actually a cute way to lead into New Game+ by saying "Well, since you missed the point of this story, I guess I'll just have to tell you it again!" I'll be honest; the scene is kind of meaningless and silly, but its a cute and appropriate way to end Okami, so it works well enough.
So I think its safe to say Okami does the ending thing rather well overall. Between starting off with emotional separation of Issun into a boss rush for gameplay, followed by an involved final boss fight with like everything in it, and no real breaks in between, it just really works. True, Yami's kind of out of nowhere, but then, with a boss that is the LORD OF DARKNESS and the nature of Okami's enemies, this really should have been expected. The one real issue is the bombarding of plot with Celestials that kind of comes out of nowhere, which on one hand is a necessary evil for actually understanding the point of Okami, it didn't need to happen now, and should have gradually occurred throughout the game. Other than that, its really pulled off quite exceptionally all things considered.
DARKSIDERS IN THE NEXT POST CAUSE THIS POST IS TOO DAMN BIG!!!
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END GAME STUFF CONTINUED (Darksiders)!!!
So...what about Darksiders then, the third game in this? Well, Darksiders had a really cool opening so what will its ending be like? Truth be told...its ending is easily the weakest of the three games. Why?
Well, for starters, its hard to pin-point where End Game starts, so I'll just say when you get to the Holy City. You go there in search for THE TRUTH of what is going on and learn of how Abaddon is a bigger dick than you could have imagined, and Azrael wants to repent, cause hey, he's the token GOOD hearted angel, instead of being a generic self righteous prick. YOu then fight your dark side or something; i can't remember, its some fight against a Shadow, and get some sort of Shadow helmet and...yeah, it really is just quite dull and forgettable. You then are charged with your next task...
See, while OoT had you redo dungeons in abbreviated manner, and Okami hurled a boss rush at you, Darksiders decides to...actually make you run across the world again searching for Macguffins in various specific spots, using your tools again. So instead of a genuine final dungeon, you have to run around gaining objects for the sake of repairing that Armaggedon Sword or whatever its called. Somewhere along the way, you fight Uriel, I believe, and beat her down one last time. However, War doesn't kill her, cause he realizes there's a purpose for people other than sticking the sword in their face and feels Uriel needs to see the truth of Abaddon and such. Before the fight, they make a Death Oath, meaning the fight won't end until one or the other is dead. Of course, War sparing Uriel obviously has some meaning in this cause before it says "HE KNOWS HONOR" so...yeah, I need to bring that up cause its kind of important.
Uriel is basically just a big epic sword fight, and not much else. She hurls shit at you, you charge in, slash her, there's a QTE defense style move she uses on you which if you press the button right, you reverse and do big damage...and its got typical Darksiders music. Its really nothing special. This fight also illustrates just why having Health meters or something makes a boss fight that much bare-able; sometimes she'll flinch from an attack, othertimes she won't, and its hard to say if you're doing damage and how much. Okami gives bosses health bars, so you know exactly how much you're doing. OoT, while no health bars, compensates by at least making it very obvious when you're doing actual damage, so you at least get a sense of whether you're doing something. Alas, Uriel has no such thing; best you ca do is see you have a combo meter, but even then you don't have a clue how close you are.
But ranting about gameplay aside, back to the gameplay parts that matter, you're really just running around the world collecting parts of the sword cause...they needed something. Frankly, I would have just preferred another dungeon with the sword at the end. Doing it this way does allow for a montage of Ulthane repairing the weapon, showing the other characters doing shit (mostly Azrael and Uriel), and giving us lines like "My greatest work!" "Until now!" *nod in agreement* but seriously, they could have done that with something like this:
*War gets sword at end of dungeon*
Azrael: Hmm...it seems the sword has lost its power and needs to be tempered if you are to take on the Destroyer.
War: I know just the one.
They could force you to bring it to Ulthane by hand, to give the player some input, rather than lead your hand, but honestly running around the world, looking for little attentions to detail using your Totally-Not-Lens-of-Truth-Rip-off ability to find various little things that let you access areas you couldn't before, to find these...its just not fun. Its tedious and there's too many parts. Heck, if they lowered the number of items in half, that'd be far better; it just makes the game longer than it needs to be and its not fun. There's plenty of optional items hidden throughout Darksiders' world that the whole "exploration" aspect well hits its quota if the player wishes to look for it, so why force it right at the end?
After getting the blade, War charges in to go fight the final boss; no dungeon or anything, just some plot...I think you might have to talk to Azrael to trigger it, after you get your super sword, but honestly can't be bothered to check or care; its irrelevant either way, but he does say "Angel of Death, Serve me one last time!" I wasn't aware Azrael was War's servant, I thought it was more of a mutual partnership where Azrael helps War cause its a form of repentance, and War gets what he needs to kick ass...then again, War being a total dick is kind of in character since, well, he's fucking War. Uriel and her Hell Vanguards are losing, War saves the day! Ok, now the fight starts off with the Destroyer showing he beat Uriel cause she thought he was Abaddon (which he is), and thus held back cause SHE LOVES HIM! But he doesn't love her anymore, so whatever. THen he tries to coerce War into joining him by saying "Heaven Hunts you, Hell Hates you, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU! JOIN ME!" Um...this is War, he lives for violence and killing stuff, that's kind of his thing, I don't think he was ever in it for a popularity contest. Seriously, Destroyer, you may want to rethink your plans...
Then he ends with "I offer you this choice, Horsemen. Would you serve in Heaven, or Rule in Hell?" You know, the whole point of the game? Naturally, War's response?
"I choose what once, a coward did not!" As in, basically the 3rd option "Screw you, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Heave and Hell, BITE ME!" Well, its in character at least, and its basically a way to say "Abaddon, you suck, now lets fight!"
So here in starts the first part of the fight: War vs. a Huge Fuck You Devil Dragon. As intimidating as he looks, the entire fight is really just "Jump on Ruin, Slash away, knock him down, slash some more." Talk about wasted potential. Uriel showed that a boss can have a good amount of variety, albeit, I did rant about that fight, it was more screwed up by Darksiders' nature rather than something naturally wrong with the fight. In the Destroyer's case, he really is bland compared to like every boss before him. See, every boss at least had some gimmick you had to exploit, while Uriel is more a typical slug-fest with dodging attacks, and countering and such. The Destroyer? Its Jump on Ruin -> Run around until you can get a clean hit on him and knock him down -> Slash him a lot while he's down. So the game with probably the most combat options...has been reduced to the most simplistic of Zelda Style fights? At least in OoT, the game had limited combat as is, so it was more understandable here, but Darksiders incorporated God of War elements very obviously to make the game more interesting on that end, and now its...basically saying "Screw Combat, BUTTON MASH!" Now, the Destroyer does get a few new attacks as the fight goes on, but its really just "Avoid them, then do the same thing." At least to the fight's credit, the atmosphere is cool, since you're basically fighting in Hell, so there's fire and brimstone raining from the sky, its all red and such and...well, it looks like an actual battlefield...IN HELL.
One thing that's kind of annoying is how you get a new sword and War whips it out for this fight, but all it does is make a visual difference Now, yes, Amaterasu doesn't gain any gameplay advantages against Yami when she regains her full strength, but then, if she did, the game would be even EASIER than it already is, so it was kind of mercy. War, though, you'd think the Armaggedon Sword would have SOME cool factors the Chaoseater does not, like I dunno, give some special properties to some of his attacks, maybe a projectile attack or something? Instead, its just identical to Chaoseater with a slight design change. The fight is repetitive, but so it goes.
Naturally, the fight ends in usual Darksiders' Style: A pseudo-quick time event cutscene kill. Just here, its not as cool as in previous fights. All War does is jump on the guy's back, ride him towards the sky, stab him in the back, and both fall to the ground. Previous bosses, War would basically rip apart the guy in as gruesome a manner as possible; yeah, it was all BLOOD AND GORE, but at least it looked stylish. I mean, there's something about a guy being eaten by a worm, and then just the thing up from the inside and emerging with its heart in his hand. So the fact that he does something utterly generic against the final boss just stands out.
But of course, he's the final boss, he can't have ONE form, so he pulls out the 2nd one. The second form, instead of a big demonic dragon (one of the less common depictions of Satan,but from my understanding, the Bible DID describe him taking on such an appearance for the Apocalypse so its a fitting touch, I'll grant), he turns back into Abaddon only now colored to look corrupted, giving that "Fallen Angel" look to him. This fight is somewhat better executed than the Dragon, since its back to more slug festing. However, really, he's just Uriel with different attacks, and more explosions of Fire and Brimstone instead of HEAVENLY JUSTICE!!! To be honest, he's easier than Uriel, cause like all his moves are obviously telegraphed, and beyond his meteor shower, its just easy to dodge or block everything. Otherwise, see my complaints about the Uriel fight, only add in the fact that he actually DOES block stuff, so it becomes even harder to tell whether you're doing damage or not. There is some Quick Time Event related defense stuff that can elad to the usual "Win, you do big damage nistead of taking big damage!" but...its probably the most boring to watch. They slash at each other a few times, then War does a big FUCK YOU slash after deflecting Abaddon's last hit, knocking him back. You'd think he'd at least, I dunno, pick Abaddon up by the wing and slam him into the ground, then stab him in the chest while he's down, but no, its just generic.
Now, here's something to take into account regarding all 3 final bosses of the game:
Outside of the Light Arrow usage on Ganondorf's first form, Ocarina of Time does not force usage of any items, but you can make use of them in different ways, at least on Ganon. Even if you're out of magic, hitting him in the face with an Arrow or Hook Shot gives him a slight stun that if you're face enough you can use to your advantage. Its not much admittedly, but its there.
Okami, a majority of your spells have uses, be it "Slow down time!" for general purposes to fight specific things like "use Bloom on Form 1 to do big damage!", to situational uses like "Rocks being tossed at you, use Power Slash to deflect them back!" It rewards usage of a variety of tools; some are required, but given Okami always has you equipping all your spells at once and its just a case of remembering their strokes (which is usually easy to do), its not a big deal. FUrthermore, any of your weapons work, whether you want Reflection, Glaive or Rosaries, you can win with whatever you want.
Then comes Darksiders where the only Tool you use is...Ruin. Your Horse. That's it. I guess you could use your spells for an offensive/defensive push but really, you'll just use Ruin for the first form, then nothing but your sword for the rest of the fights. So you have a huge inventory, with 2 other unique weapons...and you really can't use any of them? Now maybe the Fists and Scythe do work, but you generally don't use them for one on one combat cause the sword is just much better (both weapons are more situational, like Scythe is all about the big Crowd Control it has.)
The fights really feel like they just kind of lost the ability to care, and tossed in a generic gimmick boss that you kind of already dealt with in the Stygian (except he was better designed), and a generic slugfest that you already dealt with in Uriel (...also better designed.)
