Boss Keys - Zelda dungeon video analysis

[Glen-i]

For what it's worth, I really do like Spirit Tracks. Yes, even the train bits. The game was just such a joy to play. Has one of the best Zeldas in it as well.

 

Phantom Hourglass is pretty good as well.

But I tried replaying it on the WiiU VC and I just got fed up on my 3rd trip to Temple of the Ocean King.

 

I hate forced Stealth in Zelda games. Despise it, loath it, and anything else a Theasaurus can throw at it. Not only that, it's repetitive forced stealth! I'd rather chew sheet metal!

[Cube]

Good video, although I disagree that looking around/remembering things is a good feature of a dungeon.

 

(exactly why the FLUDD was a bad thing was something few could actually explain).

 

The FLUDD was bad because it felt like there was always a slight delay before something happened. The long jump in SM64 was quick and smooth. The equivalent in Sunshine (jump and slowly hover) was just annoying to do. The movement in Sunshine just never felt fluid.

[Jonnas]

The FLUDD was bad because it felt like there was always a slight delay before something happened. The long jump in SM64 was quick and smooth. The equivalent in Sunshine (jump and slowly hover) was just annoying to do. The movement in Sunshine just never felt fluid.

 

See, that's good criticism. If you found the FLUDD clunky and/or frustrating to control, that does sound like you know what the issue is. But I do remember a lot of people saying, for example, that "FLUDD makes the game way too easy", and to me, that was way off the mark (even if it did, what's the problem with a 3D Mario being easy to control?). I honestly think people who threw that criticism simply found the FLUDD-less levels more fun to play and then threw some half-thought excuse as to why they didn't like FLUDD.

 

Ditto for the Temple of the Ocean King. A lot of people said they didn't like it because "you have to replay it a few times", but that never resonated with me, because new items means new ways to clear the same floors, and find new treasures. What they actually meant was "the temple isn't fun, even the first time around".

[dwarf]

The FLUDD was brilliant in some scenarios, it just needed some minor tweaks to improve the feel of Mario's movement. Equally to blame was the bad level design which didn't complement the mechanic very well. The red coin collecting on the pirate ship sticks out in my mind as one of the more frustrating examples of how the FLUDD shouldn't have been implemented, what with the impossibility of triangulating the coins in 3D space when jumping from positions above and below them, while intervening platforms and obstacles obscured important visual information from view. Then there was the hassle of having to refill the FLUDD in the water below the ship if you failed to economise it on the previous attempt.

 

I suppose the greater jump distances granted by FLUDD necessitated bigger levels, which meant that too much of the game was spent running from A to B rather than platforming.

 

Over the shoulder FLUDD was definitely a mistake, as were the levels where you had to fastidiously clean every last splodge of graffiti, and I think those moments compounded the niggles people had with it. Nintendo sometimes stretches their mechanics beyond breaking point because they feel like they have to justify their inventions to everyone. They even built a whole console around it in The Wii U.

[Hero-of-Time]

[bob]

I think I enjoy these videos more than actually playing the games.

[Glen-i]

Weird timing that, I remember talking about how good Skyward Sword's dungeon design is in the BOTW thread. Especially Sky Keep, that's an inspired dungeon. The only time I enjoyed a sliding panel puzzle.

[Jonnas]

Oh hey, a critical video about Skyward Sword that doesn't go on a rant on forever about the game's flaws. Nice to see, I feel like SS did a lot of things right, but people focus more on the annoying bits instead.

 

I agree with pretty much everything Mark said, and I don't have much to add, other than the fact that there were several details I did not recall, like that stone tablet. Probably because I only played SS once.

 

...

 

Okay, I was also taken aback by how he pronounced "Cistern", as I didn't know that was how you pronounced it in English ("Hey, cistern go, cistern. Hey cistern go...")

[bob]

 

Okay, I was also taken aback by how he pronounced "Cistern", as I didn't know that was how you pronounced it in English ("Hey, cistern go, cistern. Hey cistern go...")

 

It's not really. He says it weirdly. Most English people I know would just say 'Cistun' with a short 'u' sound. No-one pronounces the 'r'.

[Jonnas]

It's not really. He says it weirdly. Most English people I know would just say 'Cistun' with a short 'u' sound. No-one pronounces the 'r'.

 

To my ears, that's even weirder I kept saying "Sis-TEAR-ne", because it resembles how it's pronounced in Portuguese.

[Fused King]

The Legend of Zelda franchise has such a rich and vibrant history and seeing these videos funnily enough reminds one how much you might forget about the games and its dungeons.

 

There's definitely a truth to dungeons being easier since Windwaker, and all the hints and padding kept piling up ever since.

