Tag: Exploration

It’s not long before the next Zelda game, A Link Between Worlds, is released for the 3DS. I’m sure we’ve all seen the trailer of Link turning into a picture and walking along walls, an ability which will be the main focus of the game. It sounds like a decent ability and could make for some interesting puzzles where you not only have to think about things as you see them but also incorporating the possibilities if things shifted into…

On August 22nd, 1987 a certain game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the USA which was to become the first game in one of the most successful game franchises in history. As we all know, The Legend of Zelda received endless praise and sold extremely well. The game was soon to be released in Europe despite having been available in Japan for almost a year by this point but, prior to its American release, the then Nintendo…

As Nintendo prepares to release The Wind Waker HD for Wii U this October, much interest has arisen across the internet over the possible changes that this updated version has from its 2003 original on the GameCube.  In several interviews and Nintendo Directs, the company has expressed that one aspect which will change is the ability to sail faster through the use of a new “swift sail” available to obtain as an item.  Today, Eiji Aonuma, producer and current director…

Let’s talk about Skyward Sword. I’ve been fairly vocal in the past about my gripes with this game, and while as a whole I will continue to insist that it is not a bad game, and is in fact a good one, I will also insist that it is one of the weaker titles in the series. Today, we’re going to discuss why I hold this opinion: poor skill scaling. Before we discuss how Skyward Sword specifically suffers from this,…

Zelda’s open world exploration has always been a memorable gaming experience ever since Nintendo implemented the technique into its very first title of the series. Open world exploration maintained itself throughout Zelda titles released in the 90’s and onward through to The Wind Waker and The Minish Cap in the early 2000s. Yet, according to an article at Zelda Universe, the open world exploration method is starting to vanish from all recent Zelda titles and is starting to create a lack of excitement…

Ocarina of Time was my introduction to the Zelda series, so my initial reaction to the original Legend of Zelda when I first spun the Gamecube Collector’s Disc was severe discomfort. It wasn’t just that you were thrust into the overworld with little guidance and much more difficulty than more recent titles–I was ready for that. What surprised me was the lack of a safehaven, a place to call home. A natural expectation from an adventure series like Zelda is…

A significant number of games offer day/night cycles, and people who play Nintendo games are probably very familiar with the concept. Usually, certain things will only be available at certain times of day, or a number of days have to pass between events in order to complete sidequests. Ocarina of Time certainly made it interesting; shops and houses in towns would be closed at night, the field would harbor new dangers, the overworld at large would offer new opportunities for…

Following the tremendous critical acclaim of Flower, its developer Thatgamecompany released Journey as a PlayStation Network exclusive earlier this year. Almost immediately, Journey was met with an even greater degree of critical acclaim, with many reviewers praising the game as a must-play experience. Having played the game myself, I agree entirely with the praise. Journey‘s gameplay amounts to one thing: movement. There is no combat, there is very limited puzzle solving (and the puzzles all revolve around moving forward), and…

Hey guys! In this video I’m talking about a concept that I don’t feel like people talk about much… and that’s having a sense of exploration and almost… “treasure hunting” in a Zelda game. I think that a lot of Zelda games have an increased focus on finding chests, OR just finding the next dungeon, and aside from Twilight Princess and perhaps to a lesser degree The Minish Cap and The Wind Waker, modern Zelda games have less of this….

Some people think of Zelda as a puzzle-centric franchise. But that’s not really what Zelda’s about–at least, not exclusively. Anyone who started with one of the first four Zelda games is likely to have a very different idea. The original Legend of Zelda had rudimentary puzzle solving usually involving big questions, like how to access an entire part of the map, rather than Portalesque room puzzles that involved complex block pushing. Puzzles certainly weren’t foreign to the 2D games —…