The Legend of Zelda / Zelda II's dungeon design | Boss Keys
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 16. 11. 2017
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You asked for it! Before we finish Boss Keys season one, by looking at the most recent Zelda game (Breath of the Wild), let's take a detour to the games that started it all - Zelda 1 and 2 on the NES.
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BEo/ - Hry
My grandmother have a world map of the game, draw every secrets and made maps for every single dungeons with secrets and all that. Still to this day, even at 75, she still knows the game better than me.
i guess you should introduce Zelda randomizer to her.
does she know the secret of the eastmost peninsula?
That world map isn't cheap. Try to get her to gift it to you in her will, lol
@@knack3381 or why the 10th enemy has the bomb?
My brother draw a map of Zelda I and II on small notes but not with all secrets there are
Oh man, that Melee remix of the palace theme is more nostalgic to me than the game it originally comes from.
Same here. I sat through the credits just to listen to the Palace theme again.
Smash Bros life
I know it from the Club Nintendo CD soundtrack for Smash 4
I had no idea the remix came from Melee. Legend of Zelda II, for all its issues, does have good music.
Zelda 1 and 2 are great games, but products of their era. To truly enjoy them you have to play them as it was intended at the time. A ton of time on your hands and exchanging rumors on the playground.
I still remember the whirlwind of a birthday weekend me and my friends had beating the second quest of Zelda 2. Lots of Coke and pizza. Amazing times.
And the whole idea that Zelda 2 is substandard compared to the rest of the series is revisionist history. It was very well received when it was released. As far as it being hard, it was slightly harder than the first Zelda game but it was a breeze compared to a lot of games released on the NES. I had a much harder time with Megaman games for instance.
@@davidmckean955 ALL Zelda games are well-received upon release. The important thing is to look past that and evaluate the game on its own merits. Zelda 2, unfortunately, is an absolute mess.
That sounds frickin awesome.
@@handzar6402 False. Itâs very hard but a great game.
I'm 43, I still make sheet forts in the living room and play Zelda 1&2 with my wife. Shame we don't have kids to share the
adventure. Carry on
"It's punishingly difficult. Just, brutally hard."
I can't stop looking at that NO HEART CONTAINERS. I have to assume that you did the B-roll yourself because Link was labeled as "MARK", so either you're better at Zelda II than you let on, or you really failed a spot check.
And to anyone who is confused, you start with four blocks of health and magic in Zelda II. Heart contains give you one extra block of health, and Magic Containers give you one extra block of magic. There are four each, and eight blocks for each bar in total. Some of the B-roll footage had Link in the final dungeon in the game with four blocks, meaning that the player didn't get any Heart Containers.
I also did a double take at that! I have a feeling this is a game he never played until making this video, and took the most direct path possible through the game. This easily explains the lack of containers and the mention of "lots of grinding". In fact, I suspect he never even finished Z2, having gotten to Thunderbird without Thunder due to lacking magic containers (and likely the spell itself). Easy to understand the tone of the review with that context!
@@deathtoll2001 You can only unlock Thunder by finding all 4 Magic Containers. So either he has beaten it but not on that particular save file, or he actually ended up in an unwinnable state where he has to backtrack and find that stuff if he wants to beat it.
I'd disagree with the room in dungeon 7. I think it's a nice little puzzle to see if the player thinks about investigating the "eye" of the dungeon on the map. In fact, by leaving the hole in the eye, the negative space may instinctively draw the player to it.
I agree with you, those empty spaces in the middle of the dungeons made me raise an eyebrow, like if there was something important or secret. In level 9, I didn't even need the "secret is in the eyes" tip, I was already planning to investigate them.
Thank you. Came here for this comment. Seems like dude didn't realize that room was supposed to be blank.
I'm sure tons of people have already said it and said it better, but growing up in the era these games came out gives me a totally different perspective. The fun of these games was the months it took exploring them, talking to your friends at school and hearing their discoveries and running to your NES after school to finally get that item you never could find. Loved it!
Mark, I am extremely disappointed that the official captions around the word puzzle does not have 19 pairs of quotation marks. You need to fire your caption maker ; )
11:51 - It's funny, but the opening of this song still gives me chills after all this time.
Keanu Valen Me too,my friend. Me too...
Jason Kerley It's the first Breath of the Wild trailer theme
This theme is Super Smash Bros : Melee's remix of the Legend of Zelda 2 dungeon theme.
Jason Kerley Yeah, it's just the Zelda 2 dungeon song remixed. I can't tell if this is the exact version they used in Melee, but it certainly might be.
@@frozenaorta It IS the one used in Melee. I know this because the other version uses a flute.
Been following the series since the beginning. This episode made clear to me that the whole thing could easily became a dissertation or PhD thesis on game design / level design / game studies. Since you developed a solid methodology along the way, you actually have empirical evidence to support your conclusions, which is amazing. That's something I really like about this channel - and Boss Keys in particular -, there is a scientific tone to your analysis. Looking forward to the last episode!
Daniel Marques, hear hear
Oh, god yes. This is a fascinating study, and if Mark were to look into writing a book expanding on the ideas here containing every graph for every dungeon that's graphable with this methodology, either as a pdf or via using kickstarter to fund the publication of physical copies of it, I'd seriously consider grabbing a copy. What he does here isn't as ground breaking as what Twisty Little Passages is to analyzing Interactive Fiction, but it is monumental.
make that happen!
He really is impressively good at analyzing stuff.
I wonder... has he made his own games? Since he apparently knows his shit *so well,* you'd think he could turn that knowledge into the perfect experience. But could he really?
J.J. Shank Maybe he is more like an editor to a mangaka. He is great at interpreting, understanding and explaining them, but not at creating games. Maybe.
I never heard of anyone missing the bow in Level 1. There's enough natural curiosity that will lead people there, especially since it's not a big level.
Dude, I totally agreed with you most of my life, and then a couple years ago... I only replay Zelda 1 every 5-10 years, it doesn't grab me like others. And I seriously missed the bow by accident, I don't know how like... I mean I NEVER leave a dungeon without a treasure, but somehow in my head the boomerang was it, and I was like Yep, got my boomerang! and just sauntered on outta there! Then suddenly yeah, got to a Pol's Voice or the spider and was like wtf where's my BOW? Oh sh---
Couldn't believe it.
@@TopShelfTheology YOU'RE SLIPPIN'!!!! :) Hey, it happens. But yueah, generally there has to be enough curiosity that you want to explore the 1st dungeon rooms. There's not many, and you get the map right at the first point you have a choice, so it should be clear.
The exact situation described in the video happened to me. I got all the way to needing it for the boss in dungeon 6. It wasn't until my third dungeon that I would go through all the rooms. Which meant that I missed out on the items of my first two dungeons. I probably got the upgraded arrows before the bow.
