Eff It, I'm Going Through The Whole Zelda Series (And Then Some) Until I Get Bored (Now Reading: a bunch of pre-OoT manga)

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 3: STORM AND CALM, PART 3: HERMIT'S MOUNTAIN

Eh, I dunno, this was definitely way less brutal than Ghost Tunnel, at least with maps on hand. Even without that, the puzzles are nothing too bad - I'm actually a bit disappointed I didn't get to figure out that loop at the end on my own. Really, my main takeaway is how fucked up the chief and his daughter looked in the cutscene that ended the chapter:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1384162116999868425

 

[RT-55J]

IIRC there is a way to light up (some of) the dark rooms in the ghost tunnel, but heck if I can remember where to find the torches. I do know at least that I did beat it without savestates, but it took me a couple dozen attempts at least. That dungeon is definitely the hardest in the game until [LATEGAME SPOILER].

I thought the Shecola segment was kinda cute, but it could definitely use a rewrite. It feels like it is stuck between two different revisions as is, with how some details contradict themselves (for instance, was Michelle magically transformed or just crossdressing?). I do at least like the aspect of how the women there don't care how men think about them, leading to things such as the chief being a homely old lady (rather than the stunning beauty the creep outside was expecting) or nobody caring about your awkward gender performance, though both of those things are played as jokes, so, uh, yeah. They could have done a lot better here.

As far as the depiction of island natives is concerned, this game is remarkably less racist than Punch-Out at least (which this team made prior to this game). (King Hippo just makes me think yikes the more I think about him.)

 

[FelixSH]

I played through Startropics last summer for the first time, and I used savestates during the whole game. It was just way too hard otherwise, but with savestates, it was a good time.

 

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 4: CONFESSION

This was cute! It's basically an intermission chapter of pure NPC dialogue with a brief overworld maze, no dungeons or combat at all, sort of a breather after the brutal gauntlet of dungeons that was last chapter. Baboo is definitely an unfortunate name for Dr. J's native assistant, but the whole bit of helping him escape a whale was cute. This is, of course, also where the infamous bit about putting Dr. J's letter in water happens. It's a cute bit of feelie work, and I appreciate that most later rereleases include some way to simulate it, but obviously playing it in a format where I could just look up the code made it less of an obstacle.

 

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 5: CAPTAIN BELL

The main focus of this chapter is a cargo cult around a British sailor, the titular Captain Bell, and while it's not too bad in the moment, it definitely adds to the growing sense of "huh, this is kinda playing on some unfortunate tropes huh". The puzzles here were pretty obtuse, though playing a giant piano is always fun, and the dungeon was pretty bad, but there's something about this game that just keeps me coming back to it, rough around the edges though it may be. It's just so charming, and it's fascinating seeing this Japanese studio's idea of what American kids would like. The dungeon theme definitely helps.

 

[nosimpleway]

Awk, do me so far, do me

 

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 6: REUNION

The dungeon design in this game keeps getting worse, which is a shame, because everything else keeps getting better. There were several rooms in this chapter's dungeons that I couldn't escape without losing over half my life even with savestates, and just about every new enemy the game introduces at this point is best described as "a pain in the ass". On the other hand, I loved the overworld stuff in this chapter - exploring the overworld for a heart container (and, on the way, finding a huge apple that offers no benefit except kinda resembling a heart container at a glance) is fun, the underground maze was satisfying to explore despite being pretty short, and the dialogue just keeps getting better - I love how unabashedly goofy this game is with stuff like the "bananas in your ears" running gag and the "oldest woman in Coralcola" thing. Also, for a game only ever intended for the American market, it's weird this game has both kappa (which appeared several chapters ago but I didn't comment on), dogu statues, and what appear to be either oni or Fuujin and Raijin. I wonder if this was ever planned to get a Japanese release?

 

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 7: ALIEN SPACESHIP

First of all: it is extremely funny that the ultimate endgame subweapon is just a gun. So this is one of the things I'd heard about Startropics going in: America only, bananas in your ears, the spaceship level is brutal. And while I can tell that's definitely true in a world without savestates, with them it's... actually pretty fun? It becomes a series of single-room challenges, especially when you have a map on hand to navigate the somewhat maze-like first half, and that's always fun. The pill items are also fun, powerups that instantly bring you to 20 hearts and cause your extra health to slowly tick down until you're at your actual maximum. The ultimate reward for the chapter being a permanent upgrade to 20 hearts is also a fun way to work around players possibly missing some of the heart containers. Also, is the overworld sprite for the ship supposed to be a Gradius reference? It sure looks like the iconic Big Core boss.

