r/truezelda

I’ve been getting really tired of the rhetoric going around in some gaming spaces that backtracking is inherently "bad" or "lazy game design." Somewhere along the line, people started equating backtracking with padding, and I think that’s a massive misunderstanding of what makes world design click.

To me, good backtracking is the lifeblood of a memorable game. It’s the mechanism that actually makes you form an attachment to a location.

Zelda was always a series that exemplified this point, mastering the use of backtracking to make locations stick and feel lived in. It usually happens in two ways:

The Progression Gate: Finding a location you can't access yet because of a roadblock. Think of the Hookshot target for the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time, the path towards Lake Hylia in A Link to the Past blocked by moles, a door in the Temple of the Ocean King requiring a new emblem pattern, or trees in the Oracle games that you have to return to and burn. You backtrack to these locations with new tools, turning a dead-end into a rewarding breakthrough.

Familiarity and the Hub: Think of how often you return to Kakariko Village or Clock Town. As you progress, these hubs change. New side quests open up, mini-games unlock, and NPCs react to your achievements. This is backtracking, and it’s what makes a digital town feel like a real home.

Zelda is hardly the only series that mastered this.

Banjo-Tooie is an absolute masterclass. It interconnects its worlds in a genius way. It takes the concept of the OOT Goron City to Lost Woods shortcut and applies it to the entire game. This game not only feels like a Zelda game because of this but really makes the world feel real.

Resident Evil has you retread through familiar hallways with new equipment. The tension changes completely because an area that used to terrify you is now easier to navigate because you have better gear and the right keys, perhaps even shortcut doors open as well.

Paper Mario: TTYD utilizes its hub world brilliantly, constantly pulling you back to Rogueport to find Star Pieces and open new paths. (And yes, I’ll admit the General White quest was awful—but that was a failure of reward and pacing, not a failure of the backtracking mechanic itself).

Many more games use the backtracking to success as well. Most RPG's (kingdom hearts, Dragon quest, etc), Pokemon, Metroid, other metroidvania's (Castlevania, Hollowknight, etc).

—————————————

With that background out of the way, I want to discuss how modern Zelda has completely moved away from backtracking as a form of world-building.

In Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, Echoes of Wisdom, the philosophy flipped. The "Wild Era" games make it a point that almost any problem can be solved the absolute first time you encounter it. Because you have all your core tools (or total physics freedom) from the absolute beginning, the narrative and mechanical reason to return to a previously visited location is practically non-existent.

Once you clear a shrine, a tower, or a camp, you are usually done with it forever. You teleport away and keep moving outward. The world is massive and beautiful, but by eliminating the need to ever say, "I need to remember this spot and come back later," I feel like we lost that deep, intimate attachment to the geography that the older games gave us.

What do you all think? Has the shift toward total open-air freedom robbed modern Zelda games of that classic, interconnected world-building? Or was the elimination of backtracking a net positive for you? Do you think the open-air philosophy can be married to the old backtracking for a more memorable experience?

I’ve had the idea a very long time for an actual Zelda III on a modern console with the original version of Link returning, and I believe it gains more appeal as time goes on. I wonder if that appeal is only mine though as I don’t ever see this brought up as a potential future direction so I’d love to hear thoughts on this and possible ideas for how this game might actually play.

I’ve always imagined Zelda III taking place decades after Zelda II with a much older, grey haired “Old Link” and set in a desolated Hyrule completely in ruin. The story would have a much bleaker tone than typical Zelda games and serve as the “finale” for the original Link, I would compare it story-wise to The Dark Knight Returns or Logan (though not quite as graphically violent or intense as those obviously)

Strangely, though years before BOTW was a thing, I also imagined Hyrule as having more advanced technology (though it was more recently developed rather than ancient relics). Now though I don’t think it needs it.

In terms of core gameplay, my thought process was the main mechanic or gimmick would be perspective shifts. Basically there would be three types of dungeons scattered through the overworld, each type corresponding to a unique camera perspective featured through the history of the series but rendered in the same visual style and HD graphical fidelity:

- traditional top-down

- side-scrolling returning from Zelda II

- Post-Ocarina style third person

Each perspective has its own unique quirks requiring different strategies for combat & puzzle solving (though all tied together with the core gameplay mechanics). In the Overworld, certain regions also shift perspective, though the majority would be third person.

