Got the Hammer

I'm currently replaying both NES Zeldas on my Virtual Console. Well, Zelda I is always really fun at the start, where you have lots of optional upgrades to find on the overworld. But after you got the additional Heart Containers, Blue Ring and stuff the game becomes mostly dull dungeon crawling and the dungeons are not much fun.

And Zelda II is one big pile of struggling. The struggle never ends in this game. But you still keep trying, you get better and you will eventually overcome hard obstacles, which is a very rewarding feeling. I'm posting right now, because of one of these milestone, namely getting the Hammer. I already tried that many times on my VC copy, I just couldn't do it... I would get frustrated and eventually give up. But now after some leveling (health 6, sword 4) I've done it without even losing a single life! Way to go.

I'm beginning to understand how I managed to beat this game 15 years ago on the original NES. The only other time I've completely beaten the game was on emulator using cheat codes (which was fun actually). But all my other retail copies of Zelda II - the GBA version, the one that came with the Collector's Edition and the one on my Virtual Console - all remained unbeaten. And in all of them I failed getting the Hammer and shortly lost motivation.

Getting the Hammer is a big milestone for me, because from there the game gets more enjoyable. It opens many shortcuts and gives access to cool new stuff like the Downward Thrust.

Well, I'll see how the game will go from here or what other obstacles will result in frustrating struggle (those damn Blue Iron Knuckles for example).

Crystal Flash

Crystal Flash is basically a spin-off to the Harmony of the Hunter album made by one of its contributers, Theophany. However, it's not only a tribute to the 25th Metroid Anniversary, but also a memorial to some guy called Avien, who made a Maridia remix at OC and recently died in a car accident. So naturally the EP is more silent and sad, but it's good quality and again all for free. And the cover art is absolutely beautiful. So download it.

Harmony of a Hunter

Harmony of a Hunter is a collaborative fan project to mark the silver anniversary of the Metroid franchise. Since Nintendo doesn't seem to have any plans for the anniversary, it's nice to see that fans are celebrating nonetheless.

It's a nice remix album featuring songs from ALL Metroid games remixed in various musical styles, for example there's a track from the well known Metroid Metal guys, there's a lot of electronic music naturally, but even a piano piece and a track sung by the Video Game Music Choir. The album has some good tracks, but also some not so good. Won't complain, since it's entirely free. So, everyone should download it and spread the good word.

I just would like a list telling me which tracks are supposed to remix which songs from which specific Metroid game. Normally I shouldn't have problems to tell, since I've fully beaten all Metroid games (wish I could say that about Zelda, damn you Four Swords!), but some tracks are not really clear to me. There's one track which sounds like it's from Unreal and one sounds like the theme from Back to the Future, lol... whatever, you can download the album here.

Got Ocarina of Time 3D Soundtrack CD

I got a package from Nintendo of Europe today. It contained my copy of the 25th Anniversary Edition Ocarina of Time 3D Soundtrack CD, the one you get for registering Ocarina of Time 3D early.




I will listen to it later.

Zelda 25th Anniversary Microsite

So, Metroid turned 25 this weekend and Nintendo celebrates this by opening the 25th Anniversary of Zelda microsite.



It's nothing special, it got infos about the symphony concerts, a simple history of the Zelda franchise, a flipnote Zelda contest (couldn't care less) and some nice wallpapers.

The history could have been a little bit more thorough. It's missing the Game & Watch Zelda, the BS Zeldas, Link's Awakening DX, Master Quest and Link's Crossbow Training. I can understand why they probably won't bring up the BS Zeldas now in such an overview, however, the other stuff is worth being mentioned.

Replaying Four Swords Adventures

It's the 25th Anniversary of the Zelda franchise and I celebrate by (re)playing as many Zelda games as possible this year. Next one is Four Swords Adventures.

I like to praise Four Swords Adventures for being a "Zelda for in between". You know, if you feel like playing Zelda, but you don't have too much time, then this can be a problem. Even for a short game like Link's Awakening I would at least need four hours, so replaying a Zelda game is not an option then. However, replaying a level of Four Swords Adventures doesn't take as much time and can still be satisfying. It offers a small dose of Zelda gameplay for those who need it. So, as it happens, I replayed each level of Four Swords Adventures at least once over all the years, some of them even many times. Naturally you play the levels you like more often and avoid the levels you don't like. However, I never replayed the entire game from scratch. So, this was the first time for me to create a new save file for Four Sword Adventures playing all levels from start to finish and going through all of the story again.



