Finally made some progress. I went to the Goron City and back to the forest, cleared the new and improved "Dodongo Cavern", visited the first two Great Fairies, and almost got burned to death inside the Death Mountain Crater. Plus, there was some fun to be had with Bombchus.
Welcome to Death Mountain, where the rocks are delicious and look ultra realistic. This is one of the most barren areas in the game, but they still managed to make my jaw drop with all those details. I mean, look at that:
As a Nintendo gamer, I may not be used to next gen graphics all that much, but this looks incredibly realistic. There is this trail of cooled lava above the Dodongo Cavern and you also have these new climbing surfaces, which are basically rockfall protection nets. It reminds a bit of Twilight Princess, where you also had to climb along the trail to Death Mountain.
The bombable walls also look fantastic. They are neatly integrated into the environment, but still give a clear visual indication for where you can blow stuff up. Beautiful.
And everything feels so smooth and snappy, like fighting the Tektites. Never liked to in the original, they were annoying. Maybe they are a bit too easy now, but if they aren't fun to fight, then you will eventually just evade them.
The Gorons look like they were made out of clay, which is fitting and was also true for Echoes of Wisdom. On first glance I found this really odd, but I've warmed up to it eventually. The one Goron further up also doesn't try to suicide bomb himself into Dodongo's Cavern any longer, instead he's running in circles, which even leaves a visible trail:
Well, Bomb Flowers now explode much faster, so it would have been even stupider if he still tried to take one down this path. But it feels a bit lazy. Instead, he is now talking how he tried to body-slam the large rock blocking the cave entrance.
One completely new thing is all that Goron-head pottery, marking the path to Goron City, looking like Halloween decoration during the night. And they have altered the area here quite a bit. Now there is a longer tunnel going to the city, where you come across that one decisive Bomb Flower. It's impossible to miss now, which probably was the intention. The path further up the mountain is still where it used to be, but you now don't go around it any longer.
And I love what they've done with the place. I keep saying this, but it all looks so much more natural. You got all these rock formations with little ledges around them, where you can take a peek into the valley. It truly feels like you're climbing a mountain now and that while being about 70% faithful to the original.
Ladies and gentlemen, come closer and enter the infamous Goron Horror House!
What's up with that pottery, though? Like seriously... If I were a tourist at Death Mountain, I would probably not go in there... "Welcome to Goron City! We love eating rocks and massacring Hylians, and we're all out of rocks!"
I would be missing out, however, because Goron City is better than ever. And this was already still my favorite iteration of the Goron home land, even after 28 years and all those other Zelda games. The Goron Village at Snowhead, the mini-game hell of the Rolling Ridge, the Goron Mines, Goron Island, the Goron Village in the Fire Realm, the later Goron Cities... none of them could hold a candle to this place.
It just makes sense for them to live inside some massive underground cave that they've dug out. And it's so much fun to explore with all those different layers, tunnels, and the newly added climbing walls. It's like a playground carved into the earth.
But you're not supposed to play everywhere. There is this one lava room where it says that children are not allowed there, even though there aren't any Goron children around. This leads to the one grotto I had mentioned already in entry 2, where now you don't need the Song of Time any longer, nor the Longshot, but only the Hookshot. (Can't wait to grab some Business Scrub Seed from this.)
You can play with fire elsewhere, for example to make that big Goron Vase spin. The new dash also works when you're holding something in your hand, so you don't really have to worry about the Deku sticks burning up any longer.
Anyway, back to the forest... These special gateway portals, which connect different areas with each other, were always magical and made traversing this particular Hyrule interesting, without the comfort of convenient warp points in the early game.
And while the development team didn't want to change the warp system, they at least should have expanded this idea. Kaepora Gaebora even talks about how the Lost Woods connect to different parts of the world, but he is exaggerating, because it's only two. Goron City and the Zora River. It's the two that matter the most for your quest, where this was making it easier to return there after a save & quit on the Nintendo 64. It feels archaic in the remake, however.
Now, imagine if there was a portal that led beneath the graveyard in Kakariko. Or to Hyrule Castle. Just like in Goron City, these portals could have been blocked by different means until you get there from the other side. And they would eradicate the necessity to run back and forth between different certain locations, like for the mask quest.
It would be so much more convenient for trying different masks at the Forest Stage. I have played this game before, so I know what mask will trigger the good stuff. I can plan ahead and bring the Skull Mask along with me on my first tour to Death Mountain, so I will have it ready during my impending return to the Lost Woods. But I have played the game twenty times before...
