FionordeQuester

More removed/altered hints from Grezzo: 1) Delayed Learning of the "Inverted Song of Time" & "Song of Double Time" Remember how the Scarecrow was ceaselessly asking if you wanted to learn how to execute these two songs? Well in 3DS, he doesn't say this until after the 1st Cycle ends. This turns a hint that was easy to find into one I think most new players would miss. After all, why would you talk to this guy again? When his function is to literally waste your time? Nothing tells you about his new text, after all. Could be Grezzo wanted those to be more of a secret (to counter-balance the buff Song of Double Time received), could be they thought the Inverted Song of Time was too strong for how easily you got it (hence the nerf), or they just thought it was odd that he was referring to "that strange song" before you even recovered the Ocarina. Or maybe it's all of the above? Regardless, a 3DS newbie is less likely to learn these than a N64 newbie, without outside help. 2) The Monkeys After Healing Koume In the N64 version, a bunch of monkeys talk about how their friend tried to solve the poison swamp mystery, but got captured in Deku Palace: But in 3DS, they were relocated to after you rode the Swamp Tourist ride: Presumably, this was to encourage exploration, as now there's nothing but Koume saying she'll reward you to guide you to the Tourist Attraction. That and the Shiekah Stone, of course. 3) Removed Line of Sight From Deku Guards In the N64 version, there was a row of white dots emanating from each guard indicating their vision, if you made it nighttime: But 3DS removed this: Perhaps they believed the white dots utterly trivialized this puzzle? Or, just looked tacky? This is in contrast to the moving platforms, where you were required to learn two new skills at once (fighting Deku Scrubs & landing on moving platforms)—and were made to navigate the entire length of the palace again, each time you failed. That meant that unlike the Deku Guards, there were (relatively) long delays between each attempt.

Well, they were—we know for a fact the Zoras feel the same urges as humans, as well (Princess Ruto's attraction to Link, for example).

I hadn't, but it makes sense. The two were an item, right?

Strange. I can execute a Boomerang while targeting, on my N64 emulator. Try it a few more times. Target, Hold B (Link should punch, then get ready to throw his blades), then release. It also might have to do with whether his blades are out at the time you press the B Button—that tripped me up a few times.

Hmm...you know, Nerrel used footage of the Shiekah Stone in his review to highlight "nuking the game's difficulty from orbit", though he didn't directly mention it by name. Just a statement that the difficulty was ground to nothing, along with footage from it. Even so, I've played around with it, and found that it actually isn't nearly as hand-holding as I thought it would be. In fact, after Clock Town, you're almost never going to see any of its hints unless you've either already attempted the relevant sections times, or after you've already completed it. For some examples, It doesn't even tell you to go to Southern Swamp. The next hint after "Retrieve Your Ocarina" is "Visit the Old Hags", and only after you've entered the Mystery Woods at least once. It also doesn't tell you how to beat Oldolwa until you've fought him at least once. As for optional upgrades, it doesn't seem to tell you how to find Heart Pieces and Fairies until after you've beaten the main boss of the relevant places. For example, it only tells you about two of the seventeen Heart Pieces you could get after receiving the Song of Time (including the one you got on the way to Skull Kid). It's not till you beat Oldolwa that it tells you about six more—four in the swamp, and two in the "Dodongo Hole" and "Peahat Hole" in Termina Field. You guys think this warrants further analysis? Or is it too minor of a point?

No idea, friend !

That's right! I go out of my way to visit him, in N64! Makes getting the pictos way easier!

Way ahead of you 🙂 ! Oh, it's not so bad. It's kind of like walking through a bunch of empty space to the Elite 4 in Pokemon R/B/Y. There's not a heck of a lot going on, but the music, atmosphere, and architecture sets the mood well enough that you don't mind so much. Not saying cutting out Elegy of Emptiness animations wouldn't have been a good idea though. Yes, you need Garo's Mask to get to Sakon's. Otherwise, you can't Hookshot a tree next to that weird old guy (who himself is on a cliff above Shiro the invisible Stone Mask guy).

Any time. Huh...sounds like an interesting man to watch! Thank you! Don't ever hesitate to tell me anything else you think of, alright? I never did. It seems to me that most of the changes were to things tied to progressing the story. All the optional stuff was mostly untouched, apart from a few exceptions, and the 7th Bottle quest.

