Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Review)

Are you a true American, who was born in the 70s or 80s and thinks that the classic Nintendo Entertainment System is the best video game console ever made? And do you still love to compete in who can do things quickest? Well, then Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition was made for you, congratulations!

If not, then you might be wondering whether this game is really worth it or not... And to be upfront, this really should have been part of the Nintendo Switch Online service's offerings, alongside Tetris 99 and F-Zero 99. Instead, it costs 30 bucks, or twice as much if you're going for the Deluxe Set physical edition.

Under the hood you will get what's effectively a reskin of NES Remix, with a couple of main differences. There are only individual challenges, so no stages where you do a series of tasks. There are also no remixed levels or special conditions, it's all about doing a certain task or reaching a certain goal as fast as possible. You also don't have any lives or tries, instead it will rewind whenever you potentially screw up or do things that you're not supposed to, like a majority of possible glitches.

The rewind functionality is rarely ever useful, however. The timer will keep running, so there is a huge penalty attached to it. With shorter challenges you're always better off to reset. In addition, you don't have any control about how far it rewinds, where it might set you back into a situation where you just fall into your death again, potentially even keeping you in a loop... So, you have to reset anyway.

And when you reset, the three second countdown at the beginning can get a bit annoying, especially since the this may take longer than some of the challenge themselves... It's still good to have, because you want to be ready and already started with the right button(s) pressed, but it could be shorter.

Also, what could be better is the button layout, where NES Remix gave you Y as a second Select button, which is very useful and more comfortable for a variety of games, e.g. Metroid and Zelda II. At least, you can use X as an alternative to B, so that's something... But there are no control options of any kind, which is always a negative and a general problem with Nintendo.

As for the emulation itself, it feels similar to the Nintendo Switch Online offerings, meaning that you will experience the games in all their messy glory. There will be significant slowdowns whenever there are too many enemies on screen in Metroid, for example. The timer won't slow down for you, though, so you will have to take this into account.

For each challenge they've created a specific RAM save state (essentially a Suspend / Restore Point), so you should get the same RNG on each try, to make things as consistent as it gets. In practice this means that you can predict enemy movements in certain challenges, because they always will be the same, which then enables you to become even faster.

That's it for the basics, in total there are over 150 challenges to play, spread over 13 different NES titles, which is far less than what the NES Remix games had to offer, but it aims to be a bit more of a quality selection. Here is a list of the games in question:

• Ballon Fight
• Donkey Kong
• Excitebike
• Ice Climbers
  
• Kid Icarus
• Kirby's Adventure
  
• The Legend of Zelda
• Metroid
• Super Mario Bros.
• Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels
• Super Mario Bros. 2
• Super Mario Bros. 3
  
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
  

This should cover most of the fan favorites and focuses on the early Nintendo games that have aged best, though none of them have aged particularly well, except maybe Super Mario Bros. 3. You will still get some stiff and clunky stuff in there, like Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, or even Kid Icarus and Metroid. And your enjoyment of the Nintendo World Championships will heavily depend on the enjoyment of these games.

At least the challenges weren't spread out equally, so the more popular games get more challenges than something like Excitebike. Also, you don't have to play other games first in order to get to the good stuff. You can just focus on whatever game(s) you like best, because everything you do is rewarded with coins, based on your score and the difficulty. Those coins then can be used to unlock challenges and purchase player icons based on the 13 games. So, you can technically play the same challenge over and over again to unlock everything in the game, even though you probably don't want to do it that way.

The score is determined by eight different ranks: C, B, B+, B++, A, A+, A++, and S. For the S-rank you usually have to get close to perfection, with a little leeway. So, getting those can be quite challenging, especially if this is your first contact with speedrunning. But it also heavily depends on the challenge in question and the required times, where some will give you an easier time than others.

As for the challenges themselves, they range from "short and sweet" to "speedrun the entire game, please". In case of Super Mario Bros., for example, you start with picking up the first mushroom and collecting some coins. This goes over into entire levels, until finally you have to beat the entire game. To be fair, this is the exception and it can be achieved within a couple of minutes thanks to the warp zones.

That is the game's "Legend" difficulty challenge, where each title gets one such lengthier task, some more than others. In case of the two Zelda games you will have to speedrun the entire first dungeon. Meanwhile, in Metroid you only have to do the final escape sequence, where the developers were merciful enough to leave out the atrocious Mother Brain fight before it.

For those Legendary Challenges you can read hints, called "Classified Information", where it shows you the intended route for the S-rank or other useful tips, so you don't have to look at online maps or guides of these games to figure it out yourself. These hints look like pages from classic manuals or strategy guides from that era, which is really awesome and something that more games should do.

The manuals used to be a fantastic source of information and beautiful artworks back in the day, where Nintendo slowly economized this to a point where modern games don't came with any manual at all. It's understandable, but games like TUNIC and now Nintendo World Championships show how you can bring these back within the game itself. It's very lovely!

This is entirely subjective, but you may find the shorter challenges to be more fun and addicting. In those you really focus on one task to get it done just right. Fight that one Lynel at the cave to the White Sword as quickly as possible. Again, again, and again until you get that one near-perfect try. It gets you into the "zone".

The longer the challenges become, however, the more it goes into conventional speedrunning territory, where you have to put everything together and optimize both in large and small scale. In some cases, like Super Mario Bros., it even feels like all the challenges before are just there to teach you how to speedrun the game in its entirety. And that might not be to everyone's taste.

But these longer challenges also often have more leeway for the S-rank, where you can afford to make some mistakes and potentially still get it. The Parapa Palace from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link is a great example of this, luckily.

However, this wouldn't be the "Nintendo World Championships" if this was just about personal highscores. There needs to be some competition and the game let's you go at it in three different ways: Party Mode, World Championships, and Survival Mode.

Party Mode let's you compete locally with up to eight players. Here you get different themed sets of challenges, or you can just create your own. You then score points based on your placement and the winner gets it all... This is entirely separate from the rest of the game (the one player mode), so none of your highscores here will have any effect. And this can run out of steam quickly, so don't bank on it for this to become your next party game.