Anyway, once the boss is over, its onto the ending! Now, Darksiders has a bit more of a genuine ending scene than the other two games, in that stuff actually happens. Abaddon is defeated, then as War tries to get the Amulet which shatters, the Watcher decides to pull a fast one and basically reveals the Council's true intentions. The Watcher, unlike issun or Navi, is not on your side, as I said before, he's just there to make sure War is doing his job, cause the Council is a bunch of dicks. With War now screwed over, and that prophecy he saw earlier of being screwed over (oh, right, that happens in The White City too, kind of forgot about that, shows how memorable and important it is...), its like a sense of futility...
The Watcher's thing was basically saying that War's job was to kill everyone, and he'd do it to clear his name to prove he was NOT at fault of FAKE APOCALYPSE from before, however, they knew he wouldn't be "executioner" cause of his "Honor." Wait WHAT!? He's FUCKING WAR. He's got a Doctorate in killing things, a Ph.D in Violence, and a minor in style, WHERE DOES HONOR ENTER INTO THIS!? He's the personification of everything that is bad in people poking each other with pointed sticks, KILLING IS AMONG THOSE THINGS. He would have no qualms killing someone; the whole Uriel thing we just sort of assumed he let her live cause there was still some use to her, which ok, fine, but here? What the fuck no, seriously, what the fuck?
The Uriel tries to save the day, fails miserably, the Watcher calls her a Whore which is pretty cool actually, then talks about how if the Amulet were broken, War might get ideas of breaking out of his cage. He even says "YOu had freedom in the palm of your hand and you lost it!" You know, that analogy works better when it wasn't so FUCKING LITERAL cause War was holding the Amulet in the Palm of his hands. So what happens then?
War: *chuckles*
Watcher: What's so funny? Why laugh at your own funeral?
War: I'm laughing...at yours!
*War is impaled by the Armaggedon blade*
Uriel: Nex Sacrumentum, the Death Oath is complete!
Ok, so she kills War when they're clearly needed to be allies now...uh, yeah that...I don't care it. She then attacks the Watcher, and smashes the Amulet...so I guess she was just doing that to War for her own HONOR for FINISHING THE FIGHT, and then used that to get the Watcher off guard? I dunno, its just kind of screwed up. At this point, War somehow revives, now at FULL POWER and just sort of crushes the Watcher's skull in his fists. Before that, the Watcher says things to taunt him and such, to try and get War to no do it and it...fails miserably naturally. War just sort of beats the crap out of the Watcher after each line, then crushes his skull. Watcher also reminds War "Everyone hates you, YOU HAVE NO REASON TO LIVE!" before dying.
Then Uriel more or less says the same thing, basically saying "We might be enemies next time we meet, what are you going to do now that the Demons are going to come after you?" War's response is basically "I have friends too you know" and oh look, 3 meteors in the distance are seen...yeah, its pretty obvious he's referring to the OTHER 3 Horsemen (aka his "brothers"), and hey, what's gonna happen from here!?
*Credits Role*
...yeah, that's right...the game doesn't have a real ending. It just says "STAY TUNED FOR THE SEQUEL!" basically, which is pretty much a dick move. See, its one thing if this was the 2nd game and you wanted to turn it into a trilogy; movies do this all the time, making the 2nd and 3rd entries somewhat close together, with the first movie being self contained, ending in a way where its a genuine ending, but there's still Sequel bait to work with. Star Wars for example had an ending...but it never said "The Empire is completely defeated" and we know Darth Vader is still alive, and wouldn't you know it, Empire Strikes Back works off that, Empire Strikes Back ending with a cliffhanger ending for Return of the Jedi, naturally, as many 2nd entries in trilogies do. Now yes, Xenosaga did this too, but Xenosaga had a few things in its favor to make it far more forgivable:
It called itself Episode 1, and just about everyone expected that it was going to be a Xenogears prequel, Xenogears being episode 5, so there was obviously 3 games in between the two, meaning everyone knew Xenosaga was NOT going to be the end of the story.
Darksiders, though, you don't expect a "Stay tuned for the sequel ending!" and its not a game that really needed one. Okami and OoT both are genuine endings, and they both gained sequels despite this, though I can't speak for how good Okamiden is (Majora's Mask worked well enough with what they did at least.) Darksiders is not an ending; its a cliffhanger teaser.
So...yeah, while Darksiders has one hell of an impressive opening...its end stuff is pretty blech. Fetch quest, a few boring fights, some rushed plot shit, generic music, and then a boring ending credits with no real visual aid. Its easily the worst of the 3 games for ending, and not by a insignificant margin; its end stuff is pretty trashy where as OoT and Okami were well done.
So what about OoT vs. Okami then? Well, OoT puts up a good fight to be honest, but Okami overall wins for a few reasons. For starters, its hits you on an emotional level that OoT never could dream of with its scenes. Just compare Issun's leaving scene to Navi's leaving scene; disregarding Navi hatred, I can just sum up the two scenes as "one is has no text, the other does" and this is not a case where "silence adds to the scene". So yeah, I think Okami is a pretty clear winner overall, for all that OoT's stuff is by no means bad here. Its a case of "one was good, the other was better."
If you want a quick recap of all three?
OoT = Good!
Okami = More Good!
Darksiders = Not Good!
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I'll probably go through this rant and cut down on some parts where I ramble and make it more readable, so if its too long, then yeah, I agree. I'll certainly accept feedback on areas where you think deserve cutting down most too, for that matter.
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Well, guess I should get back to this...cause I hate you all...ESPECIALLY YOU...but ESPECIALLY YOU!!! (You know who you are!)
That said, working on redoing gameplay starts now!
DUNGEON CRAWLING
first off, before I get into this, I'll make one thing clear:
I am not getting into item exploration. I know people have noted its a major part of Zelda games and part of the appeal...but that's not really worth discussing when the other games do it as well, and its handled pretty much the same way, and the differences at that point are now pure taste factors and all that. For this reason, I'm going to consider Item Collecting more just a standard of the genre, and the way the genre works, the style used is more just kind of assumed, and they even share similarly natured-things you look for (OoT Golden Skulltulas (SP?), Okami has Stray Beads, Darksiders has all those Artifacts for Vulgrim, for a "Find everything and get rewarded!" thing.)
So lets deal with another prominent part of the genre, dungeon crawling! What is dungeon crawling? Simple...its actually doing the dungeons. That's...really all it is. I might be a bit loose in what's considered a dungeon, so if you don't agree with considering something a dungeon...tough, do your own rant!
Well, first off, all three games have something in common when it comes to dungeon crawling, that being they all follow the same general pattern of enter a dungeon, open a few locked doors either through various arbitrary puzzles or by finding random keys, get a new item (or in Okami's case, a "spell") in said dungeon, said item becomes integral for the rest of the dungeon. That's...about the extent of how these dungeons work, so I'm mostly going to focusing on specific aspects, maybe some stylistic things cause hey, looking cool helps make generic dungeon crawling more interesting! I mean, can you really argue with War punching a train car across ruined tracks into a wall just to clear space? ...ok, maybe you can, but that's irrelevant!
One thing I give props to Okami for that OoT and Darksiders seem to obsess over, maybe cause OoT its more a standard of Zelda games since the beginning and just escalated further in ALttP, and Darksiders cause how it likes to dry hump God of War style...everything...when its not emulating Zelda, is the usage of Block Pushing Puzzles. Block Pushing being "Anytime the character has drag or move a large object that slows down their movement in a set 4 direction plain." They're honestly the most boring and dull of any puzzle just cause they are such time wasters, especially when its just "Bring x object to y switch to open z door." The most creative these things get is maybe multiple block manipulation figuring out which block goes where, or alternatively, having to figure out how to get the x block to the y switch.
Okami...doesn't have Block Pushing puzzles...at all. The closest we get at ball pushing ones and those are few and far between. Ball Pushing does not slow Amaterasu down, though admittedly, it can be annoying when physics decides to hate yo, but often there's a wall to hug to mitigate this, and the Wind spell helps you move the thing faster too. Even so, just the lack of Block Pushing makes things move so much smoother. Darksiders did take a GOOD page from God of War at least (in addition to a lot of the fundamental flaws) in giving War the ability to LAUNCH blocks far distances after a point, allowing you to cover large distances a lot smoother. Sadly OoT has no such equivalent from my recollection, though to be fair, the game does not ever require you to go over TOO long a distance, so its never a really bad thing.
Now, for better or worse, OoT lacks something that both Darksiders and Okami have a decent amount of, and that's genuine platforming. This is of course because OoT lacks a genuine Jump button. The best we get with Link is a little short leap over gaps that you would never try a large jump unless you were absolutely mad...or until you get Hover Boots, which are generally gotten late, so many dungeons assume you do not have them. It also lets you jump up small ledges too but I don't think that really counts as platforming, more just the devs not being idiots about Link's inability to traverse slight height changes like many RPG characters run into.
Regardless, while you may argue its a good thing to lack platforming, I do think it hurts the dungeon creativity some. Anytime they need to deal with gaps or traversing high terrains, you either need to use hook shot, pushing a block (going back to block pushing puzzles) just to get a certain height, or slow wall climbing. Both Okami and Darksiders give you a jump Button, and Darksiders even has double jump as a standard, and gives you shortly into the game a "Hover" option to slow your descent down (totally not ripping off God of War 2's Wings! ...ok, I should really just stop the God of War comparisons to Darksiders, as its just getting silly now!) Okami has double jump available as a bought skill, but its not a standard and never necessary; it does have Wall Jump as a standard, though, and expects you to use it at moments as a result. As far as the actual jumping goes though, while Okami lacks a standard double jump, Ammy's jumping feels higher, further, and generally more fluid than War's, who even with a double jump allowing you to change direction and get a little more height/distance, still feels like a rock. I suppose its fitting though, given Ammy is a small little canine whose only equipment kind of magically floats on her back, while War is a big, muscular guy decked out in armor, with a huge fucking sword on his back, so uh...I guess we can call it gameplay/character design integration!? I've heard people arguing Link can't jump high cause he has a Long Sword and Heavy Shield on his back, which I'll accept for the adult arc, except that when it comes to the child arc, the Kokiri Sword is very clearly NOT large or heavy, even for a kid, and the Deku Shield is made of wood, and thus clearly not as heavy as the Hylian Shield which is so big and heavy that young Link can't even wield it properly, so I'm calling shenanigans! There's also the fact that Link can Backflip REGARDLESS OF HIS EQUIPMENT so I'm just kind of saying that the realism excuse is just bullshit!
Ok, in truth, I understand why Link does not jump, and its cause Zelda games in general do not like jumping...ignoring the Side Scrolling ones of course cause "Platforming game without jumping" would just fail miserably...unless you're Rad Spencer...you know what, forget the Side Scrolling Zelda games exist at all only cause they're clearly a different genre! Anyway, its clear jumping is not a standard of the series when it didn't exist until Link's Awakening when they gave him an ITEM that gave him that ability. It does make me wonder why they didn't bring that back, but whatever, not going to get into that. It seems they wanted to try and capture the Zelda feel of the older games, I guess, in a 3D plain, so limited jumping, but it did put a limitation on dungeons. There's not a lot of vertical movement in dungeons that isn't related to just climbing, nor any sort of actual small platform related things, and it makes the dungeons all the more polarized.
