Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 01:41:52 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Link's Re-Awakening - Are you beach body ready?

Started by Kelvin, September 19, 2019, 12:39:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Twed

Quote from: Kelvin on September 30, 2019, 12:51:31 PMEagle Tower might be the one dungeon where I felt it was wasting my time a tiny bit, but that's the only one.
Yep, it's the only one that is slightly maze-like (I hate mazes) which is one of the reasons Link's Awakening is so good.

Do Mentally Ill Tracy potions count as dying, for the good ending?

madhair60

The good ending, if it's the same as the GB version, is so marginal that it is absolutely not worth it

Twed

I know, but now it's sitting there saying "HAH LOSER DIDN'T DO IT PROPERLY".

I quite like the idea of giving hard mode + good ending a shot.

The color dungeon thing was new to me this playthrough (I had only played the original GB version previously). Really sticks out as badly-designed bullshit.

I chose the red cloak. Maybe the blue one for the hard mode playthrough, although I'm not sure if better offense might actually work as better defense (by killing enemies quicker).

madhair60

Yeah the Colour Cave is shockingly shit

I also miss the incredibly funny art that you used to get from the photographer, which I know was in the colour version but can't remember if it was in the original. They replaced him with Dampe, which is - pffft - a Dampe squib

Twed



Twed


Kelvin

Yeah, those photos are great. Love the couple of scenes with Marin on the beach in this game. The entire story basically hinges on those being so affecting. None of it would come together if Marin wasn't so likeable. As it is, even knowing how the game ended beforehand, it was still very touching when I finished the game last night.

The wonderful end credit's music helps sell the simplicity of the ending too. Don't click it if you're playing through the game as it should ideally be experienced in context. Might be my favourite ever LoZ ending theme, though. It has so many wonderful moments.

SPOILER - CREDIT'S THEME: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDXlfvKdIZk

   

Started playing LttP for about the third time. Well better than this I reckon. Cunty lil map and shit performance. Shame. Waste of fifty quid. Wish I could shave up my Switch with one of those ham slicers and put the bits in envelopes and post them to future me to remember what a fucking dickhead I was.

NJ Uncut

Quote from: madhair60 on September 30, 2019, 01:33:22 PM
In the original game I'm almost certain you can break sequence after dungeon 3.

Yeah, I remember wanting some items before others and doing it in another save

magval

Not going to play this, but I'm going to play either Link's Awakening or A Link To The Past.

Which?!

NJ Uncut

Quote from: magval on October 08, 2019, 09:26:20 PM
Not going to play this, but I'm going to play either Link's Awakening or A Link To The Past.

Which?!

Link's Awakening

magval


Kelvin

I honestly think it depends on what you want from the experience. Awakening is more streamlined, not an inch of fat. LttP has better items, more secrets, better dungeons. They're both fantastic, so you can't really go wrong.

*I've only played the Awakening remake, though, so I'm not sure how much it was improved by the quality of life changes.

madhair60


NJ Uncut

Quote from: magval on October 09, 2019, 12:08:17 PM
Which version Jack? Colo/ur?

Whatever you can get! I like the 2D version, played it on the OG GameBoy Pocket, the 3DS in colour version looks good?

Twed

The only QoL changes that really matter in the remake are items mapped to buttons, better warping and the removal of the interminable "you have touched a rock, now let me tell you a long story about rock touchery" message. The original is still great to play, I'd play that before the remake just to experience a classic in its original form.

popcorn

Quote from: Kelvin on September 23, 2019, 02:00:06 AM
Well, as the classic Zelda structure goes, this is shaping up to be one of the most refined and well paced, so you'd no doubt love it. It's basically Link to the Past, with a more low-key, melancholy story.

As hoped, I'm enjoying this much more than BotW. I did have the original as a kid but I found it weird and baffling - my main memory is of endlessly digging things up and attacking chickens. But I must have got further in it than I remember because I keep coming to puzzles in this and weirdly remembering how to do them.

This has gripped me more than any game in ages though.

Replies From View


popcorn

#79
After hours of nonstop adventuring I think the momentum has finally slowed on the Eagel Tower dungeon. Just too many fucking ideas happening at once - multiple floors, carrying the ball around, the towers, the switches, the circular paths. Am I right in thinking this is the first dungeon with multiple floors? And they introduce the concept of multiple floors by starting with four?

