Zero Punctuation: Zelda Phantom Hourglass

[Sayvara]

Ah, now *this* is the good old ZP we all know and love! Much better than the acidiously bitter barf-fest last week. This one is smoother with excellent pacing, funny comparisons and lovely animations.

And good to see our nerdy messages about the Flak Towers got through. *giggles*

/S

 

[TheLostSkeleton]

He raises some good points, but I'm left scratching my head. In a way he's right and Zelda games are sort of falling in to a rut, but the games kind of... can't really change all that much.

If it changes too much, why even call it a Zelda game at all?

Is that the point, then? Just stop making Zelda games entirely, and try something new? While on one side that might be interesting, the market wouldn't ever handle that and Nintendo would never allow it. That's kind of like Square-Enix saying they're going to stop making Final Fantasy, when the simple reality is they could slap "Final Fantasy" in before any console RPG they damn well please and they're instantly millions of dollars richer regardless of quality or content.

Nintendo will never let The Legend of Zelda die, I don't think. It's a top-tier franchise for them. It's all so messy and so weird and kind of frustrating at times.

You know a series that's got it worse than Zelda, though? Castlevania. Every game has been trying to fight it's way out of Symphony of the Night's shadow (or rest comfortably in it, where easy money is made on a proven formula) and it's just starting to feel really tired, now. They're trying to mix it up a bit, granted, but even though the wallpaper changes it's still trying to squeeze blood from the Symphony of the Night stone and it does it with a much greater frequency than Zelda does. At least there's a 2-4 year pause between Zelda titles; there was a while there when we'd get a new Castlevania annually.

 

[Dry Ice]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

right you MrKeroJakieChan post somthing better than that, tit.

second great review Yhatzee, all i ever see from ninty is Meteroid, Mario and Zelda remakes and its like, why not do somthing different, granted Wii sports is different but common jeeze.

 

[Daxxy]

Awesome as always.

Okami for the win.

 

[Jeroen Stout]

good review as always but...

"what if valve..."

had HL2 be about a scientist running a gauntlet from a to b, attacked by headcrabs and military types, with no backstory or details of what is going on.

Only substitute the lemon bazooka for the grav gun. For all the hype I was very disappointed with HL2/EP1/EP2.

HL² I did find to be a genuine good game. Ep-1 was a bit dipsey and Ep-2 was just so uninteresting it lost me. HL² had some mystery and a good story arch. Ep-2 consists of plot twists out of nowhere that are about characters with the depth of editable paper.

 

[Chinster]

Hehe, I'm glad to see there are a few people like me on here who don't care if the review is good or bad.

I'm just here for the entertainment

 

[octi_de]

hey, as usual I just signed up to comment here, zero punctuation is great!

for this every-zelda-is-always-the-same type of people:

has it ever occured to you that while you grow older, zelda and alot of other nintendo games are always targeted at the same audience (kids!), and while you have become teen, twen and finally maybe even thritysomethings, for the intended audience, its always a new zelda game because they havent played the older titles...

oh and Yahtzee if you happen to watch MTV germany (well you 100% won't but anyways) they have a show called GameOne where there are game reviews and stuff and they kinda copied some of your jokes about the orange box to their tv show. to see that look here: http://mtv.de/overdrive/index.php?name=highlights&id=68177
well a lot of german talking and unrelated stuff but you will know it when you see one of the hosts dressed up as walrus.

keep up the good work! oh and dont stop bashing US foreign politics just because some rich, fat and stupid enough people complain about it.

 

[Drowmonk]

I have to agree with octi_de. I also don't really care that the plot is the same for every zelda game.

 

[Outback Lumberjack [deprecated]]

At least Portal rocked, Valve can seemingly find originality if they limit themselves to 2-3 hours gameplay.

"Find" indeed. Narbacular Drop was fun.

 

[Boricua_bob]

This review actually makes me wanna get the game rather than mix into some doo-doo stew. Then again, I did try to send them my game idea, but they didn't take it because of legal reasons. It was to be an alternate version of Twilight Princess, where Link (err, I mean Fagballs) dies instead of Ganondorf. I'd go along with the idea, but Yahtzee maybe you can help me out with making this idea a reality. I should probably go back to making more stories and ideas for Nintendo. Thanks in advance.

 

[Shimekiri]

I've always found that the Zelda series was awesome the first time around and yet seemed to be the same god damned plot everytime. The only one that might have been different was the under appreciated Majora's Mask.

Yahtzee's reference to Half-Life Source has got to be the most sincere point ever made in a review. People have been critisizing HF:S for not giving us enough new content compared to the original other than the graphics engine. This is ironic because people have never noticed how that's the entire selling point of the Nintendop series.

Okami is the most original game out there. Instead of playing all 15 Zelda games go out and get a look on a fresh NEW game.

Oh yea, one last thing. Fagballs has always been my name of choice in a Zelda game to .

 

[jabrwock]

Yahtzee, you charismatic stallion, you. I have only one thing to say about this review.

