This episode, the latest in the “I’m Tired And Sad” series, is brought to you by escitalopram and it’s horrible withdrawal symptoms! Everything I do is exhausting and I now know what it is like for your brain to skip a beat the same way your heart can, so I’m going to take it easy today and talk about one of the first video game accomplishments I ever felt proud of: getting to 1000 hits in Orca’s Sword Training without ever once using my shield, no forward jump attacks, and only dodging via the counterattack system or, as my friends and I called it, “Sword Master Mode.” Prior to the game’s release, I didn’t have a lot of local friends since all the kids my age had moved away with their families some years prior, but when a kid moved in down the block who was my age and shared my interest in video games, I started to actually feel competitive about video games and my accomplishments. Before then, I’d only ever played against my siblings with any regularity and I was hopelessly worse than my brother at everything and untouchably better than my younger siblings at everything, so there was no real competition for me to engage in. This new friend was at my skill level (largely determined by our age and coordination) and I got my first taste of competitive gaming. I didn’t much appreciate it, though, since it didn’t really feel fun to win and always felt bad to lose and have other people so visibily (and often vocally) enjoy having beaten me. When the latest Legend of Zelda game dropped, though, it gave me something I could compete in that actually provided me with something when I did well (a sense of personal accomplishment) and avoided the whole competitive nastiness thing I dislike so much about directly competitive gaming.
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I’m Tired and Sad, So Let’s Talk About The Legend of Zelda: Episode 26
Every so often, I get struck by the urge to go replay an old Legend of Zelda. Right now, I really want to go replay The Legend of Zelda: Wink Waker. It’s been a long time since I played through that game and it has been on my mind recently because I lent my younger sister my Wii U, which has a copy of the digital Wind Waker HD game installed on it. I could set up my Wii and play the GameCube version of the game if I really wanted to, rather than wait for my sister to be finished or bother her about getting my console back, but I currently don’t want to play it enough to actually act on the urge. I mean, I’d probably play the game in a couple months if no new games come up (which I already won’t happen) and I finish all the other gaming I’ve recently been putting off to play Palia (which is unlikely to happen, given just how much stuff I’ve still got on my to-play list), but I remember the game well enough that I’m not really feeling compelled to play it again. It’s only been a few years since I last played it, after all. It was part of the franchise replay I was doing with my ex-roommate back when we were living together, so I even have memories of playing the HD remake version with all of its quality-of-life changes (The Swift Sail is a game-changer for a focused player). In looking back on my memories of the game, though, I think I prefer the original version of the game.
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