 

[Kzinssie]

STARTROPICS (1990) CHAPTER 8: FINAL BATTLE & RETROSPECTIVE

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the final battle here was brutal, especially with the lengthy and difficult buildup. Zoda one-shotting you from full health if you directly touch his body got a genuine laugh of bafflement out of me. The ending was nice, and it was cute to finally see Mike with bananas in his ears.

So, final thoughts? I liked this one! It's got some jank to it, but that's to be expected from an NES-era game. I'm looking forward to the sequel a bit down the line, and I feel like a remake would do a lot for this. My favorite aspect of the game is how shamelessly goofy it is, committing fully to dumb bits like the bananas in the ears thing, giving every NPC some lame joke, and generally just feeling very earnest. The absurd difficulty is definitely the biggest issue - it got incredibly frustrating at times even with liberal use of savestates. I have to assume this was down to the near-psychotic terror Japanese companies at this time had of American rentals ruining their sales. On that note, the elephant in the room: this game being America-only. It's a shame, because I think this would have been at least a cult classic in Japan, and probably led to it becoming a bit more of a franchise. The use of Japanese imagery like kappa, dogu statues, fuujin and raijin, and even soldiers in the final level modeled off Zaku is interesting for a game that was only ever made for the American market, and the dialogue has a certain poorly-translated quality that makes me suspect it may have been originally written in Japanese. On the other hand, I can't help but feel the Japanese studio making this may have put some of Nintendo's Japan-only titles into this - the Mother connection is obvious, but I actually see a bit of Nazo no Murasamejou from all the way back in the first post of this thread in there too. Obviously, there's the idea of an action-focused Zelda-like with more linear dungeon design, as well as the way it hides secret items and the way subweapons are designed to be very temporary. Startropics's extraneous scoring system also feels like it may have been an attempt to emulate the disc-saved scores from Nazo no Murasamejou, which seem like the main draw of that game having been on FDS (Startropics obviously existed in an era of battery saves). It definitely feels like the furthest I've ventured from Zelda for this thread so far, but I'm still glad I played it.

Next up: the sequel to that awesome Zelda 1 manga with the cool Ganon, and then the first big one: Link to the Past!

 

[Kzinssie]

LINK NO BOUKEN (MISHOUZAKI) (1991)

Much like the Ran manga, this is another one where only the first chapter or two have been translated, with the rest existing only as untranslated scans. This is another loose adaptation, with more effort made to connect the sleeping Zelda plot with the Ganon revival plot (Ganon's "true body" is resting in the Great Palace) and Zelda, once again, coming along with Link on his adventure. God, it's depressing how every single adaptation I've looked at so far has made Zelda some kind of action girl while the actual games continue to make her, at best, a secret ally who works behind the scenes. In a cute twist, the ancient Zelda is actually a phantom who takes the form of an adorable little dog to help Link and Zelda on their quest. Once again, Link's Shadow is more of a character, though here he's a very cool monstrous dark elf who can warp and stretch his body, showing off the same sort of badass monster art that Ganon had in the Zelda 1 manga - he's also a sort of manifestation of Ganon's true form. Also, Hyrule has a secret clan of ninja - a possible inspiration for the Sheikah? (That might seem like a stretch, but Aonuma is on the record as saying bird people in the Ocarina of Time manga inspired the Rito.) Working through the language barrier obviously meant I missed a lot here, but the art is just as good as the first one, so I had a good time. With that out of the way...