Otherwise, you have the two "online" modes, Wold Championships and Survival. For both you get the same set of five challenges, which are going to change every Monday. In World Championships you get to play these challenges individually and you can try to achieve a highscore. New highscores will be transferred into the singleplayer Speedrun Mode, even if you haven't unlocked the given challenges yet. But this won't work the other way around, so you have to make a good score for the running competition.

You won't see your standings until that competition is over, however, so there are no real leaderboards to follow until then. That's probably not to demotivate players from trying their best, because seeing the highscores on online leaderboards can be daunting. And there is a sense of wonder of how well you did in the end... But for those who really want to compete for the top this is a questionable decision at best.

In Survival you will play three challenges back-to-back against the ghost data of seven other players. Each round the bottom half gets disqualified and you goal is to make it to the end. This is divided into Silver and Gold levels, where for the former you get generally more easier opponents, while in the Gold Division you're often up against people's best attempts, making this fairly challenging.

Winning here will earn you some pins, where there's 183 to unlock in total, most of them from scoring an A-rank in all the individual challenges. These pins are like little trophies (and also what the physical pins in the Deluxe Set are based upon), where you can show off one of them in pride next to your username.

The other customization a statement, like "Game Boy Generation", your favorite NES game from a comprehensive list, as well the aforementioned player icons. The latter are unlocked via coins and can get rather expensive, e.g. the awoken princess from Zelda II costs 1000. The hardest challenges only cost 300 to unlock, in comparison, so this may keep you busy for a while, grinding all that virtual money.

Finally, if you're super crazy about all of this and can't get enough, there is the "Legendary Trial" to unlock, where you will have to clear all 13 Legendary Challenges one after another, which can take half an hour. Good luck with that!

Conclusion

All in all, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is another take on NES Remix, with a bit of competition sprinkled on top. If you enjoy speedrunning and mastering individually segments in video games, then you should have a good time with this, given that you don't mind the age of the games in question. Otherwise this title won't have much to offer...

Hopefully, Nintendo will move on from the NES with this concept and offer something for Game Boy and SNES generation in the future, or potentially even something based on individual franchises with a mix of different platforms.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Impressions

Well, this is essentially NES Remix again... just with less games and less challenges per game and without any remix, but with online competition... without any leaderboards. The focus is a lot more on speedrunning individual chunks, where they've put quality over quantity with the selection of challenges.

And it can be quite addicting to the get one single thing just right for the S-rank, where I personally do enjoy these smaller tasks more than the longer ones. It can even ruin a potentially fun challenge if there's more to it than necessary, where the best example is probably the Ridley fight from Metroid. For some reason they thought it to be a good idea to include the room before in all its laggy glory.

To make things worse they let the game rewind whenever you might fall into lava, but you can't really set where you get back into the game, so it might just place you above the lava once more... The rewind is truly useless, especially if you're going for the S-ranks, because the timer keeps running, even as it rewinds. So, you're always better off just resetting.

Controls could also be better. Like in NES Remix, you still have X as an alternative to B, but Y isn't any longer a second Select button, which would especially be useful in Metroid for the missile switch. There are options for some things, e.g. how it displays the screen(s), but overall it's lacking.

My main problem with this game is similar to NES Remix, however: the only two NES games that I've ever played on the original hardware are The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. Those are the two NES games that I care about and not much else... I've also played and beaten Metroid, of course, but that's actually my least favorite game in the series. It's a bit too archaic for my taste, as are most NES games.

Now, there are 15 challenges for each Zelda game and I quickly got S-ranks in all of them. The only ones that gave me some trouble were "Labyrinth Champion" and "Rebonack Attack". The latter always was a painful bossfight for me, where here I really had to master it for the first time. And as for the Level 1 dungeon, I simply took a suboptimal route, because I've collected both keys in the rooms next to the entrance, where this isn't necessary. I should have looked at the "Classified Information" sooner, which are super awesome in this old strategy guide style, where being able to look at those is essentially a reward for itself.

Anyway, now I'm left with little motivation to go on. I'm giving some other games and challenges a try, also in combination with the "online" modes, but it just doesn't have the same spark. And while I am more interested in a potential SNES or Game Boy Edition, those still would come with many games and challenges I don't particularly enjoy playing, e.g. F-Zero.

What I'm trying to say here is that I personally would prefer something like "Nintendo World Championships: The Legend of Zelda Edition", where they focus on one franchise and include all games that are currently part of the Nintendo Switch Online emulation, so you would have up to ten Zelda games in total. This would really get me excited to complete everything and to compete in those weekly online tournaments.

It's understandable that they are doing this on a console basis, because otherwise many Nintendo games would never be featured at all. And hopefully these types of games are not stuck with the NES for all eternity, where a Game Boy Edition would probably be so much more fun for me. But they could also do these franchise editions in addition, at least for the most popular ones, like Super Mario and Zelda. Maybe as a free offering for the 40th anniversaries?

Got Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Deluxe Set

Well, I already got this yesterday, because for some reason Nintendo decided with this fiscal year that their new games should launch on a Thursday... But this was on a Thursday, so I couldn't even be bothered to unpack it. Anyway, it's finally here, the big summer release that we've been waiting for... Not really, but it could be a nice diversion for in-between, where I already got hooked with beating some Octoroks as fast as possible.

As for the Deluxe Set, this is the only way of getting a physical copy of the game. It costs it much as a normal Nintendo Switch game would, but you get a variety of goodies on top:

There is a replica of the golden NES cartridge for the Nintendo World Championships, though they felt the need to use this game's logo on a black background, so it isn't exactly the same. And of course it's not a real NES game, it's just plastic, but it comes with even more plastic in the form of a standee, so you can put it nicely into a display cabinet.

In addition, you get a pin set, which is surprisingly nice, because it feels like little trophies. I'm normally not a big fan of such pins and I don't get Nintendo's obsession with them, but in this case it seems like a very good fit.