I think this would be a cool way to honor the history of the series and tie things together, with this darker, high definition rendered Old Link literally going back to his roots through emulating the classic gameplay in different ways. But this is literally just my own idea and i dont know shit. If there’s a better take on what Zelda III should be I’m genuinely very curious to hear it.

Would you as a fan like a follow-up to the NES games? What do you imagine it being like? Is it actually a bad idea? I’d love to hear thoughts from actual Zelda fans

Something I see a lot when the quantity/quality of dungeons in the Wild era games gets called into question is the idea that dungeons haven't really gone anywhere, they've just been broken down into shrines and sprinkled across the open world. I'm sure this was the Zelda team's intent, and on paper it's not a terrible idea... but I think the execution totally misses the mark.

Go back to Zelda 1 and try to break its dungeons down into individual "puzzles". You wind up with a very small pool of interactions: pushing a block, clearing a room of enemies, bombing a wall. Not great for a "puzzle game", but then the fun of dungeons didn't come from puzzle execution. It came from entering these mysterious cryptic spaces, riddling out where these interactions could happen, and using them as stepping stones in the larger navigation puzzle of exploring/mastering the dungeon. Along the way you'd deal with traps and enemies, find new tools and upgrades, and leave the dungeon feeling like you'd made major progress. Later Zelda dungeons would make the puzzle interactions more complex and cut down on navigation complexity, but I think this basic appeal stayed consistent.

Now, let's think about shrines. You're generally presented with a single type of interaction (which is spelled out to you via text when you enter), always in a Portal-esque austere sound stage. There is no mystery, there is no connection to the larger world or structure of the game, there is no reward or progress apart from a predictable fractional upgrade to your health/stamina. This is only puzzle execution, in a vacuum, at the expense of everything else.

If I throw out my expectations for Zelda games and try to appreciate the shrines as puzzles on their own terms... I still don't think most of them are very good. How could they be? The fact that they can be played in any order means you can't have the kind of difficulty curve or elaboration on mechanics that you see in puzzle games like Portal, Baba Is You, etc. The designers have an impossible task of making 120-150 "Level 1"s. It's not shocking that they pad out this number with Tests of Strengths and Rauru's Blessings.

Worth noting that I think the quests to find shrines can be really great! This is where all the fun stuff about Zelda puzzles lives in the Wild era games IMO: mystery, discovery, danger, connection to the larger world. The only bad part about these is that they all end with, y'know, the player finding another shrine.

I was thinking about what I would want from the next Zelda game and had some ideas. My favourite elements, and those I’d like to see in the next mainline Zelda game, are: 

• Time travel
• A magical musical instrument
• Dungeons
• Unlockable weapons

I would love the next Zelda game to have a vast open world as in BoTW and ToTK, but a completely new world – a reimagined Termina or something completely brand new. The game would be set during three time periods. In this game, you play as Link during childhood, young adulthood and old adulthood.

• Young Link would be weak, vulnerable to attack and unable to use magic, but quick, wily and agile, able to access narrow places and quiet on his feet and able to move stealthily. The world would be largely peaceful and innocent, but with the beginnings of a creeping evil that he has to reckon with. He meets Zelda and the quest at hand begins to take shape. 
• Teenage/young adult Link would be strong, quicker in attack and more adept at using his sword. He would be able to run faster, climb higher and he would be able to use magic in a basic way to complete quests. The evil force has grown and he has to contend with a world that is being taken over by dark forces and enemies. He is reunited with Zelda and continues his mission and fights the final boss and loses.
• Old Link would be the strongest and most powerful, but much slower in his movements. He learns to conduct powerful sword fighting techniques and wield powerful magic to neutralise enemies and complete quests. Old link has lost and has to reckon with his failure – his life is about survival and desperately figuring how to undo what has transpired in his world.

You play Link’s full life cycle before you’re able to start moving between time periods to change things, complete temples and prevent evil triumphing. Some temples or quests will require all three Links to complete. Young adult Link loses against the enemy and we see old Link living in a world where evil has completely prevailed. He has to reckon with his defeat, the death/capture of Zelda as well as countless innocent lives lost, and it’s up to him to learn the music and magic needed to go back to his childhood and young adulthood to make the changes needed for his young adult self to defeat Ganon (or whichever evil force has taken over).

