EVERY 3D Zelda Game Completed

hey everyone and welcome back to a gigantic super mega episode of the completionist where we don't just beat the games we complete them what you're about to watch is my master compilation of every 3d zelda game i've ever completed here on the show that means you're gonna get ocarina of time 3d majora's mask 3d twilight princess hd windwaker hd and skyward sword hd now i left off breath of the wild specifically because of the fact that breath of the wild in itself that video is 40 plus minutes long and it would make this video about three hours and i didn't want to do that to you guys this was already long enough so if you want to watch the birth of the wild video i'll leave it a link down below but i'm also taking a break this week just because my voice is shot from indian land we raised 120k for charity so thank you for everyone who showed up had a great time with that said enjoy uh my own version of what i think should be in the legend of zelda 3d all-stars pack which we don't have which is not a real thing but it should be enjoy [Music] how do you improve upon perfection is it even possible to do so considering that it's supposed to be you know perfect in any case it's always remarkable when something that seems incapable of getting any better does just that in the best case scenarios audiences learn to appreciate new things about a beloved classic and are sometimes inspired to wonder what else is possible but there's also always an inherent risk in trying to improve upon perfection and nintendo took some of those big risks when they started re-tinkering with one of their most revered titles it's been regarded by many as one of the most perfect games of all time and i'll see for myself that's still the case when i recomplete the legend of zelda ocarina of time [Music] hey everyone and welcome to the completionist new game plus where i am re-completing the first 120 games i ever featured here on my channel my name is gerard khalil an ocarina of time is one of those games that i had plenty of fond memories of long before i ever completed it here on the show really before i was even a true completionist i must have rented it no less than 15 times before i finally even just finished the game and the fact that i had to rent an n64 along with it should demonstrate just how much i was into this game and i'm not alone ocarina of time is a cultural touchstone that was still relevant way back when i first completed it on november 1st 2013. i was psyched to dive into it at the time since it wasn't the old n64 version that i was used to instead i along with all around good guy peanut butter gamer completed the gamecube version which came as a special bonus for those who pre-ordered the legend of zelda the wind waker and that special version of ocarina also came with a remixed edition of the game known as master quest which featured tougher difficulty and remix dungeon layouts that was a lot of zelda for your buck but the more the merrier right well kind of with its slew of side quests and collectibles completing ocarina of time would be time consuming all on its own but when you double that time with the addition of the master quest you end up spending enough time with the game to notice some of its less than perfect qualities ugh i thought i'd never have to catch the hylian loach again but those rough edges were the outliers the vast majority of ocarina of time fully deserved all the praise it regularly receives even when you have to do every last thing there is to do in the game out of all of the many adventures about a young boy dressed in green who saves the world with the power of his courage ocarina of time is unquestionably one of the best which is why i originally gave this game its rating of finish it but there's yet another way to play ocarina which is the version that i'll be covering today back in 2011 nintendo released an updated edition known as ocarina of time 3d for well the 3ds and this remake in my eyes is a game changer in a partnership with grezzo it was completely rebuilt from the ground up with significantly improved visuals snappier controls an updated ui and even some brand new content plus the master quest is included right on the same cartridge which might make this the most definitive version of ocarina of time well maybe normally anyone would welcome improvements to their favorite game with open arms but ocarina is such a sacred cow that even the smallest most subtle alterations could throw the game's balance out of whack rousing the ire of millions of hardcore old-school fans after all if ocarina is already close to perfect then any attempt to improve it might just have the opposite effect well thankfully with ocarina of time 3d that is definitely not the case this ain't your daddy's ocarina and thankfully almost every change that's been made has drastically improved the experience first off just look at this everything looks far better than the original which is obvious but what may not be obvious is how those visual enhancements make me care that much more about this game and its inhabitants all the same beloved locations are still here but the few flat pre-rendered backgrounds from before have been replaced with full polygons making the whole game far more visually consistent as a result not only is hyrule prettier it also feels that much more like a real place the models themselves seem to have received the biggest facelifts and that goes for every character from link himself to all the npcs to all the bad guys who still really like to show their butts good old booty weak spots but more importantly because these characters look less blocky and more natural they're actually more endearing i care more about these characters than i ever have before because they look better than they ever have before alright that sounded kind of shallow all of these graphical upgrades are possible due to ocarina 3ds not being an emulation like many other ports of the game it's been painstakingly rebuilt complete with a few fresh animations all in glorious 30 fps and hey at least it's not 20 fps admittedly there are a few moments of weirdness with these new visuals like the lack of blood in some areas or an overabundance of brightness ruining the atmosphere of other areas for the most part the new looks are a clear step up and that goes double for the new menu system first off the hud has for the most part migrated down to the 3ds's bottom screen look at all that room for beautiful scenery king zora's ass is now completely unobscured just the way the goddesses intended ocarina's menu screen is important to completionists since it's always acted as a kind of de facto completion checklist if there's still space on it you know you've still got more to do and that's still the case but now it's so much easier to use now you don't have to cycle through screen after screen to get the submenu you want you can instantly access your gear your items or the map at the touch of well not really a button the touchscreen the ocarina of time itself which players have to whip out all the time has been given its own permanent home down here too and even though we're technically down a button or two compared to the n64's controller we've got two extra virtual buttons on the 3ds version plus items now have neat descriptions and the layout of the menu can be customized to the player's liking all this stuff is small changes making a big difference to both form and function and it's one of the best benefits to remakes like this one also i was really surprised with how well gyro technology was implemented into ocarina 3ds i know it might sound dubious due to the dreaded motion controls but being able to augment your traditional aiming with slight hand movements feels pretty intuitive honestly the 3ds itself felt incredibly comfortable in my hands while playing this game almost like a little musical instrument onto itself reflecting the musical themes in the game am i am i reaching in any case even attempting to tweak the controls at all was a big risk on the developer's part but i think it paid off nicely but there are plenty of quality of life changes that aren't so risky and that just about everyone can get behind like the faster tech speed thank god and this little cutscene that plays when you first enter the forest temple which shows you the location of that one bastard chest with the kid that i always forgot about and oh man the changes to the water temple look i was never the type of guy to bemoan the cruelty of the water temple it was challenging back in the day and it was a little too easy to get turned around due to some sloppy design here and there but now they fully color coded the three areas where players can alter the water levels the dungeon is still challenging they've just made things clearer without getting in the way of the fun speaking of not getting in the way let's not forget about maybe the best single improvement ocarina 3d brings to the table the fact that your special boots can now be assigned to your item slots previously completing the water temple meant having to pause the game going to your items page equipping the iron boots unpause the game complete the small task and then often do the whole thing all over again to equip the regular boots again only moments later but now these items are treated like actual items which makes this dungeon and the rest of the game for that matter feel far better than before it's yet another subtle change that goes a long way which seems to be the mo for how grezzo handled this project and their airing on the side of caution is probably why we only got one truly brand new feature in this version it's a mode that allows you to challenge any boss you've already defeated at your leisure if you hike all the way back to link's bed you can battle to your heart's content with the time limit and pre-selected item loadouts it's a fun little diversion that only gets better when you re-defeat each boss doing so will unlock boss gauntlet mode which is exactly what it sounds like link's better of nightmares is a great addition that never gets in the way because if you're an ocarina of time purist you can just ignore this mode altogether and i have to admit that i'm sometimes one of those people often i advocate for not chanting beloved classics lest we risk another lucas situation but this game is a testament to the fact that even the most revered classics should sometimes be disassembled and put back together again because you just might end up improving them but make no mistake this game is mostly the same old ocarina of time it still tests players with traveling back and forth across the hyrule field hub conquering dungeon after dungeon until you stab a dude in the head and the side quests are still there from the good to not so good alright look i'm all about the side missions that have significant rewards behind them like the quest for the big goron sword every kid felt like they could take on the world when they swung around that big daddy and getting rewarded with the absolute power of nothingness aka the bottles was always totally worth it you can never get enough bottles man then there's the heart pieces i know they're a critical part of zelda history and they actually provide some sense of character progression but to be honest sometimes they just don't feel like they're worth the trouble like 75 of the time seeing a brand new heart added to your life bar feels dope but most of the time when you're only part of the way there it just feels like you've completed a mission or explored your heart out for what feels like nothing i'm not suggesting they should have attempted to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the heart pieces they shouldn't have when you have to collect every single heart piece in the game twice you become painfully aware of just how useless some of those last extra hearts end up feeling speaking of feeling useless meet the golden sculptures they're still hidden all over the place there are still a ton of them and the motivation for finding them all still dries up prematurely sure the creepy spider family periodically rewards you for killing them but what you get isn't that exciting in the end and at a certain point they just stop giving you things until you kill the very last sculpture not to mention how many of the golden sculpulas are in different spots in the master quest yeah that keeps things fresher but it also adds a few more hours onto this completion journey let me make it clear that i don't dislike hunting for heart pieces and sculptures i just wish the rewards for collecting all of them were better paced and that i could never have to look at these faces ever again but there's just no saving the fishing nope it couldn't be done in fact i'm hard pressed to think of any game with a fishing mini game that i actually find fun but this one right here takes the cake when it comes to lack of fun you better believe that you still gotta hook the elusive hylian loach and it's just as much of a slog as it always has been it's somewhat improved thanks to the prettier fishing area but it's the exact opposite of what i want to be doing in an adventure game on the 3ds last time i completed ocarina of time fishing for the loach was easily my least favorite part of the completion process and some things never change it's also worth noting that once again getting these loaches does absolutely nothing it's just pure bragging rights i do have some new thoughts on the master quest though first off you have to unlock it this time around by beating the regular version of the game but in addition to the remix dungeons and double damage for link the entire game is now mirror flipped it's kind of weird but anything to make it distinct from the original version is a welcomed change but here's the thing while the master quest has always been considered more challenging than its counterpart i'm now finding that some of its puzzles and dungeon designs are straight up inferior to the original ocarinas like this room right here where the only way to get out of it is to notice that small almost imperceptible interactable sticking out of the wall and then boomeranging it to unlock the door that's not a challenging twist in the familiar that's just annoying and that's the kind of thing that's all over this master quest the mode is a great idea and it's still a great time but it's become painfully obvious about how meticulously designed the original dungeons were and messing with them in any way is gonna be tough to balance maybe i'm just noticing this stuff now because i'm now actually streaming these games while completing them live in front of people having to interact with people while i play forces me to think about and voice my opinions on these games way more which eventually gets me to the point where i can admit that rooms like this suck man but for the most part the master quest feels like a nice little hard mode for those who want something extra after all completing ocarina of time doesn't take multiple playthroughs or anything and besides link's nighttime betty by boss mode in both versions there are no significant extra modes to take care of master quest is a welcome feature but it also highlights just how much better the original is and ocarina's quality has been apparent since day one and i'm starting to realize that that may be because deep down this game is all about growing up which is something we all can relate to obviously link grows up it's the narrative and mechanical crux of the whole game and i love that fourth dimensional gameplay it's always dope to see how link's actions in the past affect the gameplay in the future but i think that the themes of maturity and taking on responsibility run throughout the rest of the game too link accepts the immense responsibility of saving the kingdom and has to grow in every sense of the word to set things right zelda is forced to grow into someone that she kind of never intended to just in order to survive even side characters like princess rudo grow from entitled brats into selfless saviors even the freakishly large man-children carpenters learn to take their job seriously but ocarina of time also represents a moment in history when gaming kinda grew up too the transition to polygons was still very recent at the time and to many this game was their first foray into an open world 3d adventure much like an actual person ocarina of time takes