LINK TO THE PAST (1991): PRE-GAME THOUGHTS

It's weird that this game is a prequel, right? Zelda 2 ended on a pretty ambiguous, open-ended note, with the sleeping Zelda revived but the Triforce of Courage unsealed and Ganon's minions, presumably, still seeking to revive their master. Not only did they immediately follow that up with a prequel, but they also still haven't made a Zelda 2 sequel - it's the last game on the Downfall timeline to this day. Weird. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, this was my first Zelda game, though I didn't play it until several years after it came out. That actually ended up being a pretty big influence on why I love this game, because I didn't know about the Dark World going in. Playing it as a kid I naturally saw the overworld as much larger and more dangerous than it actually was, and gathering the pendants felt like a big adventure in its own right, so I assumed that beating Agahnim would be the end of the game - only to find out that not only was he not the final boss, there was a whole other overworld and about twice as many dungeons to get through as I'd already beaten! I don't think any game has ever managed to capture that feeling of "holy shit, there's more?", but it's something I wish happened more often. I also love this game's aesthetic - "dark fairy tale" is the optimal style for Zelda to have, and the Dark World especially is oozing with it. I've also played the randomizer for this game a fair bit, but the main issue I've had with it is that I kind of don't like the basic movement in this game? Movement feels slow and clunky, and the sword hitbox is always way smaller than I expect it to be. Still, it's been years since I played this game in its unmodified form, so I'm looking forward to returning to it.

 

[nosimpleway]

because I didn't know about the Dark World going in.

This sounds like a huge mindblowing moment. Game promos would spoil things themselves in the days before the internet, so I can remember opening the box for Final Fantasy 3 and going "hey, there's another map on the back...a 'World of Ruin'? And I wonder who this Kefka guy is, there's two landmarks named after him, guess he's important huh..." I hadn't played enough of that other Final Fantasy on the SNES, and of course actual-3 and 5 were still completely unknown at the time, to know that new world maps were kind of a thing for the series.

But yeah. Nice.

 

[4-So]

I had two of those kinds of moments in FF4, once when discovering the Underground and once when going to the Moon. Upside Down castle in Symphony of the Night also comes to mind. Good, good stuff.

A Link To The Past isn't my favorite Zelda but it's the one I've spent the most time with. Pretty amazing game, really. Just the sheer number of secrets they packed into a small space - the game is not nearly as big as my 12-yo mind thought it was - is fairly impressive.

 

[Kzinssie]

I honestly wish more games were willing to keep shit like that entirely under wraps. I often think about how cool it could have been if, for instance, Mario Odyssey completely hid the capturing mechanic prior to release, and focused entirely on the open-world aspect in prerelease marketing. I've also been playing the game Everhood recently, and it has a very well-executed twist entirely hidden in the marketing around it.

 

[RT-55J]

The weird thing about Zelda 3 being a prequel to the first two games is that I'm 70-80% sure that was not the case back in the day. Like, I don't think there's anything in the game itself or any pre-OoT supplementary material that claims the game is a prequel, and I even could have sworn Miyamoto suggested in an interview back in the day that it was a sequel --- however, since I can't seem to find that interview I'm willing to admit I might be wrong.

 

[Kzinssie]

Even if it wasn't intended as a prequel, it was definitely intended to not be directly connected to the first two games - this is not the same Link, and it's not following up on any plot threads from the first two games besides "Ganon exists".

 

[ASandoval]

The weird thing about Zelda 3 being a prequel to the first two games is that I'm 70-80% sure that was not the case back in the day. Like, I don't think there's anything in the game itself or any pre-OoT supplementary material that claims the game is a prequel, and I even could have sworn Miyamoto suggested in an interview back in the day that it was a sequel --- however, since I can't seem to find that interview I'm willing to admit I might be wrong.

Found this here: https://zelda-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Miyamoto_Order

The tl;dr is - Miyamoto said in an unpublished interview that LTTP was a sequel, but later revised. The official packaging did declare it a prequel however, and Miyamoto revised that statement later. This is new info for me too - I always assumed it was originally developed as a sequel and later was retroactively made a prequel since there's nothing stopping it from being either as Kzinssie mentioned.

 

[RT-55J]

...and that page even cites the packaging of both the JP and US releases to show that ALttP was marketed as a prequel.

i feel thoroughly owned now lol

 

[4-So]

Not to get too far into the weeds but even the Hyrule Historia is not some kind of single source of truth.

This chronicle merely collects information that is believed to be true at this time, and there are many obscured and unanswered secrets that still lie within the tale. As the stories and storytellers of Hyrule change, so, too, does its history. Hyrule's history is a continuously woven tapestry of events. Changes that seem inconsequential, disregarded without even a shrug, could evolve at some point to hatch new legends and, perhaps, change the tapestry of history itself.