And while replaying single levels for the sake of playing a short session of Zelda can be fun, replaying the entire game feels dull. One of the most important elements of a Zelda game for me is not the story or the fantasy setting or sword combat - it's exploration and finding hidden secrets and items. I love exploring all of Hyrule and one of the best parts of a dungeon is finally getting a long awaited item that let's me progress in other parts of the world. As a kid, when I played Zelda for the first time, Link's Awakening to be exact, all I wanted to do is explore all of Koholinth. I didn't want to play the dungeons and when I finally got a new item from a dungeon, I would leave the dungeon immediatly to explore new areas on Koholinth. By now I enjoy playing dungeons a lot, but still exploring and finding new items are what I enjoy most about Zelda games.

And Four Swords Adventures just lacks this. There's a lot to explore in each individual level and there are many hidden Heart Containers, Blue Bracelets and Force Fairies to discover. And I enjoy that during a level, but in the end it all doesn't matter. As soon as you finish a level, it doesn't matter if you've discovered all of its secrets, it will reset and you will start from scratch again. There's no reason to fully explore a level, because nothing is saved. A completion score for example would be nice, whether I found everything in a level or not. Another possibility would have been some collectibles like in modern Jump'n'Runs. New Super Mario Bros. (Wii) got the large gold coins, Donkey Kong Country Returns got the puzzle pieces and Kirby's Epic Yarn got furniture to collect from each level. And something like that is definitely missing in Four Swords Adventures, collectible items have been an important feature in the Zelda series ever since A Link to the Past introduced Pieces of Heart, but Four Swords Adventures doesn't offer any of this.

But what I really like about Four Swords Adventures are the mass enemy fights. You don't get something like that in any other Zelda game and it's just fun to hack yourself through dozens of enemies at once. I also checked out Shadow Battles and the Tingle Tower minigames a second time by using two GBA systems and there especially the Monster Hunt stuff looks like lots of fun. And during my playthrough I noticed that the L-2 Roc's Feather is never really used during the entire game. You can built it in certain levels and it also appears in Shadow Battles, but there's no direct use for it anywhere. Each other L-2 item gets at least used once during the game, but not this one. And it could have been used for some puzzles in the platforming areas. But whatever...

As a conclusion all I can say is while the individual levels of Four Swords Adventures have great replay value, the game in its entirety does not. It's fun to pick a level and replay it in between for a short Zelda session, but replaying the entire game from start to finish isn't as satisfying.

25th Anniversary of Metroid

Happy Birthday, Metroid! Today, 25 years ago, Metroid was released for the Famicon in Japan and was followed by ten more games over the years.

Nintendo won't celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Metroid franchise, primarily because it would overlap with the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Zelda, two anniversaries at once would be too much. As a Zelda fan I won't complain about this, however, you might also think that the underperformance of Metroid: Other M could be another reason for Nintendo's current disinterest in the anniversary. And after all the whole 25th Anniversary thing is just one big marketing move. There are no new Metroid games coming this year, unlike Zelda, where we're heading towards Skyward Sword... Nintendo isn't promoting the 25th Anniversary of Metroid, because there's nothing to sell.

But I'm still convinced that Nintendo will acknowledge this anniversary in some form, for example by releasing Metroid II - Return of Samus on the 3DS Virtual Console.

And even if Nintendo doesn't celebrate, Metroid fans certainly do by releasing various fan arts and music remixes. I'm especially looking forward to the Harmony of a Hunter album, more about that soon. And my contribution is the very simple 25th Anniversary logo which you can see above.

Metroid is my second favorite Action Adventure game after Zelda. I primarily play Metroid because it is quite similar to Zelda in a lot of ways, for me Metroid is Sci-Fi Zelda. You explore a huge world, you power up by collecting new items which let you explore new areas, etc. There are even collectibles in form of Missile Expansions and Energy Containers. The big difference is that most Zelda games devide their game world into overworld and dungeons and that the overworld may have friendly places like villages. Metroid doesn't have something like villages, it's all a giant complex of connected dungeons. But overall the gameplay is quite similar. And sometimes the similarities between both franchises are striking.

So, Happy Birthday, Metroid!