the wisdom and the lessons from its past namely all of its influences from a link to the past and utilizes them to become something new this game laid the groundwork for so many things to follow and once it hit shelves nothing was ever really the same again it changed how we think of video games which means that we too grew up for many this game was the moment in which they stepped out of their 2d side-scrolling comfort zone and tried something new for the first time and most of those who did were undoubtedly inspired or otherwise changed by it by today's standards ocarina of time might seem pretty small in fact it seems smaller to me every time i pick it up i swear this field used to be bigger but i guess that's just evidence of me broadening my horizons i've grown up and so have many of you i'm glad that ocarina of time 3d exists so we can easily relive our past and share this important memory in our history with those who haven't quite grown up yet [Music] man this would have been the perfect time to introduce some new unlockables to ocarina of time the only thing you really unlock is the master quest but how nice would it have been to earn some cool artwork or pieces of music along the way then maybe those last sculptures wouldn't have felt so tedious at least give me something for hunting down that damn eel again but no there's no bonuses to see here folks but far be it from me to criticize ocarina of time for not providing even more cool stuff on top of all the other cool things that it already brings to the table especially with all the improvements made in this 3d version may have taken a long time to track down every collectible and complete every quest in both versions and i can't lie i still love this game when i recompleted the legend of zelda ocarina of time there were 9 deaths look i don't remember how many times i died the first time i completed this thing back in 2013 but i know it couldn't have been less than this i mean i've only gotten better at beating games i hope 18 full dungeons completed they were great before and i think i like them even better now what with breath of the wild and its non-traditional somewhat contentious dungeons fresh in my mind the dungeons are the best part about any zelda game 73 heart pieces collected just like the first time around these felt great to collect about one quarter of the time 200 golden scotchless lane as my previous completion the gap between 50th and 100 is excruciating and even the endless rupees you get as a reward for killing the last one doesn't make up for it 77 hours of total play time and zero times i have to catch that damn loach ever again ever in my life for real this time until i redo majora's mask and majora's mask 3d damn it ocarina of time is one of the greatest games of all time and this edition makes it even better which makes this the definitive way to play the game in my opinion completing it is still a great time but it also takes time due to all the collectibles and the second playthrough on master quest mode i'd recommend completing it if it weren't for the lack of rewards for all of your efforts so with that in mind guys i give the legend of zelda ocarina of time 3ds my completionist rating of finish it finish it [Music] you've probably heard this before chopin's funeral march for nearly two centuries it has been a musical archetype evoking images of solemn processions gothic structures and black guard however it's only a fragment of chopin's sonata number two despite facing his own mortality chopin complimented his death centered masterpiece with moments like this conveying hope contentment a life well lived take the first familiar sound by on its own and you have what is probably now considered a cartoonish level of despair but listen to the sonata as a whole and you get a silver lining intertwined with rifts as odd as life itself now the real question is what does all this have to do with the legend of zelda majora's mask everything [Music] hey listen we know ocarina of time as the groundbreaking success that brought the legend of zelda series into the third dimension it was gorgeous for its time its lock on combat was a game changer and it gave its cast of characters an emotional depth unseen in previous titles after link's awakening zelda fans had to wait five whole years for the next installment and in 1998 we finally got the 3d game of our dreams majora's mask had to follow that this was that game that built upon the success of its older brother while simultaneously creating its own identity all within the incredible time constraint of one year how was nintendo able to deliver on this herculean task they must have rebuilt it bigger stronger more enemies more dungeons more weapons more grand expanses of open world to explore and at the end of it all a showdown with ganon unlike the land of hyrule had ever seen before it right well no nintendo wisely recognized their time constraint instead of making the game bigger they balled up ocarina's design and rolled it down an unsettling rabbit hole majora's mask is one of the few direct sequels to a zelda game as is tradition you take on the role of a young green clad warrior named link but specifically you're the same link that recently saved hyrule in ocarina of time while in search of his famously annoying fairy companion link encounters skullkid who is in possession of the almighty majora's mask or you might say the mask is in possession of him skull kid has summoned the moon to descend and obliterate the land of termina in three days link must free the giant guardians of tremina in order to stop the moon from falling and then separate skull kid from the malicious majorist mask the game handles similarly to ocarina in terms of combat and exploration you get similar gear like swords shields bombs and bows but you also get an array of new abilities thanks to the masks you collect some have a very specific use while others full-on transform link to a different race allowing him more variety in terms of fighting and puzzle solving furthermore the various masks dictate how the inhabitants of termina respond to link contributing to the game's emphasis on interpersonal relationships but perhaps even more notable than the masks is the progression of time over a three-day cycle ending with tremendous demise thankfully one of the many songs link has in his repertoire can turn back time and start this cycle all over again now look majora's mask is my favorite 3d zelda game of all time yes brother the wild is great yes i love twilight princess and yes skyward sword is a zelda game but for me it's all about the mask i don't deny that the circumstances surrounding my first playthrough back in the fourth grade are what envelops this game in warm nostalgia for me my older brother and i don't share many interests but he's the one that took me to pick up that sweet golden n64 cartridge of majora's mask and the two of us spent every hour we could together getting lost in link's oddest adventure yet couple this nostalgia with the fact that majora's mask checks so many boxes for what i consider a game to be great and it's no surprise that i gotta complete it for my video for the original version i went so far to say that completing it was the only way to feel like i had actually beaten it filling off those side quests and obtaining that special completion bonus i'll get to that later is a must for me because it adds so much to the gameplay and to the story and that's just how i felt about the original version majora's mask 3ds was by and large an improvement so it's even less surprising that i gave it a completed as well [Music] now i've been around long enough to experience the double-edged sword of remakes and remasters some surpassed all expectations while some left me wondering why who why having completed both the original and 3ds versions of majora's mask multiple times at this point comparing the two is pretty effortless especially since i tackled both back to back from my recent live streams for new game plus while i love them both one pulls ahead as the clear front runner making me wonder if i'll ever revisit the other again i can say with confidence that the 3ds release of majora's mask is the superior experience in my opinion by just a little bit at a glance it seems very much like the same game as the original but with the obvious benefit of being cleaner more vibrant and overall a nicer look to it but i'm playing both versions to completion i found far more resounding reasons as to why i'd recommend the 3ds version to those both familiar and unfamiliar with majora's mask exhibit a maps appearing on the 3ds as a second screen is useful beyond measure as a kid i remember getting turned around time and time again especially in the great bay temple this happened the less with subsequent playthroughs of the original version but even if i had played it again right now i know i would still lose my sense of direction in comparison the first time i experienced the second screen map of the 3ds i was amazed by the efficiency of how i was able to navigate i felt like i was now playing areas like the great bay temple the way they were meant to be played with more emphasis on combat and puzzles and less on trying to memorize my surroundings and with my recent 3ds playthrough i knew where i was going 100 of the time easier navigation made this recent 3ds playthrough by far the speediest treasure chest locations were easier to remember and collecting hidden fairies more quickly meant i was able to sooner receive upgrades like enhanced defense and a super spin attack and it's not like i played the original majora's mask and needed the game to be easier it's just that adding things like this second screen map smoothed out the roughness of the original making the remaster a superior streamlight experience speaking of streamlined more control over the progression of time on the 3ds was a feature that i relished in even more this time around with my recent back to back playthrough of both versions i was unwittingly speedrunning much of them due to being so familiar with majora's mask however it was 3d's added adjustment of time control that was a huge aid in zipping through that version in the original you can use the song of double time to jump forward to either 6am or 6pm forcing you to wait for any specific events occurring between those hours if i needed to be at a specific location to meet a character at let's say 5 pm in order to complete one of the many bomber notebook side quests then i would need to risk jumping to another task and hopefully return in time or i would sit around and do nothing until 5 pm rolled around so when i first played the 3ds remaster i immediately fell in love with being able to jump to a specific hour in order to be where i needed to be at a much more efficient time and now having played it again i know i will never want to return the original's time controls ever again now i do want to point out the last time i played the original version of majora's mask it was on that zelda gamecube collection pack and the reason why i played it on the collection was because i was doing a collection overview over the course of 10 episodes i used to do that every 10 episodes i would take one game from a collection pack and talk about it but knowing that now and looking back i made a huge mistake as the rom that was ported to the gamecube collection was filled with tons of game breaking bugs which only made my playthrough majora 3d so much sweeter this time around i played the original rom on the nintendo wii u and had no issues at all so my experiences on both versions were virtually great one of the more fascinating things about the 3ds remake is that once again grezzo the team behind the 3ds version of ocarina of time did this remake as well but there was a weird caveat here in the ocarina of 3ds port the devs left the bugs in the original game in that version so the fans could have a faithful one-to-one experience while also working hard to improve the experiences made from the past with majora's mask 3ds they took out all the bugs and glitches but because the internet is the internet i learned and taught myself several new glitches and bugs throughout my playthroughs that once again added to my own little fun journey of replaying this masterpiece but with the vast highways leading me back to the 3ds version there were some minor exceptions that had me wishing they hadn't reinvented the wheel here when link transforms into a goron it's fun as hell his spinning attack turns link into a rolling ball of destruction and makes taking down the god boss a grand all time is easily the best thing about being a goron and unfortunately it isn't satisfying on the 3ds version why because the 3ds controls are hypersensitive with the analog stick and if you're not facing the exact direction you need to be facing you can easily roll past an enemy or off of a cliff i found it way easier to correct any mistakes on the virtual console controller while i found myself constantly over correcting with the 3ds controls and as i said earlier i had more of a speed running itch gnawing at me this time around and i couldn't always scratch it i had to be more controlled and patient especially when rolling around the snow head temple just wanted to roll man but falling off one of these precipices often led to a long climb up another major change that i'll highlight is the twin mold boss and the use of the giant's mask after one snake is defeated you have the opportunity to use the giant's mask to destroy the other making the fight a hell of a lot easier now in the original version the mask drains link's magic and when it's depleted you're back to fighting a normal size on the 3ds however link remains a big bad giant and can throttle the twin mold to the bitter end with jabs and uppercuts and spinning it by the tail now admittedly it's pretty cool on paper when applied however i found that i'm just bad at it finding the 3ds version of the twin mold was harder for me than it had ever been on the original game and unfortunately that carried over in my recent back-to-back playthroughs of both versions i always managed to struggle with the quick time events making this battle well not so quick time as cool as it is to see link bare knuckle a snake i got more enjoyment out of returning to normal size and letting my sword do the punching that's more my speed another big gripe that i have with majora 3d is the swimming now most people say that swimming sucks in both games and i do agree and i think in the 3d version the swimming is overall a bit better however the biggest problem i have with 3d version is the fact that you cannot swim quickly without using the special blue aura boost that drains your meter i wish it was a toggle but it's not this fundamentally led me to either constantly filling up my magic meter all the time or using an infinite magic potion just to ensure that i would never run out of meter it's kind of frustrating and what's this oh that's right it can't be oh my lord folks here it is nintendo heard your cries and they answered in kind i forgot that majora's mask 3ds added a brand new mini fishing game now here's the thing you all know this maybe you don't but i'll be honest i don't care about fishing it does nothing for me in fact as a completionist all it does is add to the list of things i need to do and getting every type of fish can literally take hours some can only be caught at certain times of certain days and even then you have to rely on pretty unforgiving rng to get the rare ones for your collection and i get it there's many of you out there that are totally stoked for this type of stuff and i'm happy for you but for me it's just more work perhaps it'd be different if catching every fish granted a super cool item a new mask a powerful weapon or even i don't know a cut scene of link with all of his fish at a kick-ass grill there's not it's just fish it'll also be known that while i did catch every fish the game does not reward you for catching every fish now if it sounds like i'm griping about a few specs in the super tasty big gulp of orange crush yeah you're right since so many things were done right and correcting the flaws of the game that simply had lower expectations at the time i couldn't help but find it jarring when the 3ds introduced new flaws in exchange however these flaws pale in comparison to the vast improvements made on the re-release if you're