 

Finally, there is a card set with the original covers of all 13 NES games featured in the game. It's actually a very good selection, they've went with the absolute best games here, unlike NES Remix and NES Remix 2, where they had one too many of Nintendo's old games in there. On the backside you get some pixel arts:

And that's it. Nothing too special, but still neat. My only real complaint is that the cover of the card case still has the huuuge age ratings on it. Why is that? One of the biggest selling points of these Special Editions, at least for me personally, is to get a clean cover. And they are not even selling this separately!

Though, maybe they had planned to... The pin box also comes with a plastic wrapping that's normally used for My Nintendo stuff, complete with a bar code sticker for the item. Maybe they first made the retail game and those pins separately, but then decided to create this Deluxe Set instead. Add some more cardboard and plastic, and then sell it for full price. Oh, well, it's obviously working...

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Announced

Well, Nintendo doesn't need a Nintendo Direct to announce new games, this one coming on July 18th. They've just posted a video, which is a bit cringe and dwells in the memories of past of Nintendo World Championships events. This never has been a thing in Europe, so other than the rare NES cartridge this isn't exactly some that you may have heard about outside of North America.

To me this looks a lot like NES Remix, which is one of the few Wii U titles that haven't made it onto the Nintendo Switch yet. The core idea is pretty much the same, where NES Remix 2 even had a remixed version of the original Nintendo World Championships. The main difference is that this is all about online leaderboards, because that's always fun, given that you love playing games to absolute perfection (I usually don't).

So, this is simply another title pushing the Nintendo Switch Online service, similar to Tetris 99 and alike, except that this one isn't for free. But it will still be eShop exclusive... unless you get physical "Deluxe Set". I will try to get my hands on the latter, but otherwise I probably won't bother with this.

The NES Remix games were diverting, however, some nice and casual fun, but I never found them all too engaging. I only ever cared about the Zelda and Metroid challenges, because those are the only NES games that I truly like.

It's also weird that they are calling this the "NES Edition", as if they are meaning to create a "SNES Edition" and potentially other editions later on. But there never has been a "SNES Remix" or a "Game Boy Remix", so this would be new territory. I would love something like this for Game Boy games, though.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda (Review)

 

Happy 35th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! To celebrate you got re-released together with your younger NES sibling for the seventh (or so) time, but this time on its very own video game system: Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda. Let's give this thing a look.

 

Hardware

The new Game & Watch system is quite small, where with 11cm x 6.5cm it almost rivals the GameBoy Micro (10cm x 5 cm). It's also very light and the buttons feel a bit mushy, so it overall has a low quality feel to it. The LCD screen is pretty good, however, with sharp visuals and vibrant colors.

On the left side you can find a USB-C port, but the system won't come with an AC adapter, only a short cable. If you own a Nintendo Switch (Pro Controller) or a modern Android phone, however, then chances are that you will have everything needed for charging ready anyway. But keep this in mind when purchasing.

On the other end rests the speaker and there doesn't seem to be a way of using headphones with the device, which is a shame, because the speaker also isn't the best. For the most part its fine, but some sound effects don't seem to be well balanced, where it can make some annoying louder noises here and then during the gameplay. Some things also just don't sound the same with these speakers, like for example moving rocks and blocks in Link's Awakening, which just doesn't have the same heavy tone to it.

As a nice detail, there is a Triforce on the backside of the device, which gets lit when the system is turned on. However, you won't really notice this while playing or while keeping it in the stand that comes with it. This stand is just made out of cardboard, so nothing special either. With the exception of the display it's all as cheap as it can get.

 

Software

There was already a Game & Watch: Zelda released back in 1989, but it's sadly not part of this system, which comes with a modified version of Vermin instead, where you play whack-a-mole with Link. But this is certainly not the main attraction of the new Game & Watch, which comes with a variety of five different games that you can select:

• The Legend of Zelda (English and Japanese)
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (English and Japanese)
• Link's Awakening (English, French, German and Japanese)
• Vermin
• Timer
  

Believe it or not, the Timer is probably one of the most interesting things here, because it's like a mini-game where you battle foes from The Adventure of Link within the set time limit. It saves a separate high score for every time limit that you can chose, which ranges from one to ten minutes.

These battles can even even have Dark Link in them, which is pretty badass. He falls in three hits, however, because otherwise this would be too brutal. And the corner trick doesn't work here, since the screen borders function like in Pac-Man, where you will appear at the right if you leave the screen to the left and vice versa. Should you camp in a corner, Dark Link will simply go to the other end and literally stab you in the back. This must be so satisfying for him after being cheesed for over 30 years.

This seems to be based on the Japanese version, however, so the sounds are slightly different from what you might been used to. And the combat isn't entirely the same either, where the Iron Knuckles seem to be a lot harder to hit. Luckily, the blue ones don't throw sword beams at you, but you don't get to throw any either.

Anyway, it's very interesting that you can play the games in the different language versions, where in case of The Adventure of Link there is actually a good number of changes in both visuals and sounds between the Japanese and English versions. Some enemies can be different as well. The original The Legend of Zelda mainly has differently sounding music, but it's still interesting to give this a try, since both games don't have that much text anyway.

It even treats each language version as its own game, so you can start playing Link's Awakening in both English and German for example, where it will create separate save states and you can keep playing these versions independently from another. A language switch probably would have been more intuitive, but since all of these versions are actually different in other aspects than just the texts, this does make sense from a technical point of view. And as already said, it can be interesting to try these different versions to experience the changes yourself.

For the German version of Link's Awakening they've actually altered some of the infamously lewd translations of Claude M. Moyse, however, where the Cukemen don't speak of condoms and sharing juices any longer. Some character names also got altered, just like in the Virtual Console release of Link's Awakening DX on the Nintendo 3DS. (BowWow used to be called "Struppi" originally, as a reference to Tim & Struppi  / The Adventures of Tintin, while Crazy Tracy was named "Geierwally", as a reference to The Vulture Wally. Those references got cut on the Virtual Console, which is the same for this new version, where now these characters are called "Komet" and "Trantrudi" respectively.)