Oof, that'd be a project. Would have to have SFX, actual editing, a thumbnail...all that stuff. Maybe I'll do that at some point—not for a while, though. Good point... Then yes, Mathewmatosis should have double-checked his facts before posting his video, just like Nerrel should have. That said, if it was a positive review anyway, then those little boo-boos are mostly harmless, IMO. They counter-act his main narrative, rather than enhancing it...so if anything, excising those points would've made him and OoT look even better. Sure. If I take Jotari up on his idea, I'll be sure to phrase it like that—I'll even put "I don't think" to soften the statement even more. It's easy enough, don't worry. The aliens themselves drop ammunition, and are pretty sluggish besides. Just make sure you get the ones that appear behind the shed—they're easy to overlook. Nice! Apart from the improved camera, no. It's just as hard as it was before.

A person "being bad" at an activity isn't a value statement of their character, in my mind—it just means they need more practice. I'm not saying I'm smarter than he is—I'm saying that I think he should have taken more time to explore the 3DS version before criticizing it. Is that fair? Right...which is why most of the reviewers I enjoy will have segments in their videos, or even follow-up videos, highlighting the things they were wrong about, or things they know could use clarifying. Linkara is always doing that. Nostalgia Critic had those "Top 10 ****-up Lists" (whatever his other faults may have been), and etc. The other thing is, a lot of Nerrel's larger points are matters of opinion—not things I can really "disprove" like I can with the "small" stuff. That's fine, except for how sensationalized and hyperbolic his language is. That's great for an entertaining video—it is NOT great for an actual serious comparison, nor should people build their arguments on it. Yet, that's exactly what some do, and it's frustrating. So, if it were sensationalized and hyperbolic...but otherwise 100% right, then it's "fair enough". If it were incorrect on some factual stuff, but had no spin to it at all...then there's not much to really get mad about. Nerrel's problem is that his video is both...which makes it a pretty easy target for me to criticize. I'm not even done with all the videos yet, either—they're just gonna take longer, is all. Did he acknowledge these errors after the fact, out of curiosity? Here's the thing—I'm going to guess that his review of OoT was pretty positive, right? If so, there's no real harm to getting a couple of things wrong—people'll give the game a try. A negative review, however, has the chance to turn people away for good. It harms that bit of media, and the people who produced it. Sometimes they deserve it, oftentimes they don't. You need to be way more careful criticizing someone or something than you do praising it. Probably more careful than even I've been, if we're being honest. As things are now, I see this game being trashed for problems that either don't exist, or are exaggerated to the point of absurdity. It's bad enough, and prevalent enough, that it violates my sense of justice—hence, I'm a bit angry about it all. And, having watched Nerrel's video multiple times, I know that he wasn't as careful as he should've been. TL;DR, you praise something, it's whatever. You trash something, you'd better be certain you're absolutely right about what you're saying. More certain than I've been, in fact. Then I'm at a loss. How would you phrase what I was trying to say? What's the polite way of saying "he made newbie mistakes, and blamed the game for it"?

In any case, would you feel better if I said Nerrel "played like a newbie"? "Made newbie mistakes"? "Played poorly"? I'll do that, if you want—what I was trying to say was that he was unfamiliar with 3D's mechanics, did poorly as a result...and came away thinking the game was at fault, not himself. In other words, he did the exact same thing he accused Nintendo's play-testers of doing.

Yeah, the 3D section is horribly outdated. I knew that going in but...I kinda assumed they'd get that basic thing right. Just goes to show the importance of always double-checking, eh? The way I did it was that I went to the bridge room with the Freezards, went up the stairs into the room with the invisible platforms, then just rolled up to the correct spot from there. You can get there without any keys, thankfully. In 3D, I just took the picture in Great Bay. Had his face in the center of the camera and everything. But in N64, I had to take his picture in the "Road to Southern Swamp" screen. Yeah, it was a typo. And yeah, I'm thinking it was both. A slight bone towards players that'd be using magic a lot, and just a nice aesthetic change on the side. Cool. That's what I thought. It does, but that's mostly a visual change. The only change, gameplay wise, was that Goht has a much less exploitable AI. In N64, you could just get him to stand still and get showered in arrows, like so: You CAN still shoot him down with arrows in 3DS, he just doesn't stop like he does in N64. Mmm...yeah, Link's Awakening is probably the first to really emphasize the puzzle boss aspect, now that you bring that game up. The other three...I mean, they've got the basic "weak to X and Y items", but they're significantly more chaotic. Much more reliant on your skill, it seems to me, than later games—especially the 3D ones. I probably am being hasty, you're right... But like, how does one misremember something like that? "I grabbed this fairy via the ledge when I play N64", when it turns out it was never grabbable at all? And at the very least, why not verify it first? Right. I'll leave it at that. But that's the whole problem right there—even being charitable, it's clear he didn't fact check everything first, nor did he experiment with the 3DS for that long. I mean, part of the point of me playing through both versions is precisely because I didn't want to make errors like that...that's why I was able to correct the few I did. He's a content creator with more than 100k subs—yet it doesn't look like he's being as diligent as I am.