Flak Towers.

Nah, j/k keep up the good work. I'm surprised they haven't done a Zelda prequel yet, where baby Link saves a baby Princess from evil babysitters or something. You are right, I mean how many times can they rehash the same storyline?

At least yearly sports games have the excuse that they have new players and teams. Not much of an excuse I know, but at least it's better than "same plot, slightly newer engine" 12 times in a row...

Then again, the Japanese seem to like doing this. FFXIXVCM anyone?

 

[Katana314]

Shimekiri: All trashing against Half-Life: Source is invalid because Valve, unlike every Japanese developer ever, has the sense to release an SDK. [http://files.filefront.com/BMSTeaserTrailerFinalwmv/;6626808;/fileinfo.html]
Yes, every HL2 owner is getting a game that has ALREADY won awards, free. (Most Anticipated Mod of the Year, twice) And what games have you made, Zelda fans?

I would be a bit more forgiving of the games' lack of plot if they were to come up with new things. I agree that some elements are new each game, but personally I don't think they go quite far enough in attempts to make a big change.

 

[Boricua_bob]

True true....so true. But then again, will anyone play a game where Link (a.k.a. Fagballs) dies and now a new group of heroes take his place?...for the time being anyway?

If you wanna see my game idea of this check out my 1up page here [http://boricua_bob.1up.com].

 

[Hazelwolf]

I laughed so hard at the Okami reference. Nice work!

Can we have an Okami review? Please? Maybe when it comes out on the Wii...

Will we see Ami on the wii? That'd suit the paintbrush tool so much better than buggering about with the ps2 controls like some infernal etch-a-sketch. But i'd only bother to buy it if they put in some new stuff or extended it slightly.

 

[Bubble Six [deprecated]]

I laughed so hard at the Okami reference. Nice work!

Can we have an Okami review? Please? Maybe when it comes out on the Wii...

Will we see Ami on the wii? That'd suit the paintbrush tool so much better than buggering about with the ps2 controls like some infernal etch-a-sketch. But i'd only bother to buy it if they put in some new stuff or extended it slightly.

Yeah, we will..
http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor-confirmed/okami-wii-confirmed-312378.php
The rumor has been confirmed and god...i hope for some improvements (even if I highly doubt about it: RE4 wii edition was just the same, copy/paste, after two years, but still one of the best games the wii had)
If you wonder about the whole actual wii title list, welcome Okami AND be thankful.

 

[numblocke [deprecated]]

You are the reason I wake up every wednesday morning.

thank you.

 

[Crooked Knight]

good review as always but...

"what if valve..."

had HL2 be about a scientist running a gauntlet from a to b, attacked by headcrabs and military types, with no backstory or details of what is going on.

Only substitute the lemon bazooka for the grav gun. For all the hype I was very disappointed with HL2/EP1/EP2.

Thank you. I was amazed by the absurd amount of praise Valve got for making the main draw of HL2 be the incredibly original ability to pick things up and throw them, in a game released in 2004. 2004! This is something that was pioneered in River City Ransom, for Pete's sake.

(Yes, the grav gun also had a grappling-hook function. Ironically, guess which series did that first.)

(Note: I may be biased by the fact that I'm one of five people on Earth who didn't like the first Half-Life.)

 

[Katana314]

The thing about the gravity gun was that it caused things to happen in the game that even developers didn't predict. One person accidentally killed himself in playtesting through the centrifugal force of a tire swing. It wasn't coded into the game at all for that to happen, and yet it happened, and it made sense. That was what made it so cool.
Also, the gravity gun served a number of functions. You could use it as a shield, you could use it to toss grenades, or if you were more inventive like I was you could actually use your own hands to "cook" grenades by just catching them in your 'psychic' hands the moment you throw them.
Beyond that it's just the amazing look of how things move. When you throw something it doesn't appear scripted at all, how many signature attacks in games would look; it's just going to bounce around off whatever it hits. If it's large, it's your shotgun. If it's small, it's your crossbow. And the fact that more or less anything in the world can be used by it just makes it fun to use regardless of its effectiveness.

 

[Xander_VJ]

I've been following Yahtzee's reviews for several weeks now and I think he is pure genious in humor, eventhough I don't agree with him most of times.

However in this review he has done something that is plain wrong, as is using a double criteria. And yes, I mean the comparation with "Half-Life", which is unfortunated at best.
Not because of the fact that he compared it with "Half-Life", but for what Yahtzee said about the series in the "Orange Box" review.

There he admited that the game was "more of the same"... but while with H-L he said it was fine because it was all that made H-L great, with Zelda he says otherwise, even admiting that each Zelda game adds new elements in its gameplay (and that are hardly seen ever again in any other after it, I might add. At least in the same way).

For that matter, Yahtzee is bashing this Zelda game for being... well... a Zelda game.


Appart from that it is a very good video, as always. He nails the Ocean King Temple matter and the reference to Okami is brilliant.