I shivered when Temple's Theme started at the end
This put a smile on my face
I used to be on the train of "How did people find secrets in Zelda 1?" with the only real answer being that the game came with an overworld map back in the day that was partially filled in.
But a couple months ago, I played a Zelda 1 "randomizer", which basically moved all of the burnable trees and bombable walls to different locations. I was still able to 100% it in about five hours. I guess I did have the advantage of knowing my way around Hyrule, but still, that's nowhere near as bad as I had thought it would be.
Structurally, the game seems pretty unfair. But there are rules behind the chaos that people don't mention that makes it far more manageable.
But the problem is that understanding those rules behind the chaos is an investment. Yo were able to 100% it because you had already paid that investment and understood the game quite well. If someone played that same version completely cold with no previous experience, no one helping them, and not even having a manual to explain things clearly, it wouldn't play out quite that way...
@@marscaleb what are those rules? I've beaten zelda 1 once but I'm not sure what you mean
@@Thierce For one, there's never more than one "entrance" per screen, and most screens have a secret. You will only bomb flat rock walls so you know not to bother with the angled ones. With only two exceptions, (which are visually distinct anyway,) you never burn a tree that has another tree behind it. In dungeons all the doors are in the middle of the wall, so you only check for secrets there. Plus, just the obvious rules like "bomb rock walls, burn trees, push rocks, etc." are things that you do actually need to be taught. Most games after the NES era never hide secrets without some kind of indicator, even if it is subtle.
Most of these may sound like obvious things, but if you did not realize them already, you'd miss a lot.
Oooh that timing of the BOTW music at the end was great. Really getting near to an end of an era here!
I like how you did this video, you knew your enthusiasm wasn't huge for these games by themselves, so you made it an essay about how they informed the design of the later games instead, and so make it more of a timeline piece, in a way. In any case, I found it enjoyable!
Super Smash brothers melee....good times
I am about to just copy paste this in a new comment. because I agree
Thank you! :3 It's not mine, I just found the art ages ago. XD
Yeahhhh best to avoid that.
subprogram32 That's Zelda II Adventure of Link.
Is it weird that the thing with the keys actually sounds kind of cool to me? It makes the world and the dungeons seem more connected and related to each other, rather than being these perfectly, meticulously balanced puzzle boxes. The idea that if you're not paying attention it could turn into a mess, or that you could find items to get through one dungeon in another part of the game, or in fact any number of places in the game, sounds really cool to me.
You could wander into a dungeon that you can't complete yet because you don't have the right items, but still be able to pick up some keys or other items for a different dungeon, so it's not a complete waste. And the idea that you could be underprepared or overprepared for a dungeon I also think is cool. It adds a level of luck and unpredictability to the game that makes it feel like a real adventure.
Essentially tweaking the Zelda Formula to be more Metroidvania-esque, I guess. I like it!
Eh, to me it does seem like bad design if it's possible to get stuck in a dungeon that way.
That said, Zelda 1 is one of my favorites in the series in either case, and I am not as analytical as Mark is when it comes to dungeon design. I prefer open and nonlinear overworlds.
Yep, back in the day the keys and bomb walls/burn bushes mechanics was just called gameplay. When you dumb that down it... Well, dumbs it down. We WANTED to NEED to make maps and take notes. If we just wanted mindless button clicking, we had the arcade.
The backtracking issue in 2 is a purely subjective issue, and cannot be "solved." Conveniently making it loop is a dumbing down, reducing realism and gamifying play. That's great; unless you're here for deep gameplay, as opposed to arcadey action.
It's really interesting but with more complex dungeons it must be a nightmare to balance.
I never thought the wall-bombing in the dungeons was that cryptic. In any given room, there are a maximum of 3 spots to try a bomb on, and usually you can guess which one you need to bomb based on the map.
A lot of your problems with the first game are things I wish were in the later games. The secrets are actually secret and not telegraphed. You can explore the labyrinths in any order, and can use any key on any door. You can stockpile keys to make sure you never run out, or you can check everywhere, but if you're not careful, you can screw yourself out of keys, though you're not actually stuck, since you can buy a key in a pinch. You can explore and beat a labyrinth with no requirement to get the item; it's there if you want to get it, but no one is forcing it on you. Bombing walls is a fun way to find shortcuts and save keys, but you don't have to do it.
But then, in order to beat the game, all the things that were optional, and you did because you wanted to do, are now necessary. I would argue that doing all of those things are a natural part of freely exploring the space, and wondering what happens if you try this or that.
The game does what it can to get you in that mindset of exploring because you want to explore, and then that mindset is required to actually beat the game.
Also, I never thought of any of the "puzzles" as puzzles. It's an exploration game, not a puzzle game.
I agree. When you bomb a wall and find a heartpiece in Zelda 1, you feel like you are the first person to ever find it. There's a satisfaction of finding secrets that is somewhat missing in the other games.
A lot of these issues are solved by the fact that Zelda 1 came with a guide to the first dungeon, and a map of the overworld that was 2/3 full and marked the locations of some of the secrets, right in the box with the game. When playing it now, just look them up.
9:41 "But it's the demanding combat, the invisible pits, getting knocked back into lava, going into pointless dead ends and so on, that will truly challenge you, and if you die too many times you've gotta go all the way back to the very first screen because screw you, all of which makes you not want to explore because it's so fraught with danger and frustration."
These are all the reasons FOR my love of the game and it confirms my theory that this game isn't enjoyable if the player isn't skilful enough. They can't get past the frustration up to higher skill levels. If you're the kind of player who is patient enough to become sufficiently skilful in spite of the extraordinarily difficult punishment system, it's extraordinarily satisfying when you do.
P.s. A huge round of applause and thank you to Mark on this incredible series! Loved it!
This game is not fun even if you're skilful enough to finish it.
I actually like, that the keys are not restricted to the dungeons.
Zelda 2 is really underrated imo. Intense action and a great sense of adventure. You felt really proud of beating that game, it required serious skill. And Zelda 1 was amazing too. The phrase go up up up up up to the mountains top I will remember until I die.
Glad this video was demanded. Was interesting to see that Zelda 2 actually got more right than the original.
but I can't cheese it by bombing walls smh
CajBaj the White but you can cheese it with the fairy spell instead
(also, zelda 2 is just a better game in general, fight me)
I do like zelda 2 aswell!
Were you watching the same video? Zelda 2 has a host of largely difficulty-related problems all of its own that are arguably far worse than Zelda 1's obtuse dungeon design.
True. But in my opinnion Zelda 1 has also got some kind of a difficutly problem. Sometimes the game's just unfair.
