Zelda Quest 1: Twilight Princess

After thoroughly enjoying both Link's Awakening and Breath of the Wild, my thirst for Zelda was not quenched at this point in time.  One game I really wanted to fire up was Twilight Princess HD, a game that I had yet to finish on Wii U and hadn't beaten since it released in 2006 (and even then, I was racing my buddy to see who could complete the game first).  So it quickly became a prime target for my next Zelda adventure.  At this point, my wife took a keen interest and the official Zelda Quest was birthed.

One thing that was so cool about this game is the duality between the twilight realm and the normal realm.  Playing as wolf link seemed much less cumbersome this time around and I loved the dark, gritty tones of this game (though I think Majora nails it better).  And I can honestly see why fans think this is a top tier Zelda game.  Then again, it's got a ton of OoT references and has the realistic and dark undertones so naturally a lot of people will enjoy it.  Plus you could finally unfreeze Zora's Domain (though not in the way people wanted).

Let me start by saying that this game has some amazing dungeons.  I love the Snowpeak Ruins.  It feels so awesome exploring a snow covered mansion and it's such a fresh take on a dungeon.  Even City in the Sky is so much fun with the double Clawshots, even though there are some annoyances with it.  Plus there are some unique and fun items in this iteration.  I like the spinner and the ball & chain is really cool (but essentially a Megaton Hammer on a chain) but reinventing the iron boots to work on magnetized tracks was awesome and made me think of them in a new light.  There's a lot of good stuff here!

I loved the fact that you could challenge the Hero of Time to learn new moves as well and there were so many OoT callbacks in this while still maintaining its own identity.  Seeing how the events of OoT played out after the credits was awesome too.  In fact, the storyline with Midna and Zelda as well as the Twilight Realm vs the Normal realm while still numerous side plots like Ilia or King Bulblin was great.  Plus the final boss was EPIC.  This was definitely a great Zelda to play for both the gameplay and the story.

However, the collectables and minigames were kind of weird.  I wasn't a fan of having 5 Heart Pieces to a container and catching golden bugs was alright.  Sumo wrestling with Gorons was hilarious though even if you have to cheat with Iron Boots.  The Cave of Ordeals and the new Wolf version were also more boring than anything and the fact that you have to do the wolf version four times sucks.  Plus the world map being segmented the way it was is kind of annoying, especially with how open and free form Wind Waker was.

All in all, Twilight Princess was a blast and a lot more fun than I remember it being.  It has an interesting story and I love the soundtrack to it too (Midna's Lament is definitely one for the Youtube playlist).  The wife loved the duality between light and darkness, the storyline and wolf link and easily put this near the top of her list (though I predict nothing will dethrone BotW).

At the end of it, I had completed the game 100%.  All 45 Heart Pieces, all 10 Bugs, every upgrade, both caves of ordeal done, etc.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2. Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

2/ Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2. Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

Pre Zelda Quest 2: Breath of the Wild

I'll be completely honest.  My thoughts on Breath of the Wild are like a roller coaster.  When I first got it for Wii U, I was absolutely captivated by the beauty and freedom and this feeling persisted when I picked up the game for Switch.  However, this copy was soon absconded by the wife who proceeded to play it for 450+ hours, searching all the nooks and crannies and even starting a separate file just to re-experience it.  However, when I rebought it a third time (after getting my own non shared Switch), I began to grow frustrated with the game.  I loved the exploration aspect but felt the game punished you hard for it.  It seemed like exploration was purposefully obtuse and whenever I would get anywhere decent, I would run into a powerful enemy who handed my butt to me, forcing me to trek back.  To be honest, it was offputting and for the better part of two years, I put off playing the game because of it.

However, after enjoying Link's Awakening, I decided it was time.  And boy, am I glad I did.  The game is incredibly flexible and despite the unforgiving beginning, once you start completing a few shrines or unlock new powers from the Divine Beasts, the game really starts to open up and become a blast.  I loved exploring the world, learning about the war against Calamity Ganon, doing side quests for people and unlocking all of the Shrines.  The atmosphere is awesome and while I hated the fact that weapons and shields broke at first, once I got used to it I was having a blast and enjoying the system.  Solving shrines is so fun because of the freedom the game gives you.  If you can imagine a unique puzzle solution, chances are if you can pull it off it will work.

Not only that but a lot of the side quests are unique and fun.  Finding a questionable statue with a background of double edged dealing or helping create a new town is so fun and awesome.  While I stand by how annoying the game is at the start, please put some time in and enjoy the game.

One thing I do NOT recommend though is collecting all the Korok seeds.  Yes, I ACTUALLY managed to collect all 900 Korok seeds in my playthrough of this game.  You only need about half to get all the max pack upgrades.  Finding the remaining 450 is a huge waste of time and only rewards you with a golden pile of poop that makes Hetsu dance.  That's it.