Now, yes, platforming can be regarded as a bad thing, but in the case of Okami and Darksiders, I do not think that is the case. See, in cases like God of War, platforming hurts cause failing it leads to a "You died, try again, lulz!" and when you die more often to PLATFORMING in an ACTION GAME than you do to actual combat, its frustrating as hell, and accomplishes nothing other than make you spend longer on a game in an area you're just not having fun with. Neither Okami nor Darksiders penalize you too heavily for platforming related failures. They have a general lack of "Fall down through a hole and redo half the dungeon over again!" barring one or two exceptions here and there, and falling down a hole is just "You take a bit of damage" and you can generally recover from that. Well, Okami also kills your Divinity Shield too, but that's just an extension of "Take damage".
...that reminds me, I need to punt those "redo dungeons cause of slight futz up!" things in general. They're just not fun in any sense of the word, and do nothing to add to gameplay but frustration. I was watching my little sister play the Fire Temple recently, and there's that balance beam part that she kept slightly screwing up on, and just to get back to the part she screwed up at would take a good 5 minute retracking. Situations like this are just in general stupid cause they lead to little chances to actually practice the scenario at hand, and waste a lot of time. I don't know who thought it was a good idea, or if its the dev's idea of laughing at people who suck, but its a clear case of artificial difficulty. Its not hard cause of the sequence in general, but rather, it takes a while to get to, and one failure means you have to redo everything, and with lack of adequate practice, you're bound to screw up multiple times.
No, this is not a slam at OoT, I just used that one example cause its the one I remember most prominently offhand. Its more of a general "fuck those scenarios" cause they are not fun. This applies to any game that pulls shit like this, forcing you to redo entire arcs cause of some mess up, be it a failure of dungeon design or lack of saving or what...yes, FF3DS' final dungeon, I'M LOOKING AT YOU.
Now, when it comes to actual item related puzzles...for the most part, Darksiders got lazy and just copied OoT on like everything. No, I'm not trying to be harsh, Darksiders' items are all pretty much just some sort of rip on OoT's. There are some alterations to the puzzles at least with Bomb Rocks being an environmental item instead of generic bombs, and the Cross Boomerang can do things never before seen, but in the end, it really comes off as "They made a bunch of Zelda items, now lets find some sort of new way to use it then EXPLOIT THE FUCK OUT OF IT CAUSE WE ARE TOTALLY NOT ZELDA!" Yeah, throwing a boomerang into a flame, having it light 5 bomb rocks on fire is cool...the first few times...but then when you're doing the same puzzle, just from different positioning with more strict timing, it gets old fast. Then Darksiders hands you a non-Zelda item at all...
A Gun that opens Blue and Orange Portals! Yeah, so instead of ripping off Zelda or God of War (oops, sorry about that!) like they've been doing the entire game, they rip off a DIFFERENT highly regarded game. Sure enough all puzzles from here are basically portal related shenanigans. At first, its cool directing the beam of light from one end of the dungeon to another...but you do it at least twice more after that, and by this time, my general thought was "ok, I get it, we did this already!"
OoT's items are for the most part items gotten in the earlier games...IN 3D!!! No, really, that's what many of them are. The Boomerang is still mostly a battle item, the hookshot exists to cross far ledges, bombs...are bombs...the Bow and Arrow exist to shoot eyeballs in the faces for the sake of some puzzles (which I believe ALttP took advantage of all of once cause its a cute original puzzle the FIRST TIME), some ways to light torches. I guess Hover Boots was an attempt at trying for platforming, and then Iron Boots was a means for underwater combat except its confined to the dungeon EVERYONE HATES so I'm not sure how much credit we can give THAT; points for trying, I suppose. Then we have tools like the Lens of Truth which are 100% gimmicky the way through (...and Darksiders even ripped off THAT go figure) for the sake of "hey, things are illusions!" Ok, its an attempt at something unique, but realistically, I do not see it adding that much; Super Metroid had something similar, but made it optional and never relied on it, and thus I felt it was better there. Making an entire dungeon require an item to see through illusions...one that slowly (if trivially) drains magic just feels...I dunno, but I felt its a gimmick that adds nothing and a case of "They're trying too hard." And then there's the Song of Time related puzzles that I mostly want to punt cause they're the most freaking obvious thing ever.
"There's this block...hey it has a symbol of time on it GEE I WONDER WHAT WE'RE SUPPOSE TO DO!?" Also trivializes the purpose of the name "SONG OF TIME" and...I'm sure I've ranted about that before and how the Song of time SHOULD have had more interesting applications (maybe not what Majora's Mask did, since that was its entire gimmick, but at least something related to, you know, TIME.)
I know I sound harsh on OoT, but I really did feel it reused a lot of the same puzzles over and over again (Darksiders is by no means innocent of this either as I established before.) How often do we need to light those torches by firing an arrow through them? How often do we have to blow up that slightly different looking wall to open a new path? It doesn't help that some of the tools as a child like the Slingshot are just re-iterated as an adult in the form of the Bow and Arrow. Or stuff like the Megaton Hammer is this big hyped weapon that you probably rarely ever use barring a rare fight here and there, and does very little as an actual tool, questioning why it exists in the first place.
Though, there are some neat stuff at least. The Gerudo Fortress was actually a stealth mission handled properly, unlike the "AVOID THE GUARDS HURR DURR" nonsense back at the Child Arc. You can't get caught, which is annoying...but you CAN fight back. Being able to walk up to a guard, and knock them out is a neat touch, as is sniping them from a safe distance...it actually uses Zelda's system and shows there is potential to be had, rather than all the conventional style dungeons. A nice change of pace from everything else and kind of makes me wish there were more. The Spirit Temple was also neat in trying to convey how a dungeon would be handled differently as an adult and as a kid, with things like "You're too big for this, only a kid can fit through!" and what not.
So this leads me to Okami. After all the repetitiveness of Darksiders and OoT, you'd think I'm going to hype Okami to hell, right? Well, much as I'd LIKE to, I can't do it on any objective level. It does feel more creative overall than those two games, partially cause it had some actual unique factors relative to both games (for all that it does have its fair share of equivalents. Vine spell is totally the Hookshoot, for example), like the Wind Spell or an Ice spell you actually use (OoT's Ice Arrows barely count and you know it.) Okami does keep you using spells from earlier parts of the game more regularly though with an obvious emphasis on "YOU GOT THIS IN THIS DUNGEON USE IT NOW!" that the other games have, and in more interesting ways than "You need to light the torch, FIRE AN ARROW THROUGH ANOTHER TORCH!". To give one thing about Okami that's annoying, FUCKING CAT WALK. The game has a lack of climbing and generally does not need it...so what's it do?
Give Ammy a spell that lets her climb specific walls if there's a cat statue there! If there's a single spell with a huge "WHY DOES THIS EXIST!?" in Okami, ITS CATWALK. I mean, if they can make stuff like Bloom have uses throughout the game (it has oddball battle purposes), why couldn't they punt Catwalk and just make another spell that serves multifunctions and do that? I mean, the final boss promotes using every spell in your arsenal...the way it justifies Catwalk is via random statues that let you get treasures...that you probably have a bajillion of...against the final boss...great...
Its kind of insulting cause Ammy has to learn how to climb walls (ok, she's a dog, so wall climbing isn't so easy, but then, she's a goddess too, and she has excellent jumping abilities!) half way into the game when both Link and War are able to do it since the beginning of the game. Wall Climbing isn't even fun to begin with! I mean, yeah, sometimes its a necessary evil, which is why I think OoT had it cause the idea of having arbitrary rising blocks in every dungeon, or elevators or something just gets ridiculous, so they just tossed in some climbing events which weren't bad outside of Death Mountain's wall scale (LARGE MOUNTAIN WITH SPIDERS THAT KNOCK YOU OFF! Some out of range of your ranged attacks! ...seriously, who thought this was a good idea?), and Darksiders mostly had it cause a certain other game had it which I WILL NOT MENTION AGAIN, so it felt IT MUST BE IN THERE TOO. These games also had Hookshot things to let you scale these walls faster after a point; Okami's equivalent does not allow that by nature, you have to actually jump up the wall, and if you screw up the original Catwalk nonsense, you may have to jump down, redo the thing (thankfully, it does not take that long, but its still annoying.) Basically, with the way OoT was structured, Wall Climbing was probably necessary at some points. Darksiders, with the rock like movements of War, its similar. With Okami...not only are there very few of them, every single one of these Catwalk moments feel like they COULD have simply been done if they just halved the height of the wall, or shoved a platform half way up and said "JUMP UP THIS HEIGHT USING SKILLS!" Ammy has platforming potential, USE IT MORE!
I guess the last thing I'll deal with is UNDERWATER FUN SHENANIGANS! Well, ok, Okami doesn't really deal with this much. Early in the game, you can swim, swim for too long, you drown, and it counts as a pitfall (see above.) Then you get Lilipads, and suddenly water moments become kind of meaningless cause you just use them!
OoT...I can't help but imagine this game would be improved without them based on one thing: Water Temple. A Water themed dungeon that the vast majority of people hate, whose gimmick can be summed up as just a lot of random swimming, shoving Iron Boots on such that you aren't swimming, and...really, it adds nothing. Oh, some diving mini-games here and there, and some diving puzzles, but did the game really gain anything from this? Comes off as "Link had a swimming ability in the previous two games, LETS EXPAND UPON THIS!" and well...really, I think the game had nothing to really gain from this.
Swimming in Darksiders comes off as more of an alternative style of combat with an attempt at unconventional movement. Enemies aren't hard thankfully, so the frustrating aspect isn't there, and thank god there are no bosses underwater either. Doesn't feel like it adds anything to the game other than maybe a touch more variety in gameplay so I guess its something refreshing every now and then, but then there are times where the swimming sections are longer than they need to be, and just make the game longer for no good reason.
In the end, I guess we can say OoT has the most polarized dungeons, but that's not to be surprised; its the first game of its kind and it didn't have any standards to work off of, so it was playing it by ear. No surprise Okami and Darksiders could take what OoT did and try to expand upon it more. This is definitely a case where I can see factoring age into consideration for OoT is a big deal, cause again, with nothing to be compared to at the time, at least for consoles, everything was an experiment. Though, Okami naturally shows that Age isn't always an excuse, as it overall did dungeons better than Darksiders, showing more creativity within the genre itself, and avoids things that would slow the game down (BLOCK PUSHING PUZZLES!!!!), for all that it doesn't avoid all the pitfalls (no pun intended) of the genre, such as "new tool, NOW WE WILL EXPLOIT IT!"
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Finally caught up on this one! I really liked the Ending section, and while it's spoilery, I feel like it could benefit from some pictures (at least one per game there) to highlight its best moment. That might be somewhat time-consuming, so I wouldn't blame you for not bothering, but if you did, I think you could call this article (at this length, maybe comparative thesis is a better term?) complete.
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Well, I need to have one more closing statement type thing, but I want to revise the gamelpay stuff, which I already started, so onto the next part right HERE AND NOW AND PIE!!!
