More like Dovah ZUUL, right?

First up to the arena is the combatant known as Dovahzul (also referred to as Dragon Speak or Dragonish), from that game that came out five years that had all those arrow to the knee jokes everybody loved, Skyrim. Ah, the good ol’ days when memes were created out of desperation of new comedy and not because Ted Cruz slam dunked a sports website. Back on track, even thought it may not appear like it, Dovahzul is actually grammatically similar to English and does not require the same syntax needed for languages like Spanish. This means that a sentence such as, “Zu’u hind dii Dad loved zu’u” could be read directly from left to right. One fun thing about Dovahzul is that plurals are not created by using the letter “s” but instead by repeating the last letter and then adding an “e” (e.x. buttte/butts).

It was supposed to be pronounced like “Dunny.”

Next fighter in the boxing rink is the language of D’ni from Myst which was released all the way back in 1993 before English was truly finalized as a language. Instead of an easy alphabet of 26 letters, D’ni decides to complicate things by having 35 phonetic sounds, each one with its own character. Though, it does make sense as these sounds differentiate letters based on how one might pronounce them (e.x. the ee in teeth vs. the e in fret are two separate letters). Not only this, but the letters in the D’ni language do not look wildly different from normal letters, although they do all look annoyingly similar (and that is not racist if it is true). Other than that, D’ni does appear to be a vast improvement over the English language used today. This editorial is not meant to be some sort of conversion or political statement, but it is possible that readers should simply consider looking into replacing English with D’ni.

Surely they try to make sense of the differing languages in Hyrule Historia, but who pays attention to their confusing timelines?

Last up is one of the most famous video game based languages, Hylian, from “The Legend of Zelda” franchise. Although, what some may not realize is that Hylian has undergone multiple forms through the series such as Old Hylian, New Hylian, and Logographic Hylian. While games such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening use Logographic Hylian which is a language derived from symbols that represent words rather than direct letters to sound while The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker features both New Hylian during the opening credits and Old Hylian which is spoken by the older characters such as Valoo and Jabun which can be translated during a New Game Plus playthrough. Hylian takes multiple roots as it has been based off of Latin, English, and primarily Japanese hiragana and katakana, but who knows what The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has in store for future players come this March?

And there we have it, a good, clean, editorial all about three different video game languages. Are you fluent in any video-game based languages that were or were not mentioned in this editorial? Or do you plan to start the fight to swap English out for the more fleshed out D’ni language? Or maybe you just have a suggestion for a future editorial because you hate it when Adeki writes missing Dad jokes. Whatever it may be, make sure to leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

One of the finer butts in my collection.

Download: Released 2016.05.16

A boozed-up SiliconNooB nearly comes to blows with Lusipurr over a question of the elitist interpretation of art. Meanwhile, rumours suggest Nintendo’s NX is designed to play mobile apps, Capcom learns a lesson, and Lancelot is driven to his wits’ end.

A good example of comedy – intentional or not – stolen from Lusipurr.

I hope all the LusiJobs are enjoying the official Lusipurr.com “Dear Friends: A Final Fantasy V Playthrough” so far. Final Fantasy V was always a game that I represented as a favourite without really having the cred to do so. When I tried to go back and play earlier Final Fantasy games that I had been too young or too console-less to play when they were first released, I found many of them lacking that special something that made me connect so quickly to my dear Final Fantasy VII and IX. When I played Final Fantasy V for the first time, my first impression was that I was finally playing a game in the same spiritual vein as those two PSX delights. There was a sense of fun alongside the epic tale of a dying world and teenaged Ethos also loved that Bartz’ attraction to Reina was mentioned off the top (I also like girls! If she likes Bartz maybe girls will like me too!)

But I do not want to talk too much about Final Fantasy V specifically here and how and if and to what degree my views have changed (the place for that is the official comment thread!), but this example does highlight something that I still believe about gaming and story-telling in general, and that is to tell a successful story, there must be successful moments of levity.

Comedy is difficult because it can be so context-dependent on content, perceptions of the audience, and both the geographical and historical location of the joke and audience. Personally, I find that the best comedy comes from good authentic characters authentically clashing with each other. This is something that B.J. Novak alluded to in an interview when he talked about writing for The Office. He essentially says that the most important factor in writing a funny scene was for all the characters to behave like themselves. The audience must sympathize, or understand the position of all characters involved and therefore understand the discrepancy from a position that the characters often cannot themselves.

Video games often have a problem creating authentic characters and with maintaining a macro view when writing the plentiful smaller scenes that most games feel they require. Therefore I find that many video game “jokes” come from what the writers assume the player is feeling in the moment rather than placing their faith first in strong character work. It takes skill to patiently develop authentic characters, and then to put those characters into situations that are neither contrived nor trite.

They have a job to do, but they can still have fun while they do it.

One of the most successful examples of levity in gaming comes from Final Fantasy IX. No character in that game is a clown for the sake of it. Sure, Steiner is too serious, but that is a reflection of his good qualities as well. Sure, Quina seems preposterous and even looks like a clown, but a lot of the humour surrounding him/her comes from the fact that there is not a lot of mutual understanding between her/him and the rest of the group. Every character has a place and is taken seriously, but these traits are often bounced off of very different characters who are also just acting like themselves and therefore the result is humourous to the audience even if it is not to the characters themselves.

Baku mispronouncing Professor Tot’s name is just Baku acting like Baku. Steiner digging himself into deeper and deeper holes because he cannot understand that Zidane is egging him on is just Steiner being Steiner. Put another way, Final Fantasy IX can laugh at its characters that it also clearly loves, even if the characters themselves cannot. The game feels more well-rounded because it can laugh at itself and suddenly the serious elements have more weight because of it.

