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How in the world do people beat the old school Zelda games without walkthroughs?

jay said:
I think it's this. Every try to play the first Phantasy Star now? Jesus christ.
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I just recently played through it for the first time. It helps that I grew up on NES/PC games, as I still have the mental fortitude(
graph paper skills
) to see them to completion. Actually, it was a lot easier than Dark Souls with it's cryptic shit.
 
RetroStu said:
A lot of games were like this in the 8bit/16bit days. I think it was because a lot of the games were so short, like 1-2 hours (not Zelda though obviously) and it meant it took longer to finish games, same with the much higher difficulty overall compared to current games.
Its a bit of a myth these days that games are much shorter than in the past, they are not at all and are on average much longer than the 2D days.
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I think those people are generally talking about a generation or two ago, not the 80s and early 90s.
 
PKrockin said:
I think those people are generally talking about a generation or two ago, not the 80s and early 90s.
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Its just the same. I have a ton of 32bit games and PS2/Gamecube era games on emulator and they are similar lengths as today, actually much shorter overall when looking at the PS1, Saturn and N64 era.
 
Diodiablo said:
For the first Zelda on NES, it REQUIRED Nintendo Power or other cheat magazines to get out of the Illusion Woods, period. There was no way you could get it by yourself.
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Not true, in this case. Your Zelda 2 examples were not hinted at in game, but this one was. A couple of screens below the Illusion Woods,
there's a cave where an old woman will offer to give up hints if you pay her. You have the option of paying 3 different amounts. Choose the right amount and she'll reveal the path through the Illusion Woods.
There's a similar sequence in the NE corner of the game map to get to dungeon 5,
one screen over to the left, an old man reveals the secret for free: "Go UP, UP, UP the mountain"
.


Guess Who said:
Some people really don't seem to grasp that there is a vast middle ground between "don't tell the player jack shit and make them figure everything out through trial and error" and "baby the player with a three hour tutorial and constant hints throughout the game", and that the former isn't better game design than the latter.
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Nice logical fallacy, assuming that people who disagree with you are uninformed. We know very well that there's a middle ground between trial/error and hand holding, we're saying that in some cases (like Zelda 1) we prefer games that are mostly trial/error/exploration over either hand holding OR something in the middle.

You speak like every game has to be made so that every person who possibly plays it could finish it, or else it's "bad design" according to the 10 Commandments of Game Design. That's BS. If a game is built around being more exploration or trial/error based, is consistent, and makes the process of trial/error/exploration rewarding and fun, then it is well designed. It's good that we have many games that run the gamut between obscure and hand holding. If anything, it's TOO unbalanced in favor of hand holding/linear games and it's hard to get good open-ended games without the Game Police screaming "bad design! bad design!" I'm all for a good linear action game that does it right, like Metroid Fusion, but we need to have better balance and more open-ended games like Zelda 1 too.
 
We used to play for months the same games, a far cry from my current pace of consumption. I remember Monkey Island 2 taking me tons of time and being stuck, really stuck for weeks. Loved every minute. Today I am far less tolerant towards stagnation in my free time.
 
malingenie said:
We used to play for months the same games, a far cry from my current pace of consumption. I remember Monkey Island 2 taking me tons of time and being stuck, really stuck for weeks. Loved every minute. Today I am far less tolerant towards stagnation in my free time.
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Between having less time as an adult and the vast amount of stuff that comes down the pike, I agree. I buy many more games now than I used to and with every game having expansions, DLC, extra content, you are hard pressed to dedicate yourself to just one that will take you months.
 
Real talk. Was the Only kid in my middle school class that made it to the top of death mountain in ALttP with the magic mirror. Everyone just thought the game was bugged and you couldn't do it.
 
Well, when I was 10 I had practically infinite free time and some amazing patience. So that's how.

Oh, and they included a map with LoZ IIRC. Not that it really helped much.
 
emag said:
Seriously? Not cool, man, not cool.
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lol I don't even care at this point. I very clearly said in the OP that I was ashamed of resorting to walkthroughs, but still some people feel the need to pile on the insults. whatevz. i'll admit though, after this thread i refuse to use a walkthrough ever again for a zelda game. i've been gaming since 1991 for fucks sake, own so many damn consoles and games it's absurd, and really don't enjoy ios gaming...yet because I used a walkthrough for a zelda game i'm a "filthy casual/worse than a girl/bad at games/lazy, etc etc."

welcome to neogaf.gif
 
zma1013 said:
I went by memory. I drew the map inside of my head.
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Yeah, I'm honestly reaching the point of being mind-boggled by some of this right now.

