My Experience with Zelda Part 3

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My Experience with Zelda Part 1

My Experience with Zelda Part 2

During the Thanksgiving break of 2006, we were visiting my parents. My brother Brady was planning on getting a Wii on Black Friday, and I decided to go with him. We woke up at 3 AM and got in line at GameStop. We were numbers 3 and 4 in line. It was freezing cold, and it was hard to concentrate on trying to do my take home final for a math class I was taking. I hadn’t planned on getting a Wii right away, but as I was waiting in line, I decided to get one anyway. The problem was I hadn’t discussed it with Anne. But I figured I’d get one, and if she said no, I could sell it. My friend Edgar ended up showing up, and was number 6 in line. When the store opened, they had 5 units, so Edgar was out of luck. I told him I would sell him mine if Anne said no. I also bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii. It had originally been developed for the GameCube, but ported to the Wii and motion controls  had been added on. The GameCube version of the game would be out a few weeks later.

When we got back to my parents house, we started up Wii Sports, then started Twilight Princess a couple hours later. Edgar came over to see how it was. Anne asked if I wanted one after trying it out, and I told her yes. She replied that I had her blessing, thinking that it would be months before I could find one. So I went out into my car and got the box, outsmarting her. I got only the Wii Remote out so Brady and I could play boxing 2-player. To some degree, TP was the sequel that fans had been wanting ever since OoT. It was done with a more realistic style, eschewing the "Toon Link" art style that had been the norm in FS, WW, FSA, and MC. 

The following year for Christmas we got a minor Zelda game, Link's Crossbow Training. It was a shooting game that took advantage of the Wii Remote's pointing capabilities. It came with a special accessory that allowed the Wiimote to function more like a gun with a trigger. It was a fun game that was cheaper, came with a cool accessory, and reused the music and graphics from Twilight Princess. 

The next game we got was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I bought it on release day, but had to wrap it up for Christmas. I had high hopes for this game for many reasons. First, it was the first console Zelda game since Twilight Princess (2 other handheld games, 2 remakes, and 4 spin-off games had been released in the meantime), which was actually a GameCube game. This one would be for the slightly more powerful Wii, so it should look even better. Second, the motion controls were supposed to be really good. The original motion and aiming controls for the Wii version of Twilight Princess felt sort of, "tacked on," because swinging the Wii Remote in any direction made Link swing the sword in the same manner; essentially, the swinging motion replaced pressing the B button. But now there was Motion Plus, which promised 1:1 movement mirroring.

Third, this game happened to come out during the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, and so I expected big things for a celebratory game. I suppose most disappointment is caused by the gap between expectations and results. Finally, in the promos and advertisements, it featured a new song called, "Ballad of the Goddess," which was amazing. What made it even better was that when played backwards, part of it was Princess Zelda's theme!

Overall, I was somewhat disappointed in the game. I felt like it had little bits and pieces of past Zelda games as a tribute or homage, which was nice, but it also included lots of things from past games that I didn't appreciate, like an empty main field, and nearly 2 hours of tutorial before the game really gets started. I did like the art style, and enjoyed some of the backstory we now got to see played out, but there were just a few too many things that bugged me about the game. I wish I could go back in time and advise them on 7 or 8 things to make it better. 

A couple of weeks after the release of Skyward Sword (but before I could actually play it), Nintendo released a book in Japan called Hyrule Historia as part of the 25th anniversary celebration. It had cool pictures and some of the behind-the-scenes artwork from all the games and stuff, but the most important thing it had was the inclusion of a Zelda Timeline. For the first time, Nintendo told us how the games fit together. There had always been various theories and ideas as to how many versions of Link and Zelda there were, and the chronological history of Hyrule. But now it was official. When word hit, the timeline page was translated from Japanese to English, and we were told we would have to wait a whole year for the whole book to be published in English. 

A little over a month later, I finally got a 3DS, which was about a year after its debut. What followed was a small flurry of new "catch-up" Zelda games for me. I bought the 3DS system at Wal-Mart and ordered The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass from eBay (new). It arrived about 4 days later. In the meantime, I got used to the system and played some of the included games. I downloaded The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX so I could see it in glorious color (well, more than 4 colors, at least) and play the color dungeon that I had never played. 

I then found out that there was a DSi version of Four Swords called The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition available for FREE!! I’m glad I got my 3DS when I did so I could get that game, as it was only available for a short time celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Zelda. I played it and completed the game, and liked the additions like the Realm of Memories, which had levels based off of LoZ, ALttP, and LA. These new levels were necessary to replace some of the unlockable features that were part of the ALttP portion of the game. The main new innovation was that it could be played with a single player. From comments I've read online, many players lamented that they had never gotten to play Four Swords for the same reason I hadn't - nobody to play with. Now a single player could control two Links.

When my copy of Phantom Hourglass arrived, I put it into the 3DS and it stayed there for quite a while, as that was the only (physical) game I would have for it for a couple of months (I also downloaded LoZ, AoL to add to FS:AE and LADX digitally). Because it was a DS game, I couldn't access the 3DS menus like I normally could with a 3DS game, but it also had the curious quirk of not going to sleep when the system was closed. This is because one of the puzzles in PH requires the system to be shut to solve it. Before I figured this out, I ended up having my 3DS run out its battery a couple of times. 