a newcomer to this game and have nothing to compare it to you probably won't even see these new flaws as flaws please trust me when i say that the double-edged sword of remake swung in our favor this time around and makes majora's mask 3ds a resounding improvement on the original now maybe you don't have a 3ds or maybe your only copy of the game is the old-school gold colored n64 cartridge or maybe you have to deal with the buggy gamecube version like i did for my first playthrough well don't worry even though the original version suffers from limitations of its time you're still going to have an incredibly unique experience like i did when i was a kid check out almost any review or any forum talking about majora's mask and you're bound to hear the same words repeated over and over again weird odd strange dark macabre depressing death toilet hand but what i found to be even more pervasive is that for every somber moment this game delivers there's an element of hope and link is that hope i touched on this on my original video but a little more broadly since i teamed up with my man sunder at the time we agreed to go heavier on the game's overarching story and a few of the theories within playing majora's mask this time around i found myself drawn more into the interpersonal relationships amongst the people of termina and how link's involvement affects them let's start by saying that there are some odd ducks amongst the citizens of termina many of them are alternate versions of the hyruleans from ocarina of time but all in all overflowing with personality i mean tingle why not as odd as they may be however they all have habits that need to be studied to complete the bomber's notebook given to you by a group of kids hell bent on just helping folks out kind of a weird thing by talking to the inhabitants of termina and getting to know them you find out that many of them are just simply going through some i'd love to know what made the developers decide to make these interactions a core part of the game boys i love all these ideas keep them coming freypay what do you got okay you know how link uses bombs to blow up yeah what if goron link uses bigger bombs to blow bigger i love it keep it coming what do you got okay okay okay what if dq link uses these holes to fly up in the air and get cool stuff like heart containers or whatnot good stuff good stuff i love this i love this pat what are you thinking what if link was like was like really there for someone like at the exact moment they needed him to be there ah hmm could he have a bomb sure yeah with all the stress loss and depression that everyone in termina is going through your goal is to be there for them take coffee and andrew for example these two are betrothed to one another but doubts and insecurities sink in from both sides by learning their habits link has to jump through numerous hoops in order to pass along the correct information to the correct people and ultimately get these two to overcome their fears and express their very real love for each other all while being just hours away from certain death through link they realize that a union however brief is more valuable than dying alone let me repeat that one more time they realize that a union however brief is more valuable than dying alone you know after defeating ganon not that long ago i did not see link having to be in this position fulfillment of this quest rewards link with the couple's mask one of many required to exchange for something special now allow me to bring things back to tinkle yes we all know tingle is a weird thing but a big part of my heart is reserved for him he will forever be a part of me i am tinkle this little guy is 35 years old and his sole desire is to desperately find a fairy friend his father is tired of seeing a man his age acting like a child and tinkle is aware of the disappointment he's caused through helping link tingle regains a sense of purpose and link serves as the link for opening communication between the two once again link brings a glimmer of hope into a relationship that was on the verge of falling apart i love you tingle but link's altruism isn't limited to healing relationships he even serves as a grief counselor to azoro overwhelmed with loss when lulu's eggs go missing her lover macau seeks them out only to wash up wounded on a beach and later dies now poor lulu's children are gone her lover is dead and 4th grade gerard is checking his n64 game cartridge wondering this is ready to eat for everyone right well it was time for me to grow up and become lulu's champion i reunited her with her seven babies and helped her heal by embodying the spirit of her dead lover when playing this game again as an adult for this show i realized that link arguably doesn't belong in this world yet without his interferences lulu wouldn't have gone from a spiraling depression to a spiritual jam session yes her grief would never fully go away but link gave lulu that spark of hope she needed to continue a fulfilling life as for the other characters i could spend an hour talking about their sorrows and how link leads them out of the darkness but i'd like to quickly shine a light on something that doesn't get as much attention the song of healing it's a tool linked repeatedly used to restore hope across termina one thing i wanted as a kid even when initially completing majora's mask for the show was why did it sound so somber why did a song that eased the restless spirit of a grand warrior or bring a tormented half-mummified father back to his daughter elicit such a dark tranquility well now that i've revisited the game i think i have that answer hope is the form of healing that pulls the people of majora's mask out of despair the acts of service link performs for absolute strangers is personified by the song of healing while hope and healing is often seen as something warm and cheerful it cannot exist unless it comes out of some form of pain or sorrow hope and sadness are two sides of the same coin the yin and yang of existence and i think i just proved that nintendo hit the nail on the head way before pixar did like chopin's funeral march the song of healing reflects a never-ending cycle of hope and sadness the two are inevitable yet comfort lies in being there for each other through both conditions so for completing legend of zelda majora's mask rewards mainly come from you doing two things finding every stray fairy in each of the game's locations and receiving every single mask finding every hidden fairy in an area and returning them to their respective great fairy fountains yields different rewards depending on the area you get things like improved defense for a great fairy sword which is the most powerful weapon in the game now they actually did a reward switch up between the game's two versions in the original the woodfall temple fairies rewards you with a spin attack and the snowfall temple fairies reward you with a larger magic meter for the 3ds version they flipped it and i felt from the very first time i played the 3ds version that this was a very great move it gave me the option to have that improved magic meter while playing through snowhead mountain which meant way more fun rolling around as a big bad goron and when recently playing the 3ds on the heels of the original the benefit of having a larger magic supply sooner was even more obvious as for the trouble it took me to find all the fairies doing so has become a significant breeze over time i remember endlessly searching for these fluttering sprites as a kid with no interest but maybe that's why the locations are nestled well in my memory i procured most of them easily in my original completionist playthrough and i was able to easily find the stragglers again and again that map on the 3ds made things even easier still and since my back-to-back playthrough of both versions was live streamed the very few fairies that i did overlook were immediately called out by the numerous fans who live and breathe this game majora's mask's coolest reward however comes from obtaining every mask and exchanging them with majora kid near the end of the game doing this yields the super awesome badass looking fierce deity mask i get excited every time i get this bad boy and no matter what version i'm playing it's no different this mask turns the link into a souped-up adult version of himself and makes fighting bosses ridiculously easy i love the game's overall gameplay but being able to stomp on the enemies as this all-powerful version of myself is so satisfying because of the trials i went through to get it i felt like i earned it i feel as though i have grown up i could take on the world but beyond that what you get is not much a small red seal appears in the bomber's notebook when you complete it on the 3ds that's a nice little confirmation that hey that's it i can't only ask for more though since finishing each side quest already rewards link with something like a heart fragment or a mask it would have been damn nice to get something for catching every single fish in the game especially since that takes so damn long but otherwise there's nothing new and i am okay with that i will always be okay with that i go into this game knowing that the real treasures are the friendships i made along the way and i will stone cold stunner anyone who disagrees with that sentiment majora's mask is a rare game for me where completing and finishing are one of the same and i will never not play it without completing it in my journey of re-completing legend of zelda majora's mask and majora's mask 3d there were 25 hours played straight through with the short break between the games zero deaths in the original version in about three in the 3d version i'm a fierce deity baby come at me bro 48 masked proceeds twice culminating in a train for the fierce duty mass 26 ocarina songs learned ranging from manipulating time to making a scarecrow appear 40 entries made in the bombers notebook 13 bottles collected six in the original and seven on the 3ds and two khalil brothers who in 1998 had their minds blown by a twisted ass zelda game i never would have dreamt as a kid passing the controller back and forth to my big brother that i would be one day talking to hundreds of thousands of people about the five times i completed majora's mask i never would have dreamt that the game would be remastered into something even better than i was used to experiencing at the time and now looking back on those five playthroughs i can honestly see how this game helped mold me into the person i am today nintendo went far out on a limb by abandoning a cotton dry good versus evil narrative to give us a weird experience that somehow managed to get more real than any other zelda game in my eyes now there are intricacies to this game that maybe i didn't fully understand as a kid but like a fine piece of classical music i was able to appreciate it more over time but that can only be done by going the extra mile to helping everyone in the game that you can and no amount of fishing and catching will ever take away my enjoyment from doing just that so with that in my guys i give the legend of zelda a majora's mask and majora's mask 3d its completionist rating of completed complete [Music] the legend of zelda series is well known for reinventing itself in nearly every entry the core story almost always contains similar elements a young hero must heed the call to action and stop evil from conquering the land by using the power of the triforce and the master sword and players keep coming back for fresh gameplay clever puzzles and incredible presentation it's not a stretch to say that almost everyone loves zelda games but the wind waker is an incredibly divisive game the art direction is striking but at the time of the original release many players reacted negatively to the cel-shaded graphics wind waker hd is the perfect opportunity to revisit and see if modern tweaks help cement this game as classic or something best lost as a relic of its time let's see which way the wind blows when i complete the legend of zelda wind waker hd hey everyone and welcome back to another brand new episode of the completionist the legend of zelda the wind waker is actually not only one of the fews of the games that i don't know inside now but it's literally one that i've never played that's right i have never played wind waker before so today guys i am so hype i am so ready yes [Music] the original wind waker was a game that had some pretty big iron boots to fill ocarina of time was and still is regarded as one of the best zelda games ever and majora's mask used ocarina's engine to create a unique and melancholy adventure wind waker the first zelda game for the gamecube had perhaps unreasonable expectations to live up to nintendo however did what they do best do their own thing one thing you can say about the big n ain't nobody telling them what to do in the early 2000s there was a tech demo for the gamecube that debuted at space world looking back it isn't particularly striking but at the time fans were floored at the footage of ganondorf and link dueling and became convinced that the next zelda would be moody and dark featuring a grown-up protagonist because everyone knows that if something is moody and dark it's mature nope not today what we wound up with instead was a zelda game with a visual style unlike any other wind waker looks like a gorgeous cartoon and almost every aspect of its gameplay is derived from the colorful vibrant look just goes to show that sometimes defying expectations can lead to amazing results which is why i'm dropping everything and being a stowaway that's right i'm finally going to run away and join a pirate crew while some game critics at the time of release didn't love the stylistic choices that asianuma chose for the wind waker the game has since been heralded as one of the gamecube's best it certainly aged beautifully better than many games from that same era the hd version pops even more than the original now if there was only a way to hd myself [Applause] [Music] it's weird even before playing wind waker i felt like i knew the characters already i've been playing a ton of hyrule warriors ever since my epic train ride up to nintendo in seattle because of the wind waker quests i'm familiar with tetra and medley yes it's time to appreciate these characters in their source material wind waker is just this side of an open world game the closest the series had come before 2017's breath of the wild the original wind waker caught some flack after release for having pacing issues but wind waker hd apparently takes several steps to remedy that which should help me complete this game in a more reasonable fashion players have a ton of freedom in this waterlogged world and i am super excited to sail the seas and live out my blackbeard fantasies yar first up i'll have to beat the game i'll take link through the waves of the great sea and over to wherever ganondorf is hiding there are the usual macguffins in this game but instead of medallions sacred instruments or masks i'll be finding three goddess pearls and of course triforce shards so i'll gather up all the shiny bits and confront everybody's favorite redheaded daddy i feel like ganondorf has a prime opportunity in this game to take a freaking vacation he's in hyrule's version of hawaii stop plotting world domination and work on a tan my dude another thing i'll have to do is chart my progress literally with charts one thing this game is supposed to do very well is provide a sense of seafaring adventure i'll have to fill out every square of the map by giving bait to fish who will then draw on my chart totally normal but with my cartography skills fully weaponized there's nothing i won't be able to navigate by the end of the game next i'll explore the second quest which is basically a new game plus like mode and is available after completing the main story once there are supposed to be a couple of fun differences when you play the game through a second time and due to my obsessive nature you just know i've gotta rock my blue pajamas like the time i forgot to change before i came to the office every member of my crew is still scarred and lastly through all of this i'll be completing the main optional collectible task in the game filling out the nintendo gallery i'll be using the pikto box to take photos of practically every character and enemy in the game and exchanging those for photos for figurines this