I would love to see a world with civilisations that dramatically change over the course of Link’s life – towns growing and developing exponentially, towns destroyed and the ability to profoundly follow the stories and life cycles of individuals, like in Majora’s Mask but on an even larger scale. The changes that you make in the past are permanent and subtly change the course of the future.

This would combine the things I love about all the Zelda games I have played and make use of the possibilities allowed by advancements in the hardware.

I am hoping, that if they really are making a OoT game from scratch, that the love and appreciation of classic dungeon design will come back and they can make a fully open world that still has some elements of linearity and proper old school dungeons and weapons.

What do you think? What else would you want to see from the next completely new (non remake/remaster) instalment in the series?

Mario always had a way more traditional form and style of game, Mario 64 to Oddisey felt way more similar to one another than OOT to SS, yet i never saw someone whinning that Mario needed to change. Same with other series like Metroid, the entire 3D and 2D games aree WAY more similar to one another than Zelda games are, yet nobody have ever said anything to Metroid (until Prime 4 recently, but thats another discussion)

During that time, you had series droping endless sequels that plays exactly the same every so often but nobody bats an eye. Uncharted literally had 4 games in a row with the exact gameplay and artstyle copy pasted and nobody cared. Elders Scrolls and GTA have been doing the same thing over and over but bigger with each installement, let alone a lot of FPS franchises, same with many other series.

Yet for some reason it was Zelda the one who needed to change this drastically, stripping away a lot of its identity, from dungeons, to the item based progression, to lore/storylines, symbols and even the way the MC look (did you even needed to change the iconic green tunic too? seriously?) And now there is a whole style of gaming, especially for 3D completely lost because of it.

Within debates and discussions regarding Zelda, sometimes i see comments saying that Zelda was apparently a niche series before BOTW came. But what does this mean? Was it really niche? I always though Zelda was always one of the biggest videogame franchises ever, and the biggest face of Nintendo after Mario and Pokemon, being also a big console seller.

Was the old formula really something that kept away more mainstream audiences? And BOTW made the series more accesible for them or something?

Now I \*may\* be wrong. But I'm pretty sure Ganondorf is the male gerudo born every hundred years, while not all times is the male evil I'm pretty sure, but it's only the gerudo who do it. So why don't the people of Hyrule hunt and slaughter the gerudo people? I don't know how it'd fair with the beast ganon... But it'd probably stop ganondorf.

I have a theory that Nintendo may be re-imagining the story and lore of the Ocarina of Time remake. The reason for this (in my biased opinion) is to bring it in line with the events of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

This would seperate the Zelda Universe into a new "OOT remake" canon, and "Classic" era canon. Like Grand Theft Auto has done, or the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved will do. Except in this case, it may retcon two previously released titles into the new canon.

Companies don't usually do full remakes of their franchise titles without altering the story. There are some obvious exceptions (Last of Us part 1), but it has become popular to create re-imaginings of certain series.

My first question was, "Why would Nintendo fully remake Ocarina of Time, instead of just updating the original like it always does?"

The answer is probably that they want to change things about it. But they've altered original oot before for 3DS, so why not just take that route, and apply a range of qol updates to the original, making a definitive "remaster" rather than "remake"?

The only reason I can think of is that Nintendo wants this version to stand as its own game. Why would they want to separate it so much from the original? Because they aren't making the original. They're making a "new" Ocarina of Time. With a new story, new gameplay, possibly new characters, new Hyrule.

Whether or not they do this to bring it in line with botw and totk lore is bias on my part. I have a lot of issues with totk in general, and if they managed to "move" it to another Zelda universe, I guess I would be happy.

But I could be dead wrong. Maybe they consider the original timelines complete with the ending of totk, and want to start fresh, starting from an oot re-imagining.

Regardless, I would love your thoughts.

I saw a joke post today about Hylians not having periods and it made me think...have we ever actually seen a pregnant Hylian, or have any clear directive about how Hylian reproduction works? Or are we just assuming?

We've seen two pregnant characters (Uli, a human, and Rhondson, a Gerudo) and one who has just had a baby (Blossom, a human). Hylians seem to have mothers and fathers, and ancestors and descendants. Ocarina of Time Link is taken to the forest as a baby by his mother.