Good comedic moments are far fewer in a series like Zelda, but they happen for the same reasons. The Kikwi are generally sort of useless, but they mean well and act consistently, therefore the oblivious and huge king of the Kikwi is funny not only because of his opposite qualities, but in his stubborn and happy-go-lucky similarities that display themselves in humourous ways because of his physical and social differences. When Groose is stunned by the pure beauty of the world below, the music and solemness of the scene suggest that he is going to give the land its name of Hyrule, but of course he calls it Grooseland because he is still Groose.

The Uncharted series takes a slightly different route. Nathan Drake is supposed to – generally – reflect what the player is feeling and so after a dramatic or particularly epic scene, hearing the main character speak the player’s silent reaction out loud is a moment of cathartic relief. Nathan Drake is right there with the player, understanding that something serious does not have to only be serious.

I do not need a game to be a “comedy” per se, but I do think that a game needs some levity for it to be self-aware enough to do a good job at story-telling. But what do you all think, LusiLaughs? Are my examples any good? Am I making any sense? Say things!

A Super Mario Bros Super Show DVD is the only physical reward I’ll accept for my coins.

Much like our very own Ethos, Club Nintendo has decided to take that final bow and let the curtain come to a close just as I was beginning to get to know them. While I do find myself a bit sad regarding the Departure of Ethos, I would be lying if I alluded to doing anything other than shrugging my shoulders when I heard about Club Nintendo going away. It is not that I thought it was a bad program, but more so that I was never given a reason to care. Well, that is, until recently. The announcement and subsequent future plans have raised my level of attentiveness from a single, unintelligible syllable, to the lifting of an eyebrow and a hopeful twitch of my stylus.

On Tuesday, the news made the rounds with the usual Internet gaming riffraff. While there were a handful of mournful eyes in the audiences I wandered through, most were primarily concerned with maximizing gains in this last hurrah of sorts, as Nintendo’s Scott Moffitt has promised to “…add dozens of new rewards and downloadable games…” in order to make anyone with a few coins left in their quivering wallets care. To be honest, it is working fairly well, from what I am seeing, and I include myself as one of those who is now interested in spending credits on a free service I clearly did not appreciate.

Perhaps saying I did not appreciate Club Nintendo is too strong. Club Nintendo was never annoying about what it did, as far as I recall. I did not get constant emails telling me how to earn extra coins, or endless prompts every time I used the eShop reminding me to register this or that. The only time I would see any offerings is by logging on to the site, which is about as unobtrusive as it gets. Of course, there were also the prizes I could redeem with my registration, and taking surveys to earn a few extra coins. In the few years I had an account, I was never really drawn to anything up for grabs on the 3DS list (since I do not own a Wii or Wii U) or the physical rewards, but it was nice to know they were there and I waited patiently, thinking that perhaps one day things I wanted would appear. So, to say I was unappreciative is probably unfair to myself. There was just nothing to drive that sense of loyalty in me.

Now, it seems, just as they are about to shut the doors, they have managed to get myself and players like me interested again. Sorry, nothing has changed since the last paragraph and I still do not own a Wii U, but if I did, I would probably be all over Super Mario Bros 2 and Excitebike, the latter of which was easily one of my favorite childhood games to steal from my cousin.

On second thought, I could use one of these in my collection of silly hats.

The offerings for Wii U and Wii have been okay in the past, but lacking either of those systems has always left me feeling slightly shafted. However, this time around, there are already two 3DS titles I would not mind having in my collection; Super Mario Land for obvious nostalgia reasons, and Wario Land II simply because my young self actually owned a copy of it and never bothered to play. Yes, yes, I can almost hear the admonishing cries of The Legend of Zelda fans everywhere. Rest assured that it firmly remains one of my favorite games, but when we get down to brass tacks, if I am going to relive those days, I am going to blow into my cartridge, slot it lovingly into my NES, pour a glass of moderately priced bourbon, light candles, and gently caress that old rectangle controller well into the night. That and I do not want to waste my coins on something I already have a copy of.

As for next month, February will be seeing some new stuff added to the list of redeemables, though I am not seeing any clear info on how that will be divided between physical and digital products. My skeptical side demands that I expect no more titles to choose from than the current selection, only because I personally do not care about the physical rewards and wish to avoid some disappointment. Club Nintendo probably has a warehouse of odds and ends they would just love to get rid of, so get ready for some limited quantity exclusives, or whatever buzzwords work in place of those. I do actually hope to see a few more titles, and from the looks of things, there will be some more to pick from soon, so I shall be waiting and seeing. Since a new loyalty program will be rolling out later this year, I expect titles with higher demand will be held back as sign-up bait, but that is pure assumption on my part. If some nice titles pop up, I will gladly admit my bad call.

Probably not worth the wait. But, hey, it is free!

3DS owners are getting something a little extra, as well. Flipnote Studio 3D will be available for free, having cultivated a following after the fizzling out of a US release. Europe, will unfortunately have to sign up for the new service to get the same deal, which begs me to ask what the new service will be called. If they go with New Club Nintendo, I might puke. At any rate, offering a free and fun looking app is a nice touch, even to me, someone who could not draw his way out of a paper bag, though I am sure at some point I will have to deal with a skillfully rendered wagging phallus from Bup when he takes advantage of the offer and my trusting nature.

