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.

Early Swamp Spider House in Majora's Mask

I'm currently replaying Majora's Mask 3D and one of my absolute favorite places and favorite minidungeons after all these years is still the Swamp Spider House. Such a unique design, such great atmosphere, so much fun!

But what quite some people don't seem to know is that you can actually beat this minidungeon very early in the game, even before going to the Woodfall Temple. Contrary to popular belief you don't need the Bow or the Hookshot in this place. All you need is:

• An Empty Bottle
• 2x Magic Beans
• The Sonata of Awakening
• Bombs or the Blast Mask

That's it! You get the bottle on your way anyway, so you already have this on your list. All the other things that you need are available inside the dungeon, like bugs or Spring Water. I usually wait until I have at least one more bottle available, but this time I decided to go at it right away. And it wasn't as cumbersome as I thought, you only need to collect bugs thrice and Spring Water twice, where you find these things all around you, so one bottle does the job just fine.

How do you get all the Skulltulas on the walls? Simple. Most of them are moving along the walls and you only have to wait, until the reach the bottom. The others that aren't going near the ground can be killed with Deku Bubbles. In two of these cases you then need to plant the Magic Beans to get to them - one of the holes is under a boulder, which is why you need either Bombs or the Blast Mask. And in the central chamber you can use the Deku Flowers to reach the tokens. The Skulltulas hidden in beehives can be shot down with Deku Bubbles as well. In fact you can hit multiple beehives with one shot, so it's even faster to use Deku Bubbles than using the Bow.

Another hidden trick: if you shoot the big golden spiders in the central chambers with Deku Bubbles, they will pop out lots of Blue Rupees from their blue eyes.

The 3DS version also has a nice map of the place on one of the walls:

Let's Update Ocarina of Time 3D

As with my previous post, Let's Update A Link Between Worlds, this is supposed to give some ideas of what could and should have happened, if Ocarina of Time 3D ever received a free update with new content, similar to the Den of Trials update for Tri Force Heroes. Of course Nintendo will most likely not do any of this, but it's still fun to think about the possibilities, especially right after replaying the game.


Interface Improvements

First of all, the Select button should serve as an alternative way to open the item inventory, because that's just more similar to the original or how it works in A Link Between Worlds. The inventory itself could get another column and work the same way as in Majora's Mask 3D, but that's not a must. It just would make arranging and organizing your items a little easier.

The map system should also be more similar to what we got in Majora's Mask 3D. The way too small minimaps on the top screen should be removed. In case of dungeons, you simply get the navigational arrows directly on your map, otherwise the dungeon maps are totally fine. The overworld map, while looking pretty, is also completely useless during gameplay, where the minimaps should be transferred to the bottom screen and the visual art of the overworld map with its overview of the areas and Skulltulas checks will be only visible in the map menu screen.

Last but not least, if you have a Circle Pad Pro or a New Nintendo 3DS, the C-Stick should be used to view around.


Cave of Ordeals / Trials Minidungeon

It wouldn't be the first time that I bring up this idea, in fact I had a quite detailed concept for such a cave back in 2013. But it's the only thing that Ocarina of Time doesn't have: a trial dungeon, where you fight enemies room after room. Something like the Savage Labyrinth in the Wind Waker, the Cave of Ordeals and Cave of Shadows in Twilight Princess (HD) or the Den of Trials in Tri Force Heroes. This get never boring and they essentially have become a staple in the series.

I would place this near the Desert Colossus, so it could be a reference to the Cave of Ordeals from Twilight Princess, which got placed in the Gerudo Desert. That way this new dungeon also would be endgame material and accessible by both Child and Adult Link.

It should have five different stets of rooms based on the different temples in the game and their enemies, where you also have the ability to replay certain minibosses. Dark Link should wait at the end of the water section for example. And the whole dungeon should finish with a fight against three Iron Knuckles.

At the end a Great Fairy awaits, which will grant different rewards for Child and Adult Link. Which leads us to the last part of the update:


New Items

The game has two open inventory slots...! This still bugs me after five years, so let's fill them. Like with Majora's Mask 3D, you could just always add another Empty Bottle. There's no such thing as too many bottles - go ask Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. But simply getting an Empty Bottle from a Great Fairy at the end of the biggest amount of enemies, which the game ever will have to offer, would be lame. And also not very useful at this point.