is supposed to be a pretty time consuming task in the original game but as long as my camera hands remain steady i'll be able to snag all these no problemo selfie time since i've played a couple of zelda games before this one i have a good idea of what to expect for full completion heart containers magic meter upgrades capacity upgrades for my wallet arrows bombs and whatever the equivalent of a deco nut is in this game i know there will be at least one extremely extravagant fetch quest leading to an exotic item and of course i'll have to learn how to use a musical instrument in this case i'll be conducting up a storm with the wind waker like i'm gustavo dudamel he's basically like the elvis of conductors or like drake who's up with the kids nowadays i don't know zelda games are usually a pleasure to complete because of how cohesive the entire experience is a zelda game is like eating a burrito each individual ingredient contributes to the whole resulting in a satisfying meal that eventually leads to the bathroom and hey since i'm playing this on wii u this even makes more sense [Music] wind waker is a smart reinvigoration of zelda games from plot to presentation while many beats and mechanics are obviously drawn from older games in the series wind waker takes the franchise in a new direction with a bold and uncompromising visual style that is aged like fine wine the game takes a lot of chances and most of them pay off with any rough edges from the original game sanded down into a more manageable form in the hd remake it is link's birthday he's officially going to come of age just as he's getting ready to celebrate a giant bird being chased by a pirate ship drops a woman named tetra into the nearby forest and link decides to rescue her tetra is saved but then the bird captures link's sister errol and flies off with her after a little encouragement tetra agrees to help link sail off to rescue his family member and then the adventure begins disturbingly this is almost exactly what happened during my 16th birthday party right down to the giant bird despite the cartoony visuals the plot is really engaging and interesting for people who are hardcore into zelda lore there are tons of easter eggs and nods to other games in the series wind waker presents a world that seems totally different from other zelda games but about halfway through the game a big twist helps the player realize that they're more connected to hyrule's history than they could have ever imagined it's kind of like digging through your old glove compartment and finding captain falcon's old registration proving that you're driving his old car more than most zelda games wind waker embraces an adventuring aesthetic link can't trudge across the land on foot so he learns everything he needs to know about being a sailor well almost everything the tone of this game bleeds excitement and opportunity there's always a sense of excitement to see what new island is going to appear over the horizon the sound team knocks it out of the park and the composers deserve all the sucking treasure that i can haul up for them the music feels truly timeless and even changes depending on where link is and what the weather looks like kudos character animations in the wind waker are incredibly lively characters often look and act larger than life but it fits perfectly with the tone of the game just look at the way link's eyes do that shifty thing yeah i know simpsons did it first but it's great to see it in action here i love the character models in this game once again everything is inspired by the scene there are both goblin pirates who carry telescopes around with them and traders who wear bandanas to stay comfy in the hot sun ganondorf design in this game is iconic he looks regal yet powerful sinister but also stylish as hell but nothing can beat my two favorite character models snot kid and fat little pigs that roam around outside island outrageously cute the sound effects and little voice blurbs are pure zelda cute and to the point i particularly love all the fish men who appear when you feed them bait in each new section of the map the way they swim up and say shmay has become pretty much something i say on the daily yo did you just say fish min you know it's all the same guy right there's not a whole race of these dudes or anything what are you talking about look at a wiki it's a bunch of different ones and you're crazy there's one fish because i completed wind waker hd and not the original release i feel it's important to point out a couple of things that are different in the presentation while both games use cell shooting techniques wind waker hd adds more lighting effects to the package this manifests as more surreal in some areas almost resulting in a washed out painterly look wind waker hd also has native 1080p resolution for those who are into getting the most out of their living room setups the original game ran at 480p and still looks great but the developers really stepped it up for the remaster since wind waker hd was released 10 years after the original gamecube version clearly they had some time to tinker with how they wanted things to look and run visuals of this game are absolutely the first thing people will notice it can be polarizing and the way wind waker looks definitely put me off the first time i heard about the game it's probably why i avoided playing it for so long once you bind to the art style though the rest of the game unfolds beautifully and is a sumptuous feast for the senses you might even say the visuals blow me away what no one's gonna call me on making a dumb wind joke huh it's one fish the same one every time [Music] with its focus on sea exploration some smart changes to combat the return of a few favorite zelda tools and the addition of several new ones wind waker sets itself apart from previous zeldas while laying the groundwork for future zelda's down the line wind waker captures what makes zelda great while demonstrating that change is necessary for a long-running franchise to survive link spends boatloads of this game sailing around on his little ship the king of red lions while the great scene might seem intimidating navigation isn't all that hard you don't have to learn the differences between port and starboard or any other complex nautical terms i mean i did because my dream job is to one day captain a ship which i will name the whiskered walrus or maybe the bearded maiden but for the rest of you it's not necessary unless you want to join my crew learning how to cut the sail at the right time so that the ship floats just so over the sunken treasure or blasting enemies with the cannon at the right trajectory takes practice and i had a great time getting that feel down it's rad when you hit the wind right and get a burst of speed the sailing feels good just like i knew it should more than a lot of zelda games wind waker is deeply relaxing there's a built-in cool down between areas since you have to chart your courses and sail to the next island this natural buffer really got me into the head of a wayward seafaring adventurer and i appreciated that instead of just hauling off to the next big thing i had to take a little break and observe my surroundings just another notch in zelda's column of how it trained us all to be better people you know when the games aren't teaching us to break into others homes and destroy their pots of course all that sailing doesn't mean anything if you don't have a destination over the horizon fortunately wind waker has plenty to do in that regard every island has something to do on it and of course the biggest destinations are the dungeons there is an anatomy to the traditional zelda dungeon find a way in discover the unique dungeon item use that item to smack the boss around and reap the rewards while dungeon exploration may seem like old news for zelda a lot of the fun is getting there at all first link must determine which compass direction the island with the dungeon on it lies then he's got to hop in his boat change the direction of the wind and sail his way there the specific shine hard in wind waker yes there's a hook shot in this game but this one fits over link's hand like a gauntlet sure there's an impossibly large hammer but it's got a big ass spooky skull attached to the thinnest handle imaginable even the design of the master sword in this game is sweet once it's fully powered up it crackles with energy and the hilt snaps open like my wallet when girl scout cookies are on sale i love the new items in this game the deku leaf and grappling hook more than earn their places as some of link's top items both can be used in and out of combat to make exploration easier and help link get even closer to being the james bond of hyrule the items in this game to me really show how nintendo was angling for an open world zelda game for years until technology could catch up with what they were aiming for since exploration is a key part of the zelda experience seeing which items are helpful outside of combat can make all the difference wind waker's tools and items are awesome even if link is kind of the bag man of the great sea seriously you've got the bait bag spoils bag and delivery bag to contend with throughout your adventure the bait bag is great for luring birds and fish to do your bidding and the spoils bag lets link stock up items dropped from enemies like delicious jellies to make potions wind waker introduced the parry technique a total game changer in the combat of the zelda universe while targeting an enemy if you press a button just to the right time before they attack link will roll past and slash them in the back this is essential for many of the tougher fights in the game against dark nuts and mobilins cut those beefy doggos out of their armor and let them have it today in stuff that is easy to forget about but kind of amazing if you think about it did you know that the wii u has an internal gyroscope while it's a key feature in a few wii u exclusives like star fox zero it's more of a preference thing for games that were ports like wind waker hd while the hd version supports gyroscopic aiming for the bow telescope and other items it wasn't my favorite way to play the game and i turned it off pretty quickly when the original wind waker came out some critics accused anuma and team of padding out the length of the game with the sailing rather than having more fleshed out dungeons however i think that what's there is great and there are even some more optional areas to explore for extra rewards there's even a grueling combat gauntlet in the form of the savage labyrinth 50 floors of monsters one link utter devastation this sunday sunday sunday i feel like the people who bounced off this game when it first came out because of the art style like i did really missed out the dungeons are smart and clever and incorporate many new elements there's even a couple of new areas that basically require link to use the buddy system medley and macar are both adorable and useful helping link navigate through areas with the power of flight it's just so nice to have friends you might say i get by with a little help from them ultimately making it through the main game wasn't too difficult for me maybe because i played so many zeldas that i basically have the triforce engraved on the back of my hand the main quest in this game didn't give me a lot of grief the attention to detail is what makes it fun like looking at a beautiful painting and seeing all the tiny little brush strokes for the record i am banned from museums for standing inches from the canvas shouting the details magnificent the side quests and mini-games that maximize link's inventory are memorable and unique i'll always think back to how fun it was to train with orca and fulfill his frankly ridiculous requirements to get the master rank you want a thousand hits i'll give you a thousand hits the old fisherman wind waker hd also streamlines a bunch of the clunkier stuff from the original release charting out the entire map is a breeze and yeah that is a wind joke the addition of the swift sail in the hd remaster makes getting around the great c way easier by using this new item link's sailing speed is doubled and he doesn't have to pause and change the direction of the wind every few minutes the swift sail saves serious seconds so she can sell more seashells by the seashore sally interestingly hero mode has an on off toggle from the start in the hd version of wind waker in hero mode hearts don't drop in the wild making the game significantly more difficult since i didn't have to unlock it by beating the game the first time around i could experiment with it at my leisure and interestingly the second quest isn't any harder than the original game just let link run around in his pjs the entire time there is a great lore bonus in the second quest however some of the dialogue that was previously written in ancient hillian is translated to english when you play through it again leading to some actual pretty big spoilers must be something about those pajamas links suddenly can understand everything around him more than he ever could before completing the nintendo gallery side quest took some time but it's much easier to do in the hd version to complete this quest link must use the piktobox item to snap a picture of nearly every character and enemy in the game and once he has those pictures he must show those pictures to karloff a figurine maker then he must wait a day for carlos to create a figurine pre-hd link could only submit one photo per day and can only carry three pictures at a time until the deluxe picture box was unlocked fortunately the hd version gives link access to the deluxe pictobox right out the gate which holds 12 pictures instead of three and gives the player a notification if the picture is useful to turn into a figurine another hd improvement is that karloff can make 12 figurines per day instead of just one way more efficient and much less time consuming some remasters make a point to stuff an old game with a ton of new content but this i really appreciate this streamlining finally collecting every figurine nets you one final figurine link sailing on the king of red lions like the cover art for the game if you read the description for this figurine it says that link is now master of the nintendo gallery so yay me there's another smart move nintendo made in this remaster the end game triforce collection quest in the gamecube wind waker link had to find the fragmented pieces of the triforce of courage scattered throughout the land before he could confront ganondorf to do so he had to find special corresponding charts to read the charts link had to bring them to tingle to then have them translated jesus so many steps and anything involving extended tingle time just makes me nervous the remaster puts 5 triforce shards directly in chests and only has 3 shards that must be fished out of the ocean those three still required a map that must be decoded but that's so much less than before not only does the legend of zelda win waker hd look and sound amazing the mechanics are interesting and buttery smooth to play with the new additions to link's toolkit are awesome and the returning standbys get a lot of love too everything works together to create an experience that feels like the saturday morning cartoon version of zelda game and i am absolutely on board this boat i am on board this boat someone stopped me with these [Music] puns there is a ton of stuff to collect in wind waker completely upgrading link's inventory is always satisfying and genuinely helpful filling out the map squares to prove that you visited every corner feels great overall i love zelda games and helping link reach his full potential as the reincarnation of the hero of time is a joy all on its own now i mentioned earlier about the extremely elaborate trading quest in wind waker the best reward you get while completing this quest is the magic armor which functions in wind waker hd pretty much like the magic armor from twilight princess as long as you wear the armor you don't take damage but link does hemorrhage money like he just got a credit limit increase on his visa in the original game wearing that armor drained the magic meter i like the ruby training of the hd version a bit more since it makes finding a random treasure chest full of rupees feel a little more useful in fact if i had one real beef with this game it's that even though you find