All in all, we will just have to see what happens through February. Users have until the end of March to register and survey their way into fresh coins, and until the end of June to spend them, so I recommend waiting awhile unless some finite amazingness happens in the physical reward department. Just for the sake of frivolity, I would love to hear what you would like to see hit the rewards list. Impose no limits on ridiculousness or absurdity, or do, if it suits you so. A Grill-Off with Ultra Hand sequel, maybe? Go nuts!

Of course, none of this excuses a missing AC adapter…unless they bring back Nintendo Power. Get it?

Somewhat ironically, this game is strongest and the most confident outside the Disney worlds.

This is not yet another article about how we have no more time for video games. In addition to its official Dead Horse status here at LCom, that topic has too heavy of a focus on the dullness and terribleness of the real world and its horrible effects on how we must live our lives in order to provide food and shelter for ourselves and – if we are lucky enough – our loved ones. Many of us are square pegs who must shave off essential parts of ourselves just to fit through the circle hole and join the rest of the misshapen blocks in the cluttered and darkened repository we call freedom. It is a grim fate and so is an understandable distraction of a topic when attempting to understand the pace of many video games, but it is not the focus of this article.

No, the focus here is the concept of long-form art and entertainment that video games provide through the lens of imagination in which real world constraints are happily quite irrelevant and through which we can sometimes glimpse when we are able to afford to slip ourselves into that glorious new way of perceiving time that our world as a whole is not yet close to emulating.

I wrote about Kingdom Hearts II a few weeks ago, LusiGoofies, and that is because it was all I was playing for close to a month. Looking back and as a whole, I do not consider it to be too strong of a game nor do I consider it one of my favourites, however there are strong elements to its systems and themes that I was only able to rediscover because of how deeply I had immersed myself into its world. A friend once mused to me that the best art meets its participants halfway and the more I think about it over the years, the more I agree with her. This is perhaps most literally true for video games. The best video games are acutely aware of their own mechanics, environments, narratives, and how they relate to each other and how it is possible for the player to interact with them. Of course, this is an enormously difficult thing to accomplish and it becomes even more difficult as a game is longer, includes more elements, and is influenced by forces beyond creative and artistic ones. But just like how the concept of interacting with a game over a massive period of time should be analyzed in isolation from the practical difficulties of finding that time, a game should also have the chance to be critiqued by its own merits outside of what real-world events conspired to make the game the way that it is.

I think there is a fantastic game struggling to break free inside the Kingdom Hearts series, but I am not sure that Kingdom Hearts itself will be the series to set it loose.

We need Kingdoms of Amalur back.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a game that – I argue – could never have been made in a vacuum. I know I just said that I should leave context out of the conversation, but the game is pure reaction. Because if it is analyzed on its own merits, it is a completely baffling experience. The wonderful parts of the game appear to happen by accident or at least appear to have been abandoned with either deliberate or distracted ignorance, I cannot decide which.

Studying and exploring the environment to reach new areas is a satisfying process in its skeletal form, but the game seems to have no awareness of how strong this element is because character movement is awkward and inconsistent over the environment, a relationship that would have been given more focus by a director interested in creating strong coherent design. In a similar vein, another of the game’s strengths (aided by some truly wonderful sound design) involves the cultivation of personality of locations. Each location is distinctly itself, and this is expanded upon by the wonderful way the game tackles cave exploration.

There is little help to come from maps in caves, and torches light precious little area around the heroes. The larger the caves get, the more uneasy the player gets. Surely there are great treasures deep in the cave, but the architecture is unknown and so are the nature of the beasts within and supplies are limited. This is the essence of roguelikes or even flash-based digging games. It makes exploring a cave actually feel like exploring a cave in Inquisition and emerging victorious from one to the open sounds of a world left behind is a thrilling experience. However, this is a victory that exists in isolation because there is little intentional pacing that I have found while playing the game. Sure, the caves get larger as the player progresses, but the game is so interested in delivering enormous amounts of content that Inquisition seems oblivious to the missed opportunities it has created by having a lack of focus. Cutscenes want to be Mass Effect and conversations with characters play out either like wet dreams or Wikipedia entries. Inquisition tries to be everything to everyone and ends up like tapioca, ignoring what it does well, satisfied with giving everything equal weight even when it does not make any sense to do so.

A flawed, but bold game that knows itself.

Incidentally, the way Inquisition fails to capitalize on the relationship between exploration and mechanics is precisely why I am so optimistic for the new Legend of Zelda. I am sure that it will have its own share of Zelda and Nintendo-esque pratfalls, but based on recent entries in the series, recent releases by Nintendo, and the way in which Aonuma refers to the design of the new game makes me confident that it will at least pave a far more discernible path for open-world games to take if they would like to stop running in circles. That is to say, it is not enough to have a large landmass (as Zelda‘s own Twilight Princess proved), but that the player must have a relationship with everything they interact with, and that these relationships – even when they appear to be very different from each other on the surface – are just branches stemming from a single, focused design philosophy.

But that is simply a projection. The new Zelda will be what it will be regardless of what any of us want, fear, speculate, or hope it will be. And we will only know what it is after spending hours and hours with it and then reflecting upon those hours and then repeating that process. Because although games can have great singular moments, gamers know that the best video games know how to handle time as a dimension and that our experiences are not contained in a single moment, but in how all the moments relate to each other and how we interacted with the game to find these moments.

If somebody watched the screen for thirty minutes or even a few hours while I played Majora’s Mask – for example – it does not mean they are close to sharing my experience although they would be able to see everything I did. Because I have collected all the moments unseen before that moment and because I have been the one learning from my mistakes, not yet learning from my mistakes, and collecting the web of experiences laid out in all directions to slowly make a four dimensional map of them in my mind, he would have a vastly different experience from me despite seeing the same images and hearing the same sounds.

