Topic: A proper intro from one of NL's new writers 😎

Oh wow that is a good article

@GrailUK Thank you, Grail. I don't mind sass or cheek! I'm looking forward to it!

@BongoBongo wow, that's crazy! I don't even remember writing this 😅 I've probably written hundreds of articles in my career, but it's still so exciting when someone remembers one of them (even if I don't!) I'm so happy that my ramblings got you back in

@Slowdive heck YEAH I wanna play Skyward Sword again. What if they re-released it with Ring-Con controls???

@Commandervide0 I had to leave my 3DS behind when I moved (only temporarily! It's in storage!) but if I hadn't, I would be playing Fantasy Life RIGHT NOW.

Fantasy Life was awesome! Such a neat "little bit of everything" kind of game (definite Stardew vibes), that I should really nip back into since I dropped off shortly after I finished the main story.

@Slowdive It was proooobably the N64? We got one for the family for Christmas, along with a few games (I don't remember exactly which ones we got first!) We ended up with most of the good ones, though - Mario Kart, Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Lego Racers 2...

Soon after that, I think I got a Game Boy Color, and I played a lot of Tetris, Link to the Past, and (my personal favourite, to this day) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which is a surprisingly good JRPG-style Hogwarts game, made after the first film, but before HP got CRAZY big. There's some great stuff in there that they would have ruined if it was made after all the hype!

@Slowdive I am genuinely baffled as to how there's not been a really decent Harry Potter game that's not set in the Harry Potter times. I know there's one in development, but... I do not have high hopes.

@KateGray You’re a really great writer (:

@BabyYoda71 thank you, Baby Yoda!

@Slowdive As someone who has worked in games, I can understand the frustration of a concept artist seeing their beautiful ideas get crushed and warped by marketing 😅

just popping in to say i love every single article you write, kate! always puts a smile on my face and i love the quirkiness and positivity ^^

@NikHogan thank you so much!! Nice to meet you

@KateGray I hope you're doing well. Before I pester you with a longer reply, I wanted to ask you:

Are any of the writers at NL working on an article about the annus mirabilis of 1986? The advent of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Metroid, Castlevania, OutRun, Darius and others (not to mention PC games like the first Might and Magic, a personal favourite of mine), when considered beside the broader North American release of the NES, makes this perhaps the seminal year in gaming.

I expect to see 35th anniversary releases or "celebrations" in most of these franchises. And we could all use the perspective on our hobby that this date brings...

There seems to be a ton of anniversaries this year. The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest and Metroid all do have their 35th birthdays this year, but games like Super Mario 64 (25), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (15), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (10) all have big milestones too. Considering what Nintendo did for Mario's 35th anniversary, a celebration that for me at least, didn't even mean that much compared to 30, 25, and 20, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Nintendo only does something as meagre as selling T-shirts and making a special YouTube video, rather than... doing the normal thing and releasing actual games.

@Tyranexx Breath of the Wild is one of my all time favourite games, ever. But I want to see more traditional Zelda put back in, because, ironically, despite BotW being one of the harder Zelda games on paper (you have enemies that can one shot you early on) I found it to be one of the easiest Zelda games in terms of puzzles and challenge. The shrines were too small and the Divine Beasts were so non-linear that it killed them. In one dungeon you could just glide to the terminal instead of using a carriage like the devs wanted you to. It's that freedom that really killed the dungeons.

Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword on the other hand deviated from this. TP had really tough dungeons, so difficult that it took me six years to be able to do the first seven dungeons without a guide. The combat was really slick, with some cool skills you learn from the Hero's Shade, though that made combat a little easy. Skyward Sword had tough combat and tough dungeons, and retrospectively feels like the best mix of old and new Zelda. Under that logic it would be my favourite Zelda game, and honestly I have little reason to doubt that anymore.

@FroZtedFlakerZz Oh god I forgot about The Imprisoned. If you skipped the second fight, or just... got rid of it, I would have enjoyed the idea of fighting it just a little bit more. The idea should have worked on paper but it's just ridiculous how unbelievably frustrating and unsatisfying it is to beat this guy. I had more fun doing the sealing swipes at the end than actually fighting him.

