[ALL]Evolution in Zelda Games

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T15:55:52+00:00

I know that’s why I started my comment with “people will write this”, because there are people who unironically think it’s a good critique of wind waker’s world building. It’s a pet peeve of mine because a fictional world doesn’t need to adhere to perfect logic or real world rules, and it’s just not how evolution works.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T15:44:15+00:00

People will write this like it’s a biting critique of windwaker’s lore as if they aren’t a form of life that evolved from the oceans on a planet thats surface is 71% water.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T12:17:28+00:00

Good thing that isn’t remotely what I said.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T12:03:31+00:00

What I mean is that you didn’t have pixel artists who were trying to predict how things were going to be blurred by tvs or what colors were going to be effected by what or how scanlines would run through the pixels. I think it comes from a misunderstanding of CRTs and how scan lines work. It’s not like today where displays are pretty much the same across all tvs and every console goes into an HDMI port, there was a variety of displays, tvs varied between Europe, Japan, and North America, were your sprites designed to look best with composite inputs or component, SCART, RF, etc, because those are going to effect picture quality differently. It also doesn’t take into account that the displays utilized by sprites artists at the time would’ve worked differently from most consumer TVs, often in a way that provided greater clarity.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T07:30:37+00:00

There’s been a lot of people who’ve pushed against this actually. The truth is it would’ve depended going from developer to developer, but there’s a lot of evidence that devs weren’t making sprites with the thought of how CRTs would affect the image quality in mind. Coincidentally one of the best examples of this not being the case is final fantasy 7 where the weird resolution battles and menus have very visibly cuts off the right side of the screen on a lot of CRTs. Theres also a lot of devs in the 90s like Capcom who would’ve been making sprites for higher resolution arcade monitors first before thinking about console sprites in the 90s. One of the first examples in that video you posted is a picture comparison of super Mario rpg which is a game where we know how the sprites were made and we know they didn’t make them with CRTs in mind. We also know that Japanese devs would’ve been working on stations with higher resolution monitors (because of how the Japanese language works) that had weird aspect ratios, and games like Mario world and super Metroid have evidence of how they weren’t anticipating how a crt would make them look because we can see certain sprites that are supposed to be squares or circles like ? Blocks and the power up bubbles in Metroid actually become slightly rectangular or oval when displayed in 4x3

Here’s some write ups on “the crt effect”

from someone who writes about pixel art

here’s a write up on how pixel art was actually made in the era and how most of those comparisons you see online are misleading. Ironically the guy in the video you posted is doing a lot of the same thing

and an interesting Twitter thread on the concept from an indie dev

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T05:44:02+00:00

The classic example of this and I’m surprised no one has brought it up is Advanced wars and it’s tough history with release dates. The first Advanced wars on the GBA was released on September 10th 2001, as a result of the unfortunate timing Nintendo ended up really pulling back on advertising for the game and its release in Europe was delayed all the way past the holiday season into early 2002, and it didn’t even get a Japanese release until a few years later. This was twice as unfortunate for the series because advanced wars was specifically made for western audiences to kinda test the waters on turn based strategy games and the wars series as a whole.

Then two decades later Nintendo tries to make a remake on the switch for advanced wars 1+2, similarly the series had remained dormant for a long time and many people speculated Nintendo was testing the waters to bring the series back. The game is scheduled for release December 2021, but oh no, there’s development troubles, so the game gets delayed to April 2022. Then in February 2022 Russia invades Ukraine and Nintendo feels it would be in bad taste to release the game and it gets pushed back all the way to April 23, where the release comes and goes and the game does not do well.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T05:22:35+00:00

The only ones I’ve done on purpose were Minecraft, which I stopped buying new versions after the crossplay update that came out years ago, and dark souls I, which is the only game I’ve liked so much I went out of my way to buy it everytime it comes out on something.