Inquisition is a game that does not know itself and Kingdom Hearts II is a game that does not usually know how to best express itself and these are both statements that I can only make comfortably after spending dozens of hours with both, and both are statements that could be overturned or solidified with even more time. Games cannot be known in an instant or in a day and that is just one of the reasons why I am enamoured with them.

But what do you think, LusiClocks? Chime in below. Video game discussion on the internet is only beginning.

E3 continues to be the biggest spectacle of the industry.

Two weeks ago I divulged the E3 predictions of Iwata’s super-powered dessert fruits but, while the predictions seemed safe and conservative, things did not quite pan out as the bananas had thought they would. Specifically regarding Nintendo’s performance I feel like things went better than predicted in many ways. As of this writing there is still one day to go for E3 2014 but I hold little hope that anything earth shattering will come about in the final day. But the bananas have been wrong before, so I cannot speak in certainties.

The biggest omission from the whole Expo and the special E3 Direct Nintendo posted was their Quality of Life business. If this project becomes anything more than a lineup of casual-focused motion controlled games I will be pretty surprised. Iwata and the rest of Nintendo have kept quite mum on the subject ever since Iwata mentioned it earlier this year and so far as I could see the rest of the gaming press has moved on from it as no word on the project or its absence has really made the rounds yet. This is probably for the best, and I maintain the whole initiative is a completely unnecessary effort by Nintendo to branch out of their strong suit because they are either too afraid or unwilling to address some age old problems. But in truth I was prepared for this to eat in to their presentation in much the same way TV promotions ate into Sony’s press conference. Oddly, Sony was the only of big three distributors that really fluffed up their presentation as both Nintendo and Microsoft managed to keep it all about the games with one glaring exception on Nintendo’s part.

I had stated I wanted to see at least two new initiatives from Nintendo at this E3 and happily I got more than just two. Unhappily one of those was the unveiling of the previously hinted at NFC (Near Field Communications) trinkets meant to interact with the Wii U gamepad and 3DS. Our own Imitanis recently discussed this feature, so I will not go into detail here. But I cannot keep from commenting on its heavily demoed involvement in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (which I will henceforth refer to as Smash 4 since that is just as good a name as the one they are giving it). These toys will allow powered up versions of CPU fighters to either fight with or against other players or even among themselves. The so called “Amiibo” will add some sort of ancillary collectible toy dynamic to a game Nintendo has clearly pinned all of its core gamer hopes on. It represents an odd little addition that can only hope to gain traction in a much younger crowd than I fear Nintendo realizes they currently court. I expect this to resolve in to a curio laughingly remembered before this generation is out.

I don’t bring up the other two console manufacturers, but feel free to comment on them below.

As for the games, Smash 4 and the newly titled Xenoblade Chronicles X were shown off in more detail, as expected, but alongside them were a smattering of new games (or only recently leaked ones) like Splatoon, Yoshi’s Wooly World, Captain Toad, an untitled Starfox, Mario Maker, Kirby: The Rainbow Curse, and of course the new untitled Zelda game. Two other games, Project Giant Robot and Project Guard struck me more as minigames to be either bundled together or appended to some other unannounced title. So overall this represents a pretty big push from Nintendo’s own studios and personally I am interested in most of them, which probably comes as the biggest surprise. After years of great ideas for games hampered by waggle controls on the Wii, Nintendo and third party games on the Wii U all look and promise to be the kinds of games I want.

I also mentioned the third party front would be slim-to-none and I was almost right. Aside from the Nintendo published Bayonetta 2 there was little else that piqued by interest besides the questionable Hyrule Warriors, and the surprising Devil’s Third that Nintendo platforms have on the horizon. But I had honestly almost forgotten about third party titles in the face of eleven first party and exclusive titles shown off during the E3 Direct and on the show floor. But now that things have settled down and the realization that many of those titles are a long way off, it becomes apparent once again that Nintendo’s future looks destined for long software droughts to be marked by shining examples of first party releases. In short, it really is shaping up to be the GameCube all over again.

Do not look too long in to the void.

And finally I would like to discuss something more general regarding Nintendo’s E3 presence this year. Slowly since last E3 and very evidently during the this year’s E3 Direct presentation, Nintendo has been loosening up their image in a way they have not since the early Reggie days of “kicking ass and taking names” back ten years ago in 2004. Over time their new Nintendo Direct videos, published roughly every month, have become more comedic and increasingly self deprecating and acknowledging of internet memes. In the last few months Nintendo has published videos with skits written by the internet famous Mega64 and for several parts of their E3 presentation they contracted the people behind Robot Chicken from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block. The intro to that presentation, where the company’s CEO and President of the North American branch engage in a wire fu fight, also shows a lot of how Nintendo has been thinking about their audience. Whether this leads in to anything meaningful or if it is all just so much fan service to bolster their reputation in a time of need, I would rather not speculate because the answer is probably too depressing. All I know is that Nintendo continues to more actively court the user base they neglected for the past nine years and that I can at least enjoy the show while it happens. If Nintendo wants to keep showing their executive beat each other up in their press releases, I am not going to complain.

So, by the time this article goes live E3 2014 should be well and truly done. Baring any last minute surprises I think I touched on all the highlights of Nintendo’s presence at the event this year. Anything from their attendance that particularly struck you or anything I neglected to mention that you liked? I will not ask you if you think Nintendo “won” E3 as I think that is a stupid question, but let me know what you thought about their announcements this year in the comments or else I will assume you no longer love me.