A way around this would be getting a Colossal Wallet at the end of the new dungeon, much like in the Cave of Shadows in Twilight Princess HD, which could now hold up to 999 Rupees. And in some location, maybe even at the entrance of the new dungeon, they could add a Business Scrub, who sells an Empty Bottle for a massive price, anything above 500 Rupees really, so that you will need to get the new wallet first in order to buy it.

And because all of this would still be boring, lets have a real interesting price with another Magic Spell based on the Goddesses. I call it "Hylia's Light" and it temporarily infuses your sword with a glowing light, which doubles your sword power. Like with Nayru's Love you can't use any other magic at the same time, so you have to strategically decide when to activate it. This should be given to Adult Link, since he already gets to play with the mighty Biggoron's Sword, so you can use this spell when replaying the dungeon as Child Link, which should be helpful with some of the mightier foes.


If you have any other ideas what an hypothetical update of Ocarina of Time 3D should provide, let me know in the comments!

Replaying Ocarina of Time 3D

To take a pause from the grinding in Hyrule Warriors: Legends, I decided to do another run through the Nintendo 3DS remakes / remasters of the Nintendo 64 Zelda classics, Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora's Mask 3D. I started with Ocarina of Time 3D, will continue with Majora's Mask 3D and then finish it off with Master Quest 3D. That way I will be able to really compare both remakes back to back, while also judging the replay value of both games.

And as much as I love the Nintendo 64 Zelda games, which always have been part of my favorite Zelda games, I don't feel the immediate replay value anymore. I mainly wanted to replay Ocarina of Time 3D, because I haven't touched it since I first completed it in 2011 and because it looks really pretty - it's still one of the best looking Nintendo 3DS games with amazing 3D visuals. The 3D goes quite deep, I love the popout effects, when you get important items (it's like those Spiritual Stones are coming out of your 3DS screen) and it all looks very sharp. Especially the new models of all the characters look great (except maybe Saria, who looks somewhat derpy), it's all very well done for the most part (save for some texture fences and texture staircases here and there) and a satisfying new version of the N64 classic, which now really has a timeless feel to it.

Of all the 3D remakes and remasters that the Zelda series has seen in the last five years, this is still my favorite one. It really looks like an upgrade, it adds some interesting new features, but it also doesn't change much to the worse, like Majora's Mask 3D did, only some minor things. So, it overall feels like the superior version of the game.

Anyway, while I marveled at the visuals, I also feared that replaying the game itself will feel like a chore, because I've replayed Ocarina of Time so many times already that I don't know the exact number. And for some reason, when I replay a game, I always think about the parts first, which I despise. In this case it would be the random Heart Piece from the trolling Dampé on the graveyard, the Bombchu Bowling, the fishing, the horse races - it's usually the minigame stuff that ticks me off in Zelda, but these kind of activities are certainly much worse in the sequel.

Early on the game also feels super slow. I love the scene, where you first leave the forest and entire Hyrule Field unfolds before you. It gives this vibe of freedom that I want from a Zelda game. But it also takes forever to walk from A to B. Walking around Hyrule Field is slow and quite boring save for the Peahats, but you tend to walk around them anyway. And that's one of the challenges that they are facing with Breath of the Wild, where you do get a large world to explore, but you never want it to be boring. But I suppose the Guardians will be the super aggressive Peahats of the new game.

Now, after these initial hurdles, the game gets to be the classic, charming fun. I enjoy replaying the dungeons of this game, where the Forest Temple will probably be my eternal favorite, and it's also fun to collect everything again. There's potentially something to find in every corner and you can go at it, how you see fit. My playthrough wasn't extraordinary this time, but I still mixed things up a little bit, after getting the Master Sword:

• Lon Lon Ranch
• Ice Cavern
• Fire Temple
• Forest Temple
• Gerudo Fortress
• Bottom of the Well
• Water Temple
• Shadow Temple
• Spirit Temple

One thing that they really should have changed with the 3DS version is replacing the eye switches in the Water Temple, especially the one at the end of the vortex tunnel. It's quite the long way to get there and you almost have finished the entire dungeon, but right at this point the game is telling you to stop and go back to get the Bow from the Forest Temple first. That's easily one of the biggest troll moments in the Zelda series and they just should have replaced it with a crystal switch, so you can beat the entire dungeon without the Fairy Bow, which would allow to complete this dungeon first in order. There's also an eye switch in the Fire Temple, but you can go around it and still complete the dungeon. It's just an optional shortcut.

