More Zelda
I've been playing Skyward Sword pretty slowly (as compared to how I normally play games, anyway) for a few reasons.
1. Work.
2. The colors are really bright and text has almost no contrast with the text window, so it hurts my eyes/head after a few hours. This is WITH the TV brightness turned way down. Combined with the motion controls I'm acutely aware of how this is one of the least disabled accessible games I've played. I am also reminded I need glasses.
3. Flailing your arms around is tiring.
4. Zelda is a little too exciting for me sometimes. Trying to stop a boss sixteen times my size from reaching a temple at the top of a hill. Trying to sneak around creepy guardian creatures in the Silent Realm. Trying to survive some REAL AS FUCK INDIANA JONES BULLSHIT in the Earth Temple. I'm fat and I'm not twenty anymore so I get concerned about how high my heart rate is while playing some of these bits, lol.
So about four hours at a time is my absolute limit before I have to walk away rubbing my eyes and/or trying to calm down. Two of the effects of these things are related:
1. I am having time to speculate, which I almost never have DURING game plays, because I usually blow through the whole game on the first go just to find out what happens. This is making for a really rich experience, in that I feel like I am appreciating the character development and worldbuilding a lot more.
2. However, I am worried that I will get to the end and be let down because all of my questions will get glossed over. I mean, per 1., I'm drawing a lot of conclusions that may never be satisfied. This is a Zelda game, not Ivalice, or Suikoden.
But SS has grown a lot on me. Like, I still don't love the motion controls, but Aonuma really went for it. He tried really hard to make them work, and they are better than motion controls have ever been. Swimming is actually not annoying, and swimming in 3D games is always annoying.
Also, like Twilight Princess, SS has a very strong sense of history. You wonder about what the places you've gone to were like before because there are hints that things were different once. In TP there's the abandoned village, the ruins on the plain, the weird little alleyways in Castle Town, the ghosts of the dead soldiers leading you onward. In SS, Skyloft is infuriatingly boring, but tales of the dangerous surface and the dialogue of the creatures below reveals that people used to be earthbound, and you wonder why they stopped. Who was mining timeshift stones in Lanayru, and why? The robots talk about humans like they're inferior creatures, and not their masters-- who, then, are their masters? Who built the crumbling temples? If this Link is the first Link, who sealed the Imprisoned away before his time? etc. It's the kind of stuff I love thinking about, that makes games an interesting "place" to spend time in. And I'm glad that after so many years, Zelda is still an engaging series with games that have something different to offer.
I still don't like Fi. Have a lot of game left though, I think, so perhaps she will surprise me.
1. Work.
2. The colors are really bright and text has almost no contrast with the text window, so it hurts my eyes/head after a few hours. This is WITH the TV brightness turned way down. Combined with the motion controls I'm acutely aware of how this is one of the least disabled accessible games I've played. I am also reminded I need glasses.
3. Flailing your arms around is tiring.
4. Zelda is a little too exciting for me sometimes. Trying to stop a boss sixteen times my size from reaching a temple at the top of a hill. Trying to sneak around creepy guardian creatures in the Silent Realm. Trying to survive some REAL AS FUCK INDIANA JONES BULLSHIT in the Earth Temple. I'm fat and I'm not twenty anymore so I get concerned about how high my heart rate is while playing some of these bits, lol.
So about four hours at a time is my absolute limit before I have to walk away rubbing my eyes and/or trying to calm down. Two of the effects of these things are related:
1. I am having time to speculate, which I almost never have DURING game plays, because I usually blow through the whole game on the first go just to find out what happens. This is making for a really rich experience, in that I feel like I am appreciating the character development and worldbuilding a lot more.
2. However, I am worried that I will get to the end and be let down because all of my questions will get glossed over. I mean, per 1., I'm drawing a lot of conclusions that may never be satisfied. This is a Zelda game, not Ivalice, or Suikoden.
But SS has grown a lot on me. Like, I still don't love the motion controls, but Aonuma really went for it. He tried really hard to make them work, and they are better than motion controls have ever been. Swimming is actually not annoying, and swimming in 3D games is always annoying.
Also, like Twilight Princess, SS has a very strong sense of history. You wonder about what the places you've gone to were like before because there are hints that things were different once. In TP there's the abandoned village, the ruins on the plain, the weird little alleyways in Castle Town, the ghosts of the dead soldiers leading you onward. In SS, Skyloft is infuriatingly boring, but tales of the dangerous surface and the dialogue of the creatures below reveals that people used to be earthbound, and you wonder why they stopped. Who was mining timeshift stones in Lanayru, and why? The robots talk about humans like they're inferior creatures, and not their masters-- who, then, are their masters? Who built the crumbling temples? If this Link is the first Link, who sealed the Imprisoned away before his time? etc. It's the kind of stuff I love thinking about, that makes games an interesting "place" to spend time in. And I'm glad that after so many years, Zelda is still an engaging series with games that have something different to offer.
I still don't like Fi. Have a lot of game left though, I think, so perhaps she will surprise me.