Otherwise there don't seem to be any changes, however, so the mermaid will still look for her bikini top and get upset if you dive in front of her. And the hippo model has pixel breasts to cover when you enter the house of the crocodile artist, Schule Donavitch, where it implies that they are doing a nude portrait. All of this got censored in Link's Awakening DX for the German and French versions, where the mermaid has lost a pearl necklace instead and the hippo has lost her breasts entirely, where she simply sits down when you enter the room. For the English version this always used to be the case, even on the old GameBoy, while the Japanese versions both had the lewd jokes. Cultural differences and all that...

But if you're from Germany and you want to re-experience the game exactly like it used to be on the GameBoy, keep in mind that these texts were changed. The rest looks and feels pretty much like on the GameBoy, however, where it even emulates the green colors of the original display. You can also switch screen sizes between full width and original, just like on the GameBoy Advance. It's all pretty thoughtful and it's absolutely fantastic that Nintendo has finally preserved the original GameBoy title now in this form.

That being said, it still would have been nice to get Link's Awakening DX in addition, maybe even all GameBoy Color Zelda games, where they could have gone for a complete 8-bit Zelda collection. All these games can be played with only the A, B, Start and Select buttons, which is what the system has.

The emulators employs suspend points for everything, so you can leave a game at any time and then return to it exactly where you left off whenever you want, similar to suspended Virtual Console games, which is highly convenient. It doesn't offer restore points, however, so you can't make your own save states that you can create and load, which would have been very nice to have for the unforgiving Zelda II - The Adventure of Link.

Still, you might find a couple of secrets to make the games easier or harder, mostly by holding down the A button when selecting the game mode or save file. With Vermin you'll get the much harder "Game C" for example. In Zelda II you can get eight lives and everything maxed out right from the start, which makes the game a breeze. If you really want to give the Japanese version a try, then this might even be a good idea, because there it resets your levels to the lowest one on a Game Over, which can be quite demotivating.

However, this trick also unlocks all magic spells right from the beginning, which is a little bit too much and removes part of the fun of collecting everything. Same with the Life and Magic Containers. A middle ground, where you get the highest levels from the start, but still have to collect all the items, would have been great here.

Other than the playable timer, there is also the main clock, where it animates gameplay scenes from The Legend of Zelda and shows the current time on the background / underground. You can also take over and play Link yourself, but unlike in the timer there are no highscores here or anything. It's just for fun.

Conclusion

The Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda system does a good job at preserving the different language versions of three 8-bit Zelda classics, while offering some nice little mini-games as extras. But a couple more games would have been nice, like the original Game & Watch: Zelda or the GameBoy Color titles, where it's a shame that Nintendo didn't go the extra mile with this device, which also doesn't have a high quality to it.

The Good:

• Sharp and bright screen.
• Includes all the different language versions.
• Nice preservation of the original Link's Awakening.
• Suspend and switch between games quickly at any time.
  
• Playable timer with highscores.
  

The Bad:

• Feels cheap and too small.
• The speaker isn't very good and there's no support for headphones.
  
• Doesn't come with the actual Game & Watch: Zelda.
• Doesn't come with any of the GameBoy Color Zelda games.
• No manual restore points.
  

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda Announced

Happy 35th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! Here's a new Game & Watch system for you! I hope you didn't expect a theme park or anything, because that's all you get. At least it's better than the one for Super Mario Bros., right...?

Well, in any case, this is not necessarily what you would have expected out of the 35th Anniversary, where this is about as interesting as getting a bunch of new amiibo five years ago. But here we go... In the least this comes with a variety of games:

• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
• Playable clock based on The Legend of Zelda
• Playable timer based on Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
• Link's Awakening (GameBoy version)
• Game & Watch: Vernim (starring Link)

Now, if you're asking, "what happened to the actual Game & Watch Zelda game?", then you probably have a better memory about this than most Nintendo employees. To be fair, it used to have two screens, like a Nintendo DS:

But this didn't stop from them adding it to the Game & Watch Gallery 4 for the GameBoy Advance (and Wii U Virtual Console), where it used a condensed layout that fits a single screen. They could have done something similar here as well.

There also used to be a "Zelda Game Watch" as a second LCD title, which would have fit the screen just fine, but this was a licensed product made by Nelsonic, where Nintendo may not really have anything available here.

Instead you will have to settle for Vernim, some whack-a-mole with Link, which isn't exactly exciting. And the rest of the games are all titles that can already played on Nintendo Switch in some form, so this shouldn't be very interesting for newcomers to the Zelda series.

But this is actually the first time they've ever re-released the GameBoy version of Link's Awakening, because there was Link's Awakening DX for the GameBoy Color available since 1998, so this was the preferred choice for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.

I personally always liked the classic, monochrome GameBoy version of Link's Awakening a little more, because this has been my first entry to the series and I wasn't the biggest fan of the coloring in the DX version. I'm even considering to play it one more time on this, but it might really hard to return to this game after the excellent Nintendo Switch remake.

Best Error Message Screen Ever

The Treehouse Live stream for E3 2019 just had some issues and they used the following screen for the error message:

This is golden!

Link's Awakening Remake: Color Dungeon Returns

While the new trailer for Link's Awakening focused on the overall visuals and experience, as well as the new Chamber Dungeons feature, the Treehouse segment showed us that the Color Dungeon from Link's Awakening will be back in fully glory.

The Skeletons at the entrance, who now have names like everyone – Gar and Dion, don't ask you their colors any more, but they are still talking about how you will need Magic Powder and are offering to sell you some. The rest of the dungeon seems to be unchanged and that's nice to see.

While it is not the most complex dungeon in the game, it will be a great addition for the new Chamber Dungeons, because it offers a big variety of the small dungeon rooms that are necessary for this feature:

As indicated by the Color Dungeon's classic music, this is one giant throwback to the dungeons of the first NES Zelda game, where everything is made out of these simple square rooms, in which the exits of each room are placed right at the centers of the walls. It even has a hidden Rupee chamber, much like the dungeons on the NES used to have.

Now, the Chamber Dungeons only seem to work with such square rooms and not bigger constructs out of multiple rooms (that are now one), where the Color Dungeon is made exclusively out of them. It's the only dungeon in the game that does this. In fact the Chamber Dungeons feature might even be the main reason, why Nintendo went through the effort of bringing back this particular dungeon in the first place...