But does this ever actually happen in canon? Does anyone Hylian specifically become pregnant or give birth?

So, since it's been a while since the last mainline Zelda game came out, fans have been all over the internet speculating about the next direction the franchise will take. Among the many topics being discussed, I want to talk about art style, art direction, and realism.

I've noticed that, while people here on Reddit tend to be more reasonable regarding THIS SPECIFIC TOPIC, there seems to be a loud community on Twitter obsessed with glazing Twilight Princess at every opportunity, almost reaching grifting levels. A lot of these people are also very insistent that the franchise NEEDS to return to a “realistic” art style like TP supposedly had.

Conversely, I also see tons of people doomposting, worried that an art style like that would be terrible and somehow kill the franchise.

I've come to the conclusion that most people don't really know what they're talking about. And I don't want to sound arrogant — I'm not an art expert myself — but I'm pretty sure terms like “realism,” “realistic art style,” and “cartoony art style” get thrown around without much thought about what they actually mean.

First, let's talk about Twilight Princess, since it seems to be at the center of so much discourse surrounding Zelda's graphics and art direction. Here's my hot take: I don't think TP's art style is actually realistic, even for the time it came out. I think that when people call this game's visuals “realistic,” what they really mean is “stylized (towards realism).”

The game has textures that were meant to look high fidelity by GameCube standards, the lighting is more dramatic, and I can concede that the environmental design tries to resemble real-life locations more closely. But you can't look me dead in the eyes and tell me the characters in this game are meant to resemble actual humans.

Aside from the somewhat realistic proportions of the main cast, a lot of the Hylians have very cartoony designs, facial expressions are often exaggerated, and the animations are heavily anime-inspired. And that's a good thing. I think TP understands very well when to combine gritty and dark elements with heavily stylized designs, and when to break its own rules for the sake of stronger art direction. I guess what I mean is that TP's uses some sort of "selective realism" to make his artsyle work well with its world, but I wouldn't call the overall result "realistic".

My problem with the term “realism” is that it's way too broad. If the next Zelda game is supposed to have “realistic graphics,” what does that even mean? Should it look like Red Dead Redemption 2? Cyberpunk 2077? The Insomniac Spider-Man games? Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? Because all of those games are often described as realistic, yet their art styles are completely different from each other.

RDR2 focuses on extremely detailed textures and models. Cyberpunk 2077 plays heavily with materials, lighting, and highly detailed facial expressions. The Spider-Man games are another example of stylized character design that allows for more dynamic and expressive animation, and so on.

Now, for those people that seem to faint at the very mention of a future Zelda game with reslistic visuals, let's all relax a little. The Zelda team can make great games that look cartoony, and they can also make reslism work. I understand where all this "unreal engine realism slop" narrative comes from but I'm confident they can pull off whatever style they decide to go with. Of course everyone will like some kind of artsyle over others, but I don't think the franchise has ever failed to deliver a strong and cohesive style for all it's games.

Personally, if Nintendo ever wanted to make a Zelda game with high-fidelity graphics, I'd love something closer to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Highly detailed textures and environments that still use strong colors and contrast, while keeping stylized, anime-inspired character designs for both humans and monsters. That approach allows characters to remain expressive while also enabling more creative and visually interesting designs. Monster Hunter Wilds is another example of this approach. Now that I think about it, this kind of artsyle feels like the natural evolution of TP's

I know some people dislike anime-inspired character animation and facial expressions, but honestly, I think Zelda is at its best when it embraces that influence. Skyward Sword Link is a great example of this, and it's also very noticeable in Twilight Princess.

I also want to mention something that I know a lot of people don't want to hear: I actually think Breath of the Wild's art style is amazing, but I also think we haven't seen its full potential yet. It combines stylized designs with a Ghibli-like cel-shaded aesthetic that fits the franchise and its world incredibly well.

The fact that BOTW's Hyrule contains so many different races and monsters, and that almost all of them look fantastic, really proves how much potential this art direction has.

That said, even if I understand that the Wild-era games are limited by their own design philosophy and hardware constraints, Link being so emotionally unexpressive is honestly inexcusable. So if the series wants to continue with a similar visual style moving forward, I'm completely fine with that — but I want to see noticeable evolution.

So, what do you guys think? Are my takes unpopular?

