Skyward Sword Month?

In March 2016 we basically got a "Twilight Princess Month" with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on Wii U and My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for Nintendo 3DS.

And I would assume that we're getting something similar with Skyward Sword later this year, maybe even around its five year anniversary in November. I doubt that it's going to be an HD remaster, but they still haven't released the Wii game on the Wii U eShop yet, which they might have saved for a special occasion. And alongside the eShop re-release they might offer the next exclusive My Nintendo Picross in the form of a Skyward Sword edition. I can already picture, how Fi guides you through the tutorials... But the Twilight Princess Picross offer ends on October 1st, where a Skyward Sword Picross might as well be the replacement.

Anyway, I certainly want to replay Skyward Sword, before Breath of the Wild comes out. I played the game up and down, both in Normal and Hero Mode, when it got released, but I never really attempted another playthrough afterwards and I'm excited to give this game another go. But I'm probably going to save this for last.

30th Anniversary of Metroid

Happy Birthday, Metroid! Today, 30 years ago, Metroid was released for the Famicon and was followed by eleven more games over the years.

Nintendo won't celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Metroid franchise, probably because there is nothing to celebrate. In fact the only thing that happened since the 25th Anniversary was the release of Metroid Prime: Blast Ball two weeks ago. We will be getting Metroid Prime: Federation Force soon, but otherwise the franchise has been pretty much dead.

There was no Metroid Prime 4 on Wii U, there was no traditional Metroid on 3DS. And if there was, Federation Force would probably see a better reception or at least more tolerance by the community. It's really the feel of abandonment that's the issue here, ever since Other M it seems like Nintendo is done with Metroid.

But still, the community is celebrating, where you can follow Metroid30th on Twitter for lots of cool stuff around the 30th Anniversary. And it gets even better: the Project AM2R - Another Metroid 2 Remake - was released just in time for the 30th Anniversary and remakes Metroid II - Return of Samus in the style of Zero Mission. So, even if Nintendo isn't doing anything for the 30th Anniversary of Metroid, the fans sure are.

For me personally Metroid still is my 2nd favorite Nintendo series, because with its Action Adventure gameplay it's pretty close to The Legend of Zelda. The Metroid Prime Trilogy is easily one of the best things that Nintendo ever has released and I also love the other games in the series, even Other M, which I have replayed one year ago in Hard Mode just for fun. With the 30th Anniversary I also want to play through most Metroid games again, but I'll probably save this for the next year, after I'm done with my current 30th Anniversary journey through the Zelda series and after Breath of the Wild, which does incorporate futuristic elements and might be a nice transition to Metroid.

Replaying the Hero's Trial

I was playing Nintendo 3DS with a buddy the other day in local multiplayer, where we battled in Metroid Prime: Blast Ball, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Tri Force Heroes (Coliseum Mode) and even the Four Swords Anniversary Edition. In the latter we went through Death Mountain (Silver Key), Vaati's Palace and the Realm of Memories (Golden Door, Link's Awakening). And this also motivated me to try the Hero's Trial again, one of the toughest challenges in the entire Zelda series.

But it went pretty well. I beat the whole thing in one evening, died a couple of times, which is only natural, but never saw a Game Over. The Silver Door I even finished without dying, though it was very close at the end after the Darknuts, where the whole palace starts to attack you with floor tiles.

The Golden Door is much worse, where my first deaths were due to Spiked Beetle confrontations without a shield. You have to use Bombs to flip them and that's not exactly easy, when they run into you. I also didn't use the shortcut, but having the Great Spin Attack made the room with the many Ice Wizzrobes and the Ball & Chain Soldier much easier. In general the Great Spin Attack is a big help for replaying the Hero's Trial, but not always. Holding the sword to load the spin attack leaves you vulnerable, which can be dangerous with quick enemies like Moldorms. But what makes the 2nd floor so annoying is the terrible traction on ice, where you at first almost can't move at all and then can't stop, which makes navigating small ice pathways very tricky and deadly.

