Jake

Idle Thumbs 194: A Grave Ghost

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Why doesn't Link reset time to when Skull Boy was introduced, before getting the goddamn mask? :P

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Because Skull Boy steals his ocarina. That's the hook for the whole prologue.

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Um, Skull KID guys. His name is Skull KID. </authoritative-nerd-voice>

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This is interesting to me because it is very much the opposite of how I felt. Because of the constant ticking clock I always felt like any time I spent not clearing a dungeon or otherwise progressing the main quest was time that I was wasting. If I go exploring and don't find anything, too bad start over. If I go exploring and do find something but don't have enough time to finish it, too bad start over.

This doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of the game having an owl statue in front of each temple entrance is precisely so you can dedicate an entire (slowed down) cycle toward clearing the temple. You wouldn't be mixing in side quests or otherwise meandering while doing that, although I agree that things get very frustrating and stressful if you're trying to find all the stray fairies while completing the temple for the first time.

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Time doesn't move while you're in a temple. There's no need to feel stressed while you're inside them.

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Time certainly moves in the temples, but if you start a temple at the beginning of a slowed down cycle (as the game encourages), you have three real-life hours, which is very likely more than most have ever spent getting through a single Zelda temple without interruption.  And of course the secondary purpose of the owl statue is to provide you the means for that interruption.

 

The three day mechanic seems pretty evidently conceived for the unique story concept, as well as a clever way to give a lot of depth to a game that, by virtue of an existing engine and a lot of re-used character models, only had a year of development.  It was never my impression that the countdown is a feature intended to stress the player, even if it inevitably had that effect.  The accommodations mentioned above support that.

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This doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of the game having an owl statue in front of each temple entrance is precisely so you can dedicate an entire (slowed down) cycle toward clearing the temple. You wouldn't be mixing in side quests or otherwise meandering while doing that, although I agree that things get very frustrating and stressful if you're trying to find all the stray fairies while completing the temple for the first time.

Yeah, while I am not a fan of many of the aspects of tediousness and waiting involved in the side quests rather than the sidequests rather than the actual time mechanic itself, if you just think of what you want to do in terms of chunks of areas within a three day time period, it's really not a big deal.

 

All of this is moot though since Majora's Mask 3DS now lets you fast forward time to whatever hour of the day you prefer, getting straight to the point.

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A Twitch playthrough of Grim Fandango Remastered would be great (they can still be watched non-live, right?)! Incidentally, Double Fine Game Club (@dfgameclub) will be doing a playthrough starting around the 7th Feb - it's an informal thing started by DF forumites, it usually stretches over a few weekly sessions for longer games and often features guest devs either doing an audio interview or joining in on the chat (as Jake did for Sam And Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die, iirc). I'd probably watch both!

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A Twitch playthrough of Grim Fandango Remastered would be great (they can still be watched non-live, right?)! Incidentally, Double Fine Game Club (@dfgameclub) will be doing a playthrough starting around the 7th Feb - it's an informal thing started by DF forumites, it usually stretches over a few weekly sessions for longer games and often features guest devs either doing an audio interview or joining in on the chat (as Jake did for Sam And Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die, iirc). I'd probably watch both!

DF Game Club is great! I want to come back and do another chat but missed the recent run of Telltale stuff they did.

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So in my class at school in Germany, it was Heinz who was the biggest dick with regards to how he treated his mother. She was the classic mom, coming in every hour and offering treats to Heinz and us visitors. Heinz just kept shouting at her every time she came in.

 

However, my favorite exchange between them was a slight variation of this.

Later one afternoon, after already receiving some verbal abuse, Heinz' mother entered the room: "Heinz, why did you trample on the strawberries?"

Heinz, in the most jeering tone: "Because strawberries are stupid, mom!"

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All of this is moot though since Majora's Mask 3DS now lets you fast forward time to whatever hour of the day you prefer, getting straight to the point.

 

Say whaaaaat?

