TRD Reviews: Gunnerkrigg Court

Watch the short film "Computer Fighters"

I am buckled in and ready to go. No worries.

Because I'm clearly obsessed with it, I feel inclined to say Danganronpa 2, if you haven't already played it. But you'd really need to play the first game in order to fully appreciate it...but I'll throw it out there anyway. SDR2 (as it's shortened to) has one of my favorite casts of all time.

Another game is Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea. Because I love that as well and the soundtrack is delightful. Gray Garden by the same person is good as well, but slightly less so.

EDIT: Also since it's good to know, WATGBS can be downloaded for free online, but each of the Danganronpa games are about 30 bucks on Steam.

By Fate series, did yu mean Fate/Stay Night or Fate/Zero

Literally anything with Fate and a slash after it.

Great! I put Mother 3 because I feel it's the best in the series, but Earthbound is really good too! I'm looking forward to seeing your thoughts.

Wow, you can play through long games really quickly!

Every single Homestuck fan should play Earthbound. Same goes for every single Undertale fan, though there's a lot of overlap there. It's probably my favorite game ever and it's just so sad to see it disregarded by so many Homestuck people. If it had come out in 2015 as a sort of "retro throwback game" like Undertale sort-of was, it'd have gotten a huge fandom among younger people, I think. So I guess the best we can do is try desperately to get people to play the game.

Anyway, I concur with the Madoka Magica review. The whole trilogy of movies as one work, though, since they're all meant to be part of one big thing.

And if you like webcomics (I assume you do lol), Gunnerkrigg Court is most definitely among the best out there. Problem Sleuth's probably still better as a whole but that's probably only because GKC isn't finished yet.

For movies... just go ahead and review Con Air lol

First one cuts out like, maybe four scenes and in places actually improves the pacing IMO. Second one cuts out nothing and actually adds a really strange 3 or 4-minute-long sequence in the middle. But... honestly it's pretty much the same experience except the movie versions have prettier backgrounds and a worse opening. It's completely up to therationaldove I guess.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [SPOILERS HERE]:

Background: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was published in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Nintendo itself with producer Eiji Aonuma leading the project. At the time, many games were starting to transition from 2D graphics to 3D graphics and Zelda was no exception. There was a lot of hype around this game, but also a lot of uncertainty. Could Zelda make the transition from 2D to 3D without a hitch? Or would the game ultimately suffer? Fortunately, Ocarina of Time blew expectations out of the water, quickly becoming a monster hit. It holds the current world record as the highest-rated game of all time; it’s even considered the greatest video game of all time by many, many critics. This game was influential for the entire video game market, with a buttload of games taking inspiration from it. Reviewing this game that is beloved by so many will be a hard task.

Knowledge Pre-Review: I never played Ocarina of Time growing up, as I never owned an N64. In fact, I played games exclusively through PlayStation until the Wii, which was my first (and only) Nintendo home console. So, a lot of the nostalgia that people feel for this game is not a factor during my first playthrough of the game. In fact, the first and only version of the game that I played was the recent 3DS remake, which is the version I will be looking at for this review.