New players will likely try each mask individually. And if you are to do that early in the game, then you will have to run across Hyrule Field quite a lot. So, the idea of additional portals is really tempting. They could simply be destroyed in the future, so you still have to go the intended routes as an adult.
Also, the remake doesn't have a portal effect, so you can't really tell that you're warping somewhere. They weren't shy with adding over-the-top particles for other things, like Saria's music notes shimmering through the tunnels of the Lost Woods, so why be subtle here?
The Sacred Grove is the next area that got a huge upgrade. From a simple maze made out of rock walls to a whole set of old temple ruins. It's like you're inside a mini-dungeon on the overworld now and very atmospheric.
They also got rid of that pointless bird's eye view camera for the child section, which is a general improvement of the remake. As Nintendo loves to point out, the Nintendo 64 didn't have a second stick to manipulate the camera. And neither did the original Nintendo 3DS. So, these versions of the game made heavy use of automatic camera angles, as a clumsy attempt to assist the player. But this was more confusing than helpful most of the time, where it's best to simply trust the player with the camera work and do nothing.
Damn, that small fairy fountain in the grotto looks amazing. That lighting is gorgeous. If the game now has such a fountain with an unicorn statue in some other grotto somewhere, the fans are going to lose it. That would be the highest level of fan service imaginable and certainly ruin some perfectly good pants out there.
Fairies now also need to be touched with A, so you don't accidentally collect them when you want to put them into a bottle instead.
Like all the other mini-games, the "Play-Along" musical session with the Skull Kids was made easier, because now you can see the notes on the sheet still. It doesn't tell you what button is what note, but that's simple enough to figure out.
And I'm not complaining here, since I was never a fan of any of the mini-games in Ocarina of Time, where dumbing them down is making things more fun for me personally. The mini-games are usually the part I dislike the most when replaying a Zelda, but these remakes do a great job with them. This was the case with Link's Awakening as well, though that one actually made the mini-games more challenging.
Oh, and the other two Skull Kids don't magically receive Skull Masks as well once you've sold yours to the villain of the next game, but this already got fixed in the Nintendo 3DS version.
Nothing new in Kokiri Forest. It would have been amazing if the Kokiri also had little day and night routines, but half of them don't even have a proper home... And this is staying true to the original, so it's okay. Still, would have been interesting to see.
The Gorons also just stay where they always are, so it's mainly in Hyrule Castle Town and Kakariko Village, where they have added character movements. You can even watch the boy at the graveyard go home now, but only as far as the area lets you. Afterwards he will disappear, like all those dogs leaving Hyrule Castle...
Hahahaha! Burn!
Back to the Gorons, Darunia is doing his best Jack Black impression. This guy has some serious energy now, where I love the voice acting. It's also hilarious how tiny the Goron Bracelet looks in his hands. It wouldn't even fit on one of his fingers.
Now, it took me a while to get used to the new mechanics with the Bomb Flowers. As I mentioned earlier, they now blow up faster – it might be even as fast as normal bombs. So, you can't really run far with them, which makes the puzzle with the large Goron vase much trickier. You have to time this perfectly now.
You want to wait until the happy face is visible further in the back. Or you just come back here later with your own Bombs... Also, I kept pressing A instead of ZR when I wanted to throw them, but this now drops them at your feet, where I blew myself up once or twice.
Apropos blowing things up, Medigoron looks absolutely crazy here. Wow, just wow. And it's so funny how he gets scared of you when you swing your sword around. That's easily the best thing they brought over from Breath of the Wild.
Dungeon time. They have shortened some of those dungeon names in the English version: "Great Deku Tree" instead of "Inside the Deku Tree", and here they've omitted the possessive 's. Maybe "Jabu-Jabu Belly" will come next, but "Dodongo Cavern" is certainly catchier.
And it looks 100% more fire now. The lighting of the lava floors illuminates the giant cave with the Dodongo skull and this creates an impressive sight. It's an effective reminder that Ocarina of Time also had some really creative ideas for dungeons and not just the elemental-themed temples that the later Zelda games have copied time and time again. Only Twilight Princess was really able to top this.
There are also some general dungeon things to talk about, which were already true for the Great Deku Tree, but have a greater impact here. Enemies stay defeated as long as you stay inside the dungeon. They don't reset each time you swap the rooms, which saves you from some annoyances, like the the Fire Keese in the later sections.