Now, on the Hero's Door the downward spiral of dying was even more noticeable. Razor and Armor Seeds help immensely, but as soon as you die, you lose them, and then you die even quicker, especially if you're overrun by enemies. You have a very few invincibility frames and little knockback in Four Swords, so enemies can quickly kill you by just running into you, which they abused a lot in the Hero's Trial to create a high amount of (artificial) challenge.

But there are many ways to avoid damage in the Hero's Trial. Bushes and rocks in the area can block enemy attacks, so it's best not to destroy them upfront. Sometimes you can move blocks in front of blade traps or wind fans, especially on the final floor of the 3rd door. If you keep this in mind, the Hero's Trial can be quite manageable. It's often about being careful upfront and having the right strategy in mind.

Anyway, after successfully going the Hero's Trial I also played through the Hero's Door of Vaati's Palace again, where you go through 12 floors and fight all bosses in their strongest form, which still was very relaxing in comparison to the Hero's Trial and a nice conclusion to my replay sessions of the Four Swords Anniversary Edition for the 30th Anniversary of Zelda. It's a real gem and it's sad that with the shutdown of the DSiWare shop the last hope of a last offering for anyone, who has missed it, will be gone. If you have this game, treasure it.

My current Four Swords Anniversary Edition stats:

• Medals of Courage: 12
• Rupees: 540886

Twilight Princess Picross (Review)

The only real worthwhile reward for your Platinum Points on My Nintendo at the moment seems to be My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, made by Jupiter. You can get this for 1000 Platinum Points and it's only available til October 1st.

There's still enough time to receive this reward, since you can score up to 120 Platinum Points per week (see here) even without using Miitomo. We don't know, if this game will disappear into the same limbo, where the Four Swords Anniversary Edition went, so it's best to get this in any case, before it's gone. If you're still undecided, this review might help you out, but it will also give some general impressions about what may or may not be the start of a new series.

This review was written by a Zelda fan, who has never before played Picross, and is aimed at a similar demographic.

Zelda Themed Picross

If you've never heard about Picross before, it's a puzzle game, where you fill out little pixel graphics based on numbers. These are called "nonograms" and the best way to describe it would be "Pixel Sudoku". For each column and row you get a set of numbers telling you about the adjacent squares in the specific line. "3 5" means that there are three squares next to each other, followed by another piece of five squares. It doesn't tell you about the empty spaces around the pieces and that's what you have to find out in order to complete the picture.

The nice thing about these puzzles is that you never have to guess. If you have to, you probably made a mistake somewhere. But the puzzles are all designed in a way that there are always clear assumptions to be made of what can be filled in or crossed out, even if it's just a single square. For example if you have an "8" in a line of 15 squares, you know for sure that the square in the middle is always filled. That's where you start and this way you methodically carve out the whole picture, which rewards you with a colored pixel art at the end:

What makes this game "Zelda" is the sole fact that all the art pieces and the background music are based on Twilight Princess. You get various items, characters and even places from the game as charming little pixel artworks and you get some nice remixed music pieces. Unlike Hyrule Warriors, where they also tried to incorporate Zelda gameplay elements into the Warriors formula, this stays as a pure Picross experience with a Zelda theme.

The only exception might be Midna, who's basically your guide through the game, also giving the quite lengthy tutorials in the beginning, where she explains EVERYTHING again and again, which makes you want to hate Midna, if you didn't already. This can be quite annoying, if you already understood the mechanics and just want to get started. It also has some rather questionable dialogues...

Controls and Hint Systems

You have two control schemes: one using the Stylus and one using the D-Pad and buttons. The Stylus controls are much faster and preferable, but you have to swap between the pen to fill out squares and the cross to mark empty squares using either the D-Pad or the Slide Pad. The L button probably would have been more comfortable for this, but otherwise the controls are fine.

At least the various options around the hint mechanics leave nothing to be desired and show Jupiter's experience with these type of games. You can activate an auto check for the hint numbers, where it automatically checks off any numbers that are already present in the line, so you don't have to keep track of all of it by yourself, which certainly makes playing a lot more relaxing.

