It looks like an alt decided to go ahead and post my idea for the next entry without waiting for the week to be over. As I said though anything goes this week, so I'll allow it. But don't think I'll forget about this.
I guess I might as well go ahead and throw in my two cents while the topic is here. I was never big on NES so my first Zelda game was A Link to the Past. It was the GBA edition which I borrowed from a very generous friend who I ended up coldly screwing over by never returning the game. It was after I had gotten a DS and was catching up on past titles due to all the non-gaming crap released in the early DS days. Dark times. Then I got a Famicom Micro GBA for cheap and never used the DS again for GBA thank goodness. The rumble pak now sits in its GBA slot to cover it up. It really blew me away. It made me again appreciate the superior SNES software especially in the case of sound quality which was usually terrible on GBA. I totally understood why this series was so popular. I was more used to Metroid at this point and it felt like a neat deviation from that series even though Zelda technically came first but who cares. I also appreciated how 2D games made it easier to search and explore everything. 3D games were starting to feel like these large massive empty worlds already, looking back it's kind of ironic I thought that but still enjoy Breath of the Wild. But that's a topic for another day. As I went screen by screen across the overworld and through dungeons, I would tap on every portion of walls to check for any hollow sound to make sure I didn't miss anything. When I got the shovel, I started digging up all the earth to make sure nothing was missed.
When I finished, I then moved on to Wind Waker and other 3D Zeldas. The next 2D game I played was the original Legend of Zelda. I had a GC Zelda Anniversary Disc with 1, 2, OoT and MM on it that I obtained by screwing over another friend. I thought I'd start from the beginning and start catching up on the series. I found LoZ to be rather tough and confusing at first, which is unusual for someone as intelligent as I. I started checking out a guide after awhile to figure out where the dungeons are that I needed to get to, which is again unlike me. After some time, I did start to get better at the game and learn how to use my shield to protect myself. I'm pretty sure I even got through the first 4 dungeons in the game and was working on or to the 5th.
But then, I got sidetracked and didn't get back to the game and later the save data was corrupted. That was easily the worst part about the GCN. I'd have to start over but I never have. In addition to NES Metroid, the experience taught me that NES games really don't compare to SNES or beyond. They can still be playable but they really require effort since they've got a higher difficulty in addition to or because of their technical limitations. It's kind of amazing people actually liked games back on NES since so many are terrible. Still, once I started making progress in the game and getting better at it, I did and do have a bit of fondness for the title but not enough to make me go back to it yet.
The next game I actually played and beat all the way through was Phantom Hourglass, hand cramps and all. As a big Wind Waker fan, I'd been interested in the title for a long time in the hopes of getting more of that experience but with less of the flaws. I knew it had a lot of divided reviews over its controls and a central dungeon you had to keep going to but I really, really liked this game when I played it because I'm not a baby and have a good memory and knew how to use the shortcuts. The touch controls really won me over and I think they're brilliant, mostly just saying this to tick everyone off. It's kind of a shame no other game makers felt like following or adapting that control scheme into other titles, the outrage it would cause would have been hilarious to watch. Part of me wanted to dive into Spirit Tracks right after to play another game with those touch controls but I told myself I should save it for later and now I've never gotten to it because I focused more on playing Mafia games instead.
The last 2D Zelda game is Link's Awakening DX. I played it when it launched on the 3DS eShop and in some ways, I think of it as part of the 3DS launch software and was a big part of my experience with the 3DS in its first year. That first year was pretty terrible and it's no wonder the 3DS tanked then, but at least it had that spotlight. There had always been a lot of love for this title from users on this forum, like UncleBob, so I was really looking forward to diving into it, even if their taste is rather suspect. In the end, I wasn't quite as blown away by the experience as some were, because I don't fall for such sappy storytelling. I did get annoyed at the GB's 2 button limitation requiring a lot of item switching and having known and picked up a lot of the special moments and story of the game from others talking about it, there weren't a lot of big surprises in it. Thanks for ruining this game for me, everyone.
Like the NES, having played a bunch of GB games from the eShop that I'd always been interested in as a kid but never had the resources to acquire and am above being a filthy pirate like so many of you plebeians, I discovered I wasn't missing that much and am not really that enthusiastic about its software. It's clear the system is driven by nostalgia. The Kirby games seem to have been able to hold up pretty well because it's Kirby which is a series full of timeless classic, but I've been disappointed by a lot of what else I've played. Link's Awakening is one of the few games, like the Kirby games, that actually are worth it from the GB software library. I've got to admit it is pretty impressive how well they made a worthy series entry at that point especially with A Link to the Past to compare it too. Even though I had played a lot more Zelda games by this point, it has some pretty tricky dungeons. I was stumped a few times on what I needed to do in order to progress and figure out what I was missing, and as I was saying before this is a very rare occurrence for me and you won't here me admitting that very often. If you like puzzling dungeons, LA does deliver. The Overworld does deliver some interesting sights and moments like Animal Village and I really did enjoy my time with this game but I do feel the tech it was designed on holds it back from being a total masterpiece in modern gaming and I'm also more a fan of exploration than dungeon puzzles so those two things are a factor on my opinion of it but I do still endorse the game as something everyone should play and check out and you can tell I like something by just how long I make a runoff sentence that just keeps going and going. I still enjoyed my time playing it and part of me has felt like going back through it again at some point but, as of now, that hasn't happened because I need to keep hosting forum games since no one else steps up.
And that's been it. I got Minish Cap from the Ambassador games because I'm a proud ambassador which makes me royalty amongst the Nintendo fandom but held off to save it for the end since I had high hopes for it and wanted to play through Ambassador games and get them out of the way. Ended up playing through and completing all the games I had played and completed before and then lost interest in the Ambassador games from Mario Kart Super Circuit and F-Zero Maximum Velocity which are again bafflingly terrible and makes me question people's tastes. So I never got around to Fire Emblem or the Minish Cap. When the Oracle games came out, I downloaded them and wanted to see how they held up compared to Link's Awakening having finally played it and never got around to it. I think I was busy in New Leaf or Smash 3DS whenever they came out and just kind of forgot about them. You know, modern games that are way better than these old games most people only like because they didn't know any better at the time. I have Four Swords on my 3DS but have never had people to play it with me. I have Four Swords for the GC but same situation plus I need a couple more GBAs and link cables. I have the NES Zeldas on my 3DS thanks to the Ambassador program but only touched SMB from the NES games because that's the one true timeless classic offered. I did acquire A Link Between Worlds but I've been wondering about playing A Link to the Past again to remind myself of that overworld a bit more but maybe I should just play it regardless. After all, it's just a rehash so I don't want ALBW to feel like playing the same game again. Have also acquired Tri Force Heroes and have put off trying to get a crew to play it with me from NWR because I was so into Breath of the Wild at the time. But I may just start getting into that game now instead of putting it off, because you all are disappointing slackers.
It's a case where I've got the games because I have always wanted to play them. I just need to do so at some point and hope that the forums can survive without me. Fat chance.