Anyway, here we go: You know, everything till now was explainable by "Nerrel stunk at the game, bought into hype, and was too impatient"... Now I'm wondering how much N64 he actually played.

...Huh. You're right. Curse you, Zeldaspeedruns.com! You lied to me! https://www.zeldaspeedruns.com/mm3d/knowledge/remake-changes! Ah. Whoops! Oh, please do! I don't wanna have to correct myself again 😄 ! The video'll be up in about 53 minutes (I have less than a MB of upload speed), so you'll be able to see, then. Could be I messed up...but I doubt it. A right pain, it is. But yeah, it's good they gave you multiple options, at least. If I had to guess, it's the color of the fairies. The Fairy of Power (Spin Attack) fairies are green, whereas the Fairy of Wisdom fairies (the Double Magic meter) are pink. Maybe they wanted the green fairies in the forest dungeon? That, and more magic. Yes, they didn't just swap the rewards—they swapped the fairies themselves. N64 Snowhead had green fairies, 3DS Snowhead has pink fairies. Gamecube didn't change that, right? Cool! Good job! That's exactly how he works in 3DS as well. He's the least changed boss out of all of them. As for the bosses...yeah, they remind me of how they used to be in "A Link to the Past" and earlier. Significantly less structured, and significantly harder. OoT was the first game to really lean into the "puzzle boss" angle—perhaps because they were worried that Link would be too slow, and the camera wouldn't be able to handle it. Eh, Gyorg is alright. A little plain, but alright. Twinmold's kinda janky though...that said, the blue worm has a weakness to Fire Arrows, and the red worm has a weakness to Ice Arrows. 4 shots from each will slay them, which I didn't know at the time. Hope you have a better time than I did! Indeed!

It's actually only the 3DS version that speeds up the Day 1 Cycle—making time move at 1.5x speed instead of regular speed. Unless you meant that you don't have the ISoT yet, and therefore it's sped up? The meaning is ambiguous, so I decided to explain that just to be safe 😛 . Oh, they're not so bad. You barely notice them really, apart from the Kamaro's Dance cutscene. Honestly though, I didn't have a problem even with that. It just looked to me like the kid saw something cool going on, and decided he wanted to dance too! I am glad you brought up Nerrel, though. I visited Snowhead yesterday, and... Oh, and the ledge was never grabbable—I checked that myself as well. Might even update the video with that. But, speaking of screw-ups, I was wrong regarding the Gerudo pirates pictos. The "I need a shot of their face!" text DOES still exist...It's just that the game's a bit hazy on what exactly counts as a "face". If I had to guess, it's a measure of "distance". Otherwise, I'm at a loss as to why the following examples worked: N64 EXAMPLE (The Fisherman accepted this, even though it's the back of her head!): 3DS EXAMPLES (The Fisherman accepted both of these!): I am, however, right about the Tingle pic requirements! Double checked that real quick as well!

Oh wow, found some interesting stuff about the 3DS: 1) They fixed the camera during Goron rolling! The camera pans back significantly further than in N64! N64 Version: 3DS Version: From my observation (having just come off N64) Goron rolling itself is also smoother. 3DS Goron seems to turn left and right slower than N64 Goron, so rolling up into Snowhead was significantly easier than it ever was in N64. 2) Grezzo actually removed a hint about where the Great Fairy was, on Cycle 1! To compare... N64 ("The Great Fairy's Fountain is in North Clock Town"): 3DS ("The Great Fairy's...somewhere. Look, I dunno. Try talking to one of the kids!")

Blast. Oh well—your thoughts on the N64 will have to suffice 😛 .

Thanks 🙂 . Trust me, it's way more convenient. I mean, you could work with N64, but 3DS made it feel good. Do you plan to give 3DS a look, out of curiosity? I know your opinion on its production, but it'd be fun to hear your experience ends up being with the version itself.

Good luck, and hang in there! Looking at the two again, they also changed the animations. N64 Goron throws this ridiculous looking haymaker, like he's never thrown a punch before. 3DS Goron throws his punches much straighter. They're still haymakers, but he doesn't pull his arms all the way back before the punch, like N64 Goron does. I think it looks more like how Darmani would actually fight, on top of being a straight buff to his offense. The Gilded Sword doubles its damage with Jump Slashes, and can do 360 degree attacks with what I call "Quick Spins". Hylian Link himself is more agile, and can shield when moving. This is on top of being able to use his other items.