Story: Like in all Zelda games, you play as Link, a young boy who lives in the Kokiri forest. A fairy companion named Navi comes along and tells him that The Great Deku tree is seeking audience with him. After getting a sword and shield, he meets up with the talking tree, who then tells him about an evil man named Ganondorf who is seeking out the mystical Triforce, a scared object that the three goddesses- Din, Farore, and Nayru – left after creating the land of Hyrule. He then asks for Link to cleanse the evil from within that he was cursed with. After completing the first dungeon of the game, the Great Deku Tree dies, giving Link the Spiritual Stone of the Forest. He then meets up with Princess Zelda, who tells him to find the other two Spiritual Stones, as they will be needed to access the Sacred Realm, so they may protect the Triforce from falling into the wrong hands. After collecting said items, Link returns to Hyrule Castle, only to find that the king has been murdered and Zelda was forced to flee. With the titular ocarina in hand, Link opens the Door of Time, which puts him in a seal for seven years. When he wakes up again, it turns out that Ganondorf used Link’s opening of the Door of Time to access the Sacred Realm and take the Triforce for his own, turning Hyrule into a land ruled by monsters. Now, Link must awaken the five Sages by clearing the five temples throughout the land of Hyrule, so he may confront Ganondorf and stop his reign of terror.
    As far as Zelda games go, this plot is very typical. There are two newer things that I think deserve mention, though. For one, this is the first game to star Ganondorf as the main antagonist; in the past, Ganondorf was in his pig monster form, Ganon. This is also one of the few Zelda games where Zelda herself is not captured or incapacitated for most of the game. She dresses as Sheik and assist Link with his quest by teaching him the Warp Songs (if only she wasn’t captured as soon as she revealed herself.) The characters are also pretty simple, but they do feel real enough so that the player can have the drive to save the world.

Visuals and Audio: Although I played the 3DS version, I want to at least spend a little bit of time discussing the graphics on the N64. For its time, they were really impressive. But, personally, I feel that they don’t really hold up and not because they are old graphics. There are many games that are around Ocarina’s age or older that I think hold up better. I think it’s because Ocarina isn't as stylized or cartoony as other games that I feel hold up much better: Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Ape Escape, ect. I also feel that the color palate and textures of the N64 version are blander than other games at the time and for a game attempting somewhat realistic-looking, that’s a large flaw.
    The 3DS versions updated graphic, then, are much welcomed. Grezzo did the updating for this game and they really did a great job. The colors look more vibrant, the polygons are smoothed out, (No more Pinocchio nose!) There are little environmental details that weren’t in the original, like stalactites sticking out of the ground in Zora’s Domain. Of course, there are some models that are rougher around the edges that others, and the N64-ness of the game bleeds through in those instances, but that’s really just a nitpick. The update is wonderful to look at.
    As far as audio goes, I don’t think I need to say too much. Koji Kondo is back again and does an incredible job with the songs in the game. The most impressive thing to me, by far, is the ocarina melodies. He somehow managed to write twelve separate songs while only using the same five tones, make them all memorable and sound completely different from each other. For example, the Sun’s Song and the Song of Storms have the same exact combination of tones except for one and even then, they somehow sound different.

Setting and Tone: Every location on the map is varied and memorable: the Lost Woods, Death Mountain Crater, Zora’s Domain, the Gerudo Desert. I could name all of the locations without needing an outside source. All of the temples have unique designs and tones to accompany them as well. Even though this is a game taking place in a faraway fantasy land, there is a lot of variety in landscape. And it doesn’t feel exactly like every other western action adventure game with this setting. There are enough unique creatures and enemies to make it a fresh experience.
    One of the best part about the games is its use of setting to serve the game’s center around time travel. The past and the future look quite different from each other: Hyrule Market is completely destroyed after seven years. The construction of the shooting gallery is finished in the future while it was still being built in the past. Even the areas that you help by cleansing the temples change in how they look. The Kokiri forest no longer has enemies after you defeat the Forest Temple, Zora’s Domain is no longer frozen over after you complete the Water Temple, and other details change. Through these details, Ocarina of Time allows the player to feel like their accomplishments have altered the world around them and had a major impact.

