06Dec03 (Monthenor): I was going to make some humorous comic
about how Princess Fara was better than Yorda, or
about how rewinding
time lets you get away with anything. I just
couldn't. I couldn't detract from the sheer joy that this game brings to
all who touch it. It is probably that most well-balanced game of the
past...forever. Anybody can pick it up and start bouncing off walls
like a madman. It's plot is communicated through brief cutscenes and
voiceovers during play, and they always seem to enhance the game rather
than interrupt it. For example: my brother and I were blazing through the game
over Thanksgiving break (because Alexandria, MN holds nothing of interest
for the discerning college male, aside from electricity) and had made
it
about halfway. My younger brother, a sixth grader, wanted to play a little
bit. Within a minute he had picked up the basic controls, and within two
minutes he was leaping and swinging as if he had been playing from the
beginning. When people can just intuitively play the game from any point,
it's a thing of beauty. Morgion has been having a slightly tougher time of it...I try
not to flat-out tell him how to get through rooms I remember, and
he's hit a couple of strange bugs where Fara would fall through a floor or
wall and force him to start over. But he's still on track to beat the game
today, and then we can have a nice lengthy discussion about the best
time-travel game ever made. Eat that, Majora's Mask!