Zel-kun’s Words

Well, I spent several hours playing the new Zelda last night.  And I think I can say its my favorite of the series.  Its very good because it addresses small things that kinda irritated me about the other games in the series.

1. You get to look cool.

You see, in many of Zelda’s cutscenes, the only thing you do is look and observe, maybe occasionally gasp or look surprised.  On a rare occasion you may even draw your sword to get promptly knocked on your ass.  Storyline-wise, Link has always been a bit of an incompetent moron.  Not in this.  While still mute (pretty much a series trait at this point), Link now has an array of smiles, nods, scowls, and various other looks that show he is actually a thinking living being while a scene is going on.  For the first time ever, it seems that Link is actually interacting with other people.

Add this to the fact that you do some pretty heroic-looking things.  Last night I wrangled a horse, chased down a villain on horse back while fighting his calvary unit, then proceeded to have something of a jousting showdown on an ancient stone bridge, upon my victory, Link rode to the top of a hill against the sunset, raised his sword to the air as the horse reared.

Okay, so that last one is cliched, but it still looked cool as hell.

2.  Shopkeepers actually want to make money.

That bomb salesman that says, “Oh, you don’t have a bomb bag, you can’t buy my bombs,” is gone, replaced by a saleman, “You’d like some bombs?  But you don’t have a bag, I have a special starter kit, a bag and thirty bombs!”  So now I don’t have to go through a long dungeon to get disappointed that the treasure there is the mundane nessessity, bombs.  (only in Zelda could you call bombs mundane)

3. New and interesting twists to the classic arsenal.

Since the beginning, the bow, bomb, and boomerang have been a mainstay of the Zelda series.  While nifty, they’ve remained pretty much unchanged since their inception.  You shoot the bow, plant the bomb, and throw to boomerang.  The control of which have been nearly identical since the game went 3d.

Not this one.  The boomerang is completely different.  First of all, you don’t throw it at enemies to hurt them.  The boomerang embodies wind and a little tornado follows its path, bringing things in its wake back to you.  Whether those things be good (rupies) or bad (annoying bats).  So you can control wind, get distant object, and bring small enemies closer to you for the kill.  Nice.

The bow and arrow?  The same, buuuuuut…

The bomb?  Almost the same (also there are apparently three varieties of bomb, don’t know what they are yet), but you can combine the bomb and the bow.   That’s right… Exploding-freaking-arrows.  How cool is that?  I submit that it is very cool.

4.  You have full mounted combat capabilities.

That’s right, most of your weapons at this point can be used on horse back.  You can trample a poor goblin, turn around, and finish him off with your sword.  After being limited to only the bow and arrow for so long, this was a nice change.

5. You can run and slash at the same time.

That’s right, you can run around slashing your sword blindly.  This isn’t the most effective form of combat, but it really helps with those large patches of grass or a long line of breakable pots.

6. The spin slash is once again non-magical.

That’s right, the spin I knew and loved from Link to the Past is back.  I don’t have to worry about a magic bar to do a simple spinning move.

So there you have it, maybe I’ll make a third post on this game… seems halfway likely at this point.

Zel-kun out.