Technically, there aren't even rooms that get loaded, it's all one seamless environment, with some doors preserving the classic dungeon structure. There are even spots now where you can see across rooms, like the sections with the fire platforms:
These fire platforms are more like furnaces now – probably even used by Gorons to make their favorite meal, the rock roast. So, they took what used to be a simple platforming challenge and made it a functional and mostly logical part of the environment. That's clever. And again this conveys a timer to you without the need of a timer sound, because you can see how the furnaces slowly recharge after they got turned off.
Certain objects will also stay as they are, so you don't have to move the same block into position multiple times. And an important improvement from later Zelda games/remasters made it into this as well: when you activate switches, it will only show you what they trigger the first time. It won't play the same cutscenes of a door opening and closing again and again, which was something that kept interrupting the gameplay in the Nintendo 64 originals. And all of this makes the dungeon gameplay more fluent and enjoyable.
The combat also feels so much better, while it stays mostly faithful in essence, but snappier and more reactive. There is also some back and forth with the difficulty. Some things are more challenging now, while others are easier. Fighting the Lizalfos is a great example, because you can hit them now multiple times in a row, without those attacks being absorbed. But this invites you to be more aggressive and less defensive, which the Lizalfos can use to their advantage.
Or, the heads of the Beamos don't just instantly explode when they drop down. Instead they activate a detonation timer. This makes it easier to dodge them, but at the same time it appears a lot more threatening. It's the same with the Baby Dodongos and how their bellies inflate with heat before they explode. And the explosions look all fantastic. It makes you want to blow up everything.
Remember the secret spot behind the lavafall in the first Lizalfos room, which got discovered around 2009? Well, it's no longer secret – instead they have made this a proper part of the room where you can retreat to and find some pots. But it's honestly great how this obscurely hidden heart gets this much recognition here.
Both Lizalfos rooms now also have a treasure chest spawn in them, where the second one is on the platform above the first room. In the original this was just another place with some weirdly positioned hearts that you are likely to ignore, so it's nice to see them expanded:
That chest spawning sound was actually from Majora's Mask, though, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think it ever appeared in Ocarina of Time. In any case, this new chest gave me my first Business Scrub Seeds, the new item in the game. But I haven't tried that one yet.
The monster designs are just overall very, very good. Take the Armos, for example. It looks incredible with how they awaken and then get more color and a proper face. And how their bodies get those fiery cracks all over them when they are about to explode.
And that new Dodongo design is just stone monster porn at this point. How can they look that crazily good? The exposed tail is a bit funny, though, but it explains why you can attack their tails and not the rest of their bodies. That green body, which they seemingly have underneath all that rock, reminds me a bit of the Lizalfos from Echoes of Wisdom, now combined with Temper Tweelus fiery rock enemies. It's much more detailed, of course, but the enemy design almost looks sculptural... Which probably led to the idea of making a sculpture hall with them.
In the original game this was the only room that featured the normal Dodongos, by the way, which why it's often called the "Dodongo Room". In Master Quest they'll also appear in the Water Temple and Gerudo Training Grounds, but on the Nintendo 64 this was the only place. So, they had made this enemy just for a single room, almost like a mini-boss.
That's different in the remake. There is a new room on the upper floor, north of the switch that activates the elevator. It's a pit with two Dodongos inside, protecting a Gold Skulltula behind a large rock.
And I was very excited to find this, even if it's just for the novelty alone. It's small changes like these that can make a huge difference, but the importance here is that the eponymous enemy of the dungeon gets an additional appearance.
As for the new Gold Skulltula there, they have removed the second one in the staircase room, which originally was a bit tricky to get. You either had to return there as adult Link, or re-enter the dungeon as child Link, so that the large staircase resets, then use the elevator to reach the upper floor and land on the raised staircase with one well positioned jump.
I don't think the staircase will even reset in the remake and there is no need for that, because they have added a ladder that now let's you easily reach the upper alcove. You will still have to backtrack here once you got the Bombs, but it's much more convenient. And there is no Gold Skulltula here, but another Business Scrub Seed...
The one Skulltula that requires the scarecrow is still there, but this would have otherwise removed an interesting part of the backtracking, because that's only of the four child dungeons that you can also enter in the future. It would be awesome, though, if you had a reason to explore more of it as an adult, maybe even return to the boss chamber...
