Pastiche
And now for something completely different.
I don't use this public forum to discuss things other than recent events sensitive to my person very often, but I was looking through a few games of mine and it got me thinking. There have been a number of video games I've purchased or rented in my lifetime that have surprised me (in good ways, there's a whole separate list for the bad "wows"). Either I was expecting them to suck or at the very least not offer the depth of gameplay that they did.
So over the course of the next 10 posts, I'm going to discuss a bit about my unexpected fascination with these games. I'm sure there are more appropriate titles out there I've played to replace some of these, but I just can't think of them at the moment. These will be ranked in the order of ascending levels of shock on my part.
The Top 10 Most Surprising Games [That I can Remember]
Number 10: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Being me, it feels WEIRD putting a Zelda game anywhere within this list, rank 10 or not. Admittedly, like a lot of people I was confused when I first saw the early pieces of footage from this game while it was in production. The Hero of Time, so bad ass we could ignore the fact he wore tights, had been morphed into something from South Park. I felt like Shigeru Miyamoto had betrayed us, his diehard fans in the western world, with this redesigned Link; his head so bulbous and eyes so huge it was no secret it came out of the rainbow panda fantasy land that is Japan. I felt like that loyal Star Wars fan who had to convince HIMSELF as well as others that the series was still good after walking out of a Phantom Menace screening for the first time.
Furthermore, the time of it's release simply added insult to injury. Wind Waker was released during the zenith of Nintendo's kiddie-game label. Nintendo fans everywhere were having a hard time defending themselves against PS2 and Xbox owners' jives and comments that the system, and really the company, had abandoned the generation that made them rich by buying their games. Suddenly myself and the other kids that resurrected the games industry after its collapse in 1984 were seen as too old to make games for. There was more money in making kid friendly games, games that everyone [read: children and their parents] could play together and enjoy (kids aren't as discriminating and don't read review sites, after all). Maybe in Japan, I guess. When the first shots of a new Zelda game for the Gamecube hit the Internet, though, it was like Christmas for all of the big N's weary American soldiers. We were treated to screenshots of Link locked in mortal combat with the King of the Gerudo himself, their fully rendered and realistic avatars looking like something from the Twilight Princess of today. This was it! This was the companion to Metroid Prime, till then the only weapon Nintendo fans had to defend that the Gamecube hadn't abandoned adult gamers! Alas, the game took its infamous dramatic graphical overhaul and was devolved into something from Saturday morning kids TV programming.
True, the game hadn't even come out yet. How could any of us predict the quality of its gameplay based on its graphics alone? Graphics, a great game don't make. It's true then, and it's still true now. However many of us were just desperate for a Gamecube game with a little bite to it. We wanted to feel heroic in a game, not like we could survive an anvil falling on our heads. We were bitter and we wanted more for our loyalty to the 'Cube than this. Graphics, in this case, mattered tons. (Fun fact: I myself boycotted reading any of the Harry Potter novels in college due to the fact that the titular character looked like white Urkel. I got over it.)
Eventually the game came out and we all had to swallow our pride and play it. Oh how elated we all were to see our incorrectness! I'm not going to go into detail about HOW we were wrong as I think it's pretty obvious, just that the gameplay was stellar and the graphics seemed to work with the feeling the game had. Honestly had the game looked like something out of Twilight Princess, I don't think it'd have worked. Since then the other games in the series that follow this graphical style (namely Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Four Swords, and the upcoming Spirit Tracks) have been accepted without protest regarding their looks. If you've been under a rock or are still someone who insists out of stubbornness not to play Cellda, I implore you to reconsider. Also, cake!!!:
I don't use this public forum to discuss things other than recent events sensitive to my person very often, but I was looking through a few games of mine and it got me thinking. There have been a number of video games I've purchased or rented in my lifetime that have surprised me (in good ways, there's a whole separate list for the bad "wows"). Either I was expecting them to suck or at the very least not offer the depth of gameplay that they did.
So over the course of the next 10 posts, I'm going to discuss a bit about my unexpected fascination with these games. I'm sure there are more appropriate titles out there I've played to replace some of these, but I just can't think of them at the moment. These will be ranked in the order of ascending levels of shock on my part.
The Top 10 Most Surprising Games [That I can Remember]
Number 10: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Being me, it feels WEIRD putting a Zelda game anywhere within this list, rank 10 or not. Admittedly, like a lot of people I was confused when I first saw the early pieces of footage from this game while it was in production. The Hero of Time, so bad ass we could ignore the fact he wore tights, had been morphed into something from South Park. I felt like Shigeru Miyamoto had betrayed us, his diehard fans in the western world, with this redesigned Link; his head so bulbous and eyes so huge it was no secret it came out of the rainbow panda fantasy land that is Japan. I felt like that loyal Star Wars fan who had to convince HIMSELF as well as others that the series was still good after walking out of a Phantom Menace screening for the first time.
Furthermore, the time of it's release simply added insult to injury. Wind Waker was released during the zenith of Nintendo's kiddie-game label. Nintendo fans everywhere were having a hard time defending themselves against PS2 and Xbox owners' jives and comments that the system, and really the company, had abandoned the generation that made them rich by buying their games. Suddenly myself and the other kids that resurrected the games industry after its collapse in 1984 were seen as too old to make games for. There was more money in making kid friendly games, games that everyone [read: children and their parents] could play together and enjoy (kids aren't as discriminating and don't read review sites, after all). Maybe in Japan, I guess. When the first shots of a new Zelda game for the Gamecube hit the Internet, though, it was like Christmas for all of the big N's weary American soldiers. We were treated to screenshots of Link locked in mortal combat with the King of the Gerudo himself, their fully rendered and realistic avatars looking like something from the Twilight Princess of today. This was it! This was the companion to Metroid Prime, till then the only weapon Nintendo fans had to defend that the Gamecube hadn't abandoned adult gamers! Alas, the game took its infamous dramatic graphical overhaul and was devolved into something from Saturday morning kids TV programming.
True, the game hadn't even come out yet. How could any of us predict the quality of its gameplay based on its graphics alone? Graphics, a great game don't make. It's true then, and it's still true now. However many of us were just desperate for a Gamecube game with a little bite to it. We wanted to feel heroic in a game, not like we could survive an anvil falling on our heads. We were bitter and we wanted more for our loyalty to the 'Cube than this. Graphics, in this case, mattered tons. (Fun fact: I myself boycotted reading any of the Harry Potter novels in college due to the fact that the titular character looked like white Urkel. I got over it.)
Eventually the game came out and we all had to swallow our pride and play it. Oh how elated we all were to see our incorrectness! I'm not going to go into detail about HOW we were wrong as I think it's pretty obvious, just that the gameplay was stellar and the graphics seemed to work with the feeling the game had. Honestly had the game looked like something out of Twilight Princess, I don't think it'd have worked. Since then the other games in the series that follow this graphical style (namely Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Four Swords, and the upcoming Spirit Tracks) have been accepted without protest regarding their looks. If you've been under a rock or are still someone who insists out of stubbornness not to play Cellda, I implore you to reconsider. Also, cake!!!:
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