In other words, things fit into the "timeline" in whatever way Nintendo wants them to, if Nintendo wants them to. Fans have always cared more about a continuity - and I'm personally very tired of this notion of a necessary timeline - more than Nintendo appears to ever have.

In any case, "A Link To The Past" always made me assume it was a prequel of sorts, while also being a very clever sub-title.

 

[Kzinssie]

LINK TO THE PAST (1991): START ~ EASTERN PALACE

To clarify, as I write this post I've just talked to Sahasrahla and am about to enter the Eastern Palace. The opening of this game is still a master class in atmosphere, having you hike through the night rain while listening to Zelda's telepathic pleas before entering Hyrule Castle, the intimidating theme music backed by pouring rain that fades away as you enter deeper into the castle dungeons. Great stuff - I suspect this is why this game has a reputation for dark fantasy despite looking extremely cartoony (Link has never looked goofier, and I'm not just talking about the pink hair) - I think this is the game that led most directly to Wind Waker's aesthetic. This game can be surprisingly brutal with how much damage enemies do, and I remember as a kid being scared to venture too far from Kakariko. As a fun fact, the LttP world map overlaps with that of Zelda 1 while still sharing a few areas - Spectacle Rock is in Zelda 1's northwest and LttP's northeast, and areas like the graveyard and Lake Hylia do actually vaguely line up. This lines up nicely with the western half of LttP being generally safer and more "civilized", with the more hostile unsettled areas being largely to the east. I'm playing this game semi-thoroughly using my knowledge of the randomizer, and I have 5 and 2/4 hearts going into Eastern Palace - I might have missed a couple Heart Pieces. I'm also trying to talk to every NPC I can, though there hasn't been anything particularly noteworthy to come from that yet aside from Hylians being presented in this game as an ancient race.

 

[Kzinssie]

Personally, by the way, I've always thought the Zelda timeline was way more fun when it was completely up in the air - the fun of speculation was completely destroyed by getting an official answer. It is, however, extremely funny that dying in Ocarina of Time creates an entire timeline split.

LINK TO THE PAST (1991): EASTERN PALACE ~ DESERT PALACE

I was actually shocked Sahasrahla gives you the boots - I remember spending a lot of time as a kid with no idea how to get the book down from the library shelf and using every item I had on it, though that might have just been me being kind of a stupid child. The Eastern Palace itself is pretty fun - vanilla, but a nice transition from Zelda 1 dungeons to the kind of dungeons this game has. Link crosses his heart when "wishing" for the Desert Palace to open, which has some interesting implications.

 

[4-So]

Personally, by the way, I've always thought the Zelda timeline was way more fun when it was completely up in the air - the fun of speculation was completely destroyed by getting an official answer.

Aonuma seems to agree.

The crossing of the heart thing is interesting, yeah. For Zelda 1, there's some artwork that shows the "magic book" (Bible on the Famicom version) has a traditional Christian cross on it. The in-game graphic has a cross too, doesn't it?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

LttP may not have been conceived of as a prequel, but it just makes sense as one. The Hyrule we see in Zelda 1 & 2 are just so barren and collapsed, it makes sense to me that Zelda 1 & 2 is this Medieval setting where society and high culture has significantly regressed from a forgotten golden age that we're surrounded by the ruins of. Kind of like pre-Plague Europe. LttP is like the Germanic and Carolingian Kingdoms set up after the fall of Rome. Ocarina of Time is like Hyrule as Rome at the height of its majesty. And Skyward Sword is like the age of myths where gods walked alongside man, and the fantastical was common place. I know it's a popular sentiment to dislike the official timeline, but I just really enjoy thinking about Hyrule as this place with a connected history that experienced phases of rise and ruin like our own. Also, the shattering of the timeline due to time travel shenanigans is just fun to me because that's how you would expect time travel to work if you needed to keep things paradox-free.

 

[Beowulf]

I've always been entertained by the fact that all of the Zelda games I really enjoy (which is to say, the 2D ones without stylus controls) are in the Downfall timeline. I also never beat Ocarina of Time, which I suppose goes along neatly with my personal Zelda canon.

 

[Kzinssie]

Yeah, it just makes sense for Zelda to have some form of timeline, even if the official one is a bit too neat. Also, I do have to say that if nothing else Ocarina was clearly trying to, to some extent, tell the story of Link to the Past's attract mode, albeit somewhat different due to, presumably, history passing into myth. There is one big retcon in Ocarina that I find quite disappointing, though, but we'll talk about that one when we get there (in this game).