It should go without saying that Mario is the preeminent player character.

No, I will not be writing about James Cameron’s billion dollar light show today as I am unlikely to do so on any day. Instead, I am writing about the player character, the ostensible ‘avatar’, that is controlled throughout a video game. At times, the player character can be considered either the most integral part of a game or the least engaging – sometimes scrutinized, but at other times overlooked. This comes down to the many ways an avatar can be employed in a game, perhaps similar to the differing ways a narrator of a book can be employed. Yet in a game the avatar is always a character in the story, and a character the player controls completely, one that can either drive the story or simply be a vehicle for it. Here I shall give some examples in an attempt to find out what qualities make an avatar an engaging figure or a very simple device for progressing in the game.

An increasingly popular treatment of the player character, owed to an increase in technical abilities, is the customizable avatar. In this game the player is given some or many choices to make about how their avatar operates and appears, as well as the character’s name, age, and race, fictitious or otherwise. A game like those in Volition’s Saints Row series give the player the tools to create a person very near to themselves or just a person they find it fun to be, all down to very particular detail. In this series, the avatar has a very active and central role in the story and many choices therefore can feel like an extension of the player. It can then lead the otherwise nameless and faceless avatar itself to be seen as the player, whether or not the avatar looks or acts as the player might do in real life, and the player character is then observed and remembered as the player him or herself. Such a motile design choice for the avatar is intended to leave this exact impression upon the player so that they are further immersed into the game world, and in a way it is designed to make the avatar as invisible as possible to supplant the player into its shoes. But does this make the avatar itself uninteresting or is it only as interesting as the player is interested in expressly being in that role? When I think back on games that feature a highly customizable avatar, I tend to forget that character’s role in the story over the memory of some major events or decisions I took place in throughout the game. I often come away from games like these with the sense of feeling very interested in my role at the time of play and much less so looking back. This is in hard contrast to how I feel when playing a preset avatar who can be altered only slightly or not at all.

Bioshock Infinite is a very tailored experience and its player character is therefore portrayed only a certain way.

Two recent and prominent examples of avatars that cannot be truly changed are Booker DeWitt in Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite and Joel in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. These two characters, despite some forks in the road where the player may make some decisions at a few key points in the plot of either game, are portrayed and experienced solely as those characters as they were crafted by their respective creators. In similar fashion to how a linear game treats the player to a tailored experience while an open world game gives the player freedom to find significance on their own, the experiences the player has while controlling these characters will be largely the same time after time. Though provided some choices, players are not able to make choices in some of the most affecting scenes people still talk about when discussing either of these games. And it is here that I feel my connection to the avatar of games like these much stronger after the events of the entire game have concluded, and all the actions that I took place in but did not have say in can be assessed in terms of what it means for the player character. While not exactly disengaged during my first play through of such a game, often times the events and their significance are not wholly known to the player until the story’s conclusion and so I tend to feel uncertainty towards the motives and characterization of much of the cast including the player character. The avatar’s significance and my opinion of him are left floating from point to point, and I often feel more strongly about the final assessment of these characters than I do while in transit with them given that my role alongside them is much more the position of an observer. Finally, this brings me to an odd mechanic only possible in video games. A mechanic that has lost some popular support but is still in use today: the silent protagonist.

Everyone knows who Link is, and yet he’s not the same for everyone.

The foremost example in my gaming experience is Link in Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series, where his noncommunicative nature becomes more apparent in the later entries of the series. Link’s use as a silent player character is one I find mixes my reactions from the above two styles. Though Link is the canonical name, it can be changed and the change is reflected in dialogue in the game. His appearance and gender are set, as is his quest. Few, if any, options are afforded to the player to make a significant choice throughout the game despite the common occurrence of a dialogue ‘option’ where the player is given a choice to refuse a request by key characters. Refusing often loops the conversation over with the non-player character simply repeating their request. But this, in conjunction with character’s reactions to unseen responses by Link, are designed to give a sense of choice and interpretation to the player. Alongside Nintendo’s, now glaring, omission of voice acting in the series, many aspects of the game are designed to give the player the ability to see and hear the world for themselves while keeping the structure and tailored experience. As a result I feel that Link is a well known character throughout video games, yet no two people experience him quite the same way. He is both a set and inflexible character and a representation of the player that controls him, not merely a vehicle. Other games have come and gone that feature a silent avatar, perhaps famously Grand Theft Auto 3, but none left today that execute it in this way. Indeed, Nintendo’s effort might be the only one left.

So what have I done, readers? Have I highlighted something important in how the player reacts and engages with the avatar of a game or is this all so plainly obvious? Is there a player character you did or did not like because of how they were presented? And which do you prefer, a customizable character or a preset one? Perhaps silence is golden? Hurl forth your opinions in the comments!

3D Dot Game Heroes boxart

With everyone going crazy over Skyward Sword, it seems fitting to review another amazing Zelda game! One so amazing that it does not even have The Legend of Zelda in its title! 3D Dot Game Heroes does such a great job mimicking the classic top-down Zelda games that it almost feels odd that the player’s character is not set to Link by default. Dungeons play out just like one would expect from a not-quite-Zelda game, and the various sidequests and NPCs in town all parody other gaming classics. However, despite all of its 8-bit charm and retro game nods, 3DDGH feels strangely empty and railroaded compared to the older Zelda games it tries so hard to impress.