Combat
Yes, boring name, but its a category, it doesn't need to be interesting! What, you think I'm going to label it "How Games Decide To Stick Pointy End of Sharp Objects Into Enemies?" That's too long! ...well, I guess HGDTSPEoOIE could work but fuck, now its an FF10 Challenge Acronym so screw it, onto the rant!
This section is dealing with combat (Duh?) and how the games handle it, and things tangentially related like Weapons, upgrades, etc. If you disagree with anything I say, remember this is opinionated, and that's fine, so long as we're clear that my opinion is superior to yours! Jokes aside, I'll be trying my best to disregard things that help add to combat that are not actually gameplay relevant, like music, scenary, plot shenanigans surrounding it leading to EPIC!!! and all that. With that out of the way...
As usual, OoT is my first target! Now, in what will likely get me tied to a traintracks while a train is coming down, after benig doused in gasoline and strapped to dynamite in a large fuse, I'm going to say OoT combat kind of sucks. Its clear the game didn't put any emphasis on its combat, as combat just isn't that engaging. Your sword attacks aren't varied, and only a few of your tools actually do stuff in battle, and then there's useless stuff like the Ice Arrows. Now maybe Ice Arrows hit a weakness on enemies or something, but considering how late they're gotten, and how rarely you're actually use Arrows in combat in the grand scheme of things (from my recollection, Arrows mostly just came in handy for sniping out Bats and Moblins. The "Free hits from a distance" thing is a lot more theory crafting cause enemies often are immune or just not far enough to make you care.)
Enemies are really not that varied in this game. Look at Lizardfos. They come in, slash you, and...that's it. So you can either block their hits, attack them on counter, or just slash like mad and kill them fast. Dinofoes are pretty much the same thing, and Stalfoes are them with shields, so the "Slash like mad" thing becomes less viable. These are probably the only case where the game resembles straight up combat. Other enemies are things like Redeads where its usually better to just not bother cause they're slow walking corpses, and I can't remember a single instance where you NEED to kill them. bats are typical "GOD DAMN BATS" that are annoying and generally its just "Use Range Weapon, win."
It doesn't help, as I established earlier, that OoT likes having 2 versions of each weapon for Child and Adult arc, so you end up using the same tactics as an adult as you do as a kid. Some of the cool things like Bomb(chu)s only really come in handy for specific enemies. Now, you can re-use the same enemies and not get boring, but for your system to work, you need to be more engaging, or alternatively, find creative ways of using said enemies. Like if OoT had enemies that actually shot arrows at you, and you had to snipe at them in return, placing these enemies in different alignments and making you find them is one thing. Devil May Cry 3, while not a game in this list, did this with Archers, where the first few times, they're just on vantage points that you have to get too. Then suddenly, they're firing at you from across a ridge THAT YOU CAN'T FIRE BACK AT, and outrange you. Its using the same enemy, but in a new way. OoT I find has a complete lack of this.
I honestly can't stop comparing this to, say, ALttP which never felt like that, but maybe because the game didn't try to pretend its system had more depth than it did. You mostly swung your sword at things, and tools felt more general use purposes. And frankly, I still don't see what people are saying about Din's Fire; I remember it looking more impressive than it actually is, and it being a waste of magic overall (and the things it WOULD be most useful on, swarms of bats, JUST GET STRONGER FROM IT.)
The game also removed some general Zelda Mainstays. One of my favorite things from the older games was the Sword Beam. Have full Health, get rewarded with a beam flying out of your sword. Yeah, it was Upgrade Only in Link's Awakening and easy to miss, but it was still there. OoT removed this stylish factor entirely (Majora's Mask at least brought it back IN SPIRIT in Great Deities mask.) Now, the Kokiri Sword not doing this is fair, but the Master Sword has no excuse! Yeah more of a pet peeve, but damn it, I WANT MY SWORD BEAMS :(
The game is misleading about options in general I feel. Look at the Deku Nuts. Do you ever really see much of a use for these? Yeah, they stun enemies, but...how often is this relevant? its honestly a case of an item that makes me go "Couldn't they think of something more interesting?" The older games had the Boomerang as an UNLIMITED stun weapon and it worked, and was more versatile, and a nice "Go to" default equip. It doesn't help that the Adult arc gets the Hookshot which has the same effect, and you get it EARLY in that half too. Heck, I think it says something that the game hands you an invincibility skill, but you probably won't make much use of it cause of all the "hey, you need this item!" and it doesn't offer you the kind of invincibility you actually could make use of. It doesn't help the game that outside of Iron Knuckles, I don't remember things being actually all that damaging.
For character upgrades...well, Hearts are a timeless tradition of the series, and works, and Heart Pieces are a workable way of spreading out items without making it too easy to increase health. Magic Upgrade...well, ALttP only had one magic upgrade, so that's just following suit, and I guess the game took advantage of more screen space or something and made the gauge actually double in size rather than a 1/2 indicator...which is a completely meaningless distinction cause all that matters is "YOU HAVE DOUBLE MAGIC!" and I'm not sure why I brought up that difference.
Now one thing I do give the game credit for is having a sense of elemental factors...though it kind of ends at "Fire". Goron Tunic presents limited resistance to Fire attacks, stopping you from being burned (which I seem to recall adds gradual damage if not tended via rolling and all that, which is a nice little dynamic effect), so that's a nice way to make an armor that was otherwise "EQUIP OR BURN IN A VOLCANO!" Also the Deku Shield being burnable, giving you a reason to swap it off. Sadly, the Zora's Tunic basically exists purely for that gimmick factor, and "Do you want to see L:ink wearing Blue instead?" Kind of a waste, unless it did provide resistance against Ice moves (rare as they are).
Boss fights are varied but they all essentially come down to "use item gotten in dungeon -> slash the crap out of the boss" for the most part. Phantom Ganon is an exception here, actually having a 2nd phase that demands you do something interesting. Oh, and Twinrova's pretty cool cause has TWO creative applications of the Mirror Shield, and really stands out as a unique fight. The rest of the fights kind of end up being just use tool, win.
Again, I reference ALttP where a running theme was "Tool you get in dungeon is going to be really useful against the boss!" but it was rarely necessary...and in some cases like the Sandworms, it just flat out was useless (while the Ice Rod, a side quest item, 2 Shots them, justifying its use there.) ALttP certainly felt like there were multiple ways to approach the fight, while OoT its "Approach fight in this specific way or lose." I mean, look at Volvagia for a second. Its a fight with a big awesome dragon, it should be really fun and awesome...but the end result is he just flies around wasting time, then its playing Wack-A-Mole with him using the Megaton Hammer (an immensely underused weapon for the most part, as it only comes in handy when the Sword does not for melee, which the number of enemies this is good for is countable on one hand) as pops out of a hole. Its such a polarizing fight really, and a waste of a bad ass design.
Now, one could argue simplicity is a good thing and in cases of older Zelda games, this leads true. OoT, I don't feel that's the case; it shows signs of having a sense of depth but it generally wasted and relies on using the same few gimmicks over and over again, and its really a polarizing game when it comes to combat. I'm told later games in the series fix this some, but this is about OoT, so "improvements since" are irrelevant. In the end, I'm just not seeing much of a combat system. You can argue I'm being too hard on it, but what I see is a bland, polarized, unevolving system with a few exceptional scenarios.
So what of Okami? Well, first off, Okami does a nice little thing in having Battle Scenes ala RPGs, which alter your controls, and keeps enemies out of your hair when you're doing puzzles and what not, separating enemies and fights. If its not obvious, this stops the game from potentially screwing you over during platforming sections, puzzles, what have you, and it also stops you from doing actions you don't want, though that wouldn't come up often anyway (doesn't in OoT either for that matter), so its not exactly a big deal, more of a theoretical one, in hindsight. It does mean, however, that Okami has a lot of AVOIDABLE fights too, and its easier to do so and the game is blatant about required random encounters by having those gate ways instead of the generic DEMON SEALS floating around.
Now first off, I need to emphasize the one major flaw of Okami's combat, which cannot be stressed enough cause its also what I regard as Okami's biggest flaw overall, and it stands out:
The game is way too easy. Oh sure, its no Rhapsody or anything like that, but the game almost never has a legit challenge. Its way too lenient on damage dealt, amount of healing you can get, resurrection items, etc. to the point where a lot of the system it has can be regarded as wasted. OoT wasn't exactly a hard game itself, but it wasn't insultingly easy the way Okami is. Okami's difficulty is low enough to the point where it actually detracts from gameplay, cause it never really emphasizes trying to improve your skills, try new things out, etc. To some degree, the game just ends up being "Do you have enough resources to outlast this guy's health?" completely compromising the skill factor, and your resources can get really deep, and easy to stock up on. Alledgedly, Okami puts up an actual fight if you ban yourself from using like any items at all, but that's clearly falling into the realm of challenges, and is not a standard, though one could argue the existence of not having to USE an option like that is a point in its favor as it means there's an artificial means of a "hard mode", but that excuse can only go so far.
Which is a shame, cause the actual combat system is at its core fun and dynamic. That's one of the big things Okami has over OoT, really and I've said it a lot; the game is dynamic. There's a large number of interesting enemies, and very few feel like just redesigned versions of other enemies (yes, Guay and Keeses, I'm looking at you), and you haev a large number of options to use, both with your weapons, the celestial brush, and even some fun jumping mechanics, dodging, etc. Its a lot faster paced than OoT's combat too, as you're not doing any of that defensive "SHIELD UP!" stance stuff, no waiting games, you're constantly on the move.
Starting off with the weapons, Okami gives yo 3 weapon classes in Reflector, Glaive and Rosaries. Reflector is your basic balanced weapon, being simple to use, and all that. Rosaries are your range weapon, being slower and more recovery, but hit long range, and are safe to use in that regard. Glaives hit hard as hell, and can be charged, but are slow, and a little awkward to use in the air. The game takes it a step further by allowing Sub-weapons to be equipped, letting you use a 2ndary weapon for secondary effects. Generally speaking, Reflectors offer a block move, Rosaries a quick fired projectile that does minimal damage (though MACHINE GUN BEADS with the Tundra Beads is damned badass to watch. If you don't believe me, go watch MvC3 fights where Ammy uses Cold Star THEN tell me that <_<), and Glaives I think offer some sort of dashing stab move, giving that "Attack that lets you close distance" factor. There's 5 of each weapon too, though generally, the earlier weapons are outclassed by the later ones, the sub weapons all provide different factors. Still, it allows you to play in different styles just between 3 completely unique weapons, something OoT lacked (OoT gave you Sword and 2H Sword that took away your shield; beyond the Shield factor, they were basically the same.)