I liked that it was a direct sequel to The Wind Waker, which was in my top 3 favorite Zelda games. Instead of speculating on how this all fit into a timeline, PH continued the story of the flooded Hyrule. It also borrowed a few musical cues from WW, which I loved. Phantom Hourglass also introduced an entirely new system of control, one where the stylus is the main control for movement, sword swinging, and item use. The buttons were used occasionally, but mostly as a secondary function to the stylus. The second screen usually served as a map. One thing that can be said about Nintendo is that they are always looking for new ways to interact. It also used the built-in microphone to accomplish some things, like blowing away dust or blowing out a candle. I liked the game, but not as much as I would have hoped. There were a couple of things that needed to be adjusted, like some of the repetition and the music. 

After completing this new flurry of Zelda games, I wanted my collection to be complete, so I hopped onto eBay and bought a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. I had heard from my friend's son that this one was more fun than PH, but I had also received a conflicting opinion from a student who said it wasn't that great. My friend's son turned out to be correct. The game and controls were similar, but all of the issues I had with Phantom Hourglass were corrected in this game. 

One thing that I really loved was being able to play tag-team fashion with Princess Zelda. Even though she was still kind of captured (something that annoys certain feminists to no end), she was able to participate in her own rescue. I remember thinking that the inclusion of trains in Hyrule seemed like a departure from the series, as that level of technology was too advanced for a fantasy world like Hyrule, but I gave it a shot, and I'm glad I did. The multi-player function was also improved a little. Around this time I started working on a project dealing with the music of Zelda games. I had started something like it a couple of times before, but never got very far. Now that I had all the games, I felt like I could finally begin in earnest. The project deals with identifying which musical cues are heard multiple times throughout the series and in which games were they originally presented. It's a work in progress, though I have most of the raw data finished. 

About 4 months later, Avery purchased his own 3DS, and for his birthday we got The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I’m glad we got it, but at the same time was lamenting a little that I already had 3 copies of this game, and would rather not have spent the money. But I liked playing through it again, the new graphics, and the new version of the mirrored MQ. Unfortunately, he missed the window to get FS:AE. 

After teaching for two and a half years, I felt like we were in better financial situations, and I could finally get some of the things I had wanted in the back of my mind for years. I bought a Silver GBA SP from eBay that only lasted a couple of weeks before the charging port broke. I had hoped to use it to play Four Swords with Avery. I got a replacement Red SP, and a copy of Four Swords in December. Also, since we had multiple 3DS systems now, we could try out the multiplayer portions of both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Unlike Four Swords, we could play with only a single copy of the game, so we didn't have to buy extras of something we already had. 


For Christmas that year (2012), Logan got a Red GBA SP (different from mine), ALttP/FS, and I got a 4th copy of the game and some connection cords. We had the equipment to play 4-player Four Swords finally, but something was wrong and it wouldn’t connect. It turns out one of the copies of the game was the EU version, and it wouldn’t communicate with the North American version. The easy solution was to permanently swap copies with Brady, as he would probably never have the opportunity. We played using the 2 GBA SPs, the GBA/worm light, and the GB Player. Aurora also got a DS Lite, which she would soon upgrade to a 3DS, bringing the total to 3 systems in the house. I also got my copy of Hyrule Historia finally. 

The other thing we started doing is playing Four Swords Adventures (finally). The game usually required a GameCube and multiple GBAs, so to play 4 player we would use the Wii as a GameCube, and have the GBA, the 2 SPs, and the Game Boy Player hooked into the Wii. Of course, this meant that we had to drag the TV down along with the GBP, but it was good because we let my daughter use that one, and she couldn't see small screens at the time. I discovered that the single and multiplayer versions weren’t radically different, and regretted waiting this long to play it. Unlike FS, FSA allows a single player to control all four Links. However, the regular multiplayer or battle mode requires the complicated GBA/GC setup.

At some point in the next year, for some reason my copy of Phantom Hourglass stopped working. I was perplexed. I had a student who also had a 3DS and a copy of the game. His worked in both of our systems, and mine didn't work in either system. On a whim, I tried it in the DS Lite, and it worked. I did a little research, and found out that my copy was most likely a bootleg version, and a recent system update had rendered it unplayable. Some of the telltale signs included a badly printed manual, and the game's sticker code doesn't match the code printed on the back of the game card. I found both to be true in my case. Also, as I looked through the manual, I noticed that one of the pages had the Spirit Tracks logo and not the Phantom Hourglass one. Had this been a legitimate copy, there's no way the Spirit Tracks logo could have been printed 2 years before the game came out. To resolve the situation, I bought a used copy from eBay, but kept the bootleg copy as well (this has since been given to my niece, who has a DSi while I got a replacement, authentic copy). 

Around this time, Nintendo announced that they would be releasing the Oracle games for 3DS. On release day, both Avery and I got both while Aurora got one of them (she would later get the other as well, though she has yet to play them). 

In September of the same year, the Wii U would finally get a game that I considered worth buying – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. It was a remake of The Wind Waker with slightly updated graphics (the GC version still looks beautiful) and sound, and some updates to remove some of the tedium of the side quests. I bought the WWHD Wii U, so it was black and had Hylian script around the GamePad. I liked most of the updates, but wish that I could pick and choose which upgrades to keep. For example, I wish I could keep the original Triforce quest (as I didn't feel it slowed the game), but have the new swift sail and 12-picture pictobox. 

For Christmas, Logan got some more games for his GBA SP. He received the GBA ports of LoZ and AoL, as well as LADX and OoA. So now he had 5 of the first 8 Zelda games for his GBA SP, and he played them quite a bit. He finished The Adventure of Link when he was 4, something many adults still struggle to do. We also got him a boomerang, a plastic ocarina, and a Nerf Master Sword, so he had all the equipment he needed to be Link. 



My Experience with Zelda Part 4

My Experience with Zelda Part 5