The hard part about Zelda wasn't navigating the overworld - which is relatively small and easy to remember - or even the dungeons, outside of maybe Death Mountain due to its more non-linear structure. Making a map literally has nothing to do with what the OP was talking about, unless by "map" people mean "I kept a by-number list of every single bush in the game and crossed them out after trying to burn them with the candle."
 
That's the magic of good old Zelda games.

Links Awakening was my first Zelda game -and almost my first rpg-.

So, just imagine how many hours took me to realise that I had to use the magic powder on that guy in the Forbidden Woods. Shit, you have to be of evil mind to do something like that to that poor junk for no apparent reason.

There was also a dark room in the 8th dungeon where you just had to use the hookshot... I restarted the game twice because I thought I skipped some item that would help me to melt the ice blocking the way (but actually you found the fire wand right after the section I was stuck into).

And that 100 secret shells sidequest to find the master sword... we all know which one was the hardest to find, the easiest one to miss... for it was available only for limited time.

Flying_Rooster_(revived).png

that little blue fucker

It's laughable how every new Zelda game since Majora's tells you how to do everything.

Except for A Link Between Worlds. You learn all by yourself most of the new mechanics. That's one of the reasons it's the best Zelda game since game boy times.
Also Walk-throughs are for pussies xD
 
Diodiablo said:
For the first Zelda on NES, it REQUIRED Nintendo Power or other cheat magazines to get out of the Illusion Woods, period. There was no way you could get it by yourself.

The second "Golden cardridge" was a pretty heavy offender too, even worse because of a terrible translation. To get to the third castle you needed to explore the woods below the second castle to find a guy called Bagoo (bug), after meeting him the guy at the bridge (error) would open the path to
a terrible nightmare of a zone where you go in and out of caves in a maze across the mountains.

Then to get the last spell (used to open the path to the last castle, aka, beat the game) you had to use for the first and last time in the game the hammer to clean up a forest. Number of hints given by the game:
Zero, I found it because I was so bored I started hitting everything with the hammer to vent out rage.
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Maybe if you don't take your time to explore and don't pay attention to your surroundings. One of the NPCs in the game - one who lives in a cave right next to the Lost Woods - tells you exactly how to get through it:



It's not like you have to bomb every pixel in the game to find this cave either. It's in plain sight.

This is why I don't buy the "You should be able to beat any game without using a walkthrough. If you can't, it's badly designed." argument. Sure, some old games had a few elements that required trial and error or outside help to get by, like having to bomb some random bit of floor to find the Ice Beam in Metroid. But in most cases, the issue is with impatient, unobservant players with poor cognitive abilities/problem-solving skills, and a complete lack of investment, who just want to see that ending screen so they can move on to the next game in their endless backlog (this isn't aimed at you, Diodiablo).

This mentality - that every game should be for everyone, that every game should be breezed through without aggravating the player - is what led to the decline of several series and genres.
 
moltonasty said:
lol I don't even care at this point. I very clearly said in the OP that I was ashamed of resorting to walkthroughs, but still some people feel the need to pile on the insults. whatevz. i'll admit though, after this thread i refuse to use a walkthrough ever again for a zelda game. i've been gaming since 1991 for fucks sake, own so many damn consoles and games it's absurd, and really don't enjoy ios gaming...yet because I used a walkthrough for a zelda game i'm a "filthy casual/worse than a girl/bad at games/lazy, etc etc."

welcome to neogaf.gif
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I'm firmly in the "don't use a walkthrough for Zelda" camp, but some people here have gone overboard on the vitriol toward you. I thought your post was well reasoned and articulated. OTOH, the tone of your question implies that people who beat these games without guides are somehow abnormal or have too much time on their hands. So can you see why you're getting some push back here? People are being too harsh in some cases, but you have to expect some resistance based upon your post.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that old school Zelda requires time and commitment to beat without guides. If you don't have that kind of time or attention to give to the game, it doesn't make you a "filthy casual" or anything like that. But it does mean that if you use a guide then you are not experiencing the game the way it was meant to be experienced. Hope that clears things up.
 
JinjoUnchained said:
You speak like every game has to be made so that every person who possibly plays it could finish it, or else it's "bad design" according to the 10 Commandments of Game Design. That's BS.
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A game should be designed so that if a person doesn't finish it, it's the player's fault for lack of skill or cleverness rather than the game's fault for not giving the player a clue where to go or what to do. It is, in fact, bad game design if the player literally has to go around burning every random bush in a giant overworld to find a dungeon.