Another thing Okami has going for it is actual mobility unlike OoT. OoT dodge maneuvers required Z-targetting, and often didn't do that much, and you often just "Ran to get out of way of slow projectile." Okami has actual jumping, which alone makes a huge difference, and dodge maneuvers that can be used on the fly (the Wii version, which I'm not basing this off of, does screw this up by making the dodge mechanic basically IMPOSSIBLE to control the direction of), and heck, the UPGRADE of the Dodge Maneuver can actually be used to do some mild damage. Again, this all falls under the fact that Okami fights are Dynamic; you're constantly moving and doing things, and that's a good thing. Enemies are constantly moving too, and there aren't any real long pauses between actions either.
And then there's the Celestial Brush, which lets you haev a bunch of extra options on the side for more shenanigans. Want to drop a Cherry Bomb on the enemy on the opposing side of the field? You can do it. Use their own fire attacks against them with your own Fire spell? You can do it. Yes, a lot of this is situational, but its more than just "see enemy, use x tool to win." A lot of these enemies do not require you to use such things (though there are ones that definitely do. The Igloo enemies come to mind), but they're still there to add to combat. To top all this off, as an incentive for actually avoiding damage and finishing fights fast, you get rated on your combat skills, such that you can gain up to twice the cash at the end of the fight that you earned.
That's another thing I left out, enemy rewards in OoT. OoT has typical "enemies die, drop basic rewards like hearts and rupees" type thing, and...there's really nothing wrong with that; it worked in older games, so if its not broke, don't fix it. Okami does the same thing, but also rewards your competence further. Granted, Okami money is notably more important than OoT cash, so the lack of this in OoT isn't really a noteworthy flaw, so much as an added bonus for Okami, if that makes sense.
Okami has a deep inventory with a lot of interesting items too, between healing, stat boosting items, an AoE attack item, invincibility, etc., and they can be used on the fly. Of course, this is partially why Okami is so insultingly easy; the game is way too lenient on this stuff. Not to mention on top of all that stuff, Okami also has the Divinity factor; Ammy has a natural barrier around her, which has 5 Stages, those being Green, Yellow, Red, non-existent, and Skull. The barrier offers ANOTHER buffer to damage, and I'm not sure the Skull variation has any penalties other than suggesting your barrier is taking a fuck ton of time to regenerate. Yes, the Barrier regenerates on its own, so the more time between hits Ammy takes, the more it regenerates...and there are items that regenerate it too. To be honest, I think the idea is cool, and would be a welcome addition and further incentive for consistency in avoiding damage...if the game wasn't so god damn easy to begin with.
Bosses, Okami does do the "use latest skill on boss" thing like OoT, but...bosses have so many more attacks, and there's often more creative usage of the ability, not to mention the whole "Okami fights are more dynamic" thing kicks in. You're constantly moving, dodging attacks, and waiting for that opening, and the fights are just faster paced. Then there's fights like Orochi which just show what the game is REALLY fully capable of, and uses the system to its fullest. If Volvagia is a boss who totally wastes his design, Orochi is a boss who uses his design to its fullest. It has 8 heads, all with different attacks, and elemental properties, and the fight is multiple stages, its really a well crafted fight. Then there's the fight with the Owls which is just awesome for style reasons cause YOU HAVE ALLIES. Having Shiranui and Oki and doing things with them just make for unexpected twists.
And then there's character development. While having Sun Discs to emulate Heart Pieces, Okami lets yo actually develop multiple aspects of Ammy, and its not all related to getting more and newer items, or just finding the right fairy for one time upgrades. Getting actual Divinity points or whatever they're called, you can raise stats like your Ink (for Magic) or health that way too, kind of like a controlled RPG Growth. So even if you aren't good at finding items, you can still develop Ammy in some manner. It also has more traditional style RPG shops where you buy things and can stock up on a lot of items, as well as even occassional weapons. Plus there's demon fangs, which can be earned doing fun little things in combat too (an incentive to try something DIFFERENT once in a while, as well as a reward for overkilling enemies in a specific way to make it look cooler), for a 2nd currency. There's definitely a much stronger sense of freedom in the developing of Ammy over Link, so different playstyles, and what not are further encouraged.
Heck, even your techniques need to be bought, which again, shows there's a whole lot of facets and "play at your own pace" for Okami. There's a lot of different factors and ways to develop your character such that it keeps things fresh, and they're not all related to item hunting or dungeons either.
Okami had a lot of potential in its system, and there's a multitude of cool stuff in it...but its difficulty really puts a huge scar on it, as it means all this cool stuff kind of goes to waste. OoT isn't exactly a hard game either, but it never felt as trivially easy as Okami did, as Okami you never really feel threatened to die, since even when you're low on health, its so easy to recover. Its really a shame, as the only way for the game to really have a sense of difficulty is through self imposed challenges that limit what you can use, and that's only an artificial way to make the game harder.
Which leads to Darksiders, a game that is notably harder than both, to the point where you can't take anything for granted in combat! Ok, the game isn't ridiculously hard or anything but outside of a few specific enemies (DAMN REAPER GUYS IN THE LAST REAL DUNGEON!!!!), the game has that right level of difficulty where its hard enough to make things more engaging, but never too hard to make it frustrating. Darksiders, on paper, takes pretty much the best elements of what Okami had to offer, and applied to a game that actually requires a stronger sense of urgency and threat.
Combat wise, the game is...God of War, with a Zelda-style Inventory, in the grand scheme of things. You hit things, you have an "Auto Kill" button that kills small things, and kills big things immediately if they're low enough on health (though removes Quick Time event bullshit from God of War, so there's that.) There's combos and tricks to do, but overall, they are often inferior to just "Slash sword three times, knock enemy away." The game does offer a reason to use techniques by making only certain moves build up your Chaos Gauge for Chaos Form, which is a damned awesome super form...which becomes useless if you are fighting anything with a gimmick cause it completely removes all your options, but hey, nice trump card if you're in trouble for most enemies.
Like Okami, Darksiders has 3 weapons, though no variations of them, it makes up for it with the accessory equipping thing to give different bonuses like "More souls!" "More damage!" "more magic drops!" and such, so I guess there's that. The weapons are all varied, being Sword is balanced, Scythe is Crowd Control, and Fists is a big smack of doom that gets things off you. You can use 2 weapons at a time but one is always the sword, and this would seem cool if there were any combos that involved alternating weapons, which makes me wonder why they didn't just do DMC style weapon changing rather than "Equip your second weapon!"
Now, while Darksiders does liberally rip off of Zelda games for items, Darksiders does one thing OoT doesn't do with its equips, and that gives them more universal applications. The Hookshot equivalent is a way to pull you or the enemy closer to one another, which has obvious applications. The Bladed Boomerang can actually hit multiple enemies, and be used as a good run away mechanic, and the Gun...well, ok, theoretically its an easy to use ranged weapon, but I think its a little too weak to care (where as OoT's Arrows did actual damage.) The game also has the "use terrain objects to kill things", which are sometimes cool stuff like dropped ANGEL CANNONS to fire at the enemy...and sometimes stuff that SHOULD be cool but isn't like, say, THROWING CARS at enemies. Manually aiming is a bitch in combat too, though Auto Aiming exists thank god for most things.
War also has Ruin to just drill through little hordes of enemies, which makes later parts of the game faster in addition to faster combat. Right, forgot to mention Epona in OoT didn't I? well, that's cause Epona doesn't really COUNT as Combat. You can use Arrows, but only for a minigame and "Shoot Big Poes" who don't actually fight back, thus doesn't really count as combat more just hunting, so its not comparable to Ruin who has actual combat merits (and is needed in some bosses even!)
And then there's magic you can use to get rid of enemies in large groups, but have limited shots of it. I actually have issue with this not cause of its existence but rather, you tend to forget it exists cause its not easy to refill, and you tend to be conservative of it, which kind of defeats the purpose of implementing this. If you're going to have a limited resource that requires management and its meant to make Combat more intriguing, try ENCOURAGING the usage of it. Going "You have this, BUT DON'T WANT TO USE IT UNTIL A BOSS!" is a pitfall many older RPGs fell into, and Darksiders kind of has that too. Its not as bad as God of War, at least, cause you have a lot more options otherwise, and you can fill up your chaos meter faster than the Rage of the Gods/Titans, but you get the point.
If its not obvious, Darksiders was kind of built around its combat more than the other two, selling itself more as an action game with Zelda-like elements, as such, it really needs to make its combat good. So is it good? On paper...yeah, it should be, but in practice, the game doesn't live up to its potential. Its monotonous cause enemies aren't really varied as you'd like, as its often just "use dodge move, slice things away", the "Auto Kill" button for little enemies doesn't help things, and enemy variety certainly could have been done, but isn't. Though, there's another reason why Darksiders combat is more monotonous:
There's too any enemies. Every room more or less has a good deal of enemies in it, and you need to kill them all often, and what starts as fun and dynamic leads to monotonous. It needed to show restraint in this regard.
To its credit, boss fights are good. While they do follow the mold of "use your latest item", they do actually try more creative factors with it that you don't use on randoms, and bosses put up an actual fight. One thing I need to hype Darksiders for lacking, which is an odd thing, and its not relative to the other two games so much as I was happy it wasn't there cause I was expecting it is Quick Time Events. You will see a big "PRESS BUTTON!" Icon on the enemy, and then War Auto-pilots the rest of the fight. Many other games would say "Press button to continue sequence!" but Darksiders lacks this. There are a few enemy attacks that must be Quick Time Event dodged, but they're usually "Button Mash Fast enough to get out of this", and the move in question is often undodge-able, BUT if you succeed, it puts you in a nice strong advantageous scenario IN ADDITION to avoiding damage. See, I don't mind these quick time events, cause they do actually add something to gameplay, and serve a purpose. They aren't REQUIRED to do either ever, as you can still win if you fail these, but its naturally recommended you do.
Okami actually does have QTEs on that note, but they're short, and spread apart, and only one of them (CHERRY BLOSSOM DANCE!!!) is dumb; it was more the game trying to make more use of its Celestial Brush factor, so its understandable, and you are using "skills" you've been building the entire game...plus the penalty for failing is just "TRY AGAIN" and you have limitless attempts (many games with QTEs in battle often yield "Failure = take damage, if not die!", even though you JUST WIPED OUT THE ENEMY HEALTH GAUGE.)
Though, something I need to bring up is lack of Health Gauges. Darksiders really could have benefitting from shownig Health Gauges of enemies and bosses, to give you a better idea of how much they're left, what moves of yours are doing damage and how much, to see if you're actually DOING anything, what have you. Okami had health gauges on ALL enemies, so you never had this problem, and OoT had enemies give a very obvious reaction if your attack did damage, and generally had low enough durability that you could count how many hits was needed to kill them, so lack of the Health Gauges there wasn't a big deal. Darksiders has no real excuse ni this regard, and its an artificial inflation to difficulty.
At its core, Darksiders doesn't really do anything wrong with combat, and actually does many things right, but it has some execution failures and needs to show restraint. Okami has a similar issue, but for a different reason (that being Okami doesn't actually put up an actual fight), but nonetheless, Darksiders shows potential, but that potential never really feels used. It probably has the most potential of the 3 games cause of the number of options at your disposal, and how the game definitely feels built around combat, but it never quite reaches it.