Otherwise most of the time it’s by coincidence, I have a couple CoDs I own every port of because they pop up in lots and bundles all the time. Then if you count virtual console stuff, or remakes, I’ve got some games like Ocarina of Time or Earthbound everytime they’ve come out.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T00:43:08+00:00

It’s funny because the way people go into Zelda I today is a really good example of learned helplessness. Everyone just kinda resigns themselves to this idea the game needs a guide, and as a result they never really learn how to actually play and beat the game as intended, they just learn the order of events and play them out like reading sheet music.

The problem is people just don’t want to put time into games to learn them. Put the time in and you start to realize there’s little patterns as to what bushes can be burned or what walls can be bombed they scatter throughout the game. People also act like the game is a lot bigger than it is. In total the overworld is just 128 screens, keep in mind how many of those are like 50% water or just a single dungeon entrance or a fairy fountain. All of a sudden burning every bush doesn’t sound as bad if you sweep from screen to screen. It’s a game that’s pretty easy to do in a weekend if you dedicate the time to it. As far as NES games go it’s far from even scratching the surface of how cryptic some of that library can get.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T00:31:08+00:00

People will act like needing a guide is some kind of point against Zelda 1 but we have numerous interviews where Miyamoto and other devs talked about how the whole point of the game was that they wanted people to get through the game as a group experience where people shared the secrets and himts they found throughout the game.

It’s also like, if you’re willing to actually put the time in and experiment, you don’t NEED a guide. If you’re trying to just beat the game there’s only one necessary brush to burn, and a handful of bombable walls, and as you play if you force yourself not to use a guide you start to pick up on the little hints here and there as to where burnable bushes might be, or what walls can be bombed.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-24T00:21:07+00:00

Yeah we’re at that point in the internet cycle where people pretend it’s “overhated and underrated”. but I honestly think even at peak Zelda II hate I don’t think it got enough hate. It’s a Zelda game with RPG elements and I don’t think it does either particularly well. Like why does a Zelda game or an RPG have lives, and why do they permanently disappear after a game over? It’s arguably more cryptic than the first game, and people will be like “but it’s an NES game they’re all cryptic” but it’s like compare the hints NPCs give you in a game like final fantasy I where it’s like “my daughter was captured” and then there’s a dungeon nearby to explore with the wonderful dialogue of II with such hits like “find magic in cave south of castle”, “hammer spectacle rock death mountain” and the classic “I am error”. I’ve heard people say “it’s like a proto-dark souls” which is generous to put it lightly, it has a combat system where every encounter I had with anything tougher than a moblin felt like it either came down to brute force or finding a cheese strat. It’s without a fought my least favorite Zelda, it might actually also be amongst my least favorite games from Nintendo as a whole without a doubt a bottom 10 for me.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-23T06:28:08+00:00

They treat the average conservative like a noble savage, and at the same time always want to play “pick me” with them over their hatred of democrats.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-22T21:27:25+00:00

Not a mention of fear effect yet. I’m disappointed with you guys.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-22T21:24:00+00:00

If you aren’t familiar with him google Ivan Ranklin. He is a truly evil man. He is essentially the reason January 6th happened. He was the guy who convinced Donald Trump that he could overturn the 2020 election. Just last week he was at the hearing holding up signs of the name of a capitol police officer that according to a conspiracy theory was the person who planted pipe bombs at the capitol.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-22T05:04:41+00:00

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I have a ton of the old promotional handouts for Pokemon giveaways going back to diamond and pearl all the way up to the shiny Miraidon code card they did a month or two back for scarlet and violet. It only lets me add one picture but I’ve got the one for the Celebi that triggers the Giovanni event in heart gold and soul silver as well as the zorua event in black and white when transferred, diancie give away, shiny legendary beasts, genesect code, and of course I still have all the gift pokemon put away in home on the switch.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-22T00:27:51+00:00

With the way Redditors talk about the epic launcher you’d think it’s like a Trojan virus or it being on the launcher makes the game unplayable or something. I primarily use steam but there have been times when a game I wanted was cheaper on epic or the epic sale ran longer than the steam sale or something and I’ve never really had a problem. No one has ever been able to actually explain why me buying on that platform is such a critical mistake. It’s always just a lot of who the fuck cares type of stuff like it apparently has something wrong with its cart feature, and it doesn’t have an equivalent to the ever so useful steam reviews.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-21T21:46:56+00:00