It's also interesting, how the game world opens up to you in terms of fast traveling methods. In most of the later Zelda games you usually have the one warp song / item / ability that lets you teleport to a number of bird statues or similar warp points all over the world. It appears to be the same in Breath of the Wild and it certainly gets the job done best. But in Ocarina of Time it's really a combination of several things, like the six individual warp songs or the different portal gateways. As Child Link you can't use Epona, but there's the Owl in two places for shortcuts, like the one from Lake Hylia back to Hyrule Castle Town. You also get to use one more gateway.

The gateway system is also quite interesting, how it connects Death Mountain and Zora's Realm via the Lost Woods, as well as Zora's Realm and Lake Hylia as a child. The quickest way to get from A to B in Ocarina of Time can be a little maze puzzle in itself. For example, when you have to deliver the Eye Drops to Biggoron and can't simply use warp songs, most people probably ride towards Kakariko to climb Death Mountain from there. But I ride towards the forest, use the Gateway to Goron City and then take a shortcut through the Death Mount Crater. This route only takes half of the given time.

Now, while replaying the game, I also thought that there should have been one more gateway in the world: leading from the Desert Colossus into the Gerudo Fortress. It would have to be blocked with the big grey boulders, which require the Silver Gauntlets, so you can't use it as a child and you can't take it to bypass the Haunted Wasteland at first. It would be like the gateway from the Lost Woods to Goron City, where you have to get to Goron City the normal way first to open it up. But the Gerudo Fortress seems to be the only place that is not connected by means of fast travel. The fastest way to get there seems to warp to Lake Hylia, take Epona and ride to the fortress. And that takes a little patience, where it would be much nicer, if you just could warp to the Desert Colossus and then take a gateway into the fortress. They could even place it somewhere funny, like in the one empty prison cell.

Also, after playing Hyrule Warriors: Legends for the past months, it was inevitable that I tried to do combos at some place. It only happened once and curiously enough, it was inside the pot storage room in Hyrule Castle Town. That's somewhat ironic, because you can't actually break pots with combos in Hyrule Warriors, only with regular attacks, but I suppose it's one of the few places in Ocarina of Time, where you attack multiple things at once, which gave me the urge to press Y. And seeing Nabooru in this version of the game, makes me really want to have her as a playable character in the next Hyrule Warriors game, she looks lovely.

I also had to adjust to not using the Start or Select button to open the inventory. Actually, I wasn't able to adjust to this at all, I still kept pressing these buttons at the end of the game, only to be annoyed by the save game dialogue. At least this time I was playing with larger screens and a screen protector installed on the touchscreen, so navigating the inventory was a lot more convenient. When I played Ocarina of Time 3D first on my original Nintendo 3DS, I didn't have a screen protector installed and I was really careful with the touchscreen, which also was quite small, so I kept using the Stylus every time I wanted to change an item. And that was a real hassle.

Of course this was a 100% run and with Ocarina of Time 3D you at least want to beat the Boss Challenge once. Replaying the individual bosses for better time scores is overall a fun addition to the game. The Boss Gauntlet, however, is not, at least at first, when you just want to beat it once and be done with it. There's some luck involved due to the treasure chests and while the majority of boss fights are really enjoyable, the bane of my existence right now seems to be Bongo Bongo. I never remembered this boss fight as particularly difficult on the Nintendo 64, but whenever I attempt the Boss Challenge mode, I'm having issues with these awful hands. The targeting systems seems to fail me here often, where I can target one hand and stun it, but the other evades my crosshairs. And since the hands are super fast, you can't target them manually. What makes things worse is that Bongo Bongo is the second to last boss in the Gauntlet. I can just get to this point without a single scratch, but he might potentially kill me off. He didn't, though, but it was a close call (half a heart left) and luckily I got a Heart Container after the fight, so I could stay relaxed in the Twinrova battle.