For character development...well, it has the Heart Piece shenanigans and magic boosting stuff to compliment it, but also has a whole bunch of skills that are storebought by Vulgrim to make your weapons do more stuff. How often you use them depends, though really outside of the Dash Stab, you'll probably forget a lot of these exist, or they'll replace something else and you use them by accident.
I feel like now I'm not really going anywhere, so yeah, just ending it here. The game's show gradual increase of depth such that the later game shows the most potential, and OoT shows the least. OoT's nature feels like it was kind of condemned for generic, dull combat, and I stand by that despite how people will adamantly defend it. Okami has a good amount of potential but its hampered by the game being TOO EASY such that it tends to go to waste, and Darksiders kind of didn't exploit its potential nearly enough by not varying its enemies, as well as making you fight too much of the same thing.
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Last section of Gameplay stuff, I promise!
Miscellaneous Gameplay
To sum up Gameplay as purely Dungeons and Battles is...not quite fair. There's little extra things on the side after-all, be it mini-games (which thank god all 3 games lack a little girl requiring CPR...), both required and optional, optional item collection factors and rewards from it, among other things. This section, since its a lot harder to compare things one to one, will be a lot more loose, less critical, and more just getting stuff that didn't quite fit into the other two gameplay sections but acknowledge their existence cause they're there. So don't expect to see much in the way of critical analysis here, this is more objective or something. I will also probably be bouncing back more between games just cause its easier.
First off, TRAVELING! Well, all three games got one thing very right, and that's the idea that quick warps from various points on the map is a good thing and should be a staple of the genre. Actually, thinking on it, I think it IS a staple of the genre, as even the original LoZ had it with the Flute transporting you between dungeons. Its never implemented exactly the same way (though USUALLY through your musical instrument in LoZ games, OoT is no exception), but it generally always exists in some form in every game I played (and this is where someone will come in and say "You're an idiot! *insert Zelda Game Meeple hasn't played here* totally lacked that and you'd know that if you played it!" or some shit like that, to which my response is "Well, *insert Zelda Game Meeple hasn't played here* isn't part of this review so SHOVE IT!" I honestly do not know if there's actually a case where this exists though...). Nonetheless, the three games have, all implemented differently:
OoT has the Warp Songs you get from Shiek, which is the game's way of limiting you from warping to areas you haven't been to yet; you need the appropriate song to go appropriate spot! Fair enough. Only gripe is that its completely absent in the first half of the game, though at the same time, you aren't traveling quite as much as in the Adult Arc, or backtracking much for that matter, so this is a pretty mild factor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but OoT has literally one instance where one of these songs is flat out REQUIRED, that being Spirit Temple as a Kid. I'm not sure what the point of pointing that out was, just something I'm arbitrarily pondering.
Okami has the Mermaid Coins; go to a certain pond with a Whirlpool, conveniently marked on your map as you pass them, toss an easily found Mermaid Coin (which are storebought) into Pond, go to any one that you've already discovered. Simple, gets the job done, introduced about 20% of the way into the game. From my recollection, and given it uses an expendable (if easily restocked) resource I don't think the warps are EVER required, so they're basically tossed in as a pure genre convenience standard.
Darksiders, interestingly, the first time you get it, the game basically says "YOU MUST USE IT CAUSE YOU LOST YOUR FEATHERED FRIEND!" Uh, ok, fair enough or something, at least its introduced early so I can't complain or something. It does force you to walk in a completely meaningless cavern which feels more like "we wanted the artists to earn their keep, thus forced them to design these areas" cause there's no actual gameplay there. No monsters to fight, no platforming, puzzles, etc. Its just Run from Point A to Point B. Now, see, I could understand them having this if these were how the game chose your Point A to Point B thing, where it had like teleporters yo jumped into which determined your destination...but its not. You choose your destination on the map like in Okami (OoT, your destination was chosen based on the song, which is similarly straight forward. This could lead to "wait, which leads where!?" except the areas are all elementally themed and the songs are basically NAMED AFTER THEIR ELEMENTS so if your brain is half functioning, this won't be an issue ever), but instead of jsut taking you to the spot directly, its this boring passage. The passages aren't long or offensive, just...kind of there and meaningless, and gets you this sense of "could have saved a bit of time not having these." This is a minor complaint, as they serve their purpose and ARE efficient ways of backtracking.
Speaking of Transportation, I might as well talk about the actual slow method of transporting yourself from one spot to another, that being actually traveling on foot. All games have this, so its stupid to talk about it, but well, there are things to consider. For starters, run speed; how much traveling across large batches of terrain is tolerable can really be affected not only by raw distance but the speed the character in question is running.
Link tends to run a bit slowly, though you can roll a lot to speed yourself up a bit, which looks silly, gets a lot of "HA!" sound effects as he rolls, and still isn't all that efficient. Its not bad when covering small amounts of terrain, but I do have distinct memories of the first time I played the game, when I reached Hyrule Field with my friend, how it took FOREVER to get from Kokiri Village to Hyrule Castle Town. I was actually saying "Is that really as fast as you can go?" I'm not sure if Adult Link runs faster or not though, by then, its a lot less of an issue, for one simple reason:
Epona. Yes, the horse. It can be gathered rather early in the adult arc, and all it needs is you to learn how to not suck at a mini-game! Epona is exactly what makes the traveling in the Adult Arc a lot more bare-able, cause she's a huge jump in speed relative to on-foot Link, and gets you across Hyrule Fields (and wherever else she's usable) in like 1/3rd the time. Sadly, it can't be used when Link is a child when you have to go back in time, though by the time yo care, you probably have learned a few of those Warp songs mentioned above, and you're not going to anywhere new anyway, so the problem is mitigated.
Okami...well, Amaterasu runs REALLY FAST. Her slowest speed is already like twice that of Link's on-foot speed, and she gets faster the longer distance you run, actually accelerating (which has the nice touch of changing the plants that grow behind Ammy.) There are moments where large parts of terrain need to be crossed and it looks intimidating, but then Ammy's speed kicks in, and its not as bad as it looks. Now, Okami does have a larger overall world than OoT's Hyrule, though its split into sections and you generally deal with one section at a time, and its less running across the same large field over and over again as a result. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with anything, and whether its a good or bad thing, but hey, ITS THERE.
Darksiders...I wanna say War runs faster than Link, but psychologically he feels slower cause he's a big heavy dude that clinks as he runs. That, and I think the general scope of areas War covers is larger than Link's anyway, so it tends to offset itself, and he definitely runs much slower than Ammy. Thankfully, War is decent enough to get Ruin about halfway into the game, which is that game's version of Epona, though more arbitrary about where it can be used. Like Epona, which I didn't mention earlier thinking on it, Ruin has a "Speed up" option to make himself go faster, so there's 2 sets of speed, and even the slowest setting is a huge step up compared to War's run speed (or Link's, in the case of Epona's), which helps things go by faster...
...still, the horses aren't really any faster than Amaterasu's max run speed, which she gets from the get go, so while I said I wouldn't be comparing, its hard to ignore the objective advantages here: Okami is just better cause you start the game off fast and never slow down, and you aren't limited by terrain as to when you can use that speed. Not to mention, Ammy controls more intuitively than the horses, being the on foot basis, while the horses use Tank Controls which I'm not exactly fond of (MIND YOU, I do have a notable amount of respect for God Hand and Resident Evil 4, both games that use Tank Controls the ENTIRE WAY THROUGH, so Tank Controls aren't an instant condemnation for me, just I prefer non-tank controls)
And that is exactly why we are going to talk about MInigames! Why? Cause Epona has minigames attached to her, therefor its a logical progression and if you think otherwise, I will subject you to a full hour of nothing but Navi voice acting.
OoT has a crap load of mini games between Bombchu bowling, various archery stuff, I think it even has a Simon Says Orcarina Based Mini Game? Whatever, they're all over the place, they're diverse, and I think they're pretty much all optional, most ending up being "HERE'S A HEART PIECE!" or "UPGRADE TO AN ITEM YOU HAVE LIKE MORE BOMBS!" This isn't really a bad thing more just illustrating how they can be skipped entirely and you won't notice as they mostly give you conveniences. I mean, your initial bombs, arrows, etc. is at like 30 from my recollection, so unless you go spam happy with these things, you're unlikely to run out when you need them, though getting more is a nice failsafe.
One thing that is kind of irksome though is the money system. You start the game only able to get 99 Rupees, and you have to hunt down various little spiders just to upgrade to 200, and then even more to upgrade to 500? That's kind of annoying if you ask me, and sounds like its a standard in the series when it really shouldn't be. Limitations on money just adds another factor that doesn't help anything. Especially since ALttP had a cash cap at 999, and honestly, that never felt broken, since Zelda money isn't THAT big, but making you unable to buy simple upgrades until you kill these hidden enemies? That's kind of dumb, I find.
Now yes, Okami does have a money upgrade thing, but you upgrade it whenever you get enough divine power, and you tend to upgrade it long before you have a moment to care about the cap anyway, so its more just something extra to spend points on. Darksiders has no such equivalent, its just "kill more enemies for more delicious souls!"
But anyway, BACK TO MINI GAMES! Okami has a bunch, most notably the digging one that you're required to do several times, and then more minor ones like fishing...which OoT also had, and it was kind of annoying there cause it was almost a Bass Master game taken to a stupid level. Okami's is more just a simplistic mini-game, but then, Okami's is required at least once, while OoT's is a pure "GET ANOTHER HEART PIECE!" scenario, so it can be skipped outside of 100% completion runs, so uh...we'll say they cancel out. The mini-games are generally inoffensive and feel more like extensions of stuff you've been doing...much like OoT's actually. One nice thing about Okami's is that failing a minigame has no real penalty other than "You suck, try again" though the stupid QTE regarding the Cherry Blossom Dance is dumb cause there's a decent amount of text between each failure and you have to sit through the same animation over and over again (Contrast this to Susano's Orochi Head Slicing moments where its done quick and fast, so each failure doesn't get on your nerves as much.)
There really isn't much to say other than "They're there, you have to do some of them" and move on. They're not offensive, more just excuses to use the Celestial Brush in creative ways.
Darksiders has a general lack of Mini-games. It instead, however, has an RAIL SHOOTER SECTION ON A GRIFFON that was totally NOT stolen from God of War 2's Pegasus section which...seriously, WHY!? Unlike the above two, dying here is actually dying, and its a complete genre shift, and its never replicated again. Its just a poorly designed section that was done just cause "HEY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!" You know, I could buy them wanting to do something different if this section wasn't BEFORE THE FIRST REAL DUNGEON IN THE GAME, which begs the question of "Just what are people getting tired of exactly?" It'd be like if in FF7, before you leave Midgar and get to the World Map for the first time, you're forced to do an elaborate mini-game that resembles a racing game! ...wait a minute...
Ok, more seriously, one big difference between the Motorcycle Minigame (and most of FF7's) is that they were FORGIVING at your suckiness. You took damage as you failed at it, sure, but it wasn't enough damage to matter a whole lot. Darksiders is not forgiving; you actually have to show a good amount of competence in a section that's a completely different genre than the rest of the game, and you've been playing the game for all of like 2 hours. Its almost like they wanted an excuse for Vulgrim to be forced to tell you about the Short Cut Tunnels I spoke of earlier, cause that was one way you got from point A to point B.