7:53 WHAAAAAAAAT?! Mark Brown complaining about backtracking? Must be a day that doesnât end in âyâ.
8:13 "It's like 'What is goin' ~oooooonn~?!'" Found that part about the graphs hilarious đ
Holy Moly, the ending sequenz was just perfect!
I think Zelda II was designed in a way that Link got more and more lives during gameplay. It is the only game with multiple lives. These dolls that you collect along the way disappear after one death, which I think is a programming mistake. I just finished the game with a patch (each extra life gets permanent) and It becomes a really enjoyable, surprisingly modern game. The more you play, the farther you go from the starting safe zone of the castle, but you get rewarded for your efforts with more lives, so your own "safe zone" expands. This gets you to beat dungeons, and the more dungeons you beat, the more shortcuts you can take, as most objects give you a shortcut in the overworld, which in turn increases the starting safe zone until the whole map becomes one giant safe zone. It really feels like a Souls game. In the end, you can have up to 8 lives. With all the objects and shortcuts, Link feels increasingly resilient. Getting experience gets easier too, as each play session gets longer and awards you more exp, reducing grinding to a minimum. The last dungeon, Ganon's Castle, Is a really difficult maze, but if you explored the game well, you can take it on with 8 lives and max levels, making you prepared for this true test of strength. More even, if you die, you can continue at its entrance and find the best route. With only this little improvement, the game's face completely changes. I encourage anyone to play Zelda II this way, as I feel it was really how the authors intended. Everything feels wild and dangerous, but fair and balanced. You start weak and fragile, afraid to go too far from the road, and from each angel leap you take, you slowly but surely get unvulnerable until only the last bosses can actually scratch you. It is the most rewarding Zelda I've played, and really more akin to Breath of the Wild than one can think at first. It's a monument
Where might I find this patch?
Do you have a link to the pa(s)tch?
I don't know why you were saying yesterday this episode wasn't any good. I think it's fine. The historical perspective, looking at how present features came about, is important.
Its not a bad episode, but the first two Zelda games are just lame.
@@dampflokfreund Debatable
IMO, a good "mystery" is what adventure games really need - and Z1 didn't really have "puzzles" per se, so much as "mysteries" to explore in it's obtuse gameplay mechanics. The bomb room in Level 5 was just one of such occurrances - and the "problem room" in Level 7 is designed to teach players they can't always trust the map 100%, there are hidden rooms (in fact, one in each dungeon is off the map), whereas Level 9 shows that you can test false walls by walking into them for a moment - which comes into play more in the second quest. Being able to tackle dungeons somewhat out of order is also really exciting and adventuresome. If you're *really* good - you can go into Level 8 *first* and get the Master Key (although you'll need to get the bow from Level 1 to complete it), and you wanna talk about gamebreaking? That wall of Blue Darknuts with only your starting gear is one hell of a barrier to overcome for it though - so it doesn't feel overpowered at all - if you can do that, you've EARNED IT.
Personally, I find that isolating each dungeon's keys and requiring the key item in later Zelda games is what made it's design more limiting - and even reduced the key item's use to being just that - a different kind of key; and it's the ability to sequence break (or buy out a key) in Z1 that makes it more individually *appealing* than many of it's predecessors. And the "bomb every wall" thing, while it sounds tedious (maybe it was) gave considerably more value to bombs than games since LttP - which now clearly illustrate where to use them, or let you tap with your sword (that part, I can see as a fair middle ground; it still allows for "mystery" without being unfair/obtuse about it), or are just used to defeat certain bomb-sensitive enemies like Dodongos or trip distant switches (BOH-RING). The tight limits you can carry in the first made them all the more valuable, as enemy drop items too - which they never are again. Now there's no incentive to deliberately seek out the more difficult opponents of a set/map.
It definitely became more formulaic from LttP on, and while it was neat there - I think over time, that's what *limited* the Zelda experience, more than "refined" it. But I suppose that's all a matter of opinion.
I'll give you Z2, though. It was 100% about the combat; and would've worked WAY better without the extra lives system, or at least a more consistent way of earning 1ups. I see it as a kind of failed experiment to be "all of the games at once" - the map and experience/levels ala Final Fantasy, the platforming/momentum and lives of Mario, Castlevania II-like towns and caves and palaces... and combat (but without the aid of subweapons)... it was a bold attempt for it's time, just restricted by it's limitations, and a couple of features (shortcut caves between the continents locked by key map items would've killed the backtracking-from-the-beginning issue, or a way to save/restore in towns/palaces). At least they didn't couple it with a Metroid or MegaMan-style password system, right?
Oh yeah. One more "key" difference between Z1 and it's predecessors I'd like to mention - PIECES OF HEART. Z1 (and 2) had NO PIECES OF HEART. If you found an "extra" Heart Container - you found it all at once. The impact this had, when lifebars were so limited/small - was TREMENDOUS. Every time I found a new one, I was ecstatic.
Pieces of heart, while a novel thing in LttP... I think that was ultimately a bad move. I can see how it plays with the larger pool of items it had, but it squished out that ecstatic feeling of finding something so crucial so thin it hardly even felt "there." 3 out of 4 times you accomplished this (or 4 out of 5 in later ones), it changed... NOTHING. It was less of a kinetic energy and more a potential one, and even when it happened it was more like "oh, FINALLY" insteady of "AWWWW YEAH!!!"
And yes, they existed to facilitate more "puzzles" (I use the term just as loosely) that are really as simple as "use this item on that" more often than not. Let's be real here. Pushblock mazes are about the only true "puzzles" the games really do.
Would have been cool if there was an Easter egg in BOTW where after doing all of the Shrines, you found yourself in one of the dungeons from the original Zelda game, since BOTW was so inspired by that game's open design. Kinda like how Doom and Wolfenstein have done retro rooms as Easter eggs. Instead, all we got was the (spoiler)
green Tunic.
Patrick holy shit i really like this, even just having one of the shrines be a combat gauntlet in the shape of the first dungeon wouldve been cool. Totally flat, but with the basement with a rare bow or something
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I like this idea. Maybe something to consider for DLC? Shrines in the shape of dungeons from Zelda 1 would be neat
That would have been nice, and there's already a little island that looks like the area where Zelda 1's first level was so they could have put it there
I kind of feel like the charm of the original Zelda was how... messy it was. rather than an established formula for beating a dungeon you gotta figure it all out yourself every time. it's more of an adventure that way I think. rather than knowing every dungeon has exactly as many keys as you need you may have to go elsewhere for a key or two. you may not like it that way but I do.