tons of awesome charts that lead you to the middle of the ocean to pull up treasure from the bottom of the sea or stumble upon a tiny hidden rock in a far corner of the map or even raid submarines full of marauding enemies many of the rewards are just extra rupees i mean it still feels good to be rewarded at all for anything but it might have been nice to have something besides cold hard cash another really interesting item you can get in this game is the heroes charm after finishing 30 floors in the savage labyrinth you receive a necessary triforce piece however if you fight through another 20 floors you will gain access to this weird looking mask this toggleable item when equipped allows you to see the health bars of enemies that you are targeting it's not game breaking by any means since most enemies go down in only a couple of swings but it's an added bonus that further deepens the combat found within wind waker for me zelda games are about the journey most don't really offer much replay value after you beat the main storyline especially if you've made an effort to max out your carrying capacity and get all the heart containers on your way through wind waker is gorgeous and each island has something memorable about it but there isn't really that much to actually do after you've seen everything i really can't say enough about how gorgeous this game is i love playing it even when i'm not actively doing anything to forward the main story or a side quest every aspect feels so carefully considered that it's easy to get immersed in the world the characters are lovable and the heroic journey only gets deeper the further you get into the game this zelda game truly surprised me and i was genuinely pleased to have a deep and meaningful experience when i completed the legend of zelda wind waker hd there were two deaths 49 squares of ocean explored and 49 separate fishermen fed 134 figurines earned including a special link and king of red lions figurine after you earn all the rest of them 20 heart containers found including the three you gidgets for showing up eight triforce shards collected 75 hours of total playtime and one seriously brutal ganondorf death link is not around here everyone dude will just straight up split your skull if you screw with him in terms of completing the game you don't really get much for finding 100 of the items doing all the side quests and even completing the main story however the legend of zelda wind waker hd is so fun and gorgeous to play that i was still so compelled to do everything and the hd version specifically makes figurine collecting so much more manageable the sailing is so much faster with the swift sail that it makes any complaints about sailing loot there were times that i actually sailed around normally just to take a little breather even i sometimes need a break every zelda game has its strengths and weaknesses and we all have our favorites wind waker was controversial and polarizing upon its release but has aged beautifully into what many consider an all-time classic the hd remaster for the wii u smooths out many rough edges and fixes some of the pacing issues making this game an absolute pleasure to play all the way through so with that in my guys i give this game my completionist rating of complete it [Music] yes this year we're celebrating 30 years of zelda zelda u and zelda nx hopefully are coming out this year and today twilight princess hd is now out with you and that's what today's video is about but it's not just about an hd port to me it's about honoring the franchise it's about honoring what makes zelda great and personally twilight princess is definitely in my top three zelda games of all time regardless of what anyone else says i love this game i think you guys are gonna love our review of it and let's just dive right in twilight princess hd [Music] although it sold quite well and was enjoyed by critics the legend of zelda the wind waker left many fans of the zelda franchise a bit disappointed long story short there were a lot of people out there who threw tantrums when they got a cartoonish zelda game regardless of how good it was so when the next game in the series was announced expectations were high with many potential tiers on the line this new game was yet another chance for nintendo to finally deliver a zelda title that resembled the gamecube tech demo footage from all the way back from the space world 2000 event and based on their only impressions it was clear that this entry in the franchise was much darker in tone than wind waker and perhaps darker than any other zelda before it in addition to being released on the gamecube this title would also be a launch title for the new nintendo wii but this cross-generational porting resulted in the wii version having to be completely mirrored flipped in order to compensate for the wii's motion controller see the vast majority of the players are right-handed and it would be weird for them to use a motion controller to control the traditionally left-handed link as for your lefties out there sorry i think they should have added an option to change hands considering the gamecube version and wii version existed at the same time when it was finally released in 2006 the legend of zelda twilight princess received reviews that ranged from great to exemplary with many considering it to be the greatest zelda title of all time i feel like every reviewer says that every time a zelda game comes out despite a few criticisms for its somewhat unimpressive graphics its lack of innovation to the franchise and its implementation of the wiimotion controller the game is still spoken of in the highest regard which is why comes as no surprise that nintendo chose to remaster it in hd 10 years later in addition to looking spiffier than ever twilight princess hd also boasts amiibo support gamepad functionality and general gameplay improvements here and there and interestingly enough this version of the game reverts back to its gamecube orientation complete with left-handed link at default or if you're adamant about remaining a righty you can play the game's hero mode from the beginning which maintains the right-handed aspect but increases the difficulty with no heart spawning ever and with link receiving double damage so rejoice my lefty friends your time is nigh the sinister revolution has begun just remember that when the culling begins i'm actually ambidextrous [Music] twilight princess opens up a little bit differently than other zeldas link actually has a father figure with whom he chats about the finer points of life like light versus dark boyhood vs manhood and probably the birds and the bees too after returning home to ordon village and performing some menial chores to help you learn the basics of the game link and a couple of his friends are suddenly bum-rushed by a gang of bull bins and their king the balbans kidnap the children and retreat link chases after them but then is stopped in his spirit tracks when he comes across a freaky glowing barrier suddenly a dark hand gets all grabby with link and pulls him through where he winds up in the clutches of a black beast thankfully link's bitching triforce tattoo starts to glow causing the body to unhand him but just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder link mysteriously morphs into a wolf his transformation tuckers him out and the monster drags him off to parts unknown turns out parts unknown are actually a dank ass dungeon where link finds himself chained in a cell enter minna a mischievous little imp who seems perfectly at home in this ominous realm after taunting and teasing the apparently wild animal that she just met she frees link and the two of them team up to get out of there after escaping from the dungeon midna takes link to meet the imprisoned princess zelda zelda explains that this dark dimension is actually the kingdom of hyrule after having been transformed by the twilight king when zelda and her guards were seized by the twilight beasts and their leader zant zelda chose to surrender hyrule rather than have its people harmed using midna's powers she and link transport back to the world of light now stuck in his wolf form it's up to link to figure out how to transform back how to find and save his friends and how to stop the darkness that's spreading across hyrule three goddesses collecting things it's a classic zelda story with the twist of lycanthropy the narrative includes plenty of subtle references to past zelda titles tying the worlds together in a way that doesn't detract from the experience if this just happens to be your first trip to hyrule and the adventure only gets bigger and bigger as the stakes raise and familiar faces appear the narrative in my opinion at first seems very different from the zelda formula link turning into a wolf that's insane however if you look at zelda and its many themes transformation has been a very big part narratively and mechanically boy to man mask to mask and now human to wolf while the pacing of the game's opening is pretty slow okay really slow it's fairy tale adventure storytelling at its best you know fairy tales are often allegories for larger concepts maybe link's wolf transformation is a metaphor for puberty it's kind of like teen wolf 2 not teen wolf 2. teen wolf 2 makes me gag [Music] walleye princess hd is like an old school tim burton movie that's been re-released on blu-ray it's one part moody one part cheerful and the whole thing looks and sounds better than it ever has before the game's sound design is exactly as impressive as you'd expect from a zelda title and it's also implemented very well in respects to the game's dual worlds the unsettling and almost digital soundscape of the twilight realm is a very far cry from the more naturalistic sounds present in the world of light twilight princess's music hits every market needs to when it needs to from silly to dire to exciting to downright spooky music might not be as prevalent of a theme as it was in ocarina of time but this soundtrack is a classic for sure although i would like to express that i would really like to have heard a real live orchestrated soundtrack applied to this game it definitely has that midi feel and it would have been great to have the zelda orchestra perform considering that this year marks the 30th anniversary of zelda but we'll probably get to that later on this year with zelda u and the nx speaking of themes the idea of parallel worlds overlapping is nothing new to the zelda franchise but twilight princess exquisitely explores these themes in its locales and backgrounds witnessing a location in both its light world and twilight variants is a damn cool experience while the light world offers colorful and clear vistas the twilight realm paints things in a yellowish over saturated haze that makes it seem like you're in a completely different world but no matter which dimension you're visiting things are bound to look great the game's npcs exude personality despite their not having much voice work tied to them their impressive facial and body animations are more than enough to make their character shine through these characters really help build the world of twilight princess and they're much appreciated and the hd upressing makes every character stand out now more than ever what's also appreciated is any version of hyrule in which afros are in style and helions that are clearly based on queen latifah and hd goron nipples and this kid mallow just look at him you know he's gonna grow up to take over the world someday give it some time and this guy's gonna come back to be the main bad guy in another zelda title the biggest difference graphically between the gamecube wii and wii uhd versions comes down to 1080p resolution and a visual haze effect see in the gamecube and wii versions there's this fuzzy haze to help hide the need for detail but at the same time it also focuses on highlighting certain characters and traits in twilight princess hd that haze effect is gone which is awesome because the character models look fantastic lighting effects during sunrise and sunsets look astonishing but the one downside is that without that haze you start to really see the age of twilight princess hd at times with something as stylistic as let's say the wind waker hd port that game's art style is now going to be solidified as something that will not age it's timeless while that princess hd on the other hand while very very beautiful will not be nearly as accepted on that artistic front zelda games have always been known for offering up great visuals and memorable music and twilight princess is no different but now that things are in hd you may need some newer headphones to really appreciate how good things sound like some beats by dre yeah dawg that's what i'm talking about a lot of pressure but i just can't break wide light princess hd just like almost every other zelda game before it offers some of the best gameplay you could ever hope to find it carefully balances the tried and true with the new and exciting and the result is an extremely fun game as always you've got an overworld where you'll be gathering collectibles playing mini games and discovering secrets whether you're playing through the main campaign or taking a break with some side quests you'll be exploring the fields of hyrule a lot a few of these mini games are so well designed that they can be considered set pieces onto themselves such as the old west inspired arrow sniping sequence 360 no scope headshot baby boom headshot link's abilities while in human form should feel familiar to anyone who's played zelda in the past 20 years he's still got his sword his shield and his stoic silence that's only broken when screaming at enemies but in this game you can also learn advanced sword techniques from the spirit of a long dead warrior who may or may not be the hero of time spoilers he's totally the hero of time wolf link has a set of attacks to call his own he can bite fools dumb enough to get close enough to him and leap into and maul fools them enough to stay away from him he can talk to animals follow scent trails and use his wolf senses to discover secrets wolf link offers a completely different play style than his human counterpart and once you unlock the ability to switch freely between the two of them you can tackle combat however way you'd like as far as items go you've got your zelda series mainstays like arrows bombs and the boomerang but your new items include the ball and chain that you can throw to smash stuff up the spinner which lets you marty mcfly across the surface of the sands and this thing person technically her name is oh here we go uku you know what it sounds like a bird it's probably a bird so i'm going to treat it like it's a bird saying a bird name and her son junior can help link by warping him out of dungeons when he's in a bind but honestly just looking at the both of them makes me feel pretty uncomfortable i know they're just trying to help but they look like something that was created by a mad scientist and would beg for you to put him out of their misery if it could i do not want to see that family photo the whoo-hoos family merry christmas from the ho ho and ho ho junior junior only has a head and no body this year but soon he's looking to have a torso midna also helps link but without looking disturbing when you're in wolf form she can help you hang on to levers warp you all around the land of hyrule and allows you to jump great distances to reach her that's right this ain't your papa zelda game we jump boys now speaking of helpful ladies opponent of the horse is back but her features have been greatly expanded she's available from the very start of the game and since you don't have a magic ocarina handy you can summon her using some horse grass what's cool is that you can actually participate in combat and use items like your bow and arrow while riding her there are a couple of moments included in the game that are built around this mechanic like this jousting sequence that are really fun the enemies that you'll face are visually distinct and require you to know the ins and outs of your abilities to beat them you've got your old favorites and new baddies but the newest and coolest enemy type is that of the twilight beast every now and then you'll be locked into an arena with a couple of them and if you defeat all of them except for one he'll revive all of his brethren instantly so using minna's energy field