Moar Zelda!!?

Zelda extension. I have decided to just do every Zelda game I can get my hands on. So the multiple reviews will only get bigger. This is so I don't leave much out. So I am adding Zelda 2, Original Zelda, Orcarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker.  Sadly I dont have a DS to play Phantom Hourglass, or Spirit Tracks.  I will get to those later. As for Twilight Princess, and Skyward sword. Those will have to wait until I can get a Wii again.

Zelda-extravaganza

So as a minor preface to this lovely wall of text I will be hitting you with. Each review will be coming one at a time, so I can have time to sort mine thoughts. If there is such a thing in this enigma of my head. So first up...


Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons:

These two games, wow, there is not much I can say. After playing through the both of them I found a lot of differences outside of the story.( And the fact that Seasons is supposedly first in Canon.) These two lovely gems were put out for the GBC, and really the only way to play them. Is to either shell out some dough, or use an emulator. Sadly I used an emulator, as my copies of the game were destroyed by a pesky animal.


Ages:

I played this first, I remember it being my favorite of the two. I believe it was because, at the time, I thought Veran(the Big Bad) of this game was kinda sexy. Until she turns into a giant NOPE filled multistage boss battle from hell.  This game is actually harder than Seasons in a few of the REQUIRED minigames. That drove me insane for 5 hours and 900 rupies later. I am still upset about the Goron Dancing minigames. It features a few fun systems in place, such as an npc family that grows as you progress. Code transfers between it and Seasons. On to the show.

Story: Link awakens to encounter Impa.( Who is portrayed as a kinda weird in these games to me.) Who is searching for Nayru to protect her from the evil forces at work. After you push aside a sacred barrier block, and find the lovely songstress, Impa goes all batshit insane. She is revealed as being possessed by Veran, who then possesses Nayru, and throws the timeline out of whack. Lovely, instead of a Delorian I am stuck with a harp. You go all back to the future through several dungeons correcting the wrongs, opening new paths, as well as establishing Link as a omnipresent godsend.  Things go good until you save Nayru, but Veran possesses the queen of the land to try and take over the world once again.  More wibbly wobbly timey wimey.....stuff you end up restoring the Maku tree to -her- Link-fangirl full power.  Ascending the black tower that has been looming over you the whole game, you face Veran in Queen Ambi's body, and get to fight superbitch on her own. This is where my crush on her ended as a child, she turns into a bat thing, then into a turtle, a bigger bat, and a huge ass spider.  After that ordeal and lots of dodging later, link saves the day. You get a nifty passcode(or if you had a link cable) to send over data to Seasons.

Gameplay: Typical Zelda. It is a long running system and really needs no changes. You have side quests, and a long trading chain. Lots of heart pieces to collect and rupies to farm. If there is anything that stands out it is the password system. After you beat one game, you get a passcode to transfer to the other game. In that game some data is shared, and more 'secrets' unlock for you to transfer between games. Such as the super short true ending. More on that later I guess.

Graphics: It is a GBC graphics, you are not going to get much. Hell instead of a Wind Waker HD I would love a 3DS remake of these two games. On a single sd and no passcode crap needed.( Yeah Having to switch games constantly grinds my gears.) Colors at the time were pretty good, but nothing close to a console. I do like the artwork cut scenes that you get every now and again. Those do show some amazing color for the time.

Length: Depending on your skill with the goron dancing stuff. I would say anywhere from 6-10 hours of Zelda goodness. Playing just one though.. However, they should be played together. Netting you a 12-20 hour game.

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Seasons: After this recent week, I have changed my favorite of the two to Seasons. All around you have an easier system. Just some seasons, no messing with time and space. No you just get to activate Bikini Weather at will.  The dancing in this one only took me one try, instead of too damn many. And who does not like a feisty redhead as an oracle.

Story: (If you transferred from ages like I did.) Link is transferred to yet another strange land. Where Impa recognizes him. Thankfully she is not possessed by Queen of the Damned. She is in a caravan transporting Din to Hyrule for protection against the dark forces of Onox...or is it Onyx ...I can never really recall. Even after playing.  After having a nice dance with Din, shit hits the fan and the O-man kidnaps Din. He then proceeds to seal her in crystal, and deposits the Temple of Seasons into Surbosia, an underground city.  He praises link for destroying Veran, but he will not be so easily toppled. ( I beg to differ).  You go on a fun journey through the land setting seasons right, and using the rod of seasons to ultimately save the day. My big gripe here is that the O-man is a pushover. You barely see him in the game, unlike Veran. She had true presence. Anyway, he tries to use Din as a shield, but that fails as Link knocks the crystal away with the rod of seasons.  The ground collapses and you go all 2d battle against a giant fucking dragon. ( Who died in three hits from me.) All the world is safe...except not really.

Throughout this play-through Zelda herself makes a grand ass of herself.  After repeated tellings of to NOT GO OUTSIDE THE SAFEHOUSE. The bleeding heart has to 'comfort the people'. Leading to Twinrova capturing her, and you going on another quest to save the dumbass. I kind of liked it when it was two different people getting kidnapped, but they just had to tie in Gannon again.  After solving the brainwracking eye puzzle, you fight Twinrova... I hope you got plenty of practice in ages with the batting game. Cause you have to reflect the different elements back at them. Then hit them with mystery seeds from your shooter/sling. Then they will just pull the ace out of their ass, and sacrifice themselves to summon A.....retarded Gannon who knows nothing more than to charge and teleport. I expected a harder fight..since this is the last story and all. Nope you can kill him with just a few well placed spin attacks. Yes Spin to Win baby...spin to win. And once again Link saves Zelda, and I think he does get a kiss in this version.