Gameplay: The gameplay of the 3DS version and the N64 version are not extremely different from one another, at least fundamentally. The use of Z-Targeting (or L-Targeting in the 3DS version) was a revolutionary system that soon became, not only a staple for the rest of the 3D Zelda games, but also for many other adventure games after it, as lock-on systems are extremely common in games. Although Z-Targeting is handy, there were many times when it would lock on to something I didn’t want to focus on, leading to some struggles with certain boss fights and puzzle segments. Bongo-Bongo is a prime example of this flaw, as there are three different targets you can cycle between and sometimes I had trouble targeting what I wanted in time to cause damage. However, this is a problem I have found with many 3D targeting systems, so I won’t knock it too much.
    One of the improvements from the 3DS version as compared to the original is the menu system. Thanks to the 3DS’s dual screen, maps and item     selection can all occur on the same screen. This removes the cumbersome Pause menus of the past iteration. Being able to look at the map in real time while traversing a dungeon is extremely helpful as well. The two aspects of the 3DS that I have mixed feelings about are the 3D functionality and the gyro controls. For one, The 3D functionality isn’t essential to the experience, so I didn’t really use it. It makes some cutscenes in the game feel a little cooler, but that’s all. The gyro controls are sort of hit and miss. One on hand, it’s awkward to have to aim while moving you entire body around, but I also found the regular aiming with the circle pad imprecise. So, I combined them, using the Circle Pad for the larger movements and the gyro controls to aim more precisely. I actually found it to be a handy combination, but only as a combination.
    Combat requires a lot of patience and knowledge of the enemies attack patterns. While some foes can be defeated with mindless sword slashes, most encourage caution. It would be suicide to launch into a barrage of attacks against an Iron Knuckle without using your shield constantly or keeping your distance until the right moment. The puzzles in this game are pretty challenging and focus a lot on taking in subtle environmental clues in order to solve them. Items in jars can be hints as to what to do next. Some involve thinking in three dimensions. All of the temples have these top-notch puzzles. (Also, for the record, I didn’t find the Water Temple that frustrating. I did get lost a couple times, but I would say that was due to me making a mistake and not poor game design.) If you do get lost, the Sheikah Stones in the game provide useful tips and hints. They are a new edition to the game as compared to the N64 version. Some people may say that this is unnecessary, but I think it’s good for newcomers. Older players can just ignore it.
    Sidequests and collections were standard Zelda fair. None of them were impossible or too tragically difficult. The Big Poe collection is a pretty frustrating one and is more tedious than enjoyable despite everything else. Aside from that, no complaints.
    If there is something I thought Ocarina of Time really failed in, it was the Rupee system. In the beginning of the game, there were a couple of things you could spend money on and there were an equal amount of times where I had to go out of my way to gather Rupees to spend. But by the time I was nearing the end of the game, I had so much money and nothing to spend it on. The largest expenditure in the game, in my opinion, was buying the magic beans for some sidequests and pieces of heart. Other than that, I never needed a lot of money for anything, really. It was a shame to have a full wallet with nothing to spend it on.
    Travelling around Hyrule is something I had mixed feelings about. Hyrule Field takes a long while to cross on foot. On one hand, this length allows the game world to feel larger, but on the other, it can be tedious when going from place to place. While you do get Epona later in the game, you can't bring her everywhere. I also found the Warping system to be rather dumb. Sure it's nice to have all of the warping in front of each temple, but why only in front of the temples? Why not have a warping location to Zora's Domain, or Goron Village? Some of the warp areas are useless, like the one in Death Mountain Crater. Thankfully, the sequel to this game, Majora's Mask, fixes that problem.
    The last new feature to really talk about is the boss arena. If you go to sleep in your bed as a child, you can rechallenge old bosses and try to beat them in record time. It’s a neat mode, but I wasn’t too keen on it.   The 3DS version also comes with the MasterQuest, a harder version of the game, where enemies deal more damage, the entire world is flipped, and the dungeons are all new, with even harder puzzles to figure out, adding immensely to the replay value of the game.

Conclusion: While not my favorite Zelda game, Ocarina of Time is certainly one of the best. It keeps what people enjoy about Zelda the same while also bringing new things that will influence Zelda games from here on out. It’s engaging, it’s challenging and it’s a blast from beginning to end.

Rating: 8/10

Oh man, I love OoT, I'm glad you got to play it! Although not gonna lie, it is a pretty challenging game - at least imo. I played it on the Game Cube and I had to use walkthroughs for maybe half of it (although this was years ago) but mood and story-wise still one of my favorite games.