It's hard for me to say, since I'd played on a keyboard for this run (I donated most of my games to charity—partially cuz I knew I could emulate them anyway). That's terrible for movement...but for what it's worth, yeah, I had the same problems with Goron rolling. Same. I'm not sure if it makes it better, but, it is interesting there's a "slow but easy" option vs. a "fast but hard" option. Still, perhaps it would've been nice to have Down on the joystick function as a "brake" feature? Hold the opposite direction to remain in "slow Goron roll" mode? Only thing I can think of is that it's otherwise the fastest way to travel in the game (even beating out Epona). Hence, you'd want to get good at it just so you can power through the days. Again, not a counter-argument—just a thought. You're correct about his punches. It's extremely nice to have, if you dropped your sword off, and don't want to just Song of Double Time your way to its completion!

Just finished my playthrough of the N64 version (all this talk made me decide I was gonna LP them soon). Thoughts: 1) First of all, I apologize for stating there was an extra dungeon. I was thinking of the Secret Shrine, but...turns out that was in N64 too. Whoops. 2) I'd forgotten just how slow the text speed was in this version. You can skip most of it via the B button, but for cutscenes like the Giants after each boss...owch. 3) Never try to do any kind of aiming with a keyboard. Ever. Especially not with N64 Zelda controls. Or if you do, be darn sure your emulator has a Virtual Pad function! 4) Zora's Moon dungeon is completely different. N64 was pure trial-and-error—you just kept choosing between "left or right tunnel", and just had to memorize where the Heart Piece and Exit was. It's only in 3DS where you're required to hit timed switches and do well-timed Dolphin Dives. Yet more evidence that Grezzo was not afraid of challenge. 5) After re-experiencing Gyorg & Twinmold, I can definitely see why Grezzo felt the need to re-work them, especially Twinmold. Going through them: Gyorg: Brain-dead simple for as late in the game as he is. There's basically three ways to do the fight... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Method #1: "The Boring Strat"—Shoot him with an arrow, dive down and magic shield him, get back on the platform and...repeat four times till dead. That's the whole strat in a sentence. Method #2: "The Aggressive Strat"—Chateau de Romani to infinite magic, and keep slamming into the top of him (only the top stuns him—the rest is arbitrarily invincible). Sounds pretty cool...until you realize just how awful the camera is at "fast and furious" instead of "slow and methodical". I could barely see him half the times I struck him Method #3: "The Speedrun Strat"—Shoot him as he charges (so he's stuck in the wall), sink down while Magic Shielding, quickly rise up and down before he moves again, and he'll immediately get stunned again. Just as trivially easy as Method 1, so long as you got the rhythm down. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twinmold: Yesterday, or the day before, I called him "competent but boring". Having done it again..."competent" might've been too strong of a word. He's easier for certain, but otherwise just as janky as the 3DS version. Not janky in all the same ways, but janky all the same. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- —First of all, you can void out, just like in Gerudo Desert. Do that, and you'll exit the boss room and have to start the entire fight over again. The borders aren't clearly marked either, apart from the fact that the breakable towers stop extending outward at a certain point. You wouldn't expect to have to be careful of such a thing. —Secondly, the camera zooms way too close to Giant Link. I'm trying to track two enemies who're each big enough to fill the screen, who're random enough to spawn from wherever they want, and only have two places where you can hurt them... And this is how the game'll look: —Thirdly, the lag. There's destructible environments, three giant figures wrestling on screen, a sandstorm blowing, and of course the recoil effects every time Link strikes the wrong spot on their bodies. The N64 is being pushed to its absolute limits, even with the Expansion Pack, and it compounds the already sluggish movement of Giant Link. —Despite all the above problems, shrinking down and arrowing them isn't a better alternative. Tiny Link is moving across sand that slows him down every step of the way, trying to get to giant worms that travel across the sky. Weak points will take forever to come out of the sand, at which point the front of the body will already move to block it, or another worm will strike from behind. Plus, the arena doesn't refill arrows—only magic. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course, Twinmold hits like a wet noodle (even without Double Defense), so you can still overpower it by mashing the B button...but getting a clean fight is fairly difficult. The only consistent way I've found is to Crouch Shield, so I can block it at most of the places it can spawn. After that, it's a matter of getting one of them to ram me head-first. By doing that, I could chain together a flurry of Crouch Stabs while blocking all its attacks. But...also that requires me to be stationary for most of the fight. Practical...but boring as all get-out. So TL;DR, he sucks in N64, he sucks in 3DS...Twinmold sucks period. He's a janky mess no matter which version he's in! EDIT: On a brighter note, most of the mini-bosses are awesome! Wizzrobe, Wart, Igos du Ikana and his men, Garo Master, & Gomess are all incredibly fun to fight, while being tricky to block and dodge!

