Remember Zeldathon?
No?
This -> Zeldathon
Don't remember that? Yeah, well,
me neither.
I should probably point out that
that Zeldathon is very different from the other more respected and well known
Zeldathon held in the US primarily for charity.
Last year I intended to play
every single Zelda title I have and by that I mean play from start to finish. I
started with Wind Waker HD then followed it up with the original The Legend of
Zelda. The two playthroughs went great but as soon as academics kicked into high
gear I couldn't dedicate myself entirely into playing and then blogging each
session. That became apparent during my Majora's Mask 3D playthrough. To this
day I'm still at Ikana Village and I haven't updated this blog about my
quarrels with the camera in the claustrophobic and dizzying adventure in the
Great Bay Temple. The boss battle with Gyorg is among my favorite boss battles,
though. It made me rain profanity more than usual during the second
phase.
So, yeah, in summary my Zeldathon
last year was terrible.
This year I'm lowering the bar
and just keep track of the games - old and new - that I finish at any% in a
very casual pace. This year's AGDQ kinda pushed me to try out speedrunning but
I lack the time to practice the various strats available for each game that I
plan to play. Maybe some other time.
The first game that I finished
this year is Metroid: Zero Mission. It's the GBA remake of the original Metroid
game with enhanced gameplay, new enemies and new areas.
Zero Mission features minimal storytelling limiting itself to short cutscenes (mostly elevator thoughts or things happening while in the elevator, quite literally). The first half of Zero Mission takes place in Zebes where the focus is Samus' mission to stop the Space Pirates from experimenting with the Metroids. She obtains power-ups along the way that help her further explore Zebes or give her Power Suit extra abilities that help in combat. The second half takes place inside the Mothership of the Space Pirates. A good chunk of this half features Samus in stealth mode in her famous Zero Suit, having lost her fully powered Power Suit. She explores the Mothership and later finds a way on the surface of Chozodia where she gets her Power Suit (or Legendary Power Suit) at full power. She subsequently encounters Mecha Ridley near the cockpit of the Mothership. Defeating Mecha Ridley (unsurprisingly) triggers the Mothership's self-destruct countdown as Samus slaughters through waves of space pirates until she finally reaches a shuttle to escape.
Non-linear, free exploration, and action-adventure. Oh how I've missed Metroidvania video games. This actually counts as the first Metroid game that I finished in the Metroid series and it's everything that I wanted it to be in a Metroidvania game. Metroid is very different in terms of theme from the -vania part of the genre but in terms of core mechanic it's the gameplay that I've come to know and love in the IGA-era Castlevania games.
What I love the most about Zero Mission is that the current objective is always based on what new upgrade you get. There's no explicit objective flashed on the screen. It's up to you to remember which part of Zebes is now accessible given a new upgrade. So there's plenty of backtracking during the first playthrough. Upgrades are also used throughout the game, they're not just a one-off specifically to get through one area.
I played the game in normal difficulty and still found it a tad difficult (must be because I'm out of touch, but we'll see). The boss fights were mainly pattern-based and you can only target a specific area to deal damage, I died once or twice during the Mother Brain, Ridley, and Mecha Ridley fights. Even lesser enemies hit hard and it gets stressful once they suddenly swarm on you. But the most thrilling part of the game (in terms of difficulty and threat of dying) is definitely the Zero Suit part. It's kinda disappointing not having the option to switch between the Power Suit and the Zero Suit during the latter portions of the game. Then again why would you settle for a more vulnerable Samus when you have a fully powered Power Suit, right? Nope. ZSS is the best. Deal with it.
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| the time noted here is from my last save before the fighting Ridley and getting the total time after the credits |
The biggest contributing factor to the difficulty is probably the number of Energy Tanks that I have collected. Speedrunners usually have around six to eight energy tanks by the time they faced Ridley. I had five up until the boss fight with Mecha Ridley...and a 48% completion rate in a 4:07:32 completion time. I am a disappointment to completionists and speedrunners around the world.
Anyway, next game on the list is:
I love me some 2D Metroid.
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