Three 3D Action-Adventure Games: A Comparative Meeple Rant *SPOILERS INSIDE*

[Meeplelard]

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.

[DjinnAndTonic]

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.

[Yoshiken]

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

[Meeplelard]

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! (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)

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, 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!!!

[Meeplelard]

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!

------

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.

[Meeplelard]

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!"

[DjinnAndTonic]

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.

[Meeplelard]

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.

[Meeplelard]

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.

---
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.

[Cmdr_King]

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.

[Yoshiken]

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.)

[Meeplelard]

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.

[Meeplelard]

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.


----

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!