attack to take them all out simultaneously will make battling them a lot easier these dudes are ghoulish powerful and instantly recognizable as something that should be killed with fire all in all a great villain twilight princess's design truly shines when you're playing through one of its many dungeons zelda dungeons are known for their smart and challenging construction and twilight princess definitely delivers the goods these themed labyrints are the meat and potatoes of the gameplay so you should know the drill by now find the map find the compass solve some puzzles fight the mini boss get a new item find the big key and take down the boss with a new item but behind the scenes are subtle forces that slowly and methodically teach you to use the skills and items you've recently acquired as well as challenge you to figure out the not so obvious things for yourself just like the dungeons that house them the game's bosses are wonderfully designed they each offer unique challenges that require very different strategies they're extensions of the dungeons themselves matching the dungeons themes perfectly and providing a fight that's tons of fun you can definitely count on this game's bosses for a great time and i found myself actually looking forward to facing them rather than dreading it a lot like in the other games let's talk about the two big ongoing side quests in this game pose and bugs at some point in this game you'll come across giovanni who's been transformed into a golden statue because he sold his soul for a ton of money come on dude anytime someone asks for your soul no matter what they offer in return don't give it to them it's never worth it giovanni asks you to return his humanity by hunting down the ghosts known as pose that hold the pieces of his soul this may sound like a concept for a metal album but it really just comes down to scouring hyrule for the poses telltale lanterns they only appear at night and they can only be seen fully while in your wolf form new to the twilight princess hd port you can use the ghost lantern to locate pose during the day or so what everyone who prematurely reported about this thought this device doesn't do that it simply informs you that there are pose in the current loaded field however it does not tell you where they are or even if you're nearby them it just illuminates and informs you that hey there's a post somewhere on this map this is very helpful for those of you who are not using the internet to beat this game if you're a pokemon fan then you're in luck because this game also includes a quest in which you have to collect golden bugs all around hyrule see there's this incredibly creepy little girl named agatha who will pay you handsomely for every bug that you bring back to her collecting them only does good things as most of the rewards expand in giving you a bigger wallet and lots of rupees but since this is the hd remix port of twilight princess you know there's going to be even more things for you to collect there are now miiverse stamps hidden all over the place that represent the letters of the hylian alphabet they now can be found in chests and locations that would normally only hold rupees or other unremarkable rewards certain side quests pertaining to characters also unlock character specific stamps and the big big addition to twilight princess hd is the amiibo nintendo actually made a twilight princess midnight and wolfling specific amiibo for this game that adds another dungeon that's similar to that of the cave of ordeals except you have to play exclusively as wolf link and minna these ordeal dungeons are actually more difficult but we'll touch more on these later on other zelda amiibos help your game play out too zelda and chic give you full heart to any given moment that you want link and tune link give you full quivers of arrows and ganondorf makes you take double the damage note that all of the consumable item amiibo can only be used once per day aside from the few tweaks here and there twilight princess's gameplay is just as tight as you'd expect and the new features that it offers are just enough to give its own identity amongst the rest of the titles in the series now everyone praises ocarina of time as the ultimate 3d zelda experience majora's mask is my favorite but i want to add that twilight princess is my second favorite 3d zelda because in my opinion race for it i find the dungeons are actually better designed and executed than that of ocarina of time link's growth as a hero in this story has a lot more personal growth and stakes to it than just he's destined to be the hero of time ilia and the supporting cast adds more depth in this current state of hyrule and at the very least twilight princess hd will help you see this all as you play it but the general consensus will heavily disagree with me so you know opinions overall everything that comes out of this game deserves its place in the zelda hall of fame oh god it's it's [Music] link and minna have overcome obstacle after obstacle on their journey link has reclaimed his humanity many a time saved the missing children and minda has been revealed as the true twilight princess who was cursed into her diminutive form by zant upon his ascension into power now our heroes have finally reached the heart of the twilight realm zanz twilight palace upon being confronted in his throne room xanthe reveals that when he was denied the twilight throne he got a little bit butthurt and in his desperation turned to what he believed to be a god the long imprisoned ganondorf who has long ago advantage to the twilight by the sages are you really surprised it's zelda there's link there's there's princess zelda there's ganondorf the master sword the god come on but i guess zan's god has forsaken him because after a brief boss rush-like battle he's easily defeated by link and accidentally destroyed by minna when she gets angry and accidentally loses control of her power the dynamic duo races towards hyrule castle to face ganon himself and after battling their way through the very top they find him sitting on the throne like the boss that he is princess zelda is infected with ganon's darkness and after defeating her in a quick game of magic volleyball midna manages to purge zelda of the evil within her ganon reverts to his true beastly form and charges at link wildly you can bring him down with a well-placed arrow if you're in human form or by standing your ground and tossing him aside in your wolf form after dealing some damage to his underbelly ganon is seemingly defeated but we all know how our final bosses work after ganon rears his ugly head midna with a final act of selflessness sacrifices herself to stop the evil wizard for good but of course her sacrifice does nothing and ganondorf shows up again this time on horseback zelda calls upon the power of the spirits to summon the light arrows and then she and link hop into a pona to finish the fight when zelda hits ganon with an arrow that's your chance to go close up and take him out repeat this process enough and ganon will eventually fall into the dust finally ganondorf will lock you into an arena with him where you can leap at him to enter a clash if you mash hard enough you'll be rewarded with the opportunity to deal some damage to him keep up the pressure and you'll deliver the final blow for real he's not coming back i promise with the master sword's blade still piercing his body when blade pierced deacon frost get out bernard the triforce of power fades from ganondorf and he finally dies on his feet jesus ganondorf is seriously the toughest bastard in hyrule the good news is is that minna is actually alive and well transformed back into her natural supermodel anime self damn girl link and zelda say their farewells to midna as she prepares to return to her realm through the only door that exists between the two the twilight mirror but just as she leaves minna shatters the mirror ensuring that no realm will ever be able to endanger each other again with the balance between light and dark restored life gets back to normal in hyrule children are reunited with families gorons sumo wrestle with each other endlessly into the night and cultists dance around fountains everywhere as for link just like the hero that he is he rides off into the distance ready for his next advent he just stopped the model just stopped he they they didn't even fix it in the twi in the port he just freezes i guess they didn't program to ride completely out of frame but that's a little more on the awkward side i guess you can see all kinds of things you weren't supposed to see in hd oh well [Music] completing twilight princess 100 means lots and lots and lots of item hunting this game's version of hyrule is pretty damn big and there are collectibles in just about every corner so exploring diligently is a must if you plan to go all the way first up are the heart pieces collecting five of these will increase link's maximum health by one heart and their mainstays of the zelda games a not so fun fact most zeldas require four heart pieces to form a new heart not five twilight princess if you wanna get all 20 hearts for link you'll have to search every chest interact with most of the npcs that offer mini games and get high scores in said mini games because these heart pieces can be found in just about anywhere and i thought the american health care system was brutal these aliens don't mess around if he ain't afraid of no ghosts and managed to defeat every poet in the game giovanni and his cat will return to normal and give you a me burst stamp and 200 rupees every time your wallet is empty collecting some of the bugs leads to bigger wallets but if you collect every single one agatha will reward you with a huge wallet that can hold up to 2 000 rupees thanks for giving me the thing i need to hold all the other stuff you've already given me after you've given it to me so i waste the rupees don't look at me like that you know exactly what i'm saying agatha so there's fishing like there are in every other zelda game getting all the fish including the legendary loch is just another thing about bragging rights i'm bringing this up because there's also the roll gold mini game this thing is really long as it has 64 mini levels of a marble game that's long tedious boring and frustrating but if you manage to defeat all 64 levels the fishing lady will fill your wallet completely unfortunately both of these things while difficult and time-consuming give you absolutely nothing roll goal yay getting all the miiverse stamps was really a pain in the ass mostly because they could be anywhere you could buy some do a good deed and get one explore a dungeon you unknowingly may get a miiverse stamp for any of these things all of course for the miiverse but not really a big payoff for anything other than that now there's the two secret dungeons we talked about earlier one being the cave of ordeals which is a 50 round enemy battleground and the other being the wolf link amiibo caves which is essentially the same thing but even harder every 10 floors you win in the cave of ordeals rewards you with a stamp and access to fairies at the different goddess springs in hyrule getting down to the final floor will grant you with the permanent ability to get the great fairy elixir which is full hp for link and boosts his damage overall temporarily of course now the amiibo dungeon is tough tough as balls you'll need to really just be patient yet act fast you'll fight a lot of enemies that aren't meant to be taken down as wolf links that easily so it's a bit of a climb however defeating this dungeon will give you the biggest wallet and allow you to hold 9999 rupees great for when you want to equip that red rupee armor and waste a lot of cash go roll gold none of these collectibles impact the game that much they're just something to aim for if you want more of a challenge or a little bit more time out of your zelda experience but the only thing you'll get if you complete the game 100 is the satisfaction of seeing your pimped out game save file when you boot up the game or in this case a 100 game save file on both normal and hero mode i'll take what i can get [Music] twilight princess hd definitely straddles the line between ease and difficulty especially when you're considered the added versatility of its hero mode there was never a moment when i felt overwhelmed but i never got bored either the few times i did die i knew exactly how and why i messed up and as long as you have a guide or really any knowledge of zelda the collectathon portions aren't that bad in short zelda is too much fun to ever be that frustrating during my playthrough of twilight princess hd there were five game over screens two full campaigns 100 completed 90 heart pieces found 120 posts defeated 48 golden bugs collected 100 meter stamps gathered 12 fished fished for 115 hours of total playtime 128 levels of stupid freaking rogue and three base nightmares i had while playing this game the legend of zelda twilight princess hd is so engrossing that even if you did not set out to complete this game 100 you may just find yourself attempting to do so it's a classic zelda title that still offers great moments and a great time all the way around [Music] twilight princess hd is a wonderful experience if you've never played twilight princess the graphical overhauls to the characters is fantastic the atmospheres have never looked better i will say because of the art style it does not look nearly as polished or as timeless as the wind waker of hd but that's okay because for the most part the gameplay experience involved in twilight princess hd is perfect whether you want to be a right-handed character or a left-handed character if you want a hero mode it's more difficult or the easy fun normal mode that you want to have if you have the amiibo or you don't have amiibo it does not matter twilight princess hd provides a lot of great stuff in here and there isn't a better time to play it than now so with that in mind guys i give this game my completionist rating of complete it that's right you heard me correct complete it complete it [Music] [Applause] hey everyone and welcome to an all new episode of the completionist where we don't just beat the games we complete them i have to give a quick disclaimer that i was given a free copy of skyward sword hg for the nintendo switch by nintendo as well as a bunch of free zelda items hashtag free product however i was not paid for my views that you are about to hear in this video so again i did not get paid by nintendo to present the following video to you they just gave me a copy of the game early so i could try and complete it here for the show we all remember that feeling when you're a kid walking alone and you see it laying on the ground a branch or stick that is immediately perfect transforming into a super badass sword or lightsaber that instantly you pick up hacking away at trees with reckless and mildly terrifying abandon so to build an entire video game around this feeling makes sense especially in the context of the nintendo wii and its motion controls and that feeling is one of the entire reasons the nintendo wii became so popular so when the legend of zelda skyward sword was announced and it became clear that it was aiming to be a zelda game in which the player actually got to do their own real-time sword fighting with the aid of the wii motion plus i was hopeful but the divisive motion controls ended up dominating pretty much the entire conversation around the game which to be fair makes sense some people found them totally unworkable and skipped this entire installment of the zelda franchise immediately despite it receiving almost universal praise amongst games critics at the time for myself personally i really enjoy the original game motion control issues aside which meant that i was very excited when i heard about skyward sword hd for the nintendo switch now with the option to control the sword with the right thumbstick instead of motion controls while still maintaining the motion controls for those veterans that desired it this felt like a reset an opportunity to engage with this game in a different way and judge it on its own merits while also allowing the original fan base that supports it to continue their passion for the game remember this guy yeah me too today i am very excited to be covering skyward sword hd because it's a bit of a minor landmark here for the show this