If a game is built around being more exploration or trial/error based, is consistent, and makes the process of trial/error/exploration rewarding and fun, then it is well designed.
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Exploration and trial-and-error are two different things. It's fine to have a game with big open worlds with lots of stuff to find on your own. It's terrible to have a game that requires you to go around bombing every single wall to ever find it. That's not fun or even challenging, it's just tedious and dumb.
 
Vertigo-1 said:
Maybe if you don't take your time to explore and don't pay attention to your surroundings. One of the NPCs in the game - one who lives in a cave right next to the Lost Woods - tells you exactly how to get through it:



It's not like you have to bomb every pixel in the game to find this cave either. It's in plain sight.

This is why I don't buy the "You should be able to beat any game without using a walkthrough. If you can't, it's badly designed." argument. Sure, some old games had a few elements that required trial and error or outside help to get by, like having to bomb some random bit of floor to find the Ice Beam in Metroid. But in most cases, the issue is with impatient, unobservant players with poor cognitive abilities/problem-solving skills, and a complete lack of investment, who just want to see that ending screen so they can move on to the next game in their endless backlog (this isn't aimed at you, Diodiablo).

This mentality - that every game should be for everyone, that every game should be breezed through without aggravating the player - is what led to the decline of several series and genres.
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I think there are a few different factors that come into play here.

One of these games were probably played a little bit more thoroughly do to the fact that the cost of gaming was much higher than it is today. We didn't have backlogs of 50+ games sitting around. Cart-based games were shorter supply so the prices were all consistent. Most of us only got a few games a year so we played the heck through them.

The vagueness around puzzles are also why these games are so beloved. Some of it is just random exploration as it should be. There shouldn't be an arrow pointing to the next progression in those types of games. But when you figure it out it made it all worth it and that's why those games are endearing and somewhat romanticized.

Just an opinion.
 
Average gamers (then kids) owned fewer games than today's gamers, so they were more ok with spending the time to explore a single game.

Is any of what I said true or backed up by evidence?
 
Holy Order Sol said:
Now even exploration and experimentation qualifies as "padding".
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The exploration was fine. The pixel-bitch hunting was padding. Why is this so hard for you to understand, exactly? "Exploration" was wandering around the overworld, stumbling onto random dungeon entrances or interesting screens, and seeing things like the little docks for using the raft at and saying, "I wonder what those are for? Maybe I can come back later and they'll do something."

Trying to burn every bush with a candle or crack every rock face with bombs isn't "exploration", it's pure tedium. Nintendo stopped doing it because they got better at making games. There are still plenty of (actual) puzzles and problem-solving situations in later Zelda games, there's still tons of (actual) exploration in Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time and tons of quirky and fun little secrets. The only thing they got rid of was the need for players to mindlessly repeat an action dozens and dozens of times.
 
JinjoUnchained said:
I'm firmly in the "don't use a walkthrough for Zelda" camp, but some people here have gone overboard on the vitriol toward you. I thought your post was well reasoned and articulated. OTOH, the tone of your question implies that people who beat these games without guides are somehow abnormal or have too much time on their hands. So can you see why you're getting some push back here? People are being too harsh in some cases, but you have to expect some resistance based upon your post.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that old school Zelda requires time and commitment to beat without guides. If you don't have that kind of time or attention to give to the game, it doesn't make you a "filthy casual" or anything like that. But it does mean that if you use a guide then you are not experiencing the game the way it was meant to be experienced. Hope that clears things up.
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Yeah, I guess it makes sense. And yes I guess you could say I find it "abnormal" that people are able to beat some of these games walkthrough free, but only in a positive sense. Me personally, I just feel like I don't have enough free time to spend hours walking around searching for an answer, when I know the solution is seconds away online. Of course, I know that it removes that level of satisfaction from doing it 100% on your own. But when you work 45-50 hours a week, have 3-4 active bands you're gigging and recording with on a regular basis, plus the GF in your free time....yeah, it's kinda tough to stick with it sometimes. But like I said NEVER AGAIN. My gamer ego has been bruised, and there's only one way to right this wrong.
 
Guess Who said:
A game should be designed so that if a person doesn't finish it, it's the player's fault for lack of skill or cleverness rather than the game's fault for not giving the player a clue where to go or what to do. It is, in fact, bad game design if the player literally has to go around burning every random bush in a giant overworld to find a dungeon.