We know that there is a massive amount of new fans that came to the series thanks to BOTW and TOTK. But i know that a huge portion of those new fans, havent actually played the older games, or simply dont want to, because well... they "old" and "dated"

If the remake actually happens, and they leave all the core elements intact, like the item gated progression, the structured dungeons, and the linear/present time storyline. But expand Hyrule a bit more, add more caves and maybe more enemy variety and even mini dungeons, and making the game overall way more polished. Is a perfect way to sell people (especially the newer fans) to the classic Zelda formula and feeling, aswell as reminding older fans how good it was.

If it sells well, which obviously will, i mean is a remake of OOT for gods sake lol. This would definetly tell Nintendo and the Zelda team that there is definetly still a big audience for that classic Zelda format, and would take it in mind for their decisions going forward. Im also excited to see reactions of newer Zelda fans that never touched a game before BOTW/TOTK.

I was running around in TotK checking out some voice memories, and I ran into the one on the Temple of Time altar. In the voice memory, Rauru mentions this:

>This altar is considered the most holy place in the temple, and it is where we give offerings as part of our prayers for a bountiful, peaceful world.** I have heard ancient legends that it could interact with a sacred power, allowing travel back and forth through time... Though how this was done is a mystery to me.**

Is this suggesting that the altar is related to the Pedestal of Time? At first, I thought it was just through Zelda's recall power that she was able to bring the Master Sword to the past, but it was both her power and the altar itself that this was possible.

We know that the Zonai ToT was originally constructed on the ground, eventually lifted into the air, and in its original place the BotW ToT was built. Notably, the BotW ToT was never built with a chamber housing the Master Sword or any sword for that matter, indicating this ToT never served the same function as OoT's ToT. However, we do see that the Zonai ToT does have an altar that holds the power of time travel. The only altar-like object in the Zelda series I can think of is the Pedestal of Time, which obviously is also in its own ToT. It'd also be very fitting considering this altar is where the Master Sword was transported, and if it is the Pedestal of Time, it would be as if the Master Sword returned to its original home. I just find it very interesting that the altar's time traveling ability is brought to attention in this memory about the ToT, as if the devs are trying to get the player to draw a connection between it and the Pedestal of Time.

I'm thinking that the Zonai ToT may have been constructed on top of the original OoT ToT, similar to how the OoT ToT was built on top of the Sealed Temple by Sage!Rauru, and that the altar in the Zonai's ToT is the Pedestal of Time with heavy alterations to both the chamber and the pedestal itself. It wouldn't be the first time the Master Sword's resting place was altered. In other words, the temple's life cycle would look like Sealed Temple -> OoT ToT -> Zonai ToT (surface) -> Zonai ToT (lifted to the sky), where the BotW ToT ruins is a totally separate thing entirely.

Also, if it is the case that the altar = Pedestal of Time, this would be more evidence towards the refounding theory. It wouldn't be possible for the altar to be referencing the Pedestal of Time in its relative future.

"Because Zelda sent Link to the Child Timeline" Yeah I understand that, but acording to the info I was able to gather, Ganon broke his seal several generations after his imprisionment, so the Hero of Time would be dead anyways at that point.

The way I always understood the spirit of the hero is that it is a metaphysical force or "mechanism" that manifest on a hero (Link) in order to protect the descendant of the Goddess (Zelda) whenever she and the kingdom are threatened by evil (usually but not exclusivelly Ganon).

It's implied that the different Links aren't necessarely descendants of eachother (except TP's Link and the Hero of Time) so Link leaving the timeline without descendence should not prevent another Link carrying the spirit of the hero, yet WW's Link is commonly agreed by the fanbase to not carry the spirit of the hero and instead just being a guy that became one by chance and circustances without divine intervention. However if that's the case it's weird that not that many years later the Hero of Trains showed up too.