I know exactly what I have to do next but I can't for the life of me find my way back round to the bit I need to return to. I don't think this is meant to be a puzzle - just lost the bloody path. Can't imagine how anyone ever beat this on an actual Game Boy, it's doing my head in.

Kelvin

Quote from: popcorn on October 17, 2019, 02:09:19 AM
After hours of nonstop adventuring I think the momentum has finally slowed on the Eagel Tower dungeon. Just too many fucking ideas happening at once - multiple floors, carrying the ball around, the towers, the switches, the circular paths. Am I right in thinking this is the first dungeon with multiple floors? And they introduce the concept of multiple floors by starting with four?

I know exactly what I have to do next but I can't for the life of me find my way back round to the bit I need to return to. I don't think this is meant to be a puzzle - just lost the bloody path. Can't imagine how anyone ever beat this on an actual Game Boy, it's doing my head in.

Yeah, it's the shittest bit of the game - at least on my first playthrough. Was better 2nd time as I knew the route, but it's still a ballache looping round over and over.

How many pillars have you knocked down? And have you forgotten that there's a door in the south east of the dungeon (on the floor you come in on) that takes you up to rooms you can't reach via other routes?

popcorn

Quote from: Kelvin on October 17, 2019, 02:26:35 AM
How many pillars have you knocked down?

Three I think, including the hidden one you bomb a wall to get to. I've now got the ball in the right place to get the final one, I just can't bloody find my way back there, even though I've been to it loads of times already.

Quote
And have you forgotten that there's a door in the south east of the dungeon (on the floor you come in on) that takes you up to rooms you can't reach via other routes?

Not sure that's where I'm trying to get to but I'll have a look.

popcorn

I think the two main conceits of the dungeon - 1) there are multiple floors and you can drop between them 2) you have to carry a ball around and throw it to different parts - work against each other. I thought you'd have to drop the ball down to lower floors. But that just makes it reset, which is unexpected.

I understand why it would be a design nightmare to let players drop the ball into lower floors, but in that case don't use the ball idea on your dungeon with multiple floors.

Twed

It's the switches that ruin that dungeon. Pointless nuisances.

Also, did the chess pieces get WORSE in this? It's such a weird, deterministic thing.

popcorn

Right, that's that then. I really enjoyed it for the most part, but the tower dungeon is annoying and the final hour seemed to whiz by without much significance. (I often find that with games, I dunno why - the peak of intensity should be in the finale, but it usually isn't.)

Nice little game. Focused, to the point, no fannying about.

Quote from: Twed on October 17, 2019, 02:55:55 AM
Also, did the chess pieces get WORSE in this? It's such a weird, deterministic thing.

Can you explain this? I didn't struggle with them.

Twed

Well at first you try throwing them around randomly, and then you think "I guess they need to be thrown in a way that's like a knight's chess move" so you spend ages doing that and it doesn't work, and then you discover that Nintendo doesn't know how the knight moves in chess.

Twed


popcorn

Quote from: Twed on October 18, 2019, 01:14:07 AM
Well at first you try throwing them around randomly, and then you think "I guess they need to be thrown in a way that's like a knight's chess move" so you spend ages doing that and it doesn't work, and then you discover that Nintendo doesn't know how the knight moves in chess.

I have to say as soon as I realised they had to move like knights in chess it seemed to work for me, but maybe I just got lucky. I also barely remember how chess works.

Quote from: Twed on October 18, 2019, 01:15:43 AM
At least the Face Shrine music is heart-wrenchingly beautiful, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RrYJ5z-be8

I did notice that the Face Shrine music is unusually nice. In fact so did my mum. Distractingly Matrix-y though. But interesting music for the context - very sad, very severe, and then the blending of the old-school square wave arpeggios is a lovely callback to the Game Boy original. That whole mood got me quite in the zone - the zone I would have preferred to be in for the final hours, but disappointingly wasn't.

popcorn


Twed

Quote from: popcorn on October 18, 2019, 01:22:28 AMThat whole mood got me quite in the zone - the zone I would have preferred to be in for the final hours, but disappointingly wasn't.
Face Shrine is arguably the emotional apex of the game though. This is where Link learns about the nature of the world he's in and it all gets a bit unreal.