Exploration and trial-and-error are two different things. It's fine to have a game with big open worlds with lots of stuff to find on your own. It's terrible to have a game that requires you to go around bombing every single wall to ever find it. That's not fun or even challenging, it's just tedious and dumb.
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Agree with your premise, but in this case (Zelda 1) it's a straw man. The only secrets hidden behind random bushes or walls are optional collectibles. Either loot, shops with lower prices, or heart containers. They are a reward for the hardest of the hardcore players who have to try EVERYTHING. Is it bad design to reward those people with some cool optional collectibles?

You get hints and clues for everything you need to get to the end.
You can stroll right into 6 out of 9 dungeons in Zelda. Two of the other three are hidden behind a bush and a rock, respectively, but if you look at their screens, they're laid out in a way that calls attention to the tile you have to burn/bomb. They have environmental clues, not text based clues. It's like a puzzle where you have 5 statues and 4 of them are grey but the one in the middle is brown: gee, I wonder which statue I should pull? It's so cryptic!!! As for the other dungeon, it does require using a particular item in a new way, but there's a hint that tells you which screen to try it on, so you can just go there and try all of your items.

Not saying you're wrong, but your characterization of old school Zelda as unfair or poorly designed is misplaced. Other games of that era, absolutely, but not old school Zelda. That's the point of this thread, right? Whether old school Zelda specifically is unfair or not.
 
Imperfected said:
The exploration was fine. The pixel-bitch hunting was padding. Why is this so hard for you to understand, exactly? "Exploration" was wandering around the overworld, stumbling onto random dungeon entrances or interesting screens, and seeing things like the little docks for using the raft at and saying, "I wonder what those are for? Maybe I can come back later and they'll do something."

Trying to burn every bush with a candle or crack every rock face with bombs isn't "exploration", it's pure tedium. Nintendo stopped doing it because they got better at making games. There are still plenty of (actual) puzzles and problem-solving situations in later Zelda games, there's still tons of (actual) exploration in Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time and tons of quirky and fun little secrets. The only thing they got rid of was the need for players to mindlessly repeat an action dozens and dozens of times.
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You never actually have to do this to beat the game though. You have to burn -one- bush to find the 8th dungeon, and it's fairly conspicuous (see the screenshot on page 3). You have to bomb -one- wall to find the last dungeon, but there's a huge arrow pointing to the general area where it's found, and that's probably the hardest required "puzzle" you have to solve. That's it. If you're bombing every wall and burning every bush to find hidden rupees and shops, you're kind of doing this to yourself.

I do agree with your sentiment though. There's a nice middle ground between the unpolished, somewhat obtuse game design of early NES games/Sierra games, and the dumbed down, overly streamlined stuff we see a lot of nowadays.
 
TriAceJP said:
I finished the original before I was 5. It's possible, dude.

I remember having trouble with Links Awakening, there was a room with three monsters you had to kill in a specific order, but I couldn't read yet so I couldn't read the clue that told you that, haha.

I learned how to read playing that game (with help from my aunt, she rules).
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It didn't help that the clue was zelda jargon names. IT seems obvious now, but how the hell were you supposed to know "Pols voice" meant the rabbit thing and "Stalfos" was a skeleton monster (bearing in mind, I think this was the first game to name them outside of maybe manuals)
 
tensuke said:
Seriously. I've been playing Lunar Silver Star Story on PS1 this past week. Game itself is pretty straightforward, but I'm using a walkthrough for hidden/secret items. There's this one item that to get, you have to talk to this one guy in a previous town that has nothing in it right after some event happens, and answer a question a certain way. You have to go to him RIGHT AFTER the event, too, if you continue the story by talking to even one person the question goes away. But that's not all, you don't get the item yet. You have to come back and talk to him right after a different event later on, and then he'll give you the item. At no point in the game is there an indication that this guy will ever give you an item. Like, who would figure all that out?

And then there's this girl you can talk to for another item, she's in a back room of a building in a different town. You have to fly back to this random town and talk to her right after another event to get it. But you have to talk to her like 2 or 3 times. I could see people flying around after every event and talking to everyone, but 2 or 3 times? Who the hell has the time for this.
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That's bonus stuff, right? Totally optional? That stuff is for hardcore fans who will replay the game over and over over decades so that they can get really excited over finding new details. Same with the musical pans in MGS2, etc.
 
tensuke said:
Seriously. I've been playing Lunar Silver Star Story on PS1 this past week. Game itself is pretty straightforward, but I'm using a walkthrough for hidden/secret items. There's this one item that to get, you have to talk to this one guy in a previous town that has nothing in it right after some event happens, and answer a question a certain way. You have to go to him RIGHT AFTER the event, too, if you continue the story by talking to even one person the question goes away. But that's not all, you don't get the item yet. You have to come back and talk to him right after a different event later on, and then he'll give you the item. At no point in the game is there an indication that this guy will ever give you an item. Like, who would figure all that out?