The Original Linkle

kazzykazycom on Twitter has just recently published some images of a Japanese magazine from 1986, which depicted Link as a girl (more images in the link):

Hot! I guess, if you only have played the game at the time, it's easy to be confused about Link's lengthy sideburns. In a way this would be the opposite to Metroid, where you might expect to play as a girl, but end up with a male protagonist. But seriously, Nintendo should consider the option. Link looks really good as a girl.

Zelda II - The Adventure of Link SPECIAL

This has been released next to Kid Icarus and StarTropics in the newest update of the Nintendo Switch Online NES library.

In this special save game you really start in the game's 2nd Quest / New Game+ with your Attack, Life and Magic values maxed out, and with both sword techniques and all Magic Spells available. This is exactly what we proposed, when the SPECIAL version of The Legend of Zelda got released, and pretty much all it needs to make the game more enjoyable by taking away the necessity of grinding levels.

When I replayed Zelda II on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016, I had a lot more fun with the game's 2nd Quest mode with the exact same setup. Sadly, it removes the excitement of discovering new Magic Spells and the hidden sword techniques, where it probably would have been enough to max out all the levels. But in any case it should make the game more accessible to those, who found it too hard in the past.

The Legend of Zelda SPECIAL

Living the life of luxury!

So, Nintendo released a "SPECIAL" or "SP" version of the original The Legend of Zelda for Nintendo Switch Online. These SP versions of NES games already were listed a while ago and I was wondering what it could mean, but luckily I didn't put much thought into it, because it turns that they aren't all that special after all.

In case of The Legend of Zelda, it's really just a pre-defined savegame, where someone uncovered most of the secret caves and did get all the items that you can obtain before entering any of the dungeons. So, your inventory got the following additions, when you start the game:

• Three of the five overworld Heart Containers
• The White Sword
• The Magical Shield
• The Blue Ring
• The Power Bracelet
• The Blue Candle
• The Arrow
• Food
• Red Potion
• 8 Bombs
• 9 Keys
• 255 Rupees

For the most part this is exactly what I'm always doing, when I start a new game of The Legend of Zelda. Well, I usually don't go for the Power Bracelet this early and I usually also don't buy any Keys, but otherwise this is my exact shopping list before going into any of the dungeons. It makes the game simply a lot easier and enjoyable to go for all these items early. And that's probably the thought behind this "SPECIAL" version...

However, for me personally this version takes a big part of the fun away, because I really like going for all these items early in the game, growing more powerful on every step. And this version already has the job done for me, which is kind of boring. But I guess, it's a nice offer for anyone, who isn't that familiar with the original game and just wants to try it without much frustration or the use of any guides.

Anyway, if they do more of these "SP" versions, they definitely should do one for Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. Last time, when I replayed the game on the 3DS two years ago, I noticed how much more fun it is to replay the game in its "2nd Quest". There you play the same game over from the start, but you get to keep your levels (ideally everything on 8), all your Spells and the two sword techniques.

The game plays so much better this way and is a lot more enjoyable, especially in the beginning. This would be ideal for such a "SPECIAL" version, where certainly many players would give the game a real chance for the first time, simply because it doesn't kill you left and right early on. So, let's see...

Nintendo Switch Online Detailed

Today Nintendo revealed their plans for the Nintendo Switch online service. When I heard about NES games playable in online multiplayer, I was excited at first. Imagine playing The Legend of Zelda online with others in the style of Four Swords. Multiple Links running over the screen and shooting sword beams. This would have been amazing and an absolute must-have for myself.

Sadly, that's not what this is. Instead it's some sort of Twitch on console for singleplayer games, where your friends can watch you play and even take over. It's not a bad idea and I can even see this winning some popularity, but it's nothing that would get me excited.

The price seems okay: 20€ for a one year, I can live with that. Of course nothing beats the pricing of "for free" that Nintendo's online services used to have. But everything is getting more and more expensive these days...

Cloud backup for save games is also nice to have. But nothing beats backing up save games on a SD card like you could do on the Wii. Why isn't this possible anymore? This already annoyed me on the Wii U, but on the Switch it now feels like they don't allow this on purpose, so that you would subscribe to their online service. Nintendo's Smartphone games also use cloud storage, but they don't charge you for that...

And with games like Hyrule Warriors or Breath of the Wild, where you can easily invest hundreds of hours, you want some way to secure your savegames. For the people who really just want that, this will be a rip-off.

Dawn of a New Year – 2017

Nintendo started the year 2017 with the above artwork, which remakes one of the most amazing original artworks from the first The Legend of Zelda game in the style of Breath of the Wild:

If you can see the background image of this website, you should notice that this very artwork means a big deal to Hyrule Blog and me personally. It depicts the excitement of freedom and adventure better than any other artwork from the series. The world of Hyrule is at Link's feet and you're eager to explore it all.

Now, ready your Sheikah Slates! We expected this game in 2015, we expected this game in 2016, but it's pretty safe to say that we're going to play Breath of the Wild in 2017. Finally! This is what we've been waiting for and this looks like the next big step for the Zelda series. There doesn't have to be anything else in the year other than that...

But there will still be some additional goodies with the rest of the 30th Anniversary, like the Hyrule Encyclopedia book. Breath of the Wild will also have its own small amiibo line, as well as a nice Piggyback Collector's Guide (goody bye, Prima!). And there will probably much more stuff, for example a Zelda Special Edition of the Nintendo Switch wouldn't be surprising.

It would be nice to learn something about a potential Hyrule Warriors 2 in 2017 as well, though it's probably too early for this. And at some point there has to be a new Zelda Picross game, right?

Anyway, this is a good start to the year 2017! Hopefully this will be the year, where the Zelda franchise truly reaches new potential.

Breath of the Wild: Villages of the Sages

The Life in the Ruins Trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has given us our first glance at villages in the game:

The village displayed in the trailer is somewhat reminiscent of Ordon Village from Twilight Princess. You have this farmer's village vibe going on, you can spot Cuccos, people are planting carrots, and there is a watermill and a building, which appears to be some sort of mayor's house. And it's most likely not the only village in the game.