is the final 3d zelda game that i have not completed for the channel and i am very stoked to cross it off this list but i'm even more pumped to give this game a brand new shot i liked it when it first came out and don't even think the motion controls were entirely a failure check out my skyward sword defendant video for more information on that but it's impossible to deny that there were a lot of deal breaker moments here for a lot of people in skyward sword now the game is playable without them though i feel like it's a great opportunity to step back and approach the content of skyward sword hd on its own merits and i know the motion controls are still an option and yeah it's probably better for some people now but i'll say up front for this playthrough i can put the entire game with the pro controller and i found that it works very very well it may eliminate that feeling of swinging a stick around like it's a sword but now i feel like i can approach it more as an installment of the zelda franchise rather than as a gimmick-driven oddity within the series so i guess today when we complete skyward sword hd we're not going to be needing this guy anymore let's begin yes [Music] all glory goes to the winner [Applause] [Music] [Applause] each 3d game in the zelda franchise has its own visual palette with some leaning more towards gritty realism like twilight princess another staring harder into a bright and colorful cartoon vibe with wind waker probably being the most extreme example skyward sword lands its visual choices somewhere in between those two zones in hindsight it feels kind of like a dry run for the miyazaki s grandiore of breath of the wild but at the same time it felt like it was sort of just unable to commit to one or the other so while this hd remaster obviously can't totally overhaul the style it does sharpen it and make it crisper allowing me to see that it's as meticulous and lovingly crafted it's pretty much any other zelda game out there most notably the game now runs at a constant 60 fps which makes pretty much everything in the game look way prettier the smoothness allows the visual choices to take on a life of their own and justify themselves a bit more now that it runs better the overall aesthetic is clearer as a deliberate choice and feels like a unified vibe instead of a weird combination of all the past identities of the series i will say that some of the textures still don't look a hundred percent amazing with occasional moments that almost feel ps2s and since this is a full price remaster it definitely feels like they could have put just a little bit more elbow grease into it since polishing it up is basically the whole point of re-releasing a game like this okay fine with this particular game i acknowledge that the main point is probably fixing and replacing the motion controls but still if you're going to charge full price for a remaster of a game i want the upgrades to be apparent in essentially every frame it sounds nitpicky but the reason why it stands out to me more than usual is because lots of the game did get uprest even during some cutscenes the character models look greatly improved while other cutscenes looked like they needed a little bit more time it's still pretty to look at even if it could use some more polish and the visual style isn't necessarily something i would have chosen but it works for the story and the vibe of the game which is set at the very beginning of the vast and ever shifting zelda timeline that's right skyward sword is technically supposed to be the first zelda game in the franchise with regards to story skyward sword begins in skyloft a floating city where link is training at the night academy with the help of his childhood friend zelda who is also the headmaster's daughter the residents in skyloft have basically no concept of the surface world which was closed off after a devastating war with the demon king named demise flying around on loftwings which are giant colorful birds used to get around the sky islands zelda gets snatched up by a tornado and is cast down to the surface this leads to link learning that he's a prophesized hero of destiny who not only has to save his best friend but the entire surface world all together this game also starts kind of as a prequel to how the master sword was made with our new spiritual successor tanavi being phi link works with the goddesses and the dragons of the various lore of zelda and essentially is the reason why the master sword is created the character work in skyward sword is super endearing the main characters are for sure lovely the relationship that zelda has with link is not the only one that i love in this game i love the bond between impa and zelda and how that connection is there the entire game without us even realizing it there's a lot of little smart time travel back to the future-esque character moments that immediately put this game in a higher standing for me i love all the characters in this game from the item check lady who starts to fall in love with you to pippitt's mom who wants you to clean her home to the weird romantic triangle between pippet colin and karine to the pumpkin patch owner that makes you pay off the chandelier you broke and how could i forget gruce and his gruesomator gruce is a criminally underrated character in zelda's history and i'm stoked to see nintendo of america's social media account dive deeper into their own meme and lore for gru's every single side character in skyward sword is one that at first glance i didn't care about it all this time around i loved every single one of those characters in this gaming world then that even includes my admiration for ghiraheim now to be clear giraheim was the character of this game that i always thought was gross him and the imprisoned fights i generally do not enjoy originally i didn't like fighting him so many times because i felt like a test it felt like hey you've been playing this game for several hours do you want to see if you're any good this was the clippy of testing your skills in skyward sword now i've learned that fighting gearheim was not just testing me but testing my relationship with phi and my progression as a character trying to save my childhood friend and when you realize that giraheim is demise's version of five for you and the master sword you really understand how evil he really is so within myself i found an appreciation for not just the side characters but for all of the characters in this game for me i think that the setting of this game at the beginning of the zelda timeline is very dope i like that they gave us the origin of beloved little series landmarks in a story that's not immediately tied to the most famous zelda iconography like hyrule or ganon and while other games like link's awakening have changed at the setting and given us other villains skyward sword feels different because instead of introducing new stuff it makes the old stuff that we know feel new and unfamiliar by taking us way way way way back in time the thing that i found most successful about the game story when i first played it when it first came out many years ago and still thinks that it stands out to this day is the relationship between zelda and link this is a relationship that varies widely from game to game but always feels kind of abstract zelda's a princess link has to save her there's weird unspoken tension between them and we all know how that goes but it's here in skyward sword that the relationship between them not only has more history because their childhood friends but also feels more lived in like link is determined to save her because he actually cares about her as a person rather than an abstract concept tied by the sands of fate to me it ends up making their relationship feel a little romantic which immediately creates a different dynamic that's exciting and very fresh it makes the romantic tension between them actually feel earned and makes the whole game feel more relationship driven in fact i'd go so far as to say that it's the only zelda game where the central link slash zelda relationship really works for me and feels like a character-focused bit of storytelling obviously i always care about both link and zelda individually and respectively but here they really work as a unit which also helps get the game's story through an otherwise slow start the things that drove people away from this game are very fair but when it comes to the story and world here in skyward sword there's just as much to love as there usually is in the zelda game which is an awful lot the same goes for the music which was done with the live orchestra and feels right at home in the overall pantheon of zelda tracks now initially i found that there aren't necessarily any tracks that i would call instantly iconic but all flows and fits with what the game is doing and feels very cohesive it's one of several ways that this version allows the game to get out of its own way a little bit however 10 years has passed since the original game came out and the music here in this game became more important to me because of my 1 000 hour long journey in completing hyrule warriors all the skyward sword music in that game got a bunch of rock and roll metal infused into it which is so freaking cool and that to me reminded me of how much i love skyward swords music so credit where credit's due same goes for fi the prototype fairy who used to chime in way too much or even in the way the game only slows down now when you get an item for the first time rather than every single time you pick up an item that you've already gotten outside of those little quality of life changes do i necessarily think that this remaster offers a brand new version of the experience i don't know do you want to bust out your wii or wii u every time you want to play skyward sword in hd technically speaking the wii u does upconvert to 1080p but the control scheme here is still rough not including the controls which i'll get to in a little bit this is very much the same game and whether or not you think it's worth the full 60 bucks is going to be up to you if you like zelda and dig this game and want to experience it in a new way then yeah it's probably worth it but if you feel that the original controls kept you from experiencing it properly and now you can then great go for it now one of the biggest complaints i've seen online is that people are upset that the ability to fly from anywhere you want in the world map at any given moment is a brand new feature that is reserved specifically for those who purchase the brand new skyward sword zelda amiibo and to be fair yeah i'm not a fan of this now to be clear i'm a fan of using amiibo for content in that sense i've got almost every amiibo out there zelda and non-zelda based but i can't use any of them in this game except that brand new one to me this was a huge oversight and mistake as it would have shown customer loyalty real quick i want to give a big thank you to maverick on twitch aka dan who sent me this at the very last minute i completed this whole game twice without using this guy and as i was making this video i got this guy in the mail so thank you dan and i've spent some time with it now and i can confirm that the function of this amiibo is really not worth it the fast travel mechanic is a weird mechanic that isn't necessary because my point still stands that there are plenty of bird statues in the game to not only save but travel out of the world you're visiting and that kind of puts this thing a little bit more on the obsolete side however i will say one of the cool features about this guy is that if you use them in a dungeon it takes you out of the dungeon right away no matter where you are and if you use it again while you're in the skies it'll transport you back to the exact area in which you use this guy to warp you out so it's really kind of like a flagpole to remember where you are in the game and for that that's pretty cool i still stand by that you can't really get these guys anywhere so again you're not missing out on that much if this is a big deal to you just buy one of those amiibo disks that they're out there that'll let you save all the data locally it'll save you time and money the unfortunate truth is that all of these new improvements are not necessarily going to win over anyone who strongly disliked the game initially if you're judging the game based on its story and gameplay content but i'm not sure that's what this remaster is for because this remaster has only made the game more of itself the visual style makes a bit more sense now and the story is still very cool but it's not like a major overhaul or anything and the game is what it is but now it's free of some of the other baggage i feel like i was able to approach it on its own level of content it's still not even close to being my favorite 3d zelda game visually but it definitely has a style and vibe now that it commits to and because of that it is now in fact climbed up my list of favorite 3d zeldas in fact that's one of the main things i'll say about this game is that it really commits to all of its choices for better and for worse [Music] all right it's time to talk about the elephant in the room the motion controls but more importantly the way that every single original design choice in the game pivots around those controls and how the game feels when translating these choices onto the control stick instead skyward sword initially came out kind of late in the nintendo wii's lifespan when the novelty of motion controls was starting to finally wear off but the promise of doing some zelda style swordplay with the wemo was still appealing to me even if it didn't quite end up working out that way whether it was with the motion control plus adapter or with the special zelda themed we mode that had we motion plus inside of it the reality of swinging link's sword around didn't live up to the fantasy all the time to be clear i never thought that the motion controls for this game were completely terrible rather they were just wildly inconsistent which led to many people having super understandable frustrations with how it felt to play through the game sometimes they'd work great and then other times they felt impossible and only led to me wildly flailing my arms around like an idiot when the whole point of sword controls like this should be to make the player feel cool so i don't judge anyone who bailed early on or wrote skyward sword off as the one major zelda game that they're just never going to get around to i think that's totally fair which brings us to this port and the introduction of something that i always will love options now i'm sure that the updated motion controls for the switch version are a bit better than they were for the nintendo wii i tried them out for a little bit and thought they felt pretty much the same but that's fine that's just my take the main draw here is the option to use the sticks instead which is how i chose to engage with the game this time around both because i felt like it would streamline the completion process which it absolutely did and because i liked the idea of experiencing the game in a totally different way and judging its content as a zelda game beyond the divisive control setup and honestly i think it's great to have that choice if the motion controls are integral to the experience for you to have then go for it and enjoy this port as nothing but a remaster but now people who bounce off this game the first time can give it another shot and i think that everything maps onto the stick very well considering how integral the motion stuff was to the original design nearly all of the combat and puzzles in skyward sword are built around directional attacks or being able to hold up your sword in any direction like the skyward strike in which you raise the sword above your head straight up before bringing it down quickly to throw a projectile enemies need to be attacked from specific directions from the ground up the motion controls are key to pretty much everything the game is doing and it makes sense because pretty much every zelda game has some kind of key gimmick or mechanic that's built everything around yet the control stick can do pretty much everything that motion controls could do outside of capturing that feeling of transforming a stick into the world's coolest sword but honestly even the motion controls themselves didn't really do that all that well so i'm not sure