So Pretty Much Done With Zelda

I'm pretty much done with Ocarina. I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you. I mean it in the sense that I have other games I have to move on to, so I have no more time to play Ocarina. The good news is that I now like it much more, and I might be willing to give another Zelda game a try.

I was thinking about this: In talking about Ocarina, I hate to rip on the legendary Super Metroid, but I must. Remember how there's a tube that connects Brinstar and Norfair, and you have to bomb it with a Power Bomb in order to get it to shatter? It's one of the coolest things in the entire game, right?

However, there's no indicators anywhere in the game that tell you to bomb that specific tube. There are no signs, no demonstrations, nothing. There's no way that you would know that you can destroy it unless you actually read a magazine or guide that explains it. I read about it two years before I played Super Metroid, so I wasn't frustrated in that part. If I had walked in with no prior knowledge of this mystical destructible tube, I can only imagine how frustrated I would have been.

Similarly, I think that from now on I'm just going to have to play Zelda games with an FAQ at the ready. When I referred to the FAQ, I enjoyed the game much more than if I had just spent an hour wandering listlessly getting angrier by the second.

Next up on my playlist: Mushroom Men. After I'm finished with it, I'll decide whether I want to keep Mushroom Men or de Blob, and the other goes on eBay so that I can put money toward Klonoa or Punch-Out.