So this leaves me with a few different possible conclusions:

1. The Hero of Winds DOES carry the spirit of the hero and there is an unknown reason for why a hero didn't show up when Ganon escaped.
2. The Spirit of the Hero wasn't made to be time travel-proof and Zelda just glitched it out of existence when he removed OOT Link from the timeline (always do extensive testing for your software folks).
3. Ganon actually broke the seal only a few years after OOT so there was not enough time for another hero to manifest. (I can't find official sources of how many time actually passed until Ganon escaped but it's seem to be well agreed upon that it took at least 100 years)
4. Number 2 and 1 are both correct and the Hero of Winds made the spirit materialize again by exhibiting a hero's traits and being chosen by the triforce of courage and the Master Sword
5. The spirit of the Hero is bound specifically to the Triforce of Courage, and the Hero of Time leaving the timeline and making the triforce shatter into 8 pieces also removed the spirit, and it showed up again when Link reunited the fragments in WW.
6. We have too little information about what the Spirit of the Hero actually is or how it works to really know the answer.

So what are your thoughts about this topic?

I noticed a striking similarity between Typhan and Yeta getting possessed in their respective games, the same exact glowing red eyes. Are there any other instances of characters getting possessed like this in other games?

Yeta:

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/File:Yeta\_becomes\_Blizzeta\_-\_TPHD.jpg

Typhan:

https://youtu.be/Mo8pj8NhD9A?t=383&si=E9iD6MHNBe6m5vCG at timestamp 6:23

Ever since the 2010s Nintendo barely tries to give Link other types of adventures anymore and explore other lands (and no, LA remake doesnt count). It has been Hyrule again and again, and in cases like BOTW and TOTK with exactly the same map copy pasted. And that without mentioning that ALBW already had a copypasted world from AlttP.

Nintendo used to be more flexible and creative with the Zelda settings and stories before the 2010s arrived. We havent got any new unique and original worlds with their own stories like in LA, MM, the oracle games, and hell even PH. Even WW and SS which were more in line with the Zelda mythos, were able to give us original settings.

If we look at Mario, you can see how he is not glued to Mushroom Kingdom. Hell there hasnt even been a 3D Mario game set in Mushroom Kingdom since Super Mario 64, not to mention all the spin offs and rpg likes he has featuring other worlds. It would be nice if Link (or Zelda) is allowed for more of that.

At this point im just tired of Death Mountain, Lake Hylia, Kakariko village, Faron Woods, Gerudo Desert, Hyrule Castle and the likes. Let us go to another new location like how was Koholint island, Termina, Holodrum and Labryna back in the day. A brand new land with its own history, characters, and its own 6 - 8 unique dungeons.

^(*Main Menu theme, or Overworld theme depending on where you look at.)

I've been listening to a few OSTs on Youtube and noticed that if a game has a focus more on non-Hyrule locations, they have a different theme in play with the LoZ Overworld theme only showing up during Link's amazing feats. Or how Zelda's lullaby shows up during Zelda's moments.

It is just me, right?

I was thinking about what the next mainline Zelda game would look like, especially since the community seems torn between the old and the new formula.

I thought it would be interesting if the team took this struggle and fully embraced it, making a mechanic of travelling between two parallel worlds, one with wild era cell shading and an open world, and the other with traditional linearity and a more folklore-like tone.

The single final boss is accessible through both worlds, so players get to engage in each as much as they want.

Thoughts? It’d shake the formula enough for attention, and the nature of switching worlds and art styles would bring a surrealist spice that would distinguish it from the wild era.

Hi, I posted this in the normal Zelda reddit and (not too surprisingly) got no replies. I understand it's a real shot in the dark but maybe this is the better place to try, so here goes...! I know anything about Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is already niche. In fact, the reason I'm asking about this is because googling and searching youtube has turned up nothing. Hoping one of the handful of people who played and remember this game might have some insight. Please strap in for some lengthy context.

Sooo, there's this minigame called Joy Joy Land that shows up in Rosy Rupeeland twice (or at least twice so far--I haven't finished the game yet) where Tingle can hit balls shot out by Octoroks at targets with a bat. The minigame shows up once in Deku Forest and then again with different target patterns in Gooey Swamp.

Far as I can tell from reading wikis and walkthroughs, you don't get any items (e.g., a jar--most of the items in this game are jars) from doing well in these minigames aside from some rupees (although as this whole game is about collecting rupees, that's still a decent reward). However, you do definitely get more rupees and a unique message from the guy running the minigame if you hit every target and get a perfect game.

Now the thing is, in the iteration of the game on Gooey Swamp (which the minigame guy says is "Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One"), there's the option to play a Normal version of the game or an Expert version. In the Normal version, Tingle can move up, down, left, and right and always swings his bat straight ahead. The ability to move up and down gives you a lot of freedom with timing your hits. Add to this the fact that it's pretty easy to ensure a straight hit with Tingle always facing forward, and it means that scoring a perfect game isn't all that hard, with some practice.