In addition there's the "Navigation", which is similar, but somewhat more advanced. This can be toggled on and off at any time with the ?-symbol on your touchscreen or the shoulder buttons and it marks every line, where you can fill in or cross out something, in a blue color:

This also speeds up the gameplay quite significantly, because again you don't have to go through every line in your head individually. Instead you can focus on the lines that matter. This may make things too easy and maybe you only want to use this feature, whenever you're stuck, which is why it's very nice that it's toggleable.

The blue help lines can also be confusing at times, because it's hard to grasp at what the game really wants from you. Sometimes it's just a single cross missing somewhere and sometimes it's a lot easier to ignore certain blue lines and focus on others instead.

A more drastic hint feature is the "Answer Autocheck", where it automatically tells you whenever you fill out a square that isn't there. It replaces it with a cross and gives you a time penalty, which will mess heavily with your highscores. Without it you may get into a situation, where you've made a mistake and then have to correct wider parts of the whole picture in order to find the solution. But without it you can also just try out variations and then remove the variable parts without any penalties, which is probably why it's a good thing that you can turn this off globally.

The "Hint Roulette" can also be turned off completely or otherwise it will ask you, if you want to play the roulette in the beginning, where it solves one randomly selected row and column for you, giving you a head start, which feels a little bit like cheating...

Puzzles and Game Modes

Ignoring the tutorials, there is a total of 91 puzzles in the game spanning three different game modes and sizes. There's your standard "Picross" mode and the more complex "Mega Picross" mode with 45 puzzles each and one big "Micross" puzzle.

The Picross puzzles give you the pure experience with 45 puzzles in the following sizes:

• 10x10 puzzles (15)
• 15x15 puzzles (25)
• 20x15 puzzles (05)

It's best to start here and follow the mode to the end. The 10x10 puzzles in the beginning are easy enough and can be solved pretty quickly even by inexperienced players. The 15x15 puzzles then increase the complexity and may take around 15 minutes to solve. However, after a while you learned most possible patterns and the game starts to feel more and more like a chore, instead of a puzzle. This is where things can get a little boring and stale, where you might only want to do one or two puzzles per day, which is even why this review took three months.

But this is also, where the Mega Picross mode comes in. It's essentially a "2nd Quest" for the whole game, since it features all 45 puzzles from the normal Picross mode with a twist. You now get large numbers that span two lines, where you literally have to think around the corner. There are usually only one or two of these combined lines, but they add a new dimension to the puzzles, which makes them more interesting and challenging. It even plays a remix of the eerie Twilight Palace music in the background to make it all feel more serious.

The Micross mode then gets even more epic with the Ganondorf battle theme in the background and a large 80x80 puzzle. To make this work you get a global 8x8 puzzle, which you fill out in the beginning. Then each filled square turns into an individual 10x10 puzzle. Those are all quite easy and quick to solve, especially if you're already used to the larger puzzles or even the Mega Picross mode, but it's the sheer size of the whole picture, where slowly everything is coming together, which makes this mode really fun and addicting.

Sadly, there is only one of these Micross puzzles and compared to other Picross installments the Twilight Princess outing seems to be thin in content. At least another Micross puzzle featuring Twili Midna, whose beautiful face is nowhere to be found in this game, would have been lovely. Still, it takes around 20 hours to solve all puzzles and if you really enjoy them, you can also replay them for better times.

Conclusion

Since this is essentially available for free and there's nothing much else available on My Nintendo, you should get this, whether you're a Zelda fan, a Picross fan or both. It's a solid puzzle game with a Zelda skin that leaves little to be desired. And right now it looks more like a smaller Picross game in a potential series, where other (3D) Zelda games will be getting their own Picross installments in the future, e.g. a My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword release in October, which probably would be something to look forward to, if the Twilight Princess Picross is any indication.

+ Nice puzzle gameplay with a Zelda theme
+ Charming pixel arts
+ Extensive hint options
+ Free for all
- Annoying tutorial
- Can get boring after a while
- Stylus controls could be more comfortable
- Only one Micross and no Twili Midna

Let's Update Majora's Mask 3D

If Majora's Mask 3D ever received a 2.0 update, what would it offer? What would it contain? In the "Let's Update" series on Hyrule Blog we talk about hypothetical updates to existing Zelda games that would provide meaningful improvements and possible content additions.