And then there's this girl you can talk to for another item, she's in a back room of a building in a different town. You have to fly back to this random town and talk to her right after another event to get it. But you have to talk to her like 2 or 3 times. I could see people flying around after every event and talking to everyone, but 2 or 3 times? Who the hell has the time for this.
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I don't think that things like that were meant to be "Figured out", but discovered by dumb luck. If you just happened to do things in a weird order or talked to all the people in that sequence, then you get a reward, and that gets you talking about the game on the playground or something.
 
matrix-cat said:
Hey, while we're... like, kinda on the subject, how does anyone play the Ace Attorney games without a walkthrough? I did pretty well on the first one, but as soon as I hit that fifth case it became a trial-and-error nightmare. I had no idea what I was doing most of the time, no clue what evidence the game wanted me to present or on which statement I was supposed to present it, and when I eventually had to use a walkthrough I was still totally clueless. I don't know how anyone could possibly have worked some of those steps out for themselves, because they don't even make sense to me when I know they're the correct answers.

I've been totally stumped more than a few times in the second game, too (just finished the third case). I've played a lot of point-and-click adventure games, and I feel like I have a good head for logic puzzles (hopelessly addicted to Prof. Layton :P), but some of this stuff just totally eludes me. And that penalty bar limiting me to five incorrect answers per trial discourages any guesswork; I just have to go straight to a walkthrough, or hope I see an evidence-presenting moment coming soon enough to save beforehand.
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Whenever I reach one of those moments I just save the game and start presenting every piece of evidence on every testimony statement, reloading my save after getting a game over. Eventually I'm bound to find the right combination. It takes some time and can be annoying, but I refuse to look at a walkthrough for the Ace Attorney games. I still want to solve it by myself, even if it's by trial and error.

What really made me mad was a specific moment in Apollo Justice:
Having to use the Perceive ability to see that a witness was sweating from his armpit.
I felt tempted to give up there, but finally discovered it on my own through a mix of sheer luck and perseverance.

moltonasty said:
lol I don't even care at this point. I very clearly said in the OP that I was ashamed of resorting to walkthroughs, but still some people feel the need to pile on the insults. whatevz. i'll admit though, after this thread i refuse to use a walkthrough ever again for a zelda game. i've been gaming since 1991 for fucks sake, own so many damn consoles and games it's absurd, and really don't enjoy ios gaming...yet because I used a walkthrough for a zelda game i'm a "filthy casual/worse than a girl/bad at games/lazy, etc etc."

welcome to neogaf.gif
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Don't worry man, you're not alone. I got stuck on every Zelda I've tried (which meant I had to check a guide or ask a friend), and only managed to finish Twilight Princess.
 
I first played the Zelda Oracle games, when they were released in 2001. I managed to collect all 64 rings(!!) without access to internet, any guides or any other help whatsoever. And it wasn't that hard...

My first Zelda game was Link's Awakening back in the 90s. No internet, no guides, no expansive hotline. Maybe some friends, who had played the game as well, but couldn't remember. At some points in the game I got stuck for weeks. But I would figure it out eventually on my own and feel great, when I finally solved a puzzle after such a long time. Took me several months to beat the game for the first time. Today I can beat it in four hours...

I also played the NES games after Link's Awakening. And in TLoZ I would burn every tree on every screen, bomb every wall, etc. - you can find everything, if you're thorough. I remember discovering the 8th dungeon way early - this was quite the WTF-moment for me. Link's Awakening had similar secrets, though maybe not as bad. When I first played Oracle of Seasons and Ages, I was quite disappointed, because everything was really obvious. I remember that I still bombed every wall in these games, but there weren't any hidden caves or similar. If you can blow up a wall, there's a crack. I found this really disappointing.

All these secrets and confusing puzzles were part of the magic and the experience. Also, I didn't have many games as a kid and it was good, when a game lasted for a long time like that. Today games are more like fast food. Noone takes the time to chew and enjoy a good gaming meal. No one has the patience. There's hand holding everywhere and you rush through the games like it's nothing...
 