Well, I'm going to make an educated guess here that this game will loosely follow the idea of Zelda II - The Adventure of Links, where you have several towns named after the sages from Ocarina of Time. It would make sense for Nintendo to make some connections to this game as well, because Breath of the Wild most likely will take place after all the Zelda games. And so far Zelda II has been the Zelda game with the largest world , where it would be nice, if Breath of the Wild takes some of it into consideration, even if it's just naming references. But some people were also speculating that the bird people that we saw in the trailer are in fact the Fokkā from the Great Palace. So, this new footage certainly did leave some Zelda II impressions.

The biggest challenge, however, will be avoiding that the villages and towns end up as generic as in Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. There were seven in total (not counting the ruined Kasuto) and they all have their set of standard villagers, including the Healer, the Old Woman, who replenishes your Magic, and the Old Man, who teaches you a new spell...

You don't want to end up with generic NPCs like that. And you want each individual village to be worthwhile for exploration, with individual NPCs that have something to tell and with some stuff to do and to find. And that will be a massive challenge for Nintendo.

The best towns in the Zelda series so far were Clocktown, Windfall Island and Skyloft by a margin. But these towns really had full attention - Clocktown was without a doubt the central and most important place in the game and the same goes pretty much for Skyloft, while Windfall was the big meeting and trading place of the Great Sea. You had lots to explore, many interesting NPC interactions and sidequests, but that's because Nintendo really set the focus on them. The other "villages" didn't have as much to offer, if there even were any.

With a large world as in Breath of the Wild you want to balance things out a little bit better. There doesn't seem to be some sort of central village in the game or else we probably would have spotted it already. It seems to be just smaller villages scattered around the various areas. And if they really follow the naming conventions of The Adventure of Link, they might tie to different races as well, e.g. "Darunia" could be a Goron village, "Ruto" a Zora village and "Nabooru" a Gerudo village (we be lovely to meet this tribe again). We could be looking at "Rauru" with the above village...

However, in that case simply naming the villages after the sages from Ocarina of Time probably won't be enough, where you might need to use names from characters like "Mido" again. There probably are multiple settlements of humans / Hylians like the above, not just the one village. And there are potentially a lot more tribes than usual in this game. It would be amazing to have a game here, where many different races from the Zelda series come together. Goron, Zora, Gerudo, Deku, Koroks, Mogma... all in this world. There's certainly enough space to cover the most prominent ones, while also introducing new tribes at the same time. The bird race might even be a new one, if they don't turn out to be the new Rito or Fokkā.

But it's too early to say anything for sure, because we haven't seem much of the friendly population in Breath of the Wild. Next to the above village, we only saw some houses and farmers in the very first footage from E3 2014 and a horse stable in the new trailer:

This place in the trailer raises another interesting point: people are not all that static in Breath of the Wild anymore as they are used to be in the previous Zelda games. You can see people fight monsters and you can also see people travel. There is a guy on a horse and another guy, who looks like a traveling painter (his hair is even shaped like a brush). And it might be that you meet people dynamically on your travels to keep things interesting. The Bird Link guy might even be another traveler that you meet occasionally throughout the game, while this was already confirmed for the minstrel bird guy.

And this is a big step forward. Especially in the Wind Waker it was kind of weird, how you barely ever met anyone besides Beedle, the Salvage Corp and a freaking Ghost Shop, most likely because it wasn't really possible to implement this at the time. But it would be nice to meet people on your travels outside of villages to make the game world feel more alive.

Replaying The Legend of Zelda on the Wii U

Someone get a vacuum cleaner.

The NES Mini was released one week ago and I was able to try out the device at a retro gaming party, which was fun. But it also made me want to play the NES Zelda Classics yet again, which is why I decided to go at The Legend of Zelda on my Wii U Virtual Console.

I've already replayed The Legend of Zelda on my 3DS earlier this year around the 30th Anniversary, which I personally liked more, because the game looks much sharper on the 3DS screen and the D-Pad of the Wii U GamePad is too stiff. But I want to play all my Virtual Console games on the Wii U next to reduce my backlog. Anyway, since my last playthrough wasn't many years ago, this wasn't a playthrough to refresh my memories of the game. It was more an attempt to harden my memories, because this time I had decided to play completely without the help of any solution maps and without planning ahead. I was still using Save Points for a deathless run, but otherwise I wanted it to be the pure exploration experience of the original, where you have to deal with all the hidden secrets and maze-like dungeons fully on your own.

I first played this game back in the late 90s, where I only had some maps of the Level 1 and 5 dungeons from the infamous Club Nintendo magazine and no internet to help me out, so the rest I had to figure out on my own. Burn all the trees! Bomb all the walls! Find your way through the dungeons! I wanted to replicate this experience, but of course after beating this game several times (including one half a year ago), I was bound to remember some stuff. It's not like I had magically forgotten everything about the game.

For example, I had a rough idea where the three truly hidden Heart Containers on the overworld are. The two Heart Containers that need the Raft and the Ladder are easy to find, but the others are well hidden and you can get them right at the start of the game (at least in the 1st Quest), which is invaluable.

Some of this stuff is hard to remember, because there are so many different versions of the same world. You have the 2nd Quest, but also the BS The Legend of Zelda game, where most things are in different locations as well, e.g. the Level 2 dungeon is located at a place where you'd normally find a Heart Container in the 1st Quest of the NES game... So, things can be a little confusing.

There's some additional trial and error with finding all the cave / dungeon entrances on the overworld if you don't know the exact wall to bomb or the exact tree to burn. Sometimes you have just long rock walls or tree lines over the entire screen and you have to find the one square that holds a secret. You can only use your HUD as an orientation, really, and during that I noticed that the caves at the southeast beach are right below the "x" of the Bomb counter. So, X does mark the spots here, which is a nice little trick if you want to impress others watching you play.