All 3 games have some big optional items you can collect. OoT has the Gold Skultullas, which you search for in various places, kill them, get a reward for every 10 (which I sort of covered earlier what's wrong with the rewards in question) until the 50th, then you don't get anything new until 50 more later. And your reward is...infinite cash...
...call me a cynic, but infinite cash in a game where money isn't exactly a big deal (the money RESTRICTIONS are what I was sniping at, cause wanting to buy something that costs 200 Rupees when your max is 99 is a little different than just farming those 200 Rupees) is kind of a weak reward for traveling the world and getting all that crap. Furthermore, you've likely gotten EVERYTHING ELSE when you get all 100 Gold Skulltulas, to the point where Money is ESPECIALLY useless at this point, so it makes the reward that much more trollish when you think about it. Going through all that effort to kill 100 things spread out across the world, checking every nook and cranny, only to get something that really doesn't do you any good or and any enjoyment. You know what WOULD have been an awesome reward, if a pure novelty?
THE TRADEMARK ZELDA SWORD BEAM PROJECTILE. I mean, Link's Awakening did it with the Secret Seashells, and Majora's Mask sort of gave it to you in the form of the Great Dieties Mask for collecting all Masks, why couldn't OoT do it!? Gee, thanks for missing an opportunity to give us something stylish.
Okami has the stray beads, there are too god damn many of them (well, only 100), though a checklist the game provides tells you the general vicinity of where they are, or at least, you can sort of figure it out based on extrapolations and such, as the game actually tells you "You found bead #62!" and such. You also don't get any rewards until you found all of them, though the reward yo get apparently is some ludicrously broken accessory that is completely batshit insane, so its actually worth finding them all on that novelty front, far more than "Infinite money in a game where you don't spend a lot!" To Okami's credit, I think the beads carry over into NG+, so you don't haev to search for them every single game, and can focus on finding the newer ones or something. Either way, while the reward isn't useful (partially cause Okami is so freaking easy, but also cause you can't get all Stray Beads til late), it at least gives you a reward that KIND OF justifies the effort, and the existence of NG+ means you can actually have fun slaughtering the game with said item (from my understanding anyway.)
It also has those oddball hunts, which...I'm honestly not sure what the reward for killing them all is...or a single one. Basically, sometimes, enemies will spawn a specific suped up version of the enemy which has a name, that you're suppose to kill. Kill it, get some rewards, and I can't even remember what it is cause I never really bothered, and its nothing something that even comes up often accidentally. I'm just going to label it a "Superfluous Factor" and move on. The game does have a good number of optional bosses though...mostly Spider Queen variations...but hey, extra boss fights isn't a bad thing, RIGHT!? I wanna say their rewards were Sun Disc Fragment (ie Heart Piece equivalent.)
Darksiders has the Abyssal Armor pieces. oddly, it places the Armageddon Blade pieces on the same screen, and that's a required thing to get, so its kind of being spoilertastic as you can't even search for them until 90% of the way into the game (at which point, it becomes your primary objective), but that's also meaningless. I don't quite know what the Abyssal Armor is and if you get all 10 some odd pieces, but I can only assume its some awesome defensive upgrade. Its implemented...more or less the same as the above, only less pieces to find, so if yo were to FAQ it, it'd probably be a lot less annoying to get everything.
I noticed the game also has this spontaneous British Skeleton with a top hat who attacks yo and is basically a miniboss if you return to specific parts of certain areas. I have NO FREAKING CLUE what the point of this guy is and probably SHOULD look up what his purpose is other than being "random encounter superior to other randoms." I guess he gets points for being a Skeleton WITH A TOP HAT who fights you with a cane or something.
Oh, right, reminds me, OoT also has the whole Mask trading system as a kid! Its...uhh...kind of...there? Due to the Wallet nonsense though, you definitely want to wait to finish it until you get the Giant's Wallet, due to the final guy giving you an absurd amount of cash! see, this is actually an appropriate reward (and the mask of Truth is a nice little novelty) cause the Masks are a lot easier to deal with and don't involve running around the entire freaking world, checking every spot.
Other gimmicks...well, the only other thing I can think of is OoT's Orcarina, a feature that could have had neat gameplay integrations but really didn't. Most of the Orcarina's applications are for plot advancement or straight forward puzzles (Why does the Song of Time have NOTHING TO DO with actual Time?) Sun Song apparently does stun Redeads which is a cool application, but otherwise, its just kind of there. Scarecrow Song, the optional "Whatever you want it to be song" could have been interesting but really just ended up being "hey, you need this to get that chest over there." I mean, imagine if you could have used the song in battles to summon a scarecrow as a decoy? That'd be a neat application that doesn't go against its nature, no?
And then there's songs like Song of Storms that is criminally underused (and is one of the better themes in the game...) and just kind of there to be a "6th Song." I will give points to Saria's Theme for being a kind of "Help!" option at times I suppose, at least I seem to recall it had that effect.
I think that about sums it up for gameplay. Not much else to say in that regard.
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If any of what I said was actually covered in a previous section, please tell me and I'll try to cut it either from there or here, so I don't sound like I'm repeating myself. If I missed anything, of course, feel free to smack me.
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The Adult Wallet is the reward for 10 skulltulas (I'm pretty sure anyway), so fortunately you can get it long before any items that sell for more than 99 rupees are available, but it's still a fairly stupid thing to put into that sidequest. Otherwise, I always liked the sheer variety in OoT's minigames, it's really one of the things that makes the 64 games stand out to me.
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The Adult Wallet is the reward for 10 skulltulas (I'm pretty sure anyway), so fortunately you can get it long before any items that sell for more than 99 rupees are available, but it's still a fairly stupid thing to put into that sidequest. Otherwise, I always liked the sheer variety in OoT's minigames, it's really one of the things that makes the 64 games stand out to me.
Honestly, I don't even remember anything costing 100+ Rupees that can't be picked up elsewhere. Hell, even the 80 Rupee Hylian Shield can be found in the Graveyard.
Also, kind of curious why Zelda, with its barely needing money and having an upgrade to money-holding capabilities, is apparently worse than Okami, with its needing money for the teleportation I guess? and having an upgrade to money-holding capabilities. Not the first time I've seen this review as a little anti-Zelda or pro-Okami, though, so... to be expected, I guess. (I'm not saying that having the Wallets as part of the Skulltula quest is good, mind - for all that I think you can easily get 10 from Kokiri Forest/Deku Tree/Kakariko alone? - but having to upgrade money-holding capabilities in any way is just annoying no matter what the circumstances. I don't see why Okami gets a pass for it for no particular reason.)
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Mermaid Coins cost such a small amount to the point where the money reqs are meaningless, and Okami's starting cash cap is notably more lenient than 2 digit Zelda Rupees. Upgrading your cash cap in Okami is also a really trivial thing to do; its get a few Divine Points, put it into your wallet, cash cap is now a whole extra digit higher.
Zelda, you have to actually do some of the item search mini-game, and while the first upgrade (Adult Wallet) isn't too hard, getting 30 of them can be annoying.
The upgrade is notably lower, and the effort required is notably higher. The "Requirement" for cash with mermaid coins practically never comes up (buy 20 early game and you're basically set the entire game) cause they're dirt cheap, and when expensive things in Okami come up.
Overall, cash cap upgrades are a dumb mechanic, though Okami definitely handled them a lot better.
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I guess its time to finally wrap this freaking thing up or something...cause I hate you all...so here's a bunch of kittens!
CONCLUSION
And so we reach the end of the analysis, and well, you obviously have had enough of my biased ways and what not, but I feel I should mention SOME closure. As I said before, I chose these three games for a specific reason. OoT was a game that, in some sense, was the first of this genre, and is regarded still by many as the best. Okami is more modern, but not new anymore, so worked as a way to look at a game made after years of work on the genre have been done, and not in a way that can be viewed at 1 to 1 ala later Zelda games vs. OoT. Darksiders is of course a relatively new game, and there to see that if things really do improve with time, or whatever.
So what are my feelings now that I looked at these and all that? Well, here's what I really feel is the scenario, and feel free to disagree cause as I stated before, this entire thing was biased to hell, but I do think this is the real case:
OoT is a game that is built heavily on nostalgia, and the "respect" it gets for being the first. True, maybe it does deserve respect for being the first, but if you actually look at the game outside of the framework, what does it have going for it that other games in the genre do not, or at least, what does it really do exceptionally well? I was conversing this with people who actually played some of the later games, and the impression I got is that if you remove the "Its Orcarina of Time!" factor, the later games do in fact improve upon most of the things pretty much universally. Why aren't getting as much hype?
Well, here's where the issue with Nostalgia, and why "Nostalgia Tests" are important to really gauge a game's greatness. What is the Nostalgia Test?
Take a classic game, one that is highly regarded as good, and is also got actual age to it (it has to be something people can feel nostalgic about.) Then take someone whose into to gaming but never actually played the game for whatever reason, and have them play it. Then listen to their thoughts on the manner. If they enjoy the game for what it is, the game has indeed aged well, and doesn't need a "For its time!" defense. Otherwise, the game can be regarded as something that was great for its time, and only has lasted so long cause many people played it back then.
So why is this Nostalgia factor important? Well, look at a game genre that first appears. You play it once, its incredible cause its new and exciting and there's nothing like it! Shift 10 years later, many new games in the genre have been made, but nothing has wowed you like that first game...even if these newer games have really improved upon everything. Are these games worse? Not necessarily; what's really happening is that cause of the lack of innovation or creativity, and taking a stance of "improve what is already there", the genre, even if its getting better, wears thin on the player. Without some sort of genuinely interesting gimmick or deviation from the style, the genre gets less fun, and so the later games, superior as they are, just seem worse by extension. Its not the games getting worse, its your patience WITH them that is.
THIS is where the Nostalgia factor kicks in...a lot. People start to play these new games in the genre, and it reminds them of the "Good Ol' Days" when the game was fresh, new and they had fun playing it. So what do they do? Go back, play the game, and love it again, and immediately assume the new game is worse cause its "not as fun" or something. What they fail to acknowledge, however, is how much familiarity and these Rose Colored Glasses of Nostalgia can really disrupt things. Things that were a problem back when you played the game, for example, no longer apply to you cause you know the game, so you take it for granted. The newer games can COMPLETELY remove that annoyance and do something far superior, but the lack of familiarity makes you assume its handled worse. This is what happens a lot with these games.
Now, Zelda series is a big series, and the individual games tend to avoid hate (Wind Waker graphics aside), but a lot of people will still maintain that OoT is "The best in the series." If asked why, they often can't even give you a better answer beyond "well, I found it more fun!" or some bull shit answer like "Better plot, more interesting weapons, etc.!" which I can tell you just based off Majora's Mask is clearly Bullshit, since I KNOW later Zelda games more or less bring back all the interesting items, and then add in more abilities, items, etc. to the mix (Majora's Mask, for example, gave you all those Masks with varying abilities, while not actually removing anything significant from OoT's inventory.)