The dungeons in 3DDGH are just like what one would expect from The Legend of Zelda. The player, who is definitely not-Link, runs around the dungeon, hunting for the boss key. In each dungeon, not-Link finds a new weapon to use throughout his journeys, but unlike the newer Zelda games, the boss of each dungeon does not require the player to use the dungeon’s treasure. Instead of the puzzle-like boss fights of newer games, boss battles involve bashing the boss with a sword until he dies. The first two bosses can prove to be somewhat challenging, due to the players low amount of hearts, but as the game progresses and the player gets access to a larger health bar, potions, and magic, the bosses get easier. By the end of the game, it is possible to simply chug potions while slashing the final boss to death.

3DDGH lets players design any kind of 8-bit hero they want!

Sadly, 3DDGH lacks many puzzles throughout the game, unlike its Zelda role-models. There are a few puzzles in the game, such as simple block sliding puzzles and a labyrinthine forest, but the bulk of the gameplay lies in smashing things with a sword, an area which 3DDGH makes some interesting improvements in. Rather than having one or two swords, such as a wooden sword and Master Sword, 3DDGH features a ton of swords, ranging from the stereotypical “hero’s sword” to a giant fish. Each sword can be upgraded to do more damage, have a farther reach, or do various magical effects. The sword upgrade system is tons of fun and lets players have different weapons for all kinds of situations, but in nearly every case, the player needs to be at full health to use the upgraded swords. With even half a hearts worth of damage, all of the strength and size improvements to one’s sword vanish. Yes, it is possible for players to grind up a sword with strength high enough to top bosses in a few swings, so one could argue that requiring a full health bar for all those upgrades to work balances the game out, but that does not make it any less frustrating!

Believe it or not, that is one of the smaller swords.

3DDGH features all of the locations one would expect from a Japanese fantasy game. A magical forest, a volcano, a desert, and so on. And with those locations comes a cast of characters all heavily inspired by other popular retro games. Nearly every NPC features some kind of joke our reference about another game, of course, the bulk of the jokes will not be understood by any sane video game fans, since they are almost all Dragon Quest related. Catching a reference or two when chatting with NPCs is always a little funny, but it also makes it extremely hard to differentiate between an NPC who simply exists to spew out jokes and an NPC who is giving the hero information about a sidequest; 3DDGH features a lot of sidequests. Ranging from grabbing an item for a hidden cave, to playing tower defense minigames, to running items back and forth between NPCs, and more, these little fetch quests usually give the hero a heart container or sword, and the best part is that many of them are time sensitive! While it is perfectly possible to beat the game without hunting down every little heart piece and bonus sword, players paranoid about finding everything will definitely need to use a guide.

While, unlike Metroid, Zelda-like games are known for exploration, 3DDGH really drops the ball when it comes time to adventure. The game is always eager to point the player in the right direction, and anytime the player must trek through the world to find a new dungeon, the game is nice enough to put a marker on the player’s map, right where the dungeon entrance is. A few of the dungeons end up being pretty far from towns, but there’s a massive lack of anything interesting between towns and dungeons. Players may find an item shop or fairy fountain along the way, but other than that, the game spends no time trying to entertain the adventurous. It is by no means a game breaker, but keeping the time sensitive sidequests in mind, players might beat themselves up as they scour every inch of the game, paranoid about missing any bit of extra content.

3DDGH still manages to be an enjoyable experience, especially for anyone who has been playing games since the early days of the NES. The dungeons and bosses are all very fun, and they all prove to be a pleasant challenge. The constant retro references always make chatting with NPCs worthwhile, and the whole sidequest issue will only bother perfectionists. Unlike the newer Zelda titles, 3DDGH uses a regular controller! So should one find themselves with broken arms after flailing through a session of Skyward Twilight Sword, 3DDGH is the perfect alternative!

The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert Logo

On 10th January, 2012, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will kick of the Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary concert series. Tickets are going to cost between nineteen dollars and one-hundred fifteen dollars, and through 30th November Club Nintendo members get a fifteen percent discount. Additional performance dates will be announced in the future.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will be performing orchestral arrangements of iconic music from the game’s long history. This new concert series will go on tour across the United States in 2012 as The Legend of Zelda:Symphony of the Goddesses. The concert series will be directed by Irish conductor Eimear Noone. The concert will also pair together iconic music and some of the gorgeous visuals from the Zelda titles including the latest installment of the series, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii.

“The love that fans feel for The Legend of Zelda series cannot be overstated,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “In 2012, we want to give people across the country a chance to come together and enjoy the music from the games that mean so much to so many.”

“The Legend of Zelda is as close to our hearts as it is for the fans,” said Jeron Moore, Producer for Jason Michael Paul Productions, Inc. “The tour will be something both fans of the franchise and music enthusiasts alike won’t want to miss.”

A very pretty game

For Wind Waker had irreplaceable humour and tone, its characters with their wildly expressive eyes and stylized exaggeration at home in an oceanic land. Talking boats, spiral explosions, child pirates, and vast seas provided a sense of youthful, whimsical wonder. Skyward Sword, take note!

For Twilight Princess was grim and large, a heavy epic. Its world – coated in shadow – saw an odd pairing using each other in vain attempt to return their separate homes back to the way they once were. Even the game’s strangeness was sucked downwards into its somber tone, allowing an unprecedented number of epic moments soaked in serious. Skyward Sword, do you see a wolf lost in twilight and a princess hiding in shadow? Will you learn the lesson Twilight Princess did not and know to walk the line between empty and vapid?

For Majora’s Mask is the story of a fallen hero in a doomed world. Endless attempts, an infinite cycle of 72 hours, and the novel inability for Link to save every soul. Temptation of power, human nature in the face of disaster, and deep-seeded evil inform the strange and unexpected world. Every action and relationship Link engages in is almost cruelly temporary. He learns and grows as the world around him does not, as if trapped in some sort of bizarro-Neverland. Termina gave birth to the darkest, weirdest, and most tragic characters that Zelda has seen. That is why it is burned into memories, Skyward Sword, do you recognize that?