However, in Expert mode, everything gets much more horrible. Tingle can now ONLY move left and right, making the timing window much narrower. Furthermore, Tingle now faces sideways, like a real-life batter. This means how close you are to the balls, plus the direction you come at them from, affects the trajectory in lots of tiny ways. There's all kinds of minute, fancy physics stuff involved and I personally find it extremely difficult to time and angle my balls exactly how I want to consistently.

A near-perfect game requires just hitting every target within the time limit. The last target is a bear who advances slowly toward you down the center of the screen and then shoots out one last ball you must hit straight back at it. The game has, I think, three point tiers that count as wins, each one giving you more rupees and a unique message from the minigame guy. The first tier is getting above 100 points. I don't know exactly what the second tier is but it's probably however many points you get from hitting every regular target. However, there is the potential for a third, truly perfect game.

There's a bell on the left side of the arena. If you hit this, a UFO comes out and circles around the arena three times before flying off. If you hit this UFO you get a bunch of points at once (I think maybe 50?). So a TRULY perfect game means hitting every regular target as well as also hitting the bell and then the UFO. You only have one chance to hit the UFO each time you play the minigame. If you hit the bell again, the UFO does not reappear.

I managed to get a TRULY perfect game on Normal mode (both in the Deku Forest minigame--which doesn't have an Expert mode--and in the Gooey Swamp minigame). I haven't kept track of how many rupees and point totals there are for everything because it's not a real concern to me. The real concern, because I'm nuts, is that it feels a bit like I haven't 100%'d the game for real-real if I haven't gotten a truly perfect score in every iteration of the minigame. And I cannot, for the life of me, get a truly perfect game on Expert mode. The physics and timing are insane and unwieldy and the stupid little target jerks constantly get in the way of me hitting their friends.

One time I actually hit the UFO and hit every single target... then the final bear came out. I attempted to hit the ball straight back at him and it instead went careening off to the side. I still got a unique message and more rupees than I did for the first winning tier, but, based on how things work in Normal mode, I feel pretty certain there will be a different message and reward (of course, I imagine it's just even more rupees) if I hit literally everything. I've tried to do this without success for maybe like 3 weeks straight while on my commute to work. Yes, I am an insane idiot! As of right now, however, I've given up. I can't do it to myself anymore.

Still, I am really curious, even though I have every reason to believe it'll be completely anticlimactic, what actually happens if you get a truly perfect score in Expert mode on the Gooey Swamp, Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One minigame. I would try to cheat my way to success with save states but I'm actually playing this on a real New 3DS and I have no such luxury! I would suggest maybe someone try it on an emulator to find out, but of note is that you can't access this minigame until quite late into the game. Gooey Swamp is the second level in the second area of the game (and the 7th level overall), but you can't actually access the minigame until you get a little bit into the first level of the final area (Mount Desma, Level 9), at which point you are made to return to Gooey Swamp to do another dungeon and then, once that's done, you are gifted a boat which allows you to travel to a tiny island where you drop down a hole and that's where the minigame is located. So, in other words, unless you're someone who already happens to have a Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland saved game/saved state that's well into the game, you have to play nearly the entire game just to get to this minigame!

There's so little coverage and discussion of Rosy Rupeeland that I cannot seem to find much info about this minigame or any footage of someone perfecting it (it could be buried in someone's playthrough somewhere but it's hard to track that down--and I assume few people have been bonkers enough to try and do the minigame perfectly). It's certainly possible there are Japanese gamers out there who managed it and that if I knew what to search for in Japanese I could track it down, but I don't!

I know this is a crazy, niche ask for a crazy, niche Zelda game, but I banged my head against this minigame like a psycho for ages and still came out empty-handed (well.. I did get enough points to earn a bunch of rupees so I guess that's not entirely true, but still). It's possible this would be much easier for someone who plays baseball games, for all I know! Maybe the physics make perfect sense to the average sports gamer, but I find it extraordinarily fidgety and impossible!