Gameplay: Much like Ages, not much I can say.

Length.: See Ages.

Next review: Zelda Extravaganza continues...with.. The Minish Cap.

Update on Reviews

Well I have decided I needed a bit more something to do. So my lucky readers will be getting a 4 for one review.

Oracle of Ages/Seasons(linked)100%completed
A link to the past
Minish Cap

If I am able to get through with the games faster that I thought. I might do Links Awakening.

If there are any other Zelda games you would like me to play for the GBA/GBC. Let me know. I might just do a whole Zelda-a-Thon

The Devil's Rock a Mini Review

Okay I know this is not a game, but rather a movie. But, I just saw it and I have to say I am impressed. Top notch movie. Onto the review.

So The Devil's Rock was made in 2011 and directed by Paul Campion. It is about two Kiwi commandos set to destroy a German gun emplacement.( From IMBD for ease of describing it) Well things don't go so well, as they find out, and one of the dies(obviously). Turns out there is a demon that has been summoned by the SS, German Supernatural Specialists. My god it is a wonderful thriller. It is rated NR on Netflix, but it is all gore. Maybe one or two nipples, and a booty, but hell all good movies need a booty. The graphics are pretty top notch too. Even the makeup has me convinced that the demon is real. Except for the lulzy part at the end, I am not going to spoil it. But I will let you know that I giggled and cringed at the same time.

The actors are pretty believable too, even if overplayed a bit. The actress who plays the demon does a wonderful job as a seductress. I often found myself wanting the bad guy to win just because of her acting alone.

What an ending though, I have to disagree with the hero of the story. I would have done quite the opposite. All in all a great movie to go see. Watch it on Netflix for free if you have it. Or go do what everyone else does. -eyepatch-

First Review: Final Fantasy VII: Fanboys Rejoice

Oh jeez how long has it been since I last touched this game? Ages at least.  I remember,at the time, that this game was revolutionary. The first final fantasy game on the Playstation. It launched  my own RPG career, this much I know.  When I first played the game I admit the game was hard for me, I was only 10 or 11 at the time. I put over 99.99.99hours/min.seconds in to the game, and I still have the memory card it is on. Well enough of the babbling on to the review.

 There will be spoilers, you have had over 10 years to play the game, get over it.

Systems: This game is on multiple platforms now, allowing die-hard fans to replay, or newbies to come in and play a classic.

Steam: 12.99
Playstation Classics: 10.00$( Not sure it was at the time I bought it.)
Old PC: 30-40$( Hard to find, full of bugs on newer PCs)
Playstation 1( Good luck getting this below 70$)
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Story: The story to FFVII is not much more than a typical save the world adventure. Hell, most RPGs these days are that. However, it is how it is told that gets us going. There are a few plot twist, and a lot of major hits to the heart. The first tearjerker is when Red XIII learns that the father he hated, was not a coward, but a braver warrior. Who was turned to stone, and now protects Cosmo Canyon. I cried at this scene when I replayed the game this week.  Even now, over ten years later. The story still holds up to me.

There are a ton of translation errors, but there is a dedicated modding community at qhimm.com that fixes this. More on that later.

Gameplay: Oh I stand corrected after all this time, the game is super easy.  There are broken mechanics everywhere, such as the magic defense not being calculated. I found myself running from battles, and playing at a lower level just to get a challenge. There are some battles that can be a bit cheap, such as Reno and his constant pyramids sealing your allies. Or that silly crane that picks your allies up and uses them against you. It made me rage at those points. Once again there are mods that fix the difficulty, the mdef issue, and break the HP/MP limits. There is also the issue with the old PC version that the mini games go faster than light, but that is fixed with the new Remastered PC versions.

Graphics: God they are outdated as fuck.  They look like broken Legos. Thankfully mods can fix this, but on the new PC version you have to downgrade it. Which is an easy process and there are plenty of guides on it. I feel that in the future, we wont need to beg SquareEnix to remake FFVII, the modding community will already have it done.  I of course played with the mods on, and I admit I am more than happy with it. It brings them up to PS2+ graphics without much strain on your PC.

Length: FMVs, Minigames, and general sidequests will keep you busy. I know that I was kept busy for quite a while in the battle arena.  Just trying to get Omnislash on the first disk. If you are a completionist The game should keep you busy well over 40-60 hours.

Special Section, Modding Community:

 A big shoutout to Qhimm.com. There are several mods there to enhance your game-play, from new models to Hardcore difficulties.  As I said earlier, at the rate they are going I don't doubt that they will have remade FFVII from the ground up. They are even modding FFVIII's PC version as well. Of course there is not a lot of work on that one. Shit, I believe they even used the drivers from Aali in the remastered PC version.

Thank you for reading my review of Final Fantasy VII.

Next Review: Two-fer-one: Legend of Zelda Oracle Of Ages and Seasons.

Review Delay

Due to an unforeseen issue, I have to delay the review a bit. No worries though, I expect to be done with it next week.