Symbolic?

For Ocarina of Time was able to juxtapose the magic and wonder of childhood with the responsibility and despair of growing up. As an adult, Link faces lakes that are dried up or frozen, towns overrun by the undead, and power handed to the greedy and undeserved. But even the bright past is not a safe haven for a boy rejected by almost everybody he has known as a child. Link may be brave, but he often has no place to belong. Will you understand his story, Skyward Sword?

Unlike Peach, Princess Zelda does not sit idly by and wait to be captured. She is a leader of pirates in Wind Waker, she is a powerful selfless defender of her people in Twilight Princess, she is one of two remaining Sheikah ninjas in Ocarina of Time, and she is the knight in shining armor in Spirit Tracks. Remember this, Skyward Sword!

So Skyward Sword, rise above the chains of waggle. Learn from your ancestors, but realize your ability to carve your own path. Build a world brimming with life. Design your inhabitants without hesitation. Allow for wonder and exploration and never forget the importance of well-placed silence. Join Mario Galaxy 2 in standing against all the other steps backwards that Nintendo insists upon.

So speak to me, Skyward Sword. Transcend and innovate. I must admit to only expecting competence and disappointment, but please surprise me. You have the potential for greatness.

Yours truly,

The Eternal Fanboy

No wolf form?

Twenty-Five Years of Triforce
This past February, Nintendo celebrated the passing of a quarter century since the release of the original Legend of Zelda. Just as with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Super Mario Bros., Nintendo has promised a celebration to its fans. The recent 3DS release of Ocarina of Time is part of this, as well as a free download of the soundtrack to those that own the 3DS remake. However, these celebrations seem like nothing in comparison to the announcement that Nintendo will be taking over Los Angeles for a Legend of Zelda orchestral concert. On the 21st of October, the Pantages Theatre will be host to Nintendo composer Koji Kondo, with a full tour due in 2012. Tickets to the Los Angeles concert go on sale tomorrow, so you better get prepared.

Not pictured: evil.

Fifteen Hours of J-Pop
What do you do if you are a middle-aged school teacher in California, living in complete obscurity, but want to obtain a goal of slightly less obscurity? Then you break a Guinness World Record for playing video games. Carrie Swidecki did just that in West Virginia on Wednesday, playing Dance Dance Revolution for fifteen hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-four seconds, almost two hours longer than the previous record set in the UK in 2010. An elementary school physical education teacher, Swidecki said she trained for six months straight prior to her record-breaking arrow stomping. “I started playing DanceDanceRevolution 10 years ago,” she said, “and when I saw that it was helping me become more physically fit, I integrated it into my physical education program at school and the students love it. Since then, I’ve become more active, lost 75 pounds and won the Guinness World Record!” Konami president Shinji Hirano expressed his congratulations to Swidecki and his pride in his game, encouraging others to follow her lead and take an active role in their physical fitness, even if it is with a video game.

Would this boost sales?

Ocular Violation, Now on Sale!
Loyal yet broke Nintendo fans were overjoyed this week to hear the news that the Nintendo 3DS will be dropping in price in American markets. Starting 12th of August, the system will drop eighty dollars, from $250 to $170, a rather telling sign seeing as the system only launched six months ago. The launch itself was poorly handled worldwide and with reviews complaining of eye pain and motion sickness, its no wonder they are desperate to get consumer to buy the system. Admittedly, Nintendo is slowly but surely making the system a better buy; also announced this week was the addition of downloadable 3D content. Earlier this month, Netflix launched on the 3DS but only offered 2D content. The rock band OK GO released their first 3D music video as a premiere to the service, with Nintendo offering promises of more content like CollegeHumor and Blue Man Group as well as sports in 3D and 3D trailers for upcoming movies. Does this drop in price and this new content make the purchase of a 3DS worth it? We will have to wait until September’s NPD numbers to find out.

Creepiest eyes I could find.

Prancing Aboot With Yer Heads Full’a Eyeballs
Developer TopWare announced this week the development of a rather curious technology, one that you would expect to find on the Kinect rather than an iDevice. The version of Two Worlds II: Castle Defense for the iPad 2 institutes what they call 3D-ET technology, the ET short for EyeTracking. Just as it sounds, this technology uses the cameras on the iPad 2 to change the game based on the motions of your eyes, allowing players to look around corners. The game will also change perspective relative to the user’s point of view. Given this description and the limitations of technology, it is more reasonable to say this is HeadTracking technology, but still a rather interesting innovation nonetheless. For the skeptics out there who do not want to buy a full game for one feature, TopWare also adds that this feature will be available on the Lite version of the software as well. Will you be testing out their latest innovation? Let us know what you think!

Oliver Motok, April 2011

Produced 2011.04.17

New panelists Slab Bulkhead and Deimosion join special guests Riddles and Ethos, along with Biggs and Lusi in a podcast crammed with discussion. This week, the panel tries to uncover the greatest of all mysteries: what is Montok wearing? *click*

Nothing earth-shaking, perhaps, but something right. Specifically, they released The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask on the Virtual Console. The game was originally released in late 2000 on the Nintendo 64, and again in 2003 on The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition for the GameCube. Somehow, though. Majora’s Mask has never managed to shake the image of “little brother” to its predecessor, Ocarina of Time.