King Dodongo got buffed quite a bit. He will now send Baby Dodongos your way, before he coughs up a large molten rock, so you have to dodge the small monsters first, before you can intervene. And you can't shield his rolling attack any longer, where instead the new dash mechanic comes into play: you will simply have to run from him.
Curiously, they have changed the story a bit here, when Darunia hands you the Goron Ruby. In the original he said that Ganondorf came to him personally, but here he states that Ganondorf's lackeys approached him instead. And this makes sense as a consequence of another story refinement.
Earlier in the game, Impa also mentioned that Ganondorf was staying at the castle, kind of like he did in Age of Imprisonment (haha). It's the reason why she can't help you, because she needs to stay close to Zelda, in case something were to happen, as seen in Zelda's dreams. Though, Impa still wanders off a bit...
You can meet her later at Hyrule Castle again when you visit the Great Fairy Fountain there. She will then give you directions to the Zora, after noticing that you've found the Spiritual Stone of Fire. So, Darunia guides you to the Great Fairy atop of Death Mountain, she then guides you here to her sister at Hyrule Castle, and Impa then puts you back on track.
You can still ignore all of that and do it all later, where you potentially miss out on this little cutscene and dialogue, I suppose. It still makes me wonder if this addition is why they kept the rocks at the entrance of the Zora and decided against making the game more open at this point. But they could have added a different scene with Impa in that case, maybe once you return from Zora's Domain, offering more replay value.
As for the Great Fairies, they truly live like they are the goddesses of Hyrule now, making even the most pompous and profligate royalty blush in envy. It's probably for the best that these places are hidden, or else someone would certainly come and pillage them for all that gold. Though, they probably would get turned into a frog or something by the Great Faires...
I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't give them individual hair colors, like in Majora's Mask, maybe based on what they have to offer you. And you also have to offer something in return now, but sadly it's only Rupees. It starts with 25 and then seemingly gets doubled with each one, which means that you would need 800 Rupees for the last one. But at least this gives some additional use to Hyrule's currency, which was badly needed.
Also, Din's Fire and the "Gift of Improved Spin" got swapped, but it makes sense thematically to find the fire spell at the volcano. The magic spin attack now also doesn't consume magic any longer, making Din's Fire the only item right now that uses it. But that's probably for the best as well.
You already have to charge the spin attack, so that's enough of a drawback. And in the original you could do the blue spin without wasting magic via quick spinning, but that move was a stick killer for the old Nintendo 64 controllers.
Another good change is that they got rid of any clocks appearing on the screen, just like they got rid of the timer sounds in dungeons. Instead, you will now receive constant fire damage inside the Death Mountain Crater, giving you a fully natural time limit.
You can briefly stop it by picking up hearts or healing in other ways, like the Piece of Heart that you can find here. You also have to go further now to find the Gold Skulltula in the crate, so it's not a challenge you can easily ignore. Luckily, you don't blow yourself up with bombs in the heat, like you would have in Breath of the Wild, or else that hidden grotto here might turn into a death trap instead of safe haven.
But you will only find another Business Scrub Seed in there. Well, it beats only meeting some Business Scrubs with no other reward, but I'm sensing a pattern here. This new item feels like the Fishing Hole Passes in Majora's Mask 3D, which you would suddenly get instead of Rupees in a number of places, but which also didn't really offer a meaningful reward.
You could also compare it to the Monster Stones in Echoes of Wisdom. It's a slightly more interesting reward than Rupees or random materials, and it does have its use, but you may never actually need them. Just like these new Business Scrub Seeds.
In order to fill some of the new treasure chests, this remake really would have needed been a new collectible item, something like the stamps in Twilight Princess HD. Those were predominantly found in treasure chests that previously only had Rupees inside, with many of them inside the secret grottoes. Which is exactly what we're having here.
From what I could tell so far, they are indeed all unique now, meaning that duplicated grottoes got replaced with new ones. The above, for example, is the grotto in the Lost Woods right next to the portal to Goron City. It now has a circle of bushes, where each bush contains a bug... Should you ever be in need of many. Though, my experience is that you will be able to find one near the Soft Soils anyway.
Sadly, these grottoes are not marked on your map. You can see them in the Zelda Notes app, where it uses even the exact same map design and visuals, but this app already spoils the locations of everything. And it's not something that I want to be using for a Zelda game, just to get relevant information. I want the game itself to keep track of what caves I have already visited. That shouldn't be much to ask, especially when the map data apparently exists in some phone app.