When OoT was compared to Okami and Darksiders, you may have noticed I was kind of hard on it for gameplay. This is because, well, its age really shows most there outside of maybe graphics, which as I said, I'm more lenient on cause comparing N64 to PS2/Wii and PS360 is just unfair. Gameplay, however, does not necessarily improve over time, as evident by how some of the greatest games of all time are still old. Many will still maintain that Symphony of the Night is the best Castlevania game ever, and yes, its the first of its style, but it also did so many things RIGHT. Some of the later games may have done things better, but they're also individually more unique relative to SotN, which by extension, makes SotN retain its uniqueness, and thus it makes sense its still good. OoT doesn't have this; the game isn't really unique to the genre, or heck, even the series from my understanding, barring one Time Travel gimmick, which as I said, does little to actually alter the core gameplay, and is more stylistic. The combat in Okami and Darksiders is so much more advanced and dynamic, the puzzles and bosses are more creative, and the game's flow better. OoT REALLY shows its age here. Can it be forgiven due to how old it is when it comes to combat and gameplay? Sure. At the same time, however, one cannot realistically ignore that its still inferior. I don't care if FF1 is 13 years older than FF10, FF10 is better in like everyway, as far as I'm concerned, so its just a flat out better game.
OoT's plot isn't much better. I am told that later games, despite Link being a Silent Protagonist, shows a modicum of personality and, you know, being a character. The game's also apparently have a remote sense of plot beyond "Find these macguffins, they are important cause they are important" (redundancy intended) and having only a few scattered scenes where the game actually advances forward. Now true, nature of Zelda plot makes this happen...except that Darksiders used the same style of plot, but actually managed to have a coherent, full story-line in the mix, that advanced the plot, so it proves there are ways to avoid this. Okami had similar issues to OoT in terms of disjointed plot, but its writing is just so much better that the game can get away with it. OoT's writing has not aged well, and its plot is just kind of there as vehicle to explain why you're getting items.
OoT still does some things undeniably well though, in spite of its age. It gave us a lot of memorable music that could probably be placed into just about any game of that style, and fit well enough, and the music is pleasing. The ending sequence for the most part is really well handled barring a few minor hiccups too. When you take off the Nostalgic Glasses, remove the "its old, give it a break!" defense, etc., these two factors STILL hold up and show the game has some good points regardless.
I don't mean to say OoT is a bad game; don't get the wrong idea here. What I mean to say is...is the game really worth all the rave it gets in MODERN times? It was amazing when it first came out, but now, its just a relic of an older time when standards were lower, things were fresher, etc. and people still maintain it as a Holy Grail of gaming, even though there are clear games that have surpassed it in most qualities (again, any have told me that later games in the series more or less improve upon the OoT on most fronts, just the games lack the OoT factor so they don't get quite as much rave.)
So in the end? OoT was great for its time...but its time has far since moved on, and people need to look beyond it to see quality in new games, rather than sit in their memories of when this game use to be fun.
Which brings me to Okami! See, the thing about Okami is that yes, I admit I am a big fan of the game; that's obvious, but I look at the game and there's just so many things about it that make me say "its going to last a long time." For starters, it has very little it does that can be claimed wrong. Sure, some areas can be improved, but its already improved upon a lot of qualities that OoT had (for the record, the creator of the game pretty much acknowledged that Okami's gameplay was inspired by Zelda.) Okami is this game that takes a lot of what Zelda has, fine tunes the issues, and then adds in a bunch of unique factors. It takes what make Zelda games good, and twists it into something unique and stand out. Its a lot more dynamic, and fluid than OoT is, and has this aesthetic that won't turn people off (though, again, I am more lenient on OoT's aesthetics cause it IS old, graphics are one case where "its old" is a pretty big disclaimer), and its just a very well polished, designed game.
The writing is well handled, the general mood, atmosphere, smoothness of gameplay, transition between battles and puzzles, what have you...Okami really does do everything rather well. It got hyped as being the Game of the Year in 2006 and...the game does actually live up to that. It was a complete package and its hard to improve upon. I haven't played Okamiden yet, though I'm told it seems one of its problems is that it doesn't really do anything to improve Okami, but at the same time, people seem to acknowledge "Though...its really hard TO improve upon Okami" cause it already does so much right. Now true, Okami is only 5 years old, so its hardly an "old" game, and its closer to Darksiders in Age than it is to OoT, but give it 5 more years, and I am confident the game will maintain the same respect it has now, and the game doesn't seem like it has anything that will hold it back from a Nostalgia Test.
Does that mean everyone will like it? Of course not; there are subjective factors involved, but what I do feel is that if you took someone who played neither Okami or OoT, and had them play both side to side, most would say Okami is the better game. In fact, I have lived through someone who kind of did that. The person in question played over half of OoT before quitting the game partially out of boredom (note they liked the game initially.) They started up Okami notably later...and played through the game twice in rapid succession, declaring it as their favorite game ever. I know actual fans of the Zelda series who have stated "The best Zelda game ever is Okami" and they say this with pretty much a straight face. Its not too dissimilar to people who say "The best Devil May Cry game is Bayonetta" (which...while I don't necessarily agree with, I can totally sympathize with the argument!) It sounds like these are Okami whiners trying to make ti seem like OoT, but in truth, when someone tries to bash Okami, they really have no ammo to fire at it other than maybe "The game is too easy!" Yes, it is too easy, and that can lead to boredom...I fully acknowledged this is Okami's biggest flaw by far, and its really the only place to improve upon it. Thing is, difficulty alone can't justify a game one way or another unless the game is 100% gameplay, so its really like their only defense.
OoT, as I showed in this topic, has many flaws to it, and while they were maybe not flaws when the game came out, that was because there was no base-line to compare it to. It created a standard, but that Standard has been dramatically surpassed since, and Okami has pretty much shattered the standards OoT had. Even the things OoT was great at, namely the music and the ending sequence, Okami matches or beats in those regards, which just shows how complete a package Okami is.
Which leads to Darksiders...which proves that no, its not necessarily an upward trend in the genre. While first off, let me get this straight; the core aspects of Darksiders are generally superior to OoT. Its got an interesting setting, actual sense of writing, an actual plot that moves, dynamic gameplay, innovation on pre-existing ideas (yes, it rips off a bunch of Zelda items, but it finds new, creative ways to use them, at least relative to OoT; most are combat oriented, true, but that's still a new thing), and it the game looks good...ignoring War's god awful design. Like Okami, it improves upon OoT on every conceptual level I can think of...but I struggle to call it a better game. See, one of the differences between Okami and Darksiders is execution. Okami's execution, the difficulty aspect aside, is near flawless. Well, ok, that may be a stretch of a statement, but it is hard to find real genuine issues beyond some minor little gripes here and there that tend to get overwhelmed by all the good.
Darksiders has a bunch of flaws riddled all over the place, some being minor issues, others being actual things that detract from it notably. See, yes, War's design is ugly and all that...but I can overlook that, since its not so ugly to the point that it turns me off from the game, its more just a "seriously, what the fuck?" thing. Stuff like oddly handled difficulty, poorly designed enemies at times, and lack of health bars to actually help you gauge your progress now...those are more significant. Okami didn't have any of those problems (...ok, "oddly handled difficulty" merely gets replaced with "total lack of difficulty", but I've established MULTIPLE TIMES Okami is too damn easy, and this is its primary (gameplay) flaw.), and for that matter, OoT lacked many of those problems too. I won't say Darksiders is conceptually superior to Okami, as it was clearly aiming for something different, that being a blending of two popular styles of gaming: The Zelda series with God of War...I'm not trying to make a joke here mind, but it seems they were seriously looking at two popular game series and trying to take the best of both worlds, in hopes for something great. This isn't even necessarily a bad idea, and could have ended up really good; the basic concepts behind Zelda are not bad, but there are things that have aged poorly since and need some sort of notable upgrade, and splicing it with a game that is popular for its combat heavy potential seems like the perfect way to fix that problem (though, Darksiders didn't necessarily need to COPY EVERY SINGLE ZELDA ITEM UNDER THE SUN...), as well as taking God of War's style of graphics, mood, violence etc. to make the game seem more adult, which can be considered a good or bad thing (Zelda games feel clearly intended for all audiences.)
Just somewhere along the way, Darksiders failed to meet the expectations that marrying two big game series should lead. Somewhere along the way, things just didn't come together properly, when it had all the elements to make it a great game (for the record, I am NOT a fan of God of War games, so yes, I am for once trying to show SOME level of objectivity.) Something just didn't work out, and I feel that once you get past the "Oh wow, Zelda + God of war, THIS IS AWESOME!!!" factor, the game starts to wear thin and its flaws start becoming that much more apparent.
So as final thoughts, and probably with all the hate comments I will be getting after saying this, I will stand by my following statements. Okami is the real gem of the genre, showing what the genre is fully capable of, while also showing there's a lot of room for creativity in it, as while it is very "Zelda Like", it does have its key differences that make it clearly its own game. THIS is the game that I feel should take the spot of "Holy Grail of 3D Action Adventure Games" since it really does show an idealistic stance for the genre, just so few have played it, so less hype it. Darksiders shows that concept can only go so far, you need strong execution in the merits, and that "being new" =/= "better." This game I feel won't last long, but then, I could be wrong cause there are a lot of people who are sold in pure style.
OoT is a legend, but only because of when it was made. Its living off Nostalgic Life Support I feel, and it just has so much of it that its still regarded as one of the greatest games ever. It earns points for being the first in its genre, but like many other "Firsts" such as Street Fighter 2 (painful as it is for me to say this), the first Dragon Quest, or even dare I say it, the original Super Mario Brothers, the genre has very clearly moved on since then, and the game is not what it use to be. It earned its place in history, but as more a creation of the genre; things have improved upon it since, so the constant "GREATEST GAME EVER!!!" hype is starting to make less sense. Remove the glasses of nostalgia, and the game's age starts to show, and perhaps...we need to move on from those old Golden Days of gaming, and acknowledge that things ARE better in modern times, hard as that is to admit.
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This is pretty much the end, yeah. Anything constructive criticism to help bang out and flesh stuff out (or possibly cull it down) would be appreciated. I know, it sounds like I did all that just to say the ending "OoT IS ALL NOSTALGIA!" but I couldn't thin of a better way to close the statement, honest! I seriously do go by what I said here, and would rather you didn't snipe at opinionated stuff, but rather, either:
A. Point out things I got actually wrong objectively (eg I made a claim about something that is very clearly not true)
B. State things I could do to improve the flow of the rant
C. Point out structural errors I may have missed, be it "missed word that is important for the sentence to make sense!", grammar errors etc.
I do kind of want to do something like this again, but I don't know what i should do a big massive review on. I COULD review 3 standard 3D action games, but that would just involve a lot of Anti-God of War Bias...which I could try my hardest to work out...but any ideas would be cool!