Since I had a rough idea where everything is located, it wasn't all that ridiculous. Only in the 2nd Quest there were to things that gave me trouble, where I couldn't help it and looked them up eventually. One was a Heart Container, which is found at the graveyard. In itself it's not too hard to find, because you just have to push the right grave, but trying to move every single tombstone is a deadly endeavor, because they all keep spawning Ghinis, which keeps hurting you. Unless you really like dying, it's best to ingrain the spot with the Heart Container into your soul.

The other lost item was the Magic Book, which is randomly found in a room with "weaker" enemies in Level 4 when you push the right block. If you have an idea where moving blocks could open a stairway, you automatically start testing and it's often blocks in similar positions. But in that case it didn't even occur to me that the room could hold a secret like that, especially since it's quite early in the dungeon.

Even if you remember the exact locations of all the items, memorizing the dungeons is a different topic. It's not like in later Zelda games, where every room is unique and recognizable. It all very much looks the same and fighting through the hordes of annoying Darknuts, Wizzrobes, Like Likes and Bubbles doesn't really encourage exploration. At least you don't have to test every part of the walls, because if there's a hidden pathway, then it's always right in the center. But the aforementioned blocks are a different topic and there will be still many walls to test, where studying the maps is more important than ever here. Bombs became the rarest and most valuable good in the game, because you also might need them for fighting (especially with the many Triple Dodongos in the 2nd Quest) and you're limited to a maximum of 16 of them. This completely changed with A Link to the Past, where you can carry many more and where bombable walls are usually cracked. And even if they aren't, you can use your sword to test them, instead of wildly placing bombs everywhere.

If you use solution maps, you know where all the destructible (and go-through) walls are and you can also plan the most efficient routes through the dungeons, instead of aimlessly wandering through the mazes. This makes the game quite easier and does take away an essential part of the challenge, which is why I didn't want to resort to maps this time. And with the 1st Quest things aren't too bad at first, it's really the Level 9 dungeon that gave me the most trouble. You have to learn this maze part by part and there's no quick way out of it in case you need to recover (and you will need to recover thanks to the constant Wizzrobe spam). But it's arguably the toughest dungeon in the game, not even the Level 9 of the 2nd Quest comes close to it – in fact it's much nicer, because it focuses on a long series of T-junction rooms with a block in the center, where you don't have any enemies. And you can quickly find your way out of the whole thing, in case you want to stock up on potions and/or bombs.

And all that stocking up made me realize how grind heavy The Legend of Zelda actually can be. You need lots of Rupees for the good items early on and always more for Potions later in the game. You also need to refill your Bombs, which aren't dropped by every enemy. I basically follow a circle route along the woods in the east, the shore and the fairy fountain near Level 1. The Blue Tektites and the Leevers at the beach give lots of Rupees, while Moblins and Blue Octoroks potentially leave Bombs behind.

I kept going through that grinding cycle a lot and these guys are mainly at fault:

Blue Wizzrobes and Blue Darknuts. They eat your health away swiftly and even with the Magical Sword they still need multiple hits to be defeated (three for the Blue Wizzrobes and two for the Darknuts). Their movements are erratic and even with the Blue Ring every touch costs you a heart. It's lucky that they never appear alongside each other, the dungeons either feature Darknuts or Wizzrobes, but never both.

Other than the enemies, what annoyed me the most during my latest playthrough were dark rooms. They don't add anything to the gameplay, unless you really have no Candle and have to find your way through the dark. But otherwise it's just the same procedure of going into the menu to equip the candle and use it. All this does is disrupting your game flow and later on I sighed at every dark room that I encountered, because you never really have the Candle equipped already. It's less of an issue when you have the Magic Rod and Book and like using it, but as I said earlier, I was unable to find the Book at first.

Still, it was overall a fun experience. I'm always amazed how well this game holds up for something from the NES era. And if you've never played it before, I can only advise to pick it up on the Virtual Console or via the NES Mini console and to avoid all maps or other guides that you can find on the internet. Try to discover all the secrets of this game on your own for the true experience!

The Mystery of Kasuto

Who is Kasuto?

That's probably a question that quite some Zelda fans have asked over the years. All but one of the town names from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link were later used for characters in Ocarina of Time, mostly the sages. There are the towns Rauru, Ruto, Saria, Mido, Nabooru and Darunia and we all remember the corresponding characters from the Nintendo 64 game. However, the final town with the name of "Kasuto" never saw a character with the same name.

And I just now had an epiphany, why that is. "Kasuto" is what the English translation gave us, but it's probably not what was originally intended as the name of the town by the Japanese development team. The name of the towns are written in Katakana, which is often used to transcribe English words. So, here we have:

カスト = Ka-Su-To

Both the U and the O can be silent to form the English word "Cast" and "Ka-Su-To" is actually a possible conversion of "Cast" to Katakana. And "Cast" might just be what the name of the town is, which makes thematically sense, because it's in the hidden town of Kasuto, where you find the "Spell" Spell that you only cast once in the game in the same town to find the Magical Key. You even find the last Magic Container in this town. Also, it's Old Kasuto, where you get the Thunder Spell, which you have to cast on the final boss. While every town gives you a new spell, it's really Kasuto where whole magic spell casting peaks. Which is why this town actually might go by the name "Cast".

This might not be very original, but it's not like all the towns in the Zelda series have highly original names, e.g. "Skyloft" or "Castle Town". Even "Kakariko" comes from "Cocorico", the sound of a crowing rooster in French (or it's just the clucking sound of Cuccos in Japanese). So, a town about Magic Spells being named "Cast" isn't far-fetched. This would also explain, why there never has been a character with the name "Kasuto". And if there ever will be one, he or she is probably a wizard / a spell caster.

Replaying Zelda II on the 3DS

The Inspiration for Grand Theft Auto

It's Master Month on Hyrule Blog. After the Hero's Trial and Master Quest 3D the only challenge left for replaying was Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, the toughest Zelda game in existence.

With it I'm finally done with my entire Nintendo 3DS Zelda library, so this was the main motivation to beat this title yet again. That I couldn't gather enough motivation before can be displayed alone by the history of this savegame. I started it in September 2012, which is when the game originally was released for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. I then played the early parts in January 2014, continued a little bit in July 2015 and February 2016, after which I was about halfway through the game, getting the Up Thrust and Reflect Spell from Darunia. This is where I now picked off to finally finish the task.