So yes, this stupid minigame in Tingle's stupid game is my white whale!! If anyone can help track down a video or screenshot (a video would be more satisfying of course) or feels brave enough to actually play this minigame and try to get a perfect, I'd be very interested to see it! I could finally relax and stop obsessing over something so silly... that or I'd instead feel like I still have to do it myself and I'd go back to attempting the minigame again and again for the rest of my life--either is possible!! Even more terrifying to consider is the possibility there's yet another Joy Joy Land later in the game with yet another Expert mode. The Deku Forest minigame is called Shop Number Zero and the Gooey Swamp one is Shop Number One, so another iteration of this minigame certainly isn't impossible! If so, I shall never know peace!

Incidentally, all this said, I actually quite like Rosy Rupeeland on the whole and have been enjoying it... This minigame put my playthrough to a frustrating standstill for a while, but everything else I think has been a fun, weird take on Zelda. I like how it's like a farming sim mashed up with the Zelda formula, a concept I feel nearly positive an indie dev must've tried by now--pretty cool that Tingle was already doing it back in 2006!

That's all! Thank you for reading this foolhardy diatribe if you got this far! And thank you in advance for all your Tingle help! Kooloo-Limpah and so on and so forth!

I'm currently replaying Zelda II for the second time. I had already completed a fairly full playthrough of the game, but I stopped because the last Temple was very confusing. I decided I would complete it later, but I never went back.

I am currently on a second playthrough starting from scratch, I still remember many things so I haven't needed guides for the Quests, the most I've needed has been to use maps for the temples.

Although difficult, I find it quite fun. The movement mechanics are interesting, and the side-scrolling level design is engaging. I really love the magic system; I think it's the only time Link can use his own spells and not magic he evokes through artifacts.

But my god, the combat in this game is titanic. The sword's terrible range makes getting close to an enemy incredibly difficult. At least the shield works excellently, although it frustrates me a bit that it doesn't block all types of projectiles. Why can't I stop an axe with the shield?

But overall I'm having a good time. I don't think I've ever played such a stimulating Zelda game.

Over the last few days I’ve been playing two games: Dusk, the recently released PC port of Twilight Princess, and Star Wars Jedi Survivor. In this time it’s occurred to me how much more similar Jedi Survivor is to the older type of Zelda games, particularly Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, than those games are to the major Switch releases, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom in particular.

Previously I’d considered it more of a “soulslike” because of its combat and save point structure, but this game has an emphasis on using new abilities for puzzle solving and unlocking the exploration of new areas on the map, a classic Zelda trope. In the main planet which features a fairly large open area reminiscent of Hyrule Field, the player even gets a mount, which is actually primarily used for puzzle solving or to access higher areas.

What strikes me also going back to Twilight Princess is just how much that game focuses on its story. I’d always understood it as a story-driven game but after playing through much of Botw and Totk through their Switch 2 editions, seeing Twilight Princess’s cutscenes rendered in HD 60fps with higher resolution textures reminded me of how much the cinematic nature of this game impacted me as a kid. The plot is not only intriguing with the slow build of a mystery as to who the “king of darkness” really is, but it’s fundamentally a character story about Midna and Link coming to trust each other. Kakariko village may be small in TP in comparison to the big village areas in the Switch games, but each character in TP has more detail written into them by the game’s story focus.

Likewise Jedi Survivor is very story driven, but not in a way that modern games can be overbearing. A game like Red Dead Redemption 2, or Uncharted, can feel like the player is playing some parts up until they get to a cutscene or story section that is basically railroaded and only needs the slightest player input. It’s also not like Botw, where the story is divided into different parts that basically never intersect, leaving the player in a game where they can skip every cutscene and never be confused about what they’re doing next. Jedi Survivor is more like Twilight Princess, where the cutscenes come at impactful times but never too much or not enough. There are plenty of moments in Survivor that echo the immense story driven impact of scenes like King Bulbin storming through Kakariko, where a cutscene directly leads to an intense situation resolved through gameplay.

I’m curious if anyone here has played the Star Wars Jedi series and has made this connection. Jedi Fallen Order felt more like a Metroidvania to me with how linear and separated its level designs were in comparison to its sequel. I’m about 20 hours into Jedi Survivor and so far it’s the best Star Wars game I’ve played and it gives me hope that Zelda as a series will be carried on in spirit.

As one last question, do you think Twilight Princess’s story would’ve been just as enjoyable with voice acting?