The Love of the Land – Zelda: Twilight Princess

September 6th, 2008

legend of zelda twilight princess

When I first bought my Wii back on release, December 7th 2006, one of the three games that I bought with it was the obligatory “must buy” Zelda: Twilight Princess. After a few days of holding off, I worked my way into the game’s first dungeon, caught myself on a puzzle, stumbled and then submitted the game, along with my years of finely honed Zelda-mastery to the shelf.

A week ago(as per when written), a year and a half after release, I finally booked the time for a long overdue return to the land of Hyrule and have a few, noteworthy observations to put forth.

The Love of the Land

Something that became significantly apparent as I made my way through the first part of the game - exchanging requests for items in a series of obstacles designed to warm me into the new gameplay additions - was how in tune the Zelda franchise is with the natural environment.

Link’s home village of Ordon contains subtle clues to the village’s native roots. The topography of the land is ruggered with a small river making its way through the heart of the village. Villagers work in harmony with the land, tending cattle, generating small amounts of power through a water wheel and planting foot to eat. Animals play a significant part also, particularly in your first time acquaintance with village life.

Off the top of my head, here are a list of examples where the game allows you to interactive with the local fauna:

-attack and float in air with chickens
-ride your horse Epona
-use Epona to round up goat-like cattle in a timed mini game
-play a context sensitive sub-game preventing your cattle from escaping the ranch
-play a music note with a horn-shaped plant to call forth an eagle
-then use that eagle to swoop on a monkey
-knock down a beehive for the bees to attack a dumbfounded villager
-fish in the river
-nurse a villager’s pet dog
-attract the attention of a pet cat by catching fish
-return to the village as a wolf and talk to the animals

As you can see, there is a wealth of opportunities that the game provides you with for connecting to the environment ad the creatures of the earth.

As the game picks up and you find reach the first dungeon, more of this connection is unveiled, the use of the the macabre twilight world is a good example of this. Before I go on though, for people unfamiliar with this series, the dungeons are a staple of the Zelda series which can best be described as capsules of gameplay which advance inventory and teach new tricks by applying inventory to labyrinth styled puzzle situations. They often make up a the bulk of the game’s challenge.

wolf link and midna

The actual happenings which first summon you to the dungeon converge with the distress of a local family of monkeys, many of which are imprisoned within the dungeon. One of the monkeys, assumingly a female - distinguished by a red flower behind the ear - makes a silent compromise with the hero in that if he rescues her other family members, then her and her family members will exchanges their collected services to guide Link through the dungeon. As a player, it’s hard to directly notice this occurrence taking place as the monkey has no language to tell you so (beyonf the pointing and squeals). At the end of the dungeon, after uniting the whole family, they chain together to form a rope for Link to swing across, providing him access to the stage’s final boss. It’s at this stage that, for many I suspect the connection will chime in and the results of your actions realized.

As you can see the connection between man and earth are subtly implemented expressing an important relationship that runs deep with the lore of the franchise. Applying this thought to other entries in the series conjures up a plethora of relative examples. The various animal/elemental themed races such as Gorons, Zoras and Dekus, the light and dark words (a metaphor for natural vs industry?) and the long gone tradition of chickens and what’ll happen if you abuse them.

DP’s Favourite Video Game Music

June 4th, 2008

cranky kong music

So you’ve read my reasons why I enjoy listening to video game music and still aren’t convinced that video game music is awesome? Looks like I’m going to have to post up some music samples of particular video game music which I enjoy. I know that this is cliché among us gaming bloggers but I thought that I’d jump on the bandwagon and give it a go. As usual I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and other great game music below.

The Moon – Ducktales (NES and Gameboy)

I don’t think that any song represents the 8bit era quite like this one. I can’t quite put my finger on it but somehow this music captures nostalgia down to a tee, even to people who never played either of the DuckTales games. Capcom owned the rights to Disney games in the 8 and early 16bit eras which paved the way for a solid (infact very good) line up of licensed material sporting the comical cast of Disney characters.

The Best is Yet to Come – Metal Gear Solid

There are only a few songs that I can honestly say tug at my heart strings (some of them I have listed here) and The Best is Yet to Come is one of those songs. Sung completely in Irish the song evokes a strong sense of loss and sorrow which is extremely overpowering and representative of the original Metal Gear Solid. The fact that I cannot understand the lyrics adds further reason as to why this song is a natural beauty. This song reminds me a little of Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy (listen here).

Main Theme - Metal Gear Solid 2

With my anticipation for Metal Gear Solid 4 at fever pitch, this song helps ease my waiting pains. When comparing this to the original MGS Main Theme this is almost laughably better (but the original has its own, PSone campy qualities). MGS2’s Main Theme is again highly representative of this game due to the traces of digital sounds and instrumental arrangement. The sample that I have selected represents a certain pride that I have for the game and captures the heart and soul of this deep series.

The Legend of the Hero – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I vividly remember this song at the start of The Wind Waker and if you love this game dearly as well then I think you’ll feel the same way. This track made you feel as though Wind Waker was going to be the game which would sequalize Orcarina of Time in terms of coherent story (that is the described story on the scrolls would actually be the story of the Wind Waker). Unfortunately The Wind Waker actually created a gapping hole in the series timeline but in anycase this music reaches into the core of the Zelda experience. The music itself provides background to the main themes surrounding the Zelda franchise; courageous, youthful adventuring on an encompassing scale all which The Wind Waker made good use of.

Title Black – Final Fantasy Tactics

Honestly I could choose any one of the 71 tracks on this soundtrack and it would still be worth listening to. Title Black is the perfect song to symbolize one of gaming’s most widely acclaimed soundtracks. Stop listening and just buy this soundtrack because it is 100% worth your cash especially to those who played and enjoyed the original.

Bramble Song – Donkey Kong Country 2

I can’t find an actual rip of this song so I am just going to post up an accurate enough version taken from VG Music. Donkey Kong Country 2 was unfortunately my least favourite game in the series and despite my deep affection for this series I only played the DKC2 this year (I had finished DKC and DKC3 back in the day, never had DKC2 though). Upon hearing this music my jaw hit the floor. This music is just so compelling and deep for a song of the SNES era. There is also a track from DKC3 that I like which is the remix of the main theme in the mountain levels. I’ll post it up if I can find it again.

Posted in General Gaming | Comments (1)
Tags: donkey kong, ducktales, Final Fantasy Tactics, metal gear solid, video game music, zelda

DP’s Gaming Wallpapers

April 30th, 2008

Oh boy, this is somewhat embarrasing. As mentioned in the previous post I am interested in graphic design and also photography, you can find some of my work on my deviantART page and on my flickr account. Many years ago I created a few video game based wallpapers when my design skills weren’t too crash hot. Even though it is painful looking at these pieces now, some of them, the more recent ones (2 years ago) aren’t too bad. Since I don’t have anywhere to upload these wallpapers to, I thought that I could make this site their last resting place. So below are the wallpapers that I am talking about. Also I apologise for scrolling on the main page, Wordpress’ awful formatting has my hands tied.

You will find that some of them are tagged, I should explain this. Firstly Raven is an old screen name *giggles*, some of the wallpapers were volunteraly made for the Advanced Media Network, a site in which I use to post at quite a bit (the forum that is) and Nexus and Ravens Domain is something of a portfolio site with work from myself and my twin brother. Anyways, I think that the majority of these wallpapers are quite crude but if you like them then…yeah, let me know. Click the titles for a full view.