Majora's Mask 3D already did receive an update to the version 1.1, however, it only fixed some smaller bugs and errors. Let's do a little more with the game.


Visuals, Controls and Interface

The 3D effect should go deeper and the camera should be adjusted more to the back to avoid any 3D clipping errors. Overall it should feel more like Ocarina of Time 3D. And like in the prequel, you should be able to assign items to the I and II touchscreen buttons by selecting the item and tapping the button.

The Select button should open the item inventory, instead of the Bomber's Notebook. Notifications for the latter also should be deactivatable in the options menu. Everything still gets recorded, but the notebook won't show up every time you do or find something.

Many fans also probably would want the Zora Swimming to work like in the original game, without the barrier. This could be realized by making it so that tapping A twice and holding the button makes you swim faster. Naturally the Magic Pots in the Beaver Race wouldn't be needed anymore.


Warp and Save Points

Majora's Mask 3D did add Quill Statues for saving the game in several places, where some of them should be turned into actual Owl Statues for warping. These new warp locations should be:

• Deku Palace
• Goron Village
• Pirate Fortress
• Ikana Graveyard

Additionally the update should add new Quill Statues in front of both the Fishing Holes, so it's easier to save your progress during the fishing minigames.


New Skulltula House

There needs to be some new content and the easiest way to add something would be another Skulltula House, hiding 30 new Gold Skulltulas (or even 40 to make it a full 100 gold spiders in Termina). The Skulltula Houses both offer a lot of fun and a unique atmosphere, so adding one certainly would be appealing.

The best location would be in the Mountain Village, which never really has been an actual village with just one house:

The minidungeon itself would focus the usage of Goron Link and Hot Spring Water, so lots of ice and boulders. You should be able to enter and beat it right after acquiring the Goron Mask. Having the Fire Arrows makes the "Mountain Skulltula House" easier, but it shouldn't be required.

The reward would be another wallet upgrade, where in the end you can get the Colossal Wallet holding 999 Rupees. It's not the most original new reward, especially since the Ocean Skulltula House gives you the same thing, but there isn't any space for new masks or items. And that way it would be on par with our Ocarina of Time 3D Update.


Master Quest Mode

Another addition would be a Master Quest mode for veteran players. It's a 2nd Quest with the following changes:

• Double damage
• Hearts only appear when using the Couple's Mask
• (Mirrored game world)
• Stray Fairies hidden in different places
• More and tougher enemies inside dungeons
• Original boss fights
• Original Zora Dungeon on the Moon

The Zora Moon Dungeon and the original Twinmold fight would make the game easier in these parts, but overall it should be a mode that attracts the fans of the original Nintendo 64 game in different ways.

It probably would be tough or too much work for GREZZO / Nintendo to alter the four temples in similar ways to the dungeons from the original Master Quest for Ocarina of Time, but in the very least they could make the selection of enemies more challenging, e.g. fighting multiple Dinolfos in Woodfall Temple or even Iron Knuckles inside the Stone Tower Temple. The Stray Fairies also should be hidden in more difficult places, where in case of the Woodfall Temple they could use some of the hiding spots that had been changed from the N64 version.

Whether the game world should be mirrored like in Ocarina of Time 3D Master Quest or the Hero Mode of Twilight Princess HD is questionable. But it probably would be interesting to see Termina in a flipped state and also not too confusing, since Clocktown and the dungeons have been built around symmetry. It's actually quite easy to imagine a mirrored Termina. The clocks would go in the wrong direction, though.