I think he biggest problem was level 6's design. 7 was annoying because of the bombs, but at least you did not have to exit the dungeon. level 6 has the worst enemy variety (fortunately, dark nuts never appear in the same dungeon as wizzrobes). the wizzrobe, bubble likelike combination is one of the trolliest set ups in the game. get hit by a bubble means, your sword use is stunned briefly, which makes it harder to defend against likelikes who will eat your shield, thereby removing any protection from the wizzrobe's projectiles, which take away two hearts and have 10 hit points (i.e. blue). the red have twice the ranged attack power but deal half the bump damage and only take 4 hits (1 if you have the magic sword).
also, gohma appears and is a pretty bad beginner's trap (although Trinexx in ALttP is probably worse) because the bow is obtained in level 1 and the arrows must be purchased. at least level 5 prevents you from completing it without the recorder because it must be used against degdogger. levels 1-3 are fine (although the raft being a dungeon item was unnecessary), levels 4-5 were fine, level 6 was awful level 7 was better but does need more bomb use and does have the one of the closest obstacles to a puzzle where all the wallmasters must be killed to push a random block.
level 8 is not too bad and level 9 is pretty bad because the silver arrows can be missed and there is no escape from Ganon's room. i am not even going to mention how much of a train wreck the second quest was. the first quest is fine, but level 6 is one of the worst dungeons in the series. fortunately, it can be done last before death mountain.
Excellent video, brings me back to my childhood!
Your summary at the last third of your video was really well done. You addressed and solved just about every single concern I brought up in the comments I left on previous videos. You now speak more confidently with less personal bias regarding dungeon design that doesn't match your personal tastes. Well done mate, well done.
gdi Mark, now I'm gonna have to go listen to a 10-hour loop of the Temple Theme... I love that song so much.
Thanks for making the video. I know it was tough, but you had nothing to worry about. The video turned out good and it's getting my excited for (what will be until the next game) the series finale. Keep up the good work.
Iâm glad you made this episode it was amazing especially that last bit where you talked about the entire series! Major props Iâve enjoyed so much!!
Brilliant video Mark. It's interesting to see how Nintendo experimented at the beginning before finding the sweet spot between adventure, puzzles, combat. And how they keep experimenting today with BotW.
I was sooooooooooooooooo happy to see you go back and look at these 2 games considering they where the 2 games that made up a good portion of my start to being a gamer
Dat Zelda 2 Temple Song though!!
I know you said Breath of the Wild is the end, but you'll still do another Zelda game if it shows up yeah?
Thomas Davis I would love to see him tackle Four Sword Adventures cause I feel like that's the hardest Zelda game, dungeon-wise.
He seemed open to stuff like Darksiders and Doom when I asked him about it, but he may be laying off all hings Boss Keys for a good, long while, as he doesn't want to suffer well through burnout.
Read the damn description of the video, guys.
Pretty sure that wasn't there when I first watched this.
+abiduestafelu Are you referring to how the description mentions Boss Keys *season one?* If so, you're right, he'll probably make more videos as new games come out.
Thank you so much for this series, Mark! It's a shame to hear there's only one episode to go.
I'm currently working on a Zelda-esque dungeon game, and if there's one thing to note is that designing dungeons is HARD. Boss Keys has given me a lot of inspiration to design more non-linear dungeons to encourage exploring, but make the available choices too many and players start getting lost, much like OOT's Water temple.
I am an older guy who plays games still. Not just play them, but dissect them. I remember getting zelda 2 in 1988 on my 12th birthday. It was before school at 6am and I was wearing my denim jacket eating an apple, looking out my porch which is long gone. My Mother, Gods keep her, heard me firing up Mega Man 1 and started to get cross with me. She said "open your present", and lo and behold, brand new gold cartridge The Legend of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, which, to this day is my favorite and most important Zelda game. Thank you.
These games were a big part of my childhood and the main reason I ended up in the game industry. It's easy to for someone like me to irrationally see them through nostalgia goggles as pure masterpieces, and also very easy for younger people like you to see them as terrible malformed oddities. I think you did a good job of tracing the origins of what you like in the franchise back, and it speaks to a larger truth about how the artform of game design has grown. Early experiments have their charm, but can't compete with decades of refinement. (Compare a Model T to a Tesla as another example.) I'll always love these games for the place they've had in my life, but don't expect younger generations to appreciate them in the same way.
After a difficult day I needed this.....
Phantasy Star has dungeons that are very easy to become lost within. There is no map nor are there landmarks, just tunnels that all look the same, multiple levels, and sometimes multiple exits. Comparatively, I found the dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda very easy to navigate.
Yamcha Kippur This is a great comment that highlights the two main problems in most NES Zelda games critiques: comparing them to their sequels and analysing them from a modern design perspective. Like when I hear terms like "brutal difficulty" that are used to describe Zelda 2, I have to wonder if the reviewer has played any Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden game. Or even The Battle of Olympus, for a more similar game to Zelda 2.
The end of this video is perfect. When the Melee Temple music faded in at the credits, I got chills.
please continue this series with a "Season 2" and choose a new franchise to follow! i love all of your videos, but the way you comprehensively look through an entire franchise is such a nice thing, and you bring so much forward that people miss when merely playing said franchise!
Honestly I loved the episode. Its a retrospect on how Zelda started and how much it has changed over the years. Looking forward to the last video!
6:13 - "...you have to push one random block in the room..."
It's not a random block, though. It's always in the middle row of floor tiles, and it's always whichever block is furthest to the left. Admittedly the game never explains this, but the pushable blocks in dungeons always follows this consistent formula, even in the second quest.
But is it because of designing the pattern into the game or because the programmer/designer got lazy? Are you meant to pick up on the pattern or try everything? Those are the important questions. And we will never get the answer.
God damn dude, your content is unreal. You deserve 1m+ subs.
Great video! I must point out that this outro at 11:51 was marvelously played
You should do a bonus episode on the CDi games. I'm not joking.
...OK, I'm joking.
I'm half-expecting a video with that title to go live on April 1st next year.
Boss Pepe I just wonder what Mark Brown is up to!
I totally disagree with your complaint at 5:58 about the secret room in Level 7- while it isnât âshownâ on the map it is certainly suggested BY the map. It is the only empty square in the entire map, that was brilliantly laid out to look like a demonâs face (the empty space being an eye). This is a brilliant puzzle you have to figure out by context, foreshadowing the location of Zelda herself in the skullâs left eye in Death Mountain, and later the flute in Quest 2 (which required discovering the brand new mechanic of walking through walls). I remember discovering all these secrets without guides and it was always super rewarding.