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Say whaaaaat?

http://kotaku.com/five-new-things-in-the-majoras-mask-remake-1679607360

 

Patricia Hernandez has the scoop on all of the gameplay changes, but the hour fast forward function is definitely the biggest deal.

 

However I am pretty sure if you miss anything on a day you started already you still have to go back to the beginning of the day cycle and start over.

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This doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of the game having an owl statue in front of each temple entrance is precisely so you can dedicate an entire (slowed down) cycle toward clearing the temple. You wouldn't be mixing in side quests or otherwise meandering while doing that, although I agree that things get very frustrating and stressful if you're trying to find all the stray fairies while completing the temple for the first time.

 

Hmm, I don't recall owl statues or being able to slow down the clock when I played. I just know that I got half way through the first major area twice before I had to start over and then I gave up. It's strange, because I really like the time limiting mechanic in Dead Rising, but it was feeling impossible to get anything done in MM. At least in Dead Rising if you have to restart, you get to keep XP and such? I wonder if that's what makes the difference.

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Dewar, did you ever escape being a Deku Scrub? Because it sounds like you never completed the prologue. If that's the case, I agree that it's bullshit that they don't let you save in that part.

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There's a song you can play that halves (I think) the clock speed, I assume that's what he meant.

 

I should clarify, though, that my problem with the game is not that there isn't enough time to complete a given task. Actually, whenever I was in a dungeon was when I was most able to let myself enjoy the game. Once you got to a dungeon, you had a specific goal and a full cycle, and afterwards you reset time but that's fine because you got what you came for. The problem is, when you aren't in a dungeon there are basically two states you can be in. Either you have specific short term goals, in which case I never felt like I could tell what parts would persist past a reset so I was always paranoid, or you're exploring the world and looking for side quests, in which case every time I didn't find something it felt like I had just wasted a bunch of time.

 

It doesn't even seem like these are problems people like the game in spite of, it seems like they are aspects that people who like the game don't consider to be problems at all. I think that just means it's not a game for me.

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Huh, why did I think that time froze in the dungeons?

 

I didn't think it froze, but I did think that time slowed down whilst you were in a temple.

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There's a song you can play that halves (I think) the clock speed, I assume that's what he meant.

 

I should clarify, though, that my problem with the game is not that there isn't enough time to complete a given task. Actually, whenever I was in a dungeon was when I was most able to let myself enjoy the game. Once you got to a dungeon, you had a specific goal and a full cycle, and afterwards you reset time but that's fine because you got what you came for. The problem is, when you aren't in a dungeon there are basically two states you can be in. Either you have specific short term goals, in which case I never felt like I could tell what parts would persist past a reset so I was always paranoid, or you're exploring the world and looking for side quests, in which case every time I didn't find something it felt like I had just wasted a bunch of time.

 

It doesn't even seem like these are problems people like the game in spite of, it seems like they are aspects that people who like the game don't consider to be problems at all. I think that just means it's not a game for me.

 

I definitely do agree that searching out sidequests can feel like you're putting time into something that will disappear. Hopefully the improved Bomber's Notebook will alleviate that problem a bit.

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I didn't think it froze, but I did think that time slowed down whilst you were in a temple.

So the moon can crash down on the town while you're running around in a dungeon?

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Dewar, did you ever escape being a Deku Scrub? Because it sounds like you never completed the prologue. If that's the case, I agree that it's bullshit that they don't let you save in that part.

 

I was looking through the early parts of a walk through to try and figure out where I got stuck, but nothing rang a bell. I know I definitely made it to town with the journal and all the different appointments you had to make with people, so I think that's past the prologue? I wish I could remember more clearly, I might have to dig out my N64 and see if I still have a save.

 

As other people have said, I was also very frustrated with not really being able to tell what would carry over from cycle to cycle and what wouldn't. I specifically remember getting an item that I thought would be permanent, and losing it upon reset. Maybe a key or something *shrug*

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