In Master Quest this will be worse, because one mistake there really will kill you. Not looking forward to that one. But I suppose, I'll just have to practice Bongo Bongo a little more, because that's what the individual challenges are there for...

The Many Studios Working on Zelda

That Zelda games aren't always developed by Nintendo alone, isn't a new concept. Ignoring the abominations made by Animation Magic and Viridis, the first successful cooperation between Nintendo and some other company to make a Zelda game was in 2001 with Oracle of Ages & Seasons on the GameBoy Color, which was developed by Flagship - a studio formed by both Capcom and Nintendo. This studio later would develop Four Swords and The Minish Cap for the GameBoy Advance, before it got dissolved.

In the following years we also had the studio Vanpool, which developed the Tingle spin-off series for the Nintendo DS and DSiWare, where Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is probably the most noteworthy title. Then GREZZO took over the handheld Zelda realm and co-developed the Four Swords Anniversary Edition for DSiWare, as well as Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora's Mask 3D and Tri Force Heroes for the Nintendo 3DS.

So, on the handheld systems outsourcing the development has been going on for the majority of Zelda titles. But things have gotten more remarkable in the last year, where a total of five different game development companies aside from Nintendo have been spotted working on the The Legend of Zelda franchise:

• Koei Tecmo developing the Hyrule Warriors series
• GREZZO co-developing the Nintendo 3DS Zelda games
• Monolith Soft co-developing Breath of the Wild
• Tantalus Media co-developing Twilight Princess HD
• Jupiter developing Zelda Picross

Koei Tecmo with its development teams "Omega Force" and "Team Ninja" is currently working on the DLC for Hyrule Warriors: Legends and afterwards will most likely start developing Hyrule Warriors 2 for NX. This spin-off series certainly is going strong and will probably deliver the best fan service to Zelda fans for years to come, where all the many fan favorites get to be playable on Hyrule's battlefields.

GREZZO has finished the development of Tri Force Heroes last year and is now working on their own game, Ever Oasis. But we might see them return to the Zelda franchise at some point in the future, if they aren't already developing something on the sidelines.

Monolith Soft known for their extensive worlds in Xenoblade Chronicles is currently supporting the development of Breath of the Wild, where Hyrule never has been larger and certainly will profit from the additional workforce. Before they also assisted in the development of Skyward Sword and A Link Between Worlds, but were only credited under "Special Thanks". Their involvement seems to be somewhat more important this time around.

Tantalus Media delivered the HD remaster Twilight Princess HD, where it's possible that they are also supporting the development of Breath of the Wild with high resolution texture work. Future HD remasters like a potential Skyward Sword HD might also get outsourced to this Australian studio.

Finally, there's the Jupiter Corporation known for their many Picross titles, which now just tacked into the Zelda franchise with My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's entirely possible that they are currently developing a new Picross game based on another installment of the Zelda series, e.g. The Wind Waker. Potentially all Zelda games with 3D visuals could end up getting their own Picross game, so that Zelda fans will have something to spend Platinum Points on in the future.

And that's just what we know so far. It has been hinted by Nintendo that a Zelda anime movie could be a possibility, where some Japanese animation studio might be working on something as well. And hopefully one day we can see "Retro Studios" on the list above.

Postbox: Ages vs. Seasons

Hi there,

I recently got Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for 3DS, and never having played these titles before I was looking around to get some insight as to which to play first and why. Anyway, I was also reading through your excellent ring guide here:

Oracle of Seasons Ring Guide - GameFAQs

and there is a part with the following quote:

"(People prefer the first variant, because in a new game without any secret you will be permanently missing one Heart Container. And if you play Ages first, there's one spot on the overworld map, which cannot be visited. By using Ages as your starting point, you can keep both of these flaws in one save file.)"

That was part was confusing to me and kind of sounds counter-intuitive to my mind. I was wondering if perhaps you could offer some further clarity as to why this is desirable? Thanks.

When starting a new game you will have three Heart Containers, as opposed to a total of four Heart Containers, whenever you start a game with a secret (doesn't matter which type of secret). So, in the game file, where you first started, you will only ever achieve 15 out of 16 Heart Containers, which could be viewed as a "flaw" by some.