 

[Bongo]

Any two Zelda games can straightforwardly connect to each other satisfyingly and with no complications, and it's often not difficult to stick a few more in. It's only when you try to incorporate all of them that you start encountering apparent contradictions that require explanation, and those explanations don't really add anything. It's a series made mostly from alt-sequels and alt-prequels. That, to me, is why playing with different configurations for sticking the puzzle pieces together is more fun than the finished puzzle.

(I "solved" the timelime before the official one was published, only failing to place Four Swords Adventures in the same spot as Nintendo.)

 

[Kzinssie]

Honestly, once this is all done it might be fun to compile an Ultimate Timeline that includes all the non-canon spinoffs and such

 

[Kzinssie]

LINK TO THE PAST (1991): DESERT PALACE ~ TOWER OF HERA

Wow, I forgot how much of the game happened in this section. First off: the Desert Palace is another fun spin on the Zelda 1 dungeon formula, with the very simple "the entire dungeon floor is made of sand" gimmick giving it a distinct visual flair and allowing for some cool enemies. This is also where it really struck me how much of the modern Zelda formula was already here, compared to how different the first two games were. Anyway, there's a lot of overworld stuff unlocked by the gloves compared to how little the Pegasus Boots unlocked on their own. This includes the Zora Flippers, which I went ahead and bought with the 999 Rupees that had been burning a hole in my pocket since Eastern. I guess this kind of marks the turning point of Zora from generic fishmen enemies to an actual core race of the setting, though here it just feels more like pulling back the curtain and letting you see a bit of monster society. Anyway, with all that done, I went on to Death Mountain, and was kind of surprised that you already dip into the Dark World this early? I guess as a kid I assumed this was some kind of one-time gimmick for this area. In any case, the bunny transformation is a very cute gimmick that actually does a lot to characterize this game's version of Link, and as I mentioned before I love the general aesthetic of the Dark World - I love that it's twisted and surreal in often rather cartoony ways, rather than just a generic Shadowfell-style "world of shadows".

 

[ASandoval]

Personally, by the way, I've always thought the Zelda timeline was way more fun when it was completely up in the air - the fun of speculation was completely destroyed by getting an official answer. It is, however, extremely funny that dying in Ocarina of Time creates an entire timeline split.

Agreed, and I also liked discussing it with people because of this. It was like playing anthropologist with people, coming up with fun theories based on deductions. Of course a lot of people took this fun thing Very Seriously and made the whole idea of the discussion internet poison.

...

Except now I'm imagining a game with mechanics similar to Return of the Obra Dinn except you're untangling the forgotten history of a fictional fantasy country. Dammit, where's my pen?!

 

[Bongo]

You sure can fit all the material together, but now that Nintendo felt obliged to do it, that's old hat. I've moved on to more advanced forms of headcanon:

Nintendo develops loose video game adaptations of authentic texts that were composed in the actually existing country Hyrule in its medieval period, some of which are legendary or derived from an older oral tradition, and others of which were simply outright fictional. The challenge is to assemble the true sequence of events through this third-hand historiography.

 

[FelixSH]

LttP isn't my favourite Zelda, but I like it a lot. Especially the atmosphere. Even outside of the Dark World, there is something weird and off about this world, and I have a really hard time describing it. Like if there are these weird things everywhere. My favourite example is the kid that place the ocarina in the woods. This alone is just so nice and strange, in a good way. And than, you find his Dark World version, turned into part of a tree. No idea why specifically this stuck with me so much, but it is an example of how this world feels like there is even more there than you find. Like you are visiting a world, where myths and legends are happening now, and not all of them are pretty and nice. I wouldn't be surprised to find some Fey in here, with people who became parents in the Light World, and who are feeding a changeling in the Dark World.

Also, one thing that always stuck with me: Ganondorf got banned to this place of beauty and magic, right? I always interpreted the Holy Realm (is that the name? I forgot, the place where Zelda banishes him in OoT) that way. And now it's so horrifying and twisted. Ganon ruined this whole realm. It still feels like the darkest and most intense showcase of his horrible power, and what a horrible monster he is.