To be sure, Majora’s Mask doesn’t quite live up to the near-perfection that was Ocarina of Time, but the bad rap it often receives is hardly deserved. It’s a shockingly underrated, overlooked game and if you haven’t experienced it yet, there’s no reason not to now. It’s a game from a time when Nintendo had more to offer than tricks, gimmicks, and (at best) solid gameplay experiences.

You may wonder why I (apparently) list “solid gameplay experiences” in the list of cons pertaining to Nintendo. I’ll explain: Nintendo, at their best, can still give core gamers one hell of an engaging, solid, and fun gameplay experience. Titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption are perfect current-generation examples. Speaking strictly from a core gameplay standpoint, those two titles are the best in their respective series’. The combat in Metroid Prime 3 works beautifully on Wii controls, refining the experience to a point where it’s difficult to imagine it could get much better. The dungeon crawling in Twilight Princess is practically flawless; undoubtedly the best dungeons and boss battles ever seen in a Zelda title to this date.

Deku Link sad that Nintendo stole his personality.

I’ve said this before: Twilight Princess is essentially an attempt to make an Ocarina of Time 2. The game makes a singular attempt to set itself apart through the implementation of the “Dark World,” but sadly, the mechanic comes off as ho-hum and derivative. Link’s imp-like sidekick, Midna, tries hard to pack enough personality for the entirety of the game. As good a job she does, it isn’t enough. Aside from that, the entire game just comes off as an attempt to re-create the experiences gamers remember so fondly from 1998. Adult link is back, the “serious” graphical style is back, horseback riding returns, and the dungeons (which, admittedly had been slighted in the previous few installments) are back with a vengeance. What hasn’t returned is the emotion, personality, or character.

Metroid Prime 3 is an even worse offender in this case. I haven’t yet finished the game, and I’m unsure if I ever will. Gone are the masterfully crafted atmospheres of the first two installments. Gone is the feeling of loneliness, desperation, and mystery. Gone is the challenging nature of the combat that kept players on their toes even outside of boss battles. In Metroid Prime 3 we get military bases filled with poorly voiced Space Marines, bounty hunter buddies who pop up with annoying frequency, and bosses who shoot energy blasts than can be deflected with Samus’s own shots – and then drop health orbs. Metroid Prime 3 is an extremely solid (albeit insultingly easy) gameplay experience. However, the game might as well have been entitled Halo: Nintendo Edition.

There was once a time when Nintendo games offered more, and Majora’s Mask is a perfect example. Frankly, speaking from an atmospheric perspective, it’s the most masterful Zelda title ever created. You can tell as soon as the game begins. Link isn’t in Kansas anymore – it’s one of the few Zelda titles to take place outside of Hyrule. The player is constantly assaulted with the feeling that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the world of Termina simply isn’t real. It’s a twisted mirror image of Link’s homeland, with familiar faces and customs, offset by a cartoony moon glaring down on the world, and a ridiculously contrived overworld layout. (Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon.) The music is top-notch; perhaps not the best in the series, but perfect for the atmosphere of the game. The themes presented are often quite dark; ironically, Majora’s Mask is a far darker experience than Twilight Princess could ever hope to be, despite how much harder the latter tries. (Purply dark worlds doth not a gloomy atmosphere create.)

It can’t be denied that Majora’s Mask lacks some punch in the gameplay department, but the miniscule dungeons and three-day cycle restriction is far easier to forgive than the haters would like you to believe. It’s still Zelda, and it’s a ton of fun. In fact, it’s MORE than just fun. Majora’s Mask is practically a work of art. So, to all of you who have yet to give the game a go: hop to it, it’s available for 1000 Wii Points now. To all the haters: I highly recommend a second look. Nintendo needs to replay this game themselves – maybe they’ll remember a few things they’ve apparently forgotten.

Okay, so there are a lot of things I want from Nintendo these days, but that’s an editorial for another day. The Legend of Zelda is my all-time favorite videogame series. This is part of the reason why Nintendo’s actions of late have pained me so grievously. While they’re busy pandering to all the suckers “casual gamers,” my favorite game series is being neglected… and as a result, so am I.

“But Riddles, how can you say that? They just announced a new Zelda game at teh GDC!”

Yes. I know this. What was it called again… (wow, I can’t even remember…)

Finally, a Zelda for trainset enthusiasts.

Rhetorical question of course; cheap, attractive gimmicks pretty much describe Nintendo’s business model these days. Even Phantom Hourglass, which I enjoyed, fell victim to this. The stylus controls worked, and were occasionally fun to play with, but they greatly oversimplified the traditional Zelda control scheme, making the gameplay (particularly the combat) feel rather cheap and unrewarding. And don’t even get me STARTED on blatant gimmicks such as the candle blowing and “map pressing.” (Or whatever the hell it was when the game made you close and re-open the DS.) In my eyes, there was no “innovation” found in Phantom Hourglass; just a lot of dumbing down.

The last satisfactory Zelda title we received was Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess was a technically flawless Zelda title that tried a little too hard to be Ocarina of Time 2, but in any case, it’s a much better example of what I want from Nintendo than Spirit Tracks.

Remember Nintendo’s E3 2008 Press Conference? (You should, it was quite the exercise in tragic hilarity.) The only thing I took away from that trainwreck was Satoru Iwata’s promise that the Zelda and Mario teams were “hard at work” on games for the Wii. But to be frank, I wonder if they’ve even given the slightest thought to the next console Zelda title, because God knows they don’t need to. People like me now represent a negligible minority in their fanbase. All we get are empty promises and gnawed-on bones in the form of Link’s Choo-Choo Conducting Adventure.