Unlike Zelda 3, Zelda 1 told you where to try bombing by context clues rather than a super-overt crack in the wall. I always felt the crack in the wall, copied in all the later games, was too obvious. Discovering secret paths was turned into resource consuming obstacle to level progression- removing the whole aspect of what made bombing fun.
the only problem, however was the resource management. one way to resolve this issue was to have some enemies guarantee item drops instead of relying on the RNG to farm items. the second quest becomes a problem when you have to kill 3 dodongos, which is very difficult to time 3 bombs to stun them. the alternative solution, however requires twice as many, which is 3/4 of your starting max capacity.
Jeffrey Krieger yeah i agree thatâs an issue. In the second quest the walk-through-wall mechanic you learn in order to get the flute largely replaces the bombing wall mechanic, which helps. I think having to take out the 3 dodongos with 4 bombs was actually kinda cool, since it basically gives you one freebee. You try to stun each of them, but if you accidentally feed a bomb to one of them, it weakens him so that either a stun or another fed bomb works, adding an element of strategy. But yeah, bomb refill stations ala super metroid, located in the dungeons would have been nice.
even if the refill stations cost rupees such as from the old man would have been fine. If I recall correctly, you might be able to use one bomb against two Dondongos if the timing is correct. anyway, the dungeon keys at the shops should have cost less such as 40-60 rupees. the reason i never had the key deficiency was that I always explored every dungeon. level 7's location was the only time I was fully stuck in the first quest but that was because I did not pay attention to the clue. level 8 i figured out on my own afterwards after i saw the suspicious tree. in the second quest, the walkthrough walls threw me off by surprise and i had to use a guide. levels 6-8 were also very cryptic. level 9 i discovered after exploring the northwest end after thinking it was suspicious that were nothing there in the first quest. also the blue ring location i had to use a guide because it was in the hidden northeast end. anyway, while Zelda 1 has its flaws, I think Mark was a bit harsh on them. now to be fair, the developers could have re-released the game by fixing the flaws such as more keys, better hints, and changing the dungeon items. Gohma should have been an earlier boss.
Jeffrey Krieger good call about stunning multiple dodongos with one bomb, im pretty sure i even got all three of them at once a couple times. its actually a sort of brilliant dark souls-style mechanic where the ammo becomes harder and more dangerous to use the more you make mistakes (remember missing a couple times and then being down to a single bomb, forcing you to plant a perfectly placed bomb between two or three dodongos at once?). Anyway i agree with your other comments and enjoyed reminiscing about finding some of this obscure stuff, like Level 9 in the second quest. I havent thought about that in almost 30 years.
what i like about zelda 1 is how accessible it is when replaying. the first time is very rough, but it is easy to get back into the game. the later games, however, feel like they are the opposite because they more of an investment of time. also i like to complete the including all side quests and the later titles make it more tedious, sometimes downright frustrating.
Your closing credits music is my all time favorite Zelda theme!
I loved that sum up you did at the end.
I like the overview of all the episodes. It sets up the next episode really well.
Well done video, but it certainly reads like it was written by someone who _started_ their Zelda experience later in the series, then worked backward using those measuring sticks. I don't agree at all with many of your Zelda 1 critiques, particularly your issue with forcing the player to obtain key items before they left a dungeon. What started as hand holding evolved into the stale gimmicks that everyone was sick of by Skyward Sword. Find the bow, use the bow to open a door, use the bow to shoot a boss with a giant eyeball. Rinse, repeat with the next dungeon and item. Zelda 1 forced you to explore the dungeon. You knew you had to look for a treasure in each labyrinth -- the manual even told you so. Exploration itself is the meta for each dungeon, rather than the same repetitive formula involving an item designed specifically for this dungeon, and often this dungeon only.
I do agree about the keys, although I never ran into an issue there. I also rarely had a problem guessing where I could bomb walls in a dungeon once I had the map, but that's a point I could see someone making, as many have. However, your dig at the "puzzles" (not sure how many quotes you'd like me to use there) is incredibly anachronistic. Without the simple push block puzzles, Zelda couldn't have paved the way for the games to follow. That was some innovative shit at the time, and yes, believe it or not, it stumped players. You can't look at Breath of the Wild's puzzles, then look backward through that lens and say, "oh these 1987 puzzles are WEAK, bro!" They were ground breaking, and push block puzzles survive still today. You may as well critique Super Mario Bros because it "only" has mushrooms and fire flowers. Nintendo was smashing new ground in the 80's, and just because some tropes of the series have been improved upon doesn't make the more primitive forms of the trope ineffective. That's rather myopic to suggest.
frozenaorta Well said and my feelings precisely. I played Zelda I when it came out and beat the game shortly thereafter. It was an amazing game and truly groundbreaking (first Nintendo game with save files, for example). Only hiccup in the game that seems like a legitimate mistake was the addition of the new wall type in the second quest without any sort of verbal hint in the game or in the manual. In the end, possibly because so many had gotten stuck on the second quest, they published the news about the new walls in Nintendo Power and word spread. I had gotten stuck on that part myself and had set the game aside for a few weeks and then when I heard I dove back in and completed quest 2. The negative bias of the reviewer is really easy to spot in this case (something I hadn't spotted in the other videos) and it's unfortunate. There were improvements to Zelda titles later on but those were taking steps to slowly evolve the game and took advantage of far greater processing power. For what they were working with it was amazing.
I wonder if you didn't run into a key issue because you realized one of the treasures was a key that opened every locked door, then made sure that you got it. Some clever people might have noticed that the leftmost blocks on every puzzle room were the blocks that needed to be pushed, which eliminates most of the guesswork on what block to push.
I played a randomized flash game with guns and whatnot, but it otherwise harkened straight back to Legend of Zelda almost exactly for its room layouts, down to individual rooms and having to solve a puzzle to exit. The only thing it was missing was some sort of rapid fire weapon since it heavily focused on ranged combat. www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/188674
There's literally an Old Man room in the Second Quest that tells you to "walk through the wall". Of course what the Old Man didn't tell you is that not all such walls can be crossed both ways which Ganon's level reminds you of more than once.
I thought the biggest douche move the second quest played was in Level 3 I think where the dungeon item was past the Triforce room via a walk-through wall. Backtracking that dungeon was a pain to figure that one out!
Well made points by all here. The "walk through the wall" gimmick that comes about in the second quest was a tough one to figure out on your own (again, I heard from word of mouth at school). But it was supposed to be the more difficult and cryptic SECOND quest. Just as you never knew which walls to bomb in the first quest, you never knew where to try to walk through in the second. In fact, as far as differences between the quests go, I think the red Bubble enemies that take your sword away INDEFINITELY until you hit a blue Bubble were far more sadistic. Especially when they were several rooms apart.
I never got the magical key until a late dungeon, and it was never that I KNEW that I was searching for it. I never really ran out of keys, because I got pretty quick at moving and eliminating enemies in every room. That key, much like the key in Zelda 2, doesn't come to you until near endgame. But it does help.