Metroid Prime Blast Ball: All Paint Job Feats

In Metroid Prime: Blast Ball you can collect 15 Paint Jobs for your mech that get unlocked by getting certain achievements. Here's a list of what you will have to do to unlock them all:

• First Blast Ball Win
• 10 Blast Ball Wins
• 100 Blast Ball Wins
• Won 7 Blast Ball Games in a Row
• Scored within 5 Seconds
• Scored 3 Goals in a Game
• Performed 3 Assists in a Game
• Performed 5 Blocks in a Game
• Scored 50 Goals
• Performed 50 Assists
• Performed 100 Blocks
• Pushed Ball over 10km
• Ran over 10km
• Beat a Challenge
• Beat 10 Challenges

The unlockable Paint Jobs are:

Camouflage, Clover, Clubs, Diamonds, Fire, Flower, Hearts, Lightning, Polka Dot, Shark, Spades, Star, Kraid, Mother Brain, Ridley

These are not tied to specific feats. For each player it's completely random, which feat does unlock what Paint Job. For example in the above image you can see that the Shark Paint Job got unlocked by the task "Won 7 Blast Ball Games in a Row". However, this might be different for you and the Shark Paint Job can't be associated with that achievement. This means that you can't "show off" with a certain Paint Job, so just go ahead and chose whatever Paint Job you like best visually.

Additional Paint Jobs can be unlocked with amiibo:

• Samus
• Zero Suit Samus
• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Rosalina
• Bowser
• Bowser Jr.
• Skull - Any other amiibo

Apparently Super Mario seems to be really popular in the Metroid universe...

Majora's Mask 3D Fishing Journal 2, Final Day

With all the freebies on Thursday it felt like Nintendo honestly didn't want me to find time to return to my fishing sessions and catch that final piece for my collection, but I did it anyway and thus finally completed Majora's Mask 3D again.

The strategy to catch the Great Fairy Fish was pretty much the same as last time. Go do a lot fishing at the Ocean Fishing Hole during the first two days and then save your game at the Dawn of the Final Day, so you can reset, if you didn't have any luck. Now, keep using the door at the Ocean Fishing Hole with the Great Fairy's Mask on, until the hair glimmers. Then check for the Great Fairy Fish (you really have to go close to the crystal cave as Zora Link) and repeat, if it's not there.

Any small Fairy Fish then will do, it doesn't matter much, where they are. You don't have to push your luck and try to find a combination, where the small one spawns right in front of the big one. You can just lure him there and use your Fishing Rod to move him in the right spot.

Finally, reeling the Great Fairy Fish in takes a long time with the incredibly weak Young Link, for me it took 5 ingame hours with the Inverted Song of Time in tact. So, you probably don't want to try this after the final midnight, or else the moon might crash on your during the process. Play it safe.

Luckily with such a big fish the pillars in the water don't seem to be a problem. With smaller fish like the Ambrosial Amberjack the borders can really get in the way and make it hard to reel them in at the end. Landing fish on the shore is much easier. But this doesn't seem to be a problem with the really large fish, which just pop on the ground easily.

Here are my records of my second fishing playthrough (the values in parenthesis are from the German translation):

• Termina Bass: 13cm (60cm)
• Termina Loach: 22cm (79cm)
• Groovy Carp: 5cm (38cm)
• Sweet Ranchfish: 5cm (39cm)
• Fragrant Reekfish: 10cm (52cm)
• Mooranha: 5cm (38cm)
• Postal Salmon: 34cm (97cm)
• Cuccofish: 6cm (40cm)
• Ancient Fish: 107cm (172cm)
• Ferocious Pirarucu: 174cm (220cm)
• Colossal Catfish: 117cm (180cm)
• Lord Chapu-Chapu: 357cm (315cm)

• Termina Seabass: 32cm (95cm)
• Goodta Goby: 6cm (42cm)
• Ambrosial Amberjack: 39cm (104cm)
• Bashful Angler: 47cm (114cm)
• Dancing Sea Bream: 21cm (76cm)
• Fairy Fish: 11cm (56cm)
• Ninja Flounder: 20cm (75cm)
• Skullfish: 34cm (97cm)
• Nuptuna: 97cm (164cm)
• Grand Swordfish: 184cm (226cm)
• Savage Shark: 223cm (249cm)
• Great Fairy Fish: 342cm (308cm)

It took me a total of three cycles (about 6 real hours) to replay the fishing minigame and it overall was quite enjoyable. I probably wouldn't do it again anytime soon and rather try to improve the size records for each fish, but if you're only aiming at catching one fish per type to get the entries, it can be done pretty quickly.