that much was lost i will say that everything feels much quicker and easier to me with the stick and i say that as someone who didn't even hate the original controls now playing with the stick it feels like enemies die way faster instead of being a whole thing every single time you got into an encounter i was even blasting through some of the dungeons in less than 30 minutes where they normally would have taken me closer to 90 minutes before and there are pros and cons to how quick and effortless everything feels now but i'm mostly cool with it enemies can get bopped way faster now puzzles require less arm waving trial and error and overall it feels better i wanted to bring some food for thought for you guys that i definitely kept thinking about as i completed the game and that is the shield parry originally in the game parrying required you to thrust your nunchuck towards the screen to protect yourself but with the stick controls you can simply just press in the stick to pairing an enemy attack it's here that i realized one of the reasons why skyward sword is relatively easy is because of well dark souls and souls associated games in the last 10 years every souls game that came out taught all of us how to parry properly even making many games want to include a parry system skyward swords perry window is so large that when you parry you've got not only a bunch of time to mess it up but to effectively launch a massive counter-attack with great ease it does at times feel like it pivots the game from being too hard to being too easy but it was only ever hard because of the controls now though link swings his sword so fast that it sometimes felt like i up a boss so quickly that he never even had a chance it reminds me of a terminal montage cartoon on youtube and i don't really have a problem with it and it's definitely better than the alternative which eventually led many people saying screw this and giving up i mostly just think it's kind of hilarious watching link slice a guy 30 times before he can even do anything about it but like i said the new controls mostly allow the game to step out from the shadow of the wiimote and be approached to as simply a zelda game the opening hour of the game now feels like way less of a slog and it feels quicker and easier to dive in and get invested because now if you're playing with motion controls it's because you were given the choice rather than having no other option if you want to experience the latest zelda a lot of people are asking why did they port this game and the reality is it's been 10 years since it came out which means there are going to be 10 year old kids who experience breath of the wild more recently who now get to experience a new entry in zelda for them and if the rumors are true skyward sword might tie in heavily to the future of the breath of the wild franchise mini games in skyward swords used to be super annoying but now they're fine certain enemies used to be in exercise and frustration but here they're just slightly harder enemies it lends the fundamental differences that this game has from the others in the series shine through rather than just being the one where you have to wave your arms around a bunch and hope you do something even back when i played it the first time 10 years ago i appreciated how different it felt the airborne city of skyloft is a really cool world and flying to different floating islands and surface portals feels wonderful rather than trudging everywhere on a horse it takes the sky concept seriously and makes it really fun to bounce back and forth between the clouds and the surface world i do wish however that there was a new upgrade in this version that increases the speed of your bird like a saddle or maybe more wings to burn through similar to how they added a new engine in the wind waker hd port to speed up the travel process it's fun to travel for sure but you start to feel tired of moving around as you start doing all of the side content even fast travel is insanely easy with bird statues pretty much being everywhere there is that amiibo support that lets you travel from anywhere you are but it honestly doesn't seem necessary to me because getting around is already really simple and convenient the dungeons themselves feel kind of streamlined and part down especially now that everything moves along so much faster and that's not necessarily a bad thing a few of the dungeons themselves are actually low-key bankers like the sand ship which may actually be one of my favorite zelda dungeons of all time one of the common complaints about skyward sword is that there's only three areas to travel to and that's true you have the farron woods the volcano and the desert sometimes you have to go back and forth between them to further the plot but i never felt that i was slighted by this it didn't feel bad because the dungeons and the areas around them got expanded sometimes you'd revisit another dungeon you just completed but for the most part there are six different dungeons that are in three locales and all the mechanics for all six dungeons feel very very different it doesn't feel like you're revisiting the greatest hits again and although there are only six dungeons there's kind of nine main story tasks to complete by the time you're done with the game including the final triforce goddess temple dungeon towards the end one of the most underrated things that i love about skyward sword are the items like the beetle claw shot and gust bellows they feel really strange and different from your typical zelda items but in a good way however the menu that pulls up your pouch in order to equip and use items is kind of janky and that wasn't really fixed here in my opinion it's extremely difficult to use when you get into the heat of combat and i think that's maybe one of the reasons that these items don't get the recognition for being as cool as they are i also think it's super weird that you have to get additional pouches in order to carry more items and you have two different categories of pouches you have your key items like the claw shot and the gust bellows and then you have your adventure pouches and these items can be bottles your shield bigger bomb bags or bigger ammo bags for different items and even metals that increase the drop rate of different items i personally don't like this system because you have to invest all of your money into acquiring all these pouches when you can or completing certain side quests at the end of the day i think that's kind of the point with taking zelda into a different direction right skyward sword crawled so that breath of the wild could run and the evidence is here in this game all of this made me realize that the motion controls were the only thing about this game that i never really gelled with they were fine but they kept me from seeing this game in the same light that i see so many of the other 3d zeldas like my brain just kind of automatically slotted skyward sword into a different category altogether but now i can see the ways that it fits into the larger picture of the franchise and it's actually really dope you can see the little elements that are being planted here as the future of what would come in breath of the wild such as item durability for your shield and a stamina meter that you have to constantly monitor but in that game they just got more room to uh breathe i know i know i know although i still understand people who are upset at that 60 dollar price tag i also think that this re-release will allow people to experience skyward sword as the solid zelda game that it actually is rather than as some weird motion control novelty that isn't to say that those novelty elements aren't still there because they are when you look past that this is definitely a zelda game that deserves to be played by anyone who loves zelda seeing the beginning of the timeline is wonderful it's much prettier now and it's got options for how to play so you don't have to risk being totally turned off by the controls and missing out and that's amazing because no one should miss out on a new maine zelda game ever it's zelda it's pretty much always good so it's a huge bummer that there was a game that even a bunch of hardcore fans were like now i'm gonna skip that one sure skyward sword may not be one of the best 3d zelda games but it makes big choices and commits to them and now thanks to this remaster and port it's easier to appreciate those choices whether or not you choose to continue grappling with the motion controls those controls may define a lot of this game's design choices but they should define every player's interactions with the game because even a zelda game that's just pretty good is still better than most other games out there [Music] completing a zelda game usually means two major things outside of finishing the main story collecting all the game's many collectibles mostly involving a bunch of citizens of hyrule and finishing a second run on some version of a hero mode which makes everything harder and both of those criteria apply here which leads to a completion experience that feels pretty standard for a zelda game now that wrestling with the controls isn't a part of it sometimes hero motors tricks the overall number of hearts or makes enemies way harder to kill but here it vastly reduces the amount of health spawns found throughout the world to zero and causes the enemies to deal double the damage which is fine as long as you're not getting hit it really sucks as soon as someone gets you even once overall though it's about the same level of added difficulty that i expect from hero mode in a zelda game two playthroughs is what i expected and that's what i got and it's only on hiromo that you can get to the true end of the thunder dragon's lightning round of bosses which i want to talk about a little bit right now it's a boss rush mode in which you can fight any bosses you've already beaten in the story which means the game's final bosses aren't available until you get back to the thunder dragon on your hero mode playthrough but a lot of people understandably tapped out from frustration before they even reached this gauntlet which means they missed the game's best reward after each battle the dragon gives you the option to quit which will give you a reward generally rupees but if you get to the end after the eighth fight you'll get the helium shield which is easily the best shield in the game obviously lots of people complain about the game's breakable shields without knowing that this iconic item was waiting for them later in the game however this boss rush is no joke in the first playthrough the final reward is the helium shield and stops where you get to the final boss in hero mode you have to fight the extra gearheim fights horde battle before it and the final battle with demise doing so completely fills out your wallet to max rupees it ends up being a bit of a bragging rights situation which is totally okay considering that this challenge is very optional but for us completionists out there bring it on now the reward is not worth it in my opinion but the challenge definitely is which brings me to the collectibles this game definitely has fewer heart containers to find but if you have two heart piece metals there are actually 20 containers as usual and it definitely feels like a lot less compared to previous cell does because the game started with six heart containers at the very beginning yet in the usual fashion there are in fact 24 heart pieces to find there's less bosses in this game that gives you full heart containers so you've got to get those extra medals too if you want the 20. but i also upgraded all the items including getting the wallet capacity to 9900 and the adventure pouch capacity to 8 because you're not a true adventurer if you can't carry a bunch of stuff but that's not all because this is definitely a zelda game and while it's not nearly as collectible crazy as something like breath of the wild there's still plenty of stuff to find including 5 bottles for storing various liquids 10 metals that provide bonuses when equipped 16 collectible treasures which are actually materials used to upgrade your items 12 bug types that can either be sold to a bug aficionado or used to upgrade your potions and 27 goddess cubes each of which unlocks a corresponding treasure chest when you strike it with a skyward strike we can't count out all of the good will that we do in skyward sword as most of the hard pieces items and side quests are accomplished by collecting gratitude crystals there's a monster who's been cursed who deeply just wants to be a human in order to do so you have to help all the different denizens of skyloft and when doing these things you'll get reward markers in the form of gratitude crystals every 10 to 20 gratitude crystals nets you in items such as a heart piece bigger wallet maybe a metal and so much more which means you'll have to collect all 80 gratitude crystals in order to make the beast human everything i just said times by two because i had to do once again two full playthroughs doing all this with the motion control seems like it may have felt like a lot but when removed from that context and placed in the context of the rest of the series it's all pretty reasonable especially considering that playing with the stick made me feel like i was blasting through the game so all the collectibles just kind of fell into place each play through here still took me somewhere between 20 to 30 hours a piece because i actually wanted to go everywhere and do everything twice that amount of time investment obviously would be a bit more with the original controls but even when those hours would feel like way more if i was battling with the motion controls the entire time and 20-something hours for one playthrough of zelda game is super reasonable when each of those hours is pretty easy and enjoyable and i know not everyone's gonna vibe with either the control schemes enough to do two full playthroughs of this game but hopefully having options of how to play will encourage everyone to do at least one full playthrough so they can experience an incredibly solid entry of the zelda franchise from beginning to end and judge it on its own merits as a game because there's a reason that this was the last 3d zelda game i never completed for the show and that's that it never felt worth it until i had those options but i never regretted playing it before either and i don't regret playing it in a new way now when it comes to whether or not this remaster is worth it each person has to make their own decision and call for this but for me it definitely was because at the end of the day the main zelda games are pretty much always worth it and no matter what directions future entries take i don't see that changing anytime soon i have finally reached a place of acceptance with skyward sword thanks to this hd re-release and i hope you have too i totally understand why so many people just couldn't deal with the wildly inconsistent controls and i also get why a lot of people wouldn't want to drop 60 bones on a remaster but i stand by the fact when considered outside of all that extra baggage this is a great zelda game and while a second playthrough on hero mode is probably only necessary if you found the original run too easy the story is cool and relationship driven the items and dungeons rule and i've even warmed up to the art style over all of these years which means that whether you chose to experience skyward sword with the joy-cons motion controls or with the stick we can finally lay this contentious bit of zelda history to rest respectively i'm gonna i'm gonna rest it right here no one's gonna use the wiimote so i'm just gonna put mine down there too so with that in mind guys i give this game my completionist rating of finish it [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 438,974

Keywords: zelda games, 3d zelda games, best zelda games, link, ocarina, ocarina of time, ocarina of time review, gameplay, review, game review, g4, g4tv, completionist, majoras mask, majora's mask, majora's mask review, majora's mask music, wind waker, wind waker review, the legend of zelda, zelda wind waker, zelda Twilight Princess, Twilight Princess, Twilight Princess review, Skyward Sword, Skyward Sword review, nintendo, Skyward Sword hd, projared, peanutbuttergamer, peebs

Id: lQdjHjNWiu8

Length: 131min 13sec (7873 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021