And yes, the nonsense in quest 2 with the Triforce room was downright unfair. But overall, that was a part of the game. Finding all the random shit, and being tough as balls the entire time.
Congratulations Mark, Was an excelent work with the Boss Key Series, actually the size to become a Developer Movie
I love that summary of the Zelda franchise at the end. Oddly majestic and emotional.
I imagine you're gonna get shit from hardcore Zelda 1 enthusiasts for saying the dungeons in the first game are badly designed. Luckily, I'm not one of those. They are pretty messy; you can very easily bend the rules of the standard Zelda dungeon progression with the ability to carry keys over from other dungeons and the amount of bombable walls that can get you past certain obstacles (though making them more of a necessity is one point I never considered). In spite of its very basic dungeon mechanics and same-y design, I do feel it's possible to make pretty decent dungeons with the same tools Nintendo had to work with way back in 1986. It's just not executed well here.
Just considering the technological capabilities of the NES, I do agree... But without the aid of hindsight when developing it from within the design philosophies of 80s video game industry that existed around it? I'm not so sure. Design concepts are just as much a 'technology' as improved hardware or knowledge of the number 0, and I'm not sure that an early example of an open world game (The original Elite beats it by 18 months) and the first action/adventure game of it's type could be expected to be implementing schools of thought on player conveyance, what is and isn't fair play, or even the concept that while the whole is entirely open some areas within it should be more closed and restrained. In the same way I would never critique a 5th century European work of art for not using techniques developed in the renaissance era to convey perspective, though there was nothing physically preventing them from doing so at the time had they known the techniques, but the concept of how to convey the 3d in a 2d plane using linear perspective hadn't been invented.
It hasn't aged well, true, but when you consider not only the technology of the NES but the 'technology' of video game design at the time, I'm not sure it could have been executed better.
Nintendo cared so much about dungeon design in Zelda 1 they basically gave away as an optional item an infinite-use key.
You were never meant to do these dungeons linearly, the dungeon and the overworld aren't two different things they are interfixed.
At least imo.
Yeah, I never did get along with the first two zelda games, but loved the rest.
As for your comments about NES technology, you have to keep in mind that game design is an ever-evolving subject too; not just technology.
And in terms of technology it's not simply the console itself, but also the surrounding tools.
Making a game using graph paper and a hex editor is a fundamentally different experience to making one with advanced graphics programs, level designers, art tools and so on, which is possible easily enough in 2017 but borderline unthinkable in the 80's.
But more than that remember that, say, Breath of the Wild borrows from lessons learnt not just from 31 years of zelda games, but from mario games and everything else Nintendo has made too, and in fact from what everyone else in the gaming industry has made as well.
Zelda 1's poor design informed better design in the later games.
And on a pure hardware level I would also like to point out that 'NES' is not a static target, and in fact that can be said for all cartridge based systems - because the cost of ROM chips changes dramatically over time (as does the cost of other stuff that may be in a cartridge, which in the case of the NES can include extra RAM for both the cpu and graphics chip, ROM mappers to allow more storage space than the cartridges technically allow for, and hardware expansion of the graphics system which allows for going from having about 256 tiles to work with to 32,000 of them or more)
Super Mario brothers from 1985 for instance is less than 32 kilobytes, while Super Mario 3 from 1984 is 384 kilobytes.
It's not that they couldn't design a game like Mario 3 (in a graphical sense) in 1985, but rather that the cost of the ROM chips needed to store the game would be prohibitive.
Thus, the samey looking dungeons in the original zelda game is as much a function of lack of storage space as anything else.
The difference between Mario 3 and Super Mario World is partly a difference in going from NES to SNES, but in fact a bigger factor in how it looks may simply be that it is 1 megabyte instead of 384 kilobytes.
Similarly, the graphical complexity of A link to the Past is not all down to the Super Nintendo hardware as such (though it certainly helps) but again, because it's 1 megabyte, where the first zelda game is 128 kilobytes.
Sure, the game world is probably bigger, and of course, SNES - so higher colour depth graphics and more animation and so on, but a lot of it just goes into graphical variety.
Even so, regardless of what the hardware is capable of in theory, game design evolved too, not just technology.
Could they have made a better NES zelda game? Absolutely. They could have made 'A link to the Past' level of game, in terms of gameplay. (in fact, that's basically what Link's awakening is, since it's in the style of A link to the past both in gameplay and looks, yet on hardware closer to an NES than a SNES) Wouldn't have been TOO hard on a purely technical level...
But... in 1986, they simply didn't know how to design such a thing, because they had nothing else to work from.
By 1991 they had the experience of two prior games, and everything tangentially related in the gaming space that they could learn from.
It's just one of those things...
I love the original Zelda, but I'll be damned if it isn't badly designed. It's understandable since it's such a primitive game, but it still is designed terribly.
Hey, can you please do a video on Kirbyâs level design?? Iïž love his game and Iâm not entirely sure why, can you help break it down????
Awesome video as always!
See, now this is fascinating. I love seeing the early stages of a seriesâ constant process of reiteration. Itâs hard to get a grasp on the importance of certain mechanics until you see their absence and realize why they were added to begin with. And itâs kind of awesome to see how, even in groundbreaking works, thereâs room for vast improvement, and how even in the polished iterationâs most infantile form, there was already a lot of potential.
I mostly disagree with your analysis of these games' dungeons. Its true they can be frustrating and are quite messy in design compared to later games. But man, Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 make me actually feel like I'm travelling through a gauntlet, blazing fresh trails through a dungeon that has no regard for charity. Some of the later 2D Zelda games (ATttP, Awakening, Oracle) do this well also while having a more refined progression system and puzzles, but I think one should admire the brutality of Zelda 1/2 for what it is. I not hard just for the sake of being hard. The hardness brings a lot of thrill and accomplishment into playing that many of the later games fail to give me.
I still enjoy modern Zelda, but I have mostly graduated to classical-style rogue-likes. I find they carry the spirit of old Zelda better than the new games do.
Old school Zelda is like playing the tomb of horrors in dnd
It's hard, unforgiving, and at plenty of times, just unfun, but oh man is it great to finish
Yes, let's go back to the mediocre stuff instead of all the refined, improved games that we have now *facepalm*.
Well if you like that, try The Binding of Isaac! It's brutally difficult, unfair, and takes a lot of inspiration from Zelda one, but it's so much funner than it has any right to be. Plus, every run is random, so you get to feel the gauntlet over and over again. And you're going to have to if you want to 1,000,000% it (or more) because as of the latest DLC, there are 34 characters, each with as many as 12 Unlocks each, not to mention the challenges!
Have fun!