I managed to get 100% on the map completion but I have a few side quests left to do (4 if my count is accurate) and I still have to do the master trials to unlock the powered up Master Sword.  However, I have completed all 120 shrines, all named locations, all DLC shrines and sidequests (aside from the above mentioned Master Sword quest) and all korok seeds.  I even picked up all the amiibo armor but I have yet to upgrade everything and likely I don't plan to do so due to the overwhelming time it would take to do so.

HIGHLY recommended game.  I don't think it's as good as the hype leads you to believe but it's still fantastic.  Definitely play this one.  As far as how it compares to LA, there's hardly a comparison here.  LA is a fantastic game but short and sweet while BotW is long and will keep you occupied with tons of content and freedom unlike many other games out there.  For me, it's definitely better but LA is still fantastic.  As far as my wife's feelings go, it's one of her all time favorite games and one that she has spent three weeks of her life enjoying.  There's no question that it will top her list unless by some miracle she truly enjoys one of the other games in the series.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2/ Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Pre Zelda Quest 1: Link's Awakening Switch

Link's Awakening remains one of my favorite childhood Zelda games.  I used to love playing the game on my old chunky Game Boy on recess, discussing tips with my friends or showing off our progress and naturally, I was extremely intrigued with the Switch remake and bought it on release.

Immediately upon firing the game up, I was enamored with the art style, beautiful music renditions and hit with a huge nostalgia wave.  This game oozes charm and dspite being a weird one off style game with platforming elements, Goombas and a SimCity reference, this game was just awesome and I was severely disappointed when I 100% the game after a short 15 hours.

I love the atmosphere and updated graphics this game brought.  The setting being on an island outside of Hyrule and trying to collect instruments to wake up the Dream Fish is a unique and interesting plot, though due to the limited Game Boy hardware there's not a whole lot here.  Despite that, I loved Wind Fish Island and it's unique geography.

The dungeons were a lot easier than I remember them being however.  None of them proved a real challenge, even the Eagle's Tower (which I was thoroughly dreading).  However, they were quite fun, despite being more simple than I remembered and the tools you got from them were awesome.  I love blazing things with the fire rod or nabbing an upgraded tunic that increases my attack and it felt like there was a real sense of progression while playing this.

A lot more collectibles were introduced in this one but despite this, I found most of them easy to find, especially after getting the seashell tuner.  Still, I love that they fleshed it out more and increased your max health.  Plus the new Mario collectibles were fantastic and fun to go for.

However, the new Dungeon Maker was a huge disappointment.  Like many others, I was excited to have a "Zelda Maker" only to be vastly disappointed when I learned it was mainly just rearranging existing dungeon rooms together into one large one.  You couldn't even place treasure chests or customize the rooms!  This could have been an incredible feature and selling point but instead it's a novelty that wears off quickly.

All in all, this game is a fantastic remake, a bit shallow but kept me interested all the way.  Great remake but barely scratches the Zelda itch.  If you can pick it up for cheap, do so you'll love it.  Because the wife wasn't involved, her opinion won't be included yet.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

N/A

Zelda Quest: A Personal Undertaking to complete all Zelda games

Back in September of 2019, Link's Awakening would receive a full remake and be released on Switch.  Naturally, being a huge Zelda fan, I decided to pick it up and fell in love with it.  However, because of its short length, I decided to continue on with the series and beat Breath of the Wild, which at that time I had yet to do.  This sparked a huge interest in the series and I decided to start a personal quest I entitled my "Zelda Quest", which is to beat all Zelda games as close to 100% as possible.  I managed to start up Twilight Princess HD, a game that I had on the backburner, which sparked the interest of my wife.  After discussing it with her, who has spent 450 hours in BotW but yet to experience the other games, she joined me and asked that we play the games in "timeline order".  Despite my warning that timeline order is subjective, we decided to use an official timeline from the encyclopedia and start the quest officially with Skyward Sword once Twilight Princess is over.  However, both LA and BotW were retroactively added to the quest, despite my wife being somewhat absent for them.

During this quest, we will be actively going over what we liked and didn't like and ranking the games in order.  Of course, we will be excluding obvious titles like Link's Crossbow Training, the CDi games, etc.  However, other than that, nothing will be left out!  I hope you enjoy our journey and our thoughts!

New review is up!

After several years away, I managed to write out a new review and post it to GameFAQs.  The interface has changed quite a bit since the last time I wrote a review and now allows pictures and formatting but I had already finished it before realizing this.  Irregardless, if you're curious how RPG Maker MV plays on PS4, feel free to check out my new review on GameFAQs!  I'm not sure if this is a return to form but it's definitely been a while!