In Ages there is also a square on the overworld that can only be visited in a Linked Game. Otherwise there will be a blank square on your map, which could be viewed as another "flaw".

So, by choosing Oracle of Ages as your beginning, you only will have one "flawed" savegame at the end, where both the missing Heart Container and the inaccessible square are present.

Keep in mind that you will also play in the other direction afterwards, so you play Ages → Seasons first and then Seasons → Ages in a Hero game. That's a total of four savegames. And only one of them will have "flaws" in the end, so to say.

If you don't really care about that or even are using a generated Hero's Secret right from the start, you can just do whatever you want. But I generally feel like starting with Oracle of Ages is the more rewarding experience, because of the way, how things play out. The "Hero's Cave" (an additional mini dungeon in a Linked Game) is also more fun in that direction.

Hyrule Warriors Legends: Network Link Farming

Network Links are something that I now just rediscovered for myself in Hyrule Warriors: Legends. One the Wii U I stopped using them at some point and on the 3DS I had both Network and StreetPass Links turned off the entire time, because they tend to get in the way. Sometimes you just want to do a certain mission, but it's blocked by a sturdy Level 99 Network Link, while it doesn't offer any worthwhile reward.

But now in my grinding phase, where I have all the best weapon tiers unlocked, they seem to be the best way of getting good weapons of the highest tiers right now. I had the same impression, when the Wii U game originally came out - early on it seemed like the best way of getting good tier 3 weapons. The Network Links offer a similar result to the Zelda amiibo, where you are guaranteed to get the highest available tiers of weapons for Link, Toon Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, Sheik and both Midnas, with three stars minimum. However, it doesn't seem like you can get eight slots with these methods, so you have to settle for a 5 star, 7 slot weapon at best.

But since I personally don't care much for Duel or Special Skills, I can settle for 7 slots. It's better than farming on the same missions over and over again, where you have to be really lucky to find a weapon of tiers 4 or even 4+. You need a Weapon Rank II or III mixture, but then getting eight slots is very lucky as well. So, finding a perfect weapon of tier 4+ with 5 stars and 8 slots is too rare for my taste. And this is why I'm back to the beginning, where Network Links seem to be the best solution. (I still would like the abilities to buy stars and slots in the Smithy, because then you could just buy that last slot, even if it probably was very expansive.)

Farming Network Links can also be entertaining for a while, because the Network Link Adventure Battles are somewhat randomly generated based on certain templates. In general Network Links of the same level seem to give the same scenario, only the officers might have been swapped. But these templates seem to be entirely different on each Adventure Map, so there's some variety.

In general you want the Network Links' levels to be as low as possible, because the level doesn't seem to have any effect on the reward. And the higher level Network Links will simply take longer to finish. The problem is that the level is based on your highest Level character in the game. So, if you have someone on Level 150 already, all your Network Links will be on 150 and annoy people. And therefore the randomly offered Network Links tend to get quite high.

Luckily I have two people on my friend list, who just started the game. And Network Links from friends will be favored by the game, so each day I'm getting at least two low level Network Links on every Adventure Map. And while the Network Links of the same friend all have the same level, the mission type is completely different on every map. So, it doesn't get too boring and it's more than enough for my daily grinding sessions.

The Adventure Maps also all seem to keep their own quirks for the Network Link battles. The first Adventure Map usually has a recommended element and lots of enemies weak to that particular element. The Master Quest and Master Wind Waker Map keep their Master Rules. And the Koholint Map occasionally lets you chose a 2nd character. You can even find fairy food, if the underlying battle has fairy food available.

With this you can also notice that each Adventure Map has a different base difficulty. I keep playing Network Links from the same guy on the same level, but the difficulty increases on a noticeable scale with every map. Originally on the Wii U I even had the theory that every Adventure Map followed one the four base difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard and Hero, where the Twilight Map probably was Hero. But it's not that simple, because on the Twilight Map enemies have a high defense, which can be countered by elemental weakness, which doesn't work as well in Hero Mode. And then the Termina Map might have "Hero" difficulty as well, but with much lower levels for every mission. It would be nice to see the recommended level for every square, because then it would be easier to judge the difficulties of the individual maps and missions. Some transparency with the difficulty in Adventure Mode would be nice, so it's not just always trial and error. Maybe in the next game...