As kids we had all the time in the world and for me and friends it was all done through word of mouth if we were all stuck on games. I grew up playing a lot of the old Sierra point and click adventures such as space quest and kings quest etc and my parents were also big gamers on these sorts of games and there used to be literally whole families stuck on certain points of games. When someone broke the puzzle I remember my parents phoning loads of people excitedly telling them how to solve it.

It's too easy these days to just YouTube a guide or gamefaqs a guide
 
I am 36, back in the NES days of the late 80's to the early 90's us kids had time on our hands.

There was no real internet to use, as we use it now. Your daily entertainment choices consisted of either playing outside, doing homework, watching TV, or video games.

Most of us here probably picked video games if we were that age then. We had way more time on our hands then at least I did, but then again I didnt have many friends either.

So after school I spent most of my time just plugging away at NES games, usually the few I had and maybe 1 that my dad let us rent once in a while from blockbuster.

Speaking to that, it was game availability. I would be able to get a new game only very rarely. my birthday, xamas...thats about it. I had a friend that had over 30 games and I was shocked. I only had maybe 5 max. But those 5 lasted me for years, playing them all the time.

If you do something enough you will eventually figure it out completely.
 
Guess Who said:
A game should be designed so that if a person doesn't finish it, it's the player's fault for lack of skill or cleverness rather than the game's fault for not giving the player a clue where to go or what to do. It is, in fact, bad game design if the player literally has to go around burning every random bush in a giant overworld to find a dungeon.
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That's exactly how it is. Things of that nature happen in many games and some which can be actually considered good like La Mulana or Dark Souls to some extent.
 
dante81 said:
I just recently played through it for the first time. It helps that I grew up on NES/PC games, as I still have the mental fortitude(
graph paper skills
) to see them to completion. Actually, it was a lot easier than Dark Souls with it's cryptic shit.
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My brother and I managed to get through the entire game but couldn't find the last boss. Back then I remember 1-800-USA-SEGA was free.
 
Original Legend of Zelda game was completely trial and error. I used graph paper and set every single tree on fire and bomb every single wall.

The music that plays when you find a secret means a lot more to anyone over the age of 35 than any other group of oeople. That was truly epic hormonal entry stuff.
 
I understand having issues with Zelda 1 and 2, but the Oracle games or The Minish Cap? I never had any issue with either of those.

Hip Hop said:
Ocarina of Time is the first Zelda game I am actually trying to beat.

It's not overly difficult but damn, there are some very small things that make it so.

You have to step in the right carpet or so when playing the ocarina. How am I supposed to know that?

That reason alone made me backtrack a lot to see if I missed something, all for nothing.

I am at Zora's Domain.

How am I supposed to know that I had to catch a small fish and bring it up to that whale in order for him to open his mouth?

Very subtle things that make the game difficult without a walkthrough.
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The game gives you a lot of hints to solve these problems, if you just explore the zones you're in. They're not even subtle hints. I know for a fact that there's a Zora in Zora's Domain, who says that you should offer a fish to Jabu-Jabu.
 
Diodiablo said:
For the first Zelda on NES, it REQUIRED Nintendo Power or other cheat magazines to get out of the Illusion Woods, period. There was no way you could get it by yourself.
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I must have been a genius 6 year old to pass that part without a guide then. Oh wait. No, I talked to a NPC that literally tells you what to do.


This is exactly why there is so much handholding in games nowadays. Nobody is willing to explore or stop and use their brain for a second. There are crazy secrets in LoZ but none of them were necessary to complete the game. The other dungeon entrances are pretty conspicuous if you think about it for a second.

I'll never forget... On my first playthrough I got sidetracked on the way to level 3, and happened upon the dungeon under the bush because its entrance looked incredibly suspicious.entering there was crazy... but I ventured in anyway, and of course died almost immediately. But it set the tone for what mysteries the game held. Coming back there later when I was ready was amazingly rewarding.

The reason why the game is so beloved I'd because you really earned those discovery chimes. And what's more, the world became so memorable because you truly explored it. I could still probably draw must of that map from memory.
 
terrisus said:
That device is fine for playing one's games, yes.

Not sure how a device which requires the physical games in order to work would help if "[your] mom hadn't thrown away [your] my 64 games except Goldeneye" though
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Well a used copy is only 30$ or so for ocarina on amazon vs 40 for 3ds version
Edit: or $0.99 on ebay.
 
Zelda 1 and 2 and to a lesser extent the Oracles were the only games where I had a nearly constant sense of "What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
 
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