I wonder what Breath of the Wild will play like.

 

You guys think there will ever be a Zelda Collection with all the games like they did on the GameCube once?

NINTENDO's been very big on Zelda these years and some games are hard to come by.

Edited May 21, 2017 by Fused King

[Cube]

You guys think there will ever be a Zelda Collection with all the comes like they did on the GameCube once?

NINTENDO's been very big on Zelda these years and some games are hard to come by.

 

Aside form a couple of odd ones (Four Swords Adventures, BS, Game & Watch and CDi), you can play them all on either Wii U or 3DS.

[Fused King]

Aside form a couple of odd ones (Four Swords Adventures, BS, Game & Watch and CDi), you can play them all on either Wii U or 3DS.

 

Yeah, I guess that's true.

But having them all on one system would be the tits.

[Sméagol]

Ok, so one of the disappointments of Breath of the wild would be the lack of any "true" dungeons. Zelda games have been getting easier, but Breath of the wild was overall a welcome exception, and hopefully setting a new trend, but we couldn't experience this challenge in a dungeon. Hopefully the DLC will cover that. I hope it will be hard as nails. I hope it will have a water theme, because I love the sound of wannabe fanboys crying. What's that expression? "In water, no one can see you cry?" I believe that's it.

 

On a sidenote, I got curious how to pronounce cistern, wikipedia says "cistun" (I can't do phonetics), like Bob suggested, while all Youtube videos pronounce the 'r'. In other words, I still don't know. Maybe it's an American vs real English thing.

[Glen-i]

Aside form a couple of odd ones (Four Swords Adventures, BS, Game & Watch and CDi), you can play them all on either Wii U or 3DS.

 

Well, actually...

[Ashley]

It's not really. He says it weirdly. Most English people I know would just say 'Cistun' with a short 'u' sound. No-one pronounces the 'r'.

 

What the hell is wrong with you?

 

Or, in other words, I pronounce it in the same way as Mark Brown.

[bob]

"Oh hello, my name is Ashley. Excuse me while I put another Blu tablet down the back of my toilet cisteeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn."

 

No.

[Ashley]

"Oh hello, my name is Ashley. Excuse me while I put another Blu tablet down the back of my toilet cisteeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn."

 

No.

 

Term

Turn

Tern

 

It is pretty obviously how you're supposed to pronounce it

[Hero-of-Time]

 

[Dcubed]

Yeah, that was my biggest problem with ALBW; the flat difficulty curve.  That's the problem with purposely designing your game without an intended sequence, you can't assume that the player has picked up the necessary skills/items to tackle more challenging dungeons and have to accommodate the lowest common denominator.

 

The dungeons certainly have their moments (he rightfully pointed that out with the skull woods wallmaster puzzle, that was brilliant), but overall they are some of the weaker ones in the series for me.  I prefer it when there is a balance of sorts, and I think that ALTTP handled that better.

 

Still a great game mind you and the merge mechanic is still one of the very best in the series; the amount of mileage they get out of it and the sheer complexity it adds to the game as a whole is just amazing

[Ronnie]

An amazing game, full of invention and fun puzzles, and if a flat difficulty curve is the trade off then so be it for me. Mark's point about how dungeon puzzles can only be tailor-made for one specific item and nothing else is interesting, though I can't say I was particularly bothered by that at the time.

It's similar to Breath of the Wild, in that it's very difficult to combine free-form exploration AND a good narrative/structure. There are trade offs to creating a game both linearly and open ended.

Still adored ALBW though, my only real issue was the rehashed overworld.

[Helmsly]

New Episode up:

 

[Dcubed]

 Was disappointed that he didn’t point out how you ARE actually given a hint about the bombable wall in the Lizard dungeon (IIRC, the old man says something along the lines of “there’s a secret in the eye” - obviously referring to the location of the room that contains the stairs you need to bomb to get to).

 

Also I actually quite liked Zelda 1 and 2’s key system.  I thought it was quite cool how you can bypass parts of the dungeons if you happen to have spare keys left over (though it does suck when you do get stuck and have to go and buy one if you missed some in previous dungeons).  Zelda 2 certainly handled that better.

 

Still, I’d like to see the idea come back some day, you know, if we ever get a traditionally designed Zelda ever again...

[Julius]

Not Zelda, but the next Boss Keys analysis up and it’s about Dark Souls. I’ve never played any of the games before (it’s on the list!), but I found EZA’s Soulsborne retrospective thoroughly interesting, and this is a great watch too.

 

[S.C.G]

^ I meant to say at the time, that video is pretty insightful and one I'll likely return to once Dark Souls comes out on the Switch.