Any thoughts on these matter @KateGray? I've unironically been swayed to the Skyward Sword club. If my Wii U wasn't packed in a box thirty seconds away, I'd have started a new file.

@COVIDberry Hm, I'm not sure. We're working on some 35th anniversary stuff, but I don't know that anyone has a piece planned about 1986 yet! There's a lot of 2021 to go, though, so you never know. I won't be writing about it because, erm, I didn't exist yet back then, so I struggle to have opinions about it!

@TheJGG I feel like Nintendo's really not doing a great job of celebrating. I remember the 30th anniversary of Zelda had live concerts and stuff, and now Mario's 35th gets... cool games that they're going to delete for no reason??? Blergh.

I do also unironically love Skyward Sword. Yeah, the motion controls were fiddly and irritating at times, and every time you got a new ingredient it insisted on telling you what it was AGAIN, but the design of the game was beautiful. The watercolour-style art, the ruined remains of a kingdom, THE MUSIC, it was all just so incredible.

My favourite parts of Zelda games are the ones where I get to run around a playground made from the bones of the past, and it nailed that. It also nailed the future stuff, too - setting up the legend that would become, you know, The Legend of Zelda.

The boss design was what let it down most, I think. The Imprisoned was too goofy to be a boss. Ghirahim needs to be sealed inside a tupperware and buried in concrete. The dungeon bosses were cool but they reaaaaaally wanted to focus on the 3D motion swipes and that often just didn't work. Sigh.

Here's a secret, though: I never played Twilight Princess further than... the first dungeon, I think? I just couldn't get into the brown-on-brown, everything is super fuzzy look. Plus, fighting those weird shadow-monsters in the ring, the ones that keep regenerating if you don't kill them fast enough, is not my kinda fun. I have it on GameCube now, so maybe I'll give it another go?

@KateGray Twilight Princess is a true traditional Zelda, and an antithesis to Skyward Sword. I wholeheartedly recommend pushing through, the colours get better eventually.

@KateGray Yes, I totally get that too the first wolf part and just the very start of the game in general made me a little reluctant at first but that became my second favorite game of all time

@TheJGG I loved the first area! The character design was so unique, too, and there were so many elements that were totally new, like the grass whistle thingy thing. I'll give it a go when I've finished the three reviews I've got to write!

@FroZtedFlakerZz I really wasn't a big fan of Wolfy Link either, but if the rest of the game is that good, I really should get over it

@KateGray Judging from your other posts inthis thread, I agree with most of what you have said about Zelda

Two things I'm wondering about.
1. What is your favorite Ace Attorney game?
2. Do you like ecchi games? (I don't mean to start a debat or anthing, just wondering 😅)

I don't really like the grim art style of Twilight Princess either, but I got used to it and it's probably my third favourite Zelda game. I'm ashamed to say I haven't played Majora's Mask or Skyward Sword yet though.

@KateGray One thing you could create for this site, or publish elsewhere, like for The Guardian or otherwise, is a writing piece comparing the old and new Zelda styles, using a game with the old style (Twilight Princess), the new style (Breath of the Wild), and a hybrid of the two (Skyward Sword) and explain how each one has contributed to the series as a whole.

Of course it requires playing the game, so it could be a really fascinating long term project.

@Tobiaku Hello!

1. Apollo Justice is my favourite! It does weird things (like the concert and the time travelling) that I'm really into. After that, it's probably the one with all the Dahlia Hawthorne stuff, because that's a DAMN good story.

2. Haven't really played many! I've written about them here and there, but they tend to be aimed at a specific type of attraction that doesn't do it for me personally

@Dogorilla Majora's Mask 3D was a really good port - if you're ever in need of new stuff to play, and you enjoyed Ocarina, I do highly recommend it... even though it's probably one of the most highly recommended games ever 😅 I will say that you should play it with a guide because some of its time-related puzzles are just silly.

@TheJGG I would LOVE that. If you're excited to see some Zelda stuff, though, you might be in luck. Maybe. Who knows?

@Dogorilla The funny thing is everyone was loving the art style at the time, with Lord Of The Rings being huge and after people were intially upset with Wind Waker's style people were seeing it as great choice for te franchise. Of course it's not aged well, personally I'm fine with the art style but it feels like there's too many dunegons in it.