...Somehow I had a feeling you wouldn't talk about the second half. There are *eighteen* dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda. After you defeat Ganon, you're sent back to the start with no gear, the map is rearranged, and while yes the overall structure is essentially the same, you're faced with _much_ harder challenges.
I've never beaten the second game, I honestly don't think I've ever gotten past the first dungeon. It's a different experience. I like that Nintendo was willing to take bigger risks back then, like making a top-down dungeon crawler and following it with a side-scrolling hack&slash.
I love the original Legend of Zelda, I'm sure if I ever get around to playing them through I'll love the Oracles games and Minish Cap. My favorite game in the franchise - arguably one of my favorite games of all time - is Majora's Mask.
notoriouswhitemoth Minish Cap really is a great game. Pretty wacky too. My favorite Zelda handheld game.
The weird bit about the second quest is that it pretty much defines the model they now use for Mario post-game - harder challenges, a significant chunk of time compared to the main game (not always as long, but... I think there are a couple of 'as long as' examples), and so on, except you can still do anything you missed in the main game that you missed in the post game.
Definitely check out the Oracle games, they're underrated. The open world for the game is interconnected pretty well and opens up more as you progress through the games. The items you get in the games are fun and used in interesting ways, while I felt the dungeons were fun and at times challenging.
Oracle of Ages is more puzzle based, while Oracle of Seasons is more combat based. The Minish Cap is much easier than the Oracle games, but it's a very fun experience to play through as well.
Yeah, I wish he talked about how bullshit the second quest was. One-way trap doors, fake walls, even more obnoxious "puzzles"... just really bad design, overall.
Then again, he didn't talk about OoT Master Quest either, which has also way inferior design compared to the original.
Well he didn't cover OOT's Master Quest dungeons....
Bless you for releasing another video
I've always loved this game! Great video as always.
Link dying in Zelda II gives me seizures
If you die while playing Zelda 2, you die in real life.
Welp, guess now is really the time I need to pick up a Switch and Breath of the Wild
Same here
JustOffscreen Nah get it on Switch. It's portable and is going to actually have support from Nintendo for new games over the next few years.
If you have a good PC, cemu is an option as well.
Mr. Robot Or just, you know, support the developers.
Well I want to get a Switch anyways for other console exclusive games
Great video again. I love this series. I still wish you had a way to do Four Sword Adventures because while stage 1 was an overworld theme and stage 2 was up in the air, they had a real dungeon for each world's 'stage 3' and there were a lot of clever puzzles in it.
Great stuff as always!
I disagree about LoZ 1. As I've always heard, the design was intentional to force players to collaborate outside of the game. It included the battery packed save feature because it was suppose to be overly complex. It existed to get lost in, and retraced. That was always much of the appeal for me as a kid anyway.
It's an interesting approach for sure. A lot of games at the time were like this with expectations of periphery and magazine sales that contained some form of aid. I'm glad those days are behind us though. Good games explain things with the gameplay itself. Just expecting players to use Nintendo Power guides or CZcams in today's world is not an elegant solution to design problems. It's not a solution at all really. Modern Zelda games still provide plenty of opportunities for the player to be stuck or lost without making progression so unclear as to be virtually impossible without some external knowledge.
I hope you don't misunderstand what i am saying, but i think you had played zelda 1 "wrong". Most of the problems you listed encourage the player to explore, the main focus of the game. Furthermore, there is one thing you haven't said that i believe is one of the best things in the game, the resources are valuable. You got more keys than you needed? Well, the next dungeon might be easier. You didn't and you have to use one? Explore or go to buy one (giving rupees a meaning, thing that doesn't have on almost all zelda game). There is a pretty good video about this game that explains this things a lot better but, sadly, you don't speak spanish. Anyway, it was a good video.
Juan Manuel Barbier but this is the same guy that praised it's overworld system and it's lack of hand-holding....
supongo que te refieres al video de beetbeatbit, sĂ, es genial
@@randomguy6679 This a difference between a game being hard and a game being insanely obtuse to the point where it's not fun anymore and just badly designed.
HECK YES!! This series is literally my favorite thing on CZcams. Thank you so much for it
Great content, as always
HYPE HYPE HYPE
Zelda 2 and Skyward Sword designed some enemies in a way that almost felt like mini-puzzles in and of themselves. I'm not surprised that people have so much trouble with Zelda 2; I expect most players haven't noticed that there are very clear, optimal strategies to use against EVERY enemy in Zelda 2 that will keep you from getting hit every time (yes, even Fokkas). I actually find Zelda 2 to be an easier game than Zelda 1 in most respects if only for that reason. Other than frantically re-positioning yourself, there's not all that much you can do to mitigate the danger of the nastiest enemies in Zelda 1, and even then the challenge tends to come not from your need to figure out optimal tactics and execute them correctly, but the absurd number of enemies in a room that you can't retreat from. This isn't to say that Zelda 2 is perfect- far from it- but I think that it has the most remake potential and that it's far more tightly designed in certain respects than people tend to give it credit for... also, putting aside gameplay/design stuff... Zelda 2 has the better OST between the 2 NES Zeldas. I'm honestly a little baffled that none of its songs have reoccurred within the series as far as I can recall.
Never managed to beat Zelda 2 but I wish they would remake it with an optional easier difficulty/some quality of life changes because the core gameplay is quite original and fun
Loved the summary of all games at the end.
i got chills at the end, nice timing music.
Next episode = Hype
1:09 Look at all these things that BotW doesn't have (bosses aside).
am i the only one who noticed how u synced up the final piano note of the botw theme with "the last episode... of boss keys" that was some slick editing buckaroo
I don't understand how your videos are so high quality mark, every single one is so well done. And its not like there's a long gap in between videos either. This channel is amazing, great work Mark Brown.
I am working on developing a game that's like a cross between zelda and castlevania. Thanks for the great video!
Saw Wheatley good luck! I hope it turns out well!
If you ever need artists, send me a message! Ill send you my portfolio
Look for a CZcamsr called "Dan Felder" and his series called "Intelligent Design" where he has covered both the Legend of Zelda and Castlevania games on his channel, they are amazingly educational videos and aimed at game developers. Let me know what you think of them! - I am also developing a Zelda-like Game at the moment and found them full of wisdom.
PADAWAN beats sorry, I usually do my own music, and I already have some songs written. If I ever put any of it on my channel, I'll let you know.
Thanks for the support!
Daniel Gilchrist Great find! I am now a proud subscriber of Dan felder. His notes on castlevania's design are very well thought out, and they are very helpful. Once I finish the prototype, I may record some footage of it and upload it.
