Posted March 11 Been on a free trial week of NSO. It got me online for the Splatoon 3 Big Run last weekend but doesn't give access to the Expansion Pack stuff, so Majora's Mask has had to take a back seat. Still needing that Zelda fix, I started a new file in A Link to the Past. First full replay since the 35th Anniversary year—it's still great; one of the best there is. One thing I noticed was, on the first boss, I quickly burned through my arrows and it seemed to take more hits in general to finish off. This went on to become a bit of a theme, as it seemed like some screens had more enemies than normal and all but about three bosses appeared to take longer to put down than I anticipated. I was never far from using a fairy until I reached the back third. I was online a few times to check and recheck if naming your file "Zelda" ups the difficulty. I was 99.9% sure it doesn't but still... For whatever reason, my instincts were off this time around. Couldn't figure out why I was often running low on magic and/or hearts, which lead to just scraping through against bosses I would have otherwise expected to see to in a matter of seconds. Not bigging myself up here, just always saw the bosses as a chance to go to town with your latest items rather than as a test. Maybe I've gone soft. At least with the eyeball boss I could just stand on the spot I entered the room, slash away with the sword, shoot arrows, and win through, only losing about four hearts. Similar thing with the Ice Palace boss except I went in low on magic for that one, so was lucky to melt the ice and get the fight going—tried various items, bombs didn't help, I'd just enough magic to get bombos off. Next option was to use the magic mirror to warp out and restock! (Realised much later I had a green potion.) The evening I loaded up my save between those levels, I noticed on the file select screen I'd no shield! Sloppy. My own negligence aside, going between the Light and Dark Worlds and feeling things click into place still makes for a great time. When you have an idea about what LttP contains, there's something fun about opting to go direct from one level to the next at certain points, or leaving yourself pickups for later that you might have got then or earlier in a previous file. Simple things like stopping to pull out the magic mirror and flip back to Light World in a suspicious spot is always worth the reward. Felt especially satisfying this time to mow down the first three bosses when I re-encountered them in Ganon's Tower. A QoL update to allow quick donation at the Pond of Happiness is needed. And the Master Sword sleeps again... forever! Five deaths. From one of the GOATs, to one of my GOATs. Had a very merry time going through DKC 3 again. There've always been individual aspects of this one that I can take or leave, but the overall package is so much more than the sum of its parts. The Northern Kremisphere, the Brothers Bear, the little trading sequence, the ideas on show in each and every level, the, imo, unparalleled flow, rhythm and instinctive readibility of the DKC trilogy platforming was perfected here (despite not always being hold right + Y to steamroll to victory). I think it's absolutely fantastic—one of my all-time faves. And yes, the music fits perfectly well. There were some levels (from K3 onwards) that I played through several times to sniff out the bonus rooms. Koin on Krevice Kreepers always takes me a while to figure out. I've already forgotten how to do that one for next time. In particular, I had to comb through Barrel Drop Bounce and Floodlit Fish more times than should've been necessary. I appreciate that the majority of times you check a corner you'll uncover invisible bananas or bear coins—curiosity is encouraged, and there's things to spend those bear coins on. Levels where you're finding the first bonus room between the O and N letters always have me questioning how thorough I was. Then there's the lost world. It builds to a tough but fair crescendo in Swoopy Salvo before tapering off with Rocket Rush. Outside of Krematoa, I think Poisonous Pipeline gave me the most trouble from a difficulty standpoint this time. Though the customary bad bonks on Koindozer Klamber ran it close. Between DKC 1-3, DK '94 and the DKL trilogy, I don't think we realised how good we had it! Looking back, I certainly took the DKL games for granted. Won't be surprised if I have a newfound appreciation for them when they're inevitably added to NSO. 105%. Bust a move, gotta groove. --------------------- Having got my value from the free trial, I'll stump up for another year (+ Expansion Pack) now. Need to finish off that MM file! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 12 I have no idea how 12 year old me pulled off 100% in less then 2 hours, because I thought I did this pretty snappy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