Right. I see. I do generally try to interpret arguments in the best light. It's just, regarding the play-testers thing, I don't differentiate between "play-tester" and "gamer". So it sounded to me like you were saying that "Good Play-tester = Bad Gamer". Thank you for clearing that up for me. On another note, how does this principle apply to companies like Grezzo? I ask, because I think I've finally realized what's been bothering me the whole time. You've helped me put words to it with your explanation of "bad faith", so I hope you hear it out. It seems to me any time there's a change most folks disagree with (not saying this is you, or anyone else here), the instant presumption is that Grezzo was incompetent, or pandering to casuals, or something. And then even when it's a genuine improvement, the reaction will be "well, they had to do that because of [such and such] reason", or "they wouldn't have done that if they weren't trying to pander to casuals", or something. And then I have to work hard to think of or present alternatives. For instance (not saying this is you, except No. 3. But only No. 3—the rest are "other guys elsewhere") --------------------------------------------- 1) "Slow Deku Hopping was a side effect of a careless change, rather than intentional game design" (admittedly wasn't sure of this myself, till I saw swapped Deku Pad placement) 2) "They lied about the game staying just as hard as OG Majora's Mask" (when the alternative is that they made a distinction between "hard" and "cryptic", or simply tried to make up for lost difficulty with added difficulty elsewhere) 3) "The Deku shadows probably only got bigger because they needed to do it for the 3DS' tiny screen" (rather than it just being something they felt like doing) 4) "They wouldn't have removed the 'Tingle picture must be taken in the swamp', 'Gerudo Pirate needs her face in the frame', or 'Oceanside Spider House must be cleared in Day 1' requirements, or "You don't have to watch the full Song of Soaring animation every time anymore", if it weren't for Nintendo's aggressive pandering to casuals" (rather than them just being game designers fixing something frustrating). --------------------------------------------- It's this presumption about them, as game developers working on Majora's Mask, that colors every discussion. Every good change was done for the wrong reasons, and every bad change had equally bad intentions behind it. I'm not saying this applies to you—I'm saying this is the general impression I get from what I've seen/heard/read from the 3D discourse. It strikes me as unfair. Is it valid for me to have that feeling? I'll worry more about that the day Nintendo stops emulating their old NES games on all their modern consoles. As-is, they've...actually been pretty generous about that. Shockingly so. I see. For me, they didn't change anything I liked about Majora's Mask, apart from the Deku & Zora movement. Even Twinmold was just a change from "boring but competent" to "interesting but janky". Actually, my first reaction was "wow these tweaks are rad"! "I'm glad they weren't afraid to experiment"! "They added a whole new side-quest, and a whole new optional dungeon"! "Wow, these boss fights are brand new!", and etc. I came out thinking they almost nailed both of those points.

Sure thing. I'll be on stand-by for if you need it. Sure, it's dangerous. But I don't think it's bad in and of itself. Just look at Metroid: Zero Mission. That was a remake of the very first game, yet it changed so much, it's practically a brand new game in itself. Yet, that got nothing but warm critical reception. ...Probably helped that the original Metroid was packaged with it, too. Mmm. Make sure you complete the Oceanside Skulltula House on Day 1, too. That was another thing I forgot about, since I'd gotten used to 3DS version. Indeed—I've gotten old enough, now, that I have to carefully weigh how much money I'm putting down, when buying all these new-fangled "PS5's", or whatever 😛 . That, and whether I'll play 'em often enough to warrant the cost. Hmm...is it possible to unintentionally argue in bad faith? At least, without a stunning lack of self-awareness? I see. I'm not sure you can divorce the two, though. Especially since these're guys that were gamers in the past. Hmm...honestly, my thought is that I prefer having two distinctly different versions of something I enjoy, rather than having two of the same thing on different consoles. For OoT, for example, there's not really any incentive for me to go back to the N64 version, you know? Especially with Master Quest packaged inside the 3DS!

Hold on, before you reply, I edited my argument a bit. Wanted to warn you in advance, since I can see you typing.