Worth the wait

By Tw|sTeD

Review Breakdown
Gameplay	10
Plot	8.0
Sound	8.5
Visuals	9.0
Difficulty	Moderate
Time to Complete	40-45 hours
Overall

   Well, let's see.. imagine my plight when I arrive at my second home in Tennessee to find that my golden copy of Zelda 64 won't be ready 'till Wednesday. (Wal-Mart.. losers.. held it for like 2 days for some unknown reason. They even said they HAD it.. just couldnt sell it) Well, anyways, I actually woke myself up at around 6:30am Wednesday to go pick the reserved game up. After 2 hours or driving to the town where it was reserved and back, I was so sick of staring at the beautiful box that I could nearly teleport myself inside to plug the thing in!

   And so I played..

   After several hours of playing, I've found that all of this hype the game was given was, indeed, well earned. Zelda scores super-high ranking from me.

   The graphics were pretty much what I expected. Nothing much different from Mario, except for the more detailed textures.. and the game was a little bit cleaner, with little or no popups.

   The sound was awesome for a Nintendo cart! The moods were very well set. I found the Kokiri music rather annoying after a while, however.. but it set well with the childish mood of the forest.

   The playability was little under perfect! One finds it terribly easy to get lost just looking around and messing with all of the different little items that you can attain. The new Z-Targeting was also a very nice addition.. allowing you to keep your eye on enemies as you fought. The only down side to this was that you were in it sort of deep if there were multiple enemies. (But for some reason.. the second seemed to back off or something.. if you were fighting one) The only objection i had in this area was that there were very few enemies in the fields of Hyrule.

   The layout.. not much I can say here. You'll find it very nice to be able to see most of the game's areas and things from one point in hyrule field. Also, the way that the menus and things are set up are extremely handy.(Although I found them, at first, rather intimidating.. having no idea what any of it actually was) The ability to set items to the C buttons was very innovative, and I thought that it was a great idea.

   As previous reviews have said, the story of Zelda is basically the same. There are some new twists this time, though. Gamers will find that the story keeps you clinging to the controller until they finally find out what's gonna happen. Overall, it was your basic hero kills villain, saves world, saves girl-happily ever after bit.. but it was the classic story that made Zelda so popular to begin with!

   In closing, I'd like to recommend this game to anyone who liked Mario 64 or the old Zelda games. Its ability to pull someone into its terribly-interactive world within a matter of minutes of start will have your grades plumiting, your job gone, and your wife out of the house for good! (Hey.. i ate thanksgiving dinner on a TV tray while playing.. j/k.. but I could have.. they had to pry me away from the TV)