And I had to do a "little" grinding at first in order to get to the levels 6-6-6. I didn't touch any bosses yet, so the final six levels were gained by placing the crystals in their statues. There is a more effective leveling system by skipping Magic and Life boosts at the right time and using the crystals to buy multiple level ups. I might try this, when I decide to play the game another time, but for now it was too late, so I was stuck with slaughtering Octoroks again and again.

I was also stuck with the tough second half of the game, where you are much more reliant on Magic and where the 5th and 6th Palace really increase the difficulty with their enemies. You might think that the Restore Points of the Virtual Console will help significantly with the game, but the game is still very brutal and at first it feels like the Restore Points don't make much difference. They are really helpful for every room with abysses though, since falling into one costs you an entire live (unlike every other Zelda game since then). And it happens more than once that you might get knocked back into one. Some of the rooms can be really nasty with its flying enemies and similar obstacles.

The Restore Points also help with bosses, if you happen to have enough Health and Magic or an extra live right before them. And they might also help with getting there, if you use them at the right time and are willing to replay rooms, if you took too much damage. They let you push your luck in places, where you potentially can get a Red Jar (or a Red Iron Knuckle to screw with you). So, there are many possibilities to make your life easier with Restore Points, but for most part I was still frustrated and I felt like I was just brute forcing my way through everything, trying to get as far as possible with the three little lives that you have. I didn't even finish a single palace in one turn (except the last one), because the three lives were barely enough to get the Palace Item and then the boss would require another run...

The tables then completely turned with the 2nd Quest. This is, where the game suddenly gave me a lot of fun instead of frustration up to a point, where it amazed me. I've never bothered with the 2nd Quest before, because you just play through the same game again and get to keep...

• Attack, Magic and Life Levels
• Magic Spells
• Up and Down Thrust

But this changes everything! Having 8-8-8 from the start makes you very powerful in the first half of the game. You can kill both Horse Head and Helmet Head with two hits and every other early enemy (including the Dairas and the yellow and red Iron Knuckles) with one hit. Death Mountain suddenly gets to be easy and you overall feel super powerful. It's very satisfying and it fully changes the game. I've actually managed to beat the first five palaces without dying a single time and I've accumulated a total of ten extra lives during that run!

And with that I was able to beat the entire game without a single Game Over:

I was more careful and kept using Restore Points a lot more than in my first run. I also had a lot of luck with finding Red Jars, so there's that. But you can also shortcut through some parts of the game, for example you don't have to go to Darunia at all, since you already got all the Spells and Sword Techniques. You can just head straight for the Maze Palace.

Of course after the 5th Palace your advantages get nullified, at this point it's pretty much the same turmoil as before, but thanks to the many extra lives that you've collected (you get one after every palace for the 9000 EXP level up) you can do it all in one go and you don't have to return from the Northern Palace again and again. It doesn't make Death Valley any easier, but I normally just abuse the Fairy Spell on every screen and fly through the mess...

Ironically the Great Palace then is the easier part. On your first playthrough it's nice that you can continue from here, if you get a Game Over. I don't think that I would have ever been able to beat the game, if I had to go through Death Valley every time. But overall the Great Palace isn't that hard. I've completely memorized the fastest way through the thing, where near the end you even get a Link doll for an extra live and a fairy.

But the dreaded Fokkā enemies on the way aren't as troublesome as the Iron Knuckles in my opinion. They have similar powers and gained the ability to jump, but their jumping is what makes them easier to fight and even avoidable. When they leap over you, you an attack them with a well timed Up Thrust. Or you can just run for it and leave them behind you, which is hardly ever possible with the Blue Iron Knuckles.

So, it's not hard to get to the end of the Great Palace and there you only have one real obstacle: the Thunderbird. If you go all in with Magic (Thunder, Shield, Jump and Reflect), the battle is not too bad, though. Also, you have Restore Points as your safety net. And Dark Link can just be easily defeated with the corner trick, so once the Thunderbird is gone, the game is essentially won.

But with the 2nd Quest I've replayed the entire game just now in two evenings and it was probably the most fun that I ever had with Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. It's really the better game, if you don't have to level up anymore. And if you've never beaten the game before, I can only recommend to try the Virtual Console version on either 3DS or Wii U, because the Restore Points really can change things for the better and make the game less frustrating.

Nintendo Classic Mini: NES Announced

Not to be confused with the Nintendo Mini Classics...

I have this little LCD game, it's quite awesome. I'm not sure, if I'll should get this thing, though:

It has a certain appeal, because I've never owned a Nintendo Entertainment System myself, only borrowed one from school buddies. My first own home console was the Nintendo 64, so getting a NES, SNES or old systems with HDMI output in general seems like an interesting deal.

However, I'm not a big fan of the pre-installed Virtual Console library. My backloggery is already big enough as it is and while the collection of NES games certainly leaves little to desire, you still might miss a specific game, which will be more of a problem with other systems. With a "Mini Super Nintendo" for example, I would certainly miss Terranigma, which is one of my absolute favorite games of all time, but which never made it to the Virtual Console. And without it, the Super Nintendo is just not the same. And if you could collect and insert small cartridges, the collector's appeal would certainly be larger.

Anyhow, I'm also drowning in copies of the Zelda NES Classics already. I have both The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link for GameBoy Advance, on the GameCube with the Collector's Edition, as well as on Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, where the Wii U copies are still untouched and probably even would give me a better experience than the Classic Mini System.

It's really just a Virtual Console collection box, which certainly will have some success, because there are many people, who loved the NES back in its day, but don't own any new Nintendo consoles. Or people, who just love the retro look. It's easily accessible and lets people reconnect with the past in a charming way. In a way Pokémon Go is seeing a similar phenomenon right now and Nintendo currently aims at people, who used to be Nintendo fans in their childhoods, to bring them back. Let's hope that they will also aim at the people, who adored Ocarina of Time back in its day.