I disagree with most of this video. I know that this series is about the design of dungeons in Zelda but it missed the main aspect that Zelda itself seemed to forget over the years, exploration! No, the game doesn't tell you every wall to bomb, but that was part of the fun... finding some new place. a place that you weren't supposed to be, an actual "hidden" room. All the newer games that signpost those rooms with "place bomb here" turns bombs from a tool of exploration to blue key that hurt if you stand too close.
I think the concept is good, but the organization has problems such as with the key placement in each dungeon. also the second quest introduced a poorly designed mechanic, which was the "leave your life or money" and if you choose the former on a 3 heart run, then it causes a program error where your hearts drop to 0, but does not count as a death.
I love the Zelda II Dungeon Theme at the end... Sooo many memories...
Love your videos!
Can't say I fully agree with some of the points in Zelda 1.
Yeah, things like the "move a random block but only after defeating all enemies" or the no-hint bombable walls(I can see where they got the inspiration for the "different sound when a bombable wall is hit" idea) are bad design, though I'd guess it's a consequence of the limitations of the time to some extent. But the thing with the keys? I'd say it worked and was part of the charm of the game. First-time players were more likely to fully explore the dungeons and never be out of keys, and more experienced players could use it as a speedrun technique. It added to the feeling that the overworld design tried to emulate, it just lacked polish. I was actually hoping to see more ideas like that in BotW dungeons; I do love what they did, but zelda dungeons stopped feeling labyrinthic(in the bad but also in the good sense) after ALTTP. BotW just went from "follow the path" to "find all the hotspots".
Yeah, LoZ was hard and it didn't hold your hand. That's why it was good.
There's a big difference between hard and broken/messy. LoZ often had backtracking, softlocks, and tedious grinding. BotW, on the other hand, did anything but hold the player's hand and was not filled with these problems.
"Hand-holding" = good game design. Or more accurately, "hand-holding" = design, as games without such teaching structures generally lack purposeful design. It's so strange to me that some gamers actually want to learn games in the slowest, most inefficient ways possible: brute force and trial and error. Games that do take time to effectively teach players always do a better job of getting them to interesting, high-level, skill-based play quickly. The original The Legend of Zelda is a bad game for a number of reasons and the obtuseness is certainly one of them.
Also, difficulty is not an inherent indicator of quality. Much of what makes Zelda 1 "hard" is pure jank: very limited movement and combat options, static enemies with random movements, an overabundance of enemies on any single screen, bosses with strange hitboxes, "puzzles" with solutions that are virtually impossible to know using only in-game resources, etc. Making any game hard is, ironically, very easy. Making a game that's good, now that's hard.
in 1986, LoZ was pretty much universally regarded as a good game. If it was good then, it's good now. Something doesn't magically become *bad* simply because the landscape around it changes. Gamers today simply expect a different type of game. Today, BotW is a great game. In 30 years, I imagine people will probably crap all over it too. It won't magically make it a bad game though, will it?
Paul Vanukoff just because a game is hard doesn't automatically make it good
You're right of course. But one of the reasons LoZ is good is because it is hard. A core gameplay mechanic is exploration, experimentation, and not knowing where to go or what to do next. Is that frustrating at times? Sure. But I'll take frustration and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with overcoming a challenge any day over a game that tells you what you need to do next all the time.
Great video! Can't wait for the next one :)
Glad to see someone talking about a very underrated game. When it came out, Zelda II actually sold very well, but fans who came into the series later didn't expect the massive shift in design. It bothers me though when they say things like "they should have stuck to the formula", when it wasn't established at the time; and the vastly different Mario 2 is considered an improvement over the original, so it made sense at the time.
Breath of the Wild GotY
so
Is Zelda II
the Dark Souls of Zelda?
Zelda II is even more sadistic than Dark Souls
Other then the part where you go through death mountain zelda 2 isnt that hard.
Exactly what Ghost27 said. People who complain about Zelda 2's difficulty must have never played an actually hard game on NES. Zelda 2 is challenging but fair, and the level up system allows for an experience tailored on one's own skill level.
That smash music at the end gave me nostalgic chills. Great episode as always, interested in your thoughts on BOTW. Juuuust beat it a week ago, picked it up late, and I was disappointed with the divine beasts (but holy crap did I LOVE the game as a whole). 2 of them I ran through in under 10 minutes, Vah Ruta had me in slightly longer because of a solution that i didn't think was possible, but it was still a breeze in comparison to past games. The Gerudo one was the only one that felt like a true dungeon, but even that was a half dungeon at best. There are some good shrines, but I feel like the BOTW puzzles are about overworld exploration rather than dungeons. Figuring out how to manage health and stamina, weapons and gear was always more of a challenge than the shrines and dungeons themselves.
This series has been so great. I hate to see it end! Really hoping you do an offshoot for level designs in other series.
Haha, "final"
I disagree that the keys and items were "flaws" that were fixed in later games. Their behavior in LoZ was how you got the exploration that you praised. Keys weren't a level-specific puzzle, they were a resource like health, money, or bombs. Taking keys from one dungeon to use in another gave you more exploration options. Not being required to get the dungeon item to beat the dungeon gives you much more freedom in how you complete things, and the so-called "fix" both created a lot of the feeling of linearity of later Zelda games as well as encouraged that "only useful where you found it" item design.
The problem with the level design comes from the fact that unwinnable traps are common. To fix this solution, no rooms have two shutter doors unless there is a block switch that can open them without killing enemies.
I am surprised and amassed you included Zelda II. Cheers!
That ending bit was done very well.
"""""""""""""""""""Puzzles"""""""""""""""""""
I totally agree with all your negative points for Zelda 1. The key mechanic is iffy, and the bomb-able walls are the worst. But I was waiting for this episode for a while because I wanted to hear what you thought about the dungeons as wholes and not just a bunch of mini-challenges separated into rooms.
Something I loved about the original Zelda's dungeons is that they were hard to navigate, in a good-sort-of-way. The map made getting lost not usually a problem (maybe Spectacle Rock as an exception), but finding the right path through the dungeons could get pretty challenging, and so I would often have to backtrack through them. I liked how every time (as far as I can remember) I wanted to backtrack in the game, it was me choosing to do it and not the game making me do it. And add in some rooms with tons of extremely hard-to-beat enemies in later dungeons, and then some strategy comes in. Do I really want to go through this room with 10 blue Darknuts to get to that other room? Or is there a better way around?
I guess I kind of miss when there were actual stakes and risks in Zelda dungeons. Zelda II made the stakes waaay too high in my opinion, and most of the 3D ones don't have nearly enough stakes. I still love them all (Twilight Princess is my fav), but of course that doesn't mean they're flawless.
The music at the end made me feel goosebumps. Can't wait.
The ending has me freeeeaaaakiiiinnng HYPED for the finale.