Another new grotto is next to the Skulltula House, which has a Gossip Stone and some beehives in it. You aren't able to destroy these with the slingshot, but Din's Fire already proves to be useful here. And you can now also use the fire spell to obliterate Peahats, where a Fairy Thought at the northwest edge of Hyrule Field teaches you this new trick. And that's indeed new, so Din's Fire did not interact with these entities on the Nintendo 64 or the 3DS.
Curiously, there used to be a secret grotto right in the middle of Kakariko with two ReDeads inside, but I wasn't able to find this one. I actually thought the one next to the Skulltula House would be it. In any case, I won't need to the Stone/Shard of Agony to locate it, because that's not in the game any longer.
They have replaced it with the Echo Gem as a new reward for 20 Gold Skulltula tokens. And that's really just a Gold Skulltula detector, using both light and sound, according to its description. This is what goes into that single slot on the equipment screen and you can turn it or off, where Link even visibly puts this onto the strap of his sword sheath.
I'm not going to use it for now, so I can only speculate, but it might be like a mix between the Ghost Lantern from Twilight Princess HD and the Seashell Sensor in the Link's Awakening remake. It's probably even the reason why it doesn't tell you on the map any longer when you've found all Gold Skulltulas in an area or dungeon – you're supposed to use this item to find out. They also made the rattling noises of the Gold Skulltulas more subtle, so you won't be able to tell from ten meters away that there is still one around. You have to get much closer.
The Bombchu Bowling is the next mini-game to receive a major overhaul and they've completely turned this around, from something I hated to something that I couldn't stop playing. It's really fun now and got rid of most of the randomness that plagued it originally.
You get the main prices in a certain order: first Bombchus, then the bigger or biggest Bomb Bag, and finally the Piece of Heart. Each time the setup becomes increasingly more difficult with additional obstacles to either destroy or dodge. To avoid any allegations of animal cruelty, the game doesn't make use of actual Cuccos any longer, where your victory is up to their whim.
Instead you now have these wooden mockups, which move back and forth on rails. So, both their path and velocity is predetermined, which makes it possible for you to accurately time your shots. If you miss, this will be on you, making this purely skill-based. There are also the new grass standees that can be blown up, unlike the Cuccos. And sometimes you even have to do this to clear the way. You can also snipe the goal via the walls, but there are now moving blade traps to make that a bit more challenging.
It's no Rupee Rush, but this has become one of the better mini-games in the series now, in my opinion. Sadly, there is no real reason to keep playing past the Piece of Heart, because you can only win twenty Rupees, while one game costs ten. And that's not really worth it.
The Bombchu shop also opens at this point, but I have no demand, because the mini-game already left me with the new maximum of 40 (instead of 50). I'm guessing that this now scales with your Bomb Bag and when it you receive the upgrade for the Bomb Bag it refills both the Bombs and the Bomchus to the max.
If you want to visit Zelda again, you still can and also get different reactions from your masks, like getting told that you have four ears now. That was already possible in the original, but is arguably now more fun to do with the new Hyrule Castle.
And the guard at the gate, who you can bribe, leaves it permanently open, so you don't have to pay him every single time (or simply climb above it). But now we know how the castle could get invaded by the evil forces... It's definitely this guy's fault.
You can now also pick up the bomb that the guard throws at your inside the courtyard, definitely endangering the princess for real. It's also fantastic how the spin attack spreads all the cut leaves and flowers over the entire place.
Love these little, scattered parts that stay around, the same with smashed pots or rock. The original game already had the signs that you could cut apart, which was such a neat detail for a game at that time. They took that and applied it to many other things that you can destroy, where it's just fun to make a mess.
Also, items like hearts and Rupees stay around now until you change the area or pick them up, so they don't just disappear after a few seconds.
Now, before I leave to Zora's Domain, I want to quote myself from an article back in May, discussing a potential re-imagining of Ocarina of Time, before we got the official announcement in June. This is what I had to say:
Imagine standing atop Death Mountain and being able to see more than just Kakariko Village at its feet. You could view all of Hyrule from up there, see how it all connects. This view alone would already justify taking such a different approach, where they could take this classic land to a new level.
And now look at that:
Thank you, Nintendo, for making it happen! It's beautiful. Very beautiful. That alone is a reward for climbing this mountain. But the volcano eruption now also only happens on your first trip, so afterwards the air stays clear and you can just enjoy your additional Death Mountain hiking trips.
No comments:
Post a Comment