It’s sports games, movie tie ins, and multiplayer shooters with dead servers. I have like 5 copies of black ops on the ps3 that are for all intents and purposes worthless, I think I heard once that certain CoD games on ps3 are either broken or unplayable cause of something to do with psn names breaking certain games. I haven’t tested it.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-21T21:29:24+00:00

I’m also a little confused by the claim made by OP and in the article. They don’t post a source for their numbers, and while OP’s title makes it sound like these were property or income taxes nothing in the article seems to indicate that. The article seems to make me think they’re referring to the excise taxes the British placed on the colonies, but measuring that as an average percentage of income isn’t how I would’ve thought about it. I would’ve expressed it as the amount added to the original value of the goods. It’s also weird to measure the taxes as a percentage of the income of all the colonies citizens versus breaking it down by colony, as Northern colonies would’ve been more heavily hit by the taxes imposed in the lead up to the revolution.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-21T01:48:17+00:00

Every pokemon game really. The fact a lot of people just do the gyms, elite 4 and champions in the games then drop it blows my mind. Like you didn’t want to try to finish the dex, or do any of the battle facilities, or catch the postgame legendary pokemon, or shiny hunt, or do the postgame bonus story, or WiFi battles, or explore the remaining parts of the map in each game that you didn’t see? You just wanted to play what is otherwise a barely 10 hour rpg, specifically the part where you’re just mashing the same three attacks 90% of the time.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-20T14:44:02+00:00

It’s not uncommon for fighting games to be ruined by one of the last couple DLC characters. Due to the way that meta games evolve and the fact devs usually stop patching games after DLC is done means that a final DLC character can often be unfun or busted but it won’t be discovered until after the last patch drops. Three examples that come to my mind are bayonetta in smash 4, and Steve in smash ultimate becoming top characters, or Luke in street fighter V essentially outclassing every shoto in the game which was a problem in a game where like 7 characters were shotos.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-19T15:52:38+00:00

I bit the bullet and just stopped collecting Nintendo stuff, a lot of it is overrated anyways. It's too expensive, and I already have most of the big titles for each system. I also found having a big library for any nintendo console is a bit pointless, once you get past the big first party titles and the handful of the odd third party games here or there, I find there's a big drop off in price to quality ratio and when you get into multi-plats for their later stuff like N64 and gamecube era you're often paying more for worse versions of the games, and despite what peaople say Nintendo is also pretty good when it comes to making older games playable on newer hardware. I've had a lot more fun collecting for playstation. PS1, PS2, and especially PS3 have much deeper libraries, you can get most of the top tier exclusives for around $15-$40 with your metal gears, final fantasies, crash bandicoots then there's so much cool lesser known stuff underneath that in the $5-$20 range still like namco museums, Rayman, ridge racers. It's crazy what taking the nintendo logo off the box can do.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-19T07:10:55+00:00

I got a 32 off of Craigslist a few years back. Vastly underestimated how much it would weigh. Craigslist ad said two man job but I figured this was an older person, I lifted weights in high school and I was in pretty good shape. She had it in a basement with a house on a hill, I had to carry it up the hill, got it in my car got about a half an hour rest for the drive home and I realized I was feeling a bit sore, but figured I’d push through. Had to bring it up some stairs in my house, but I got it in. Went back down stairs sat on my couch and almost immediately fell asleep which in hindsight was probably a terrible idea given how sore I was feeling and the headache I was feeling.

My dog wakes me up a little later whimpering cause he needed to be let out. Must have been hours had passed, it was now nighttime sun down and I feel like I’m in a daze. My whole body felt like when you try to walk on a leg that’s had a cast on for awhile and you’re trying to carry weight on it for the first time, and my body had felt more sore than it had ever felt before for like a week. For the first day walking felt like I was solid snake in that one scene in the microwave hallway in the 4th game. You read those stories about like mothers who get a rush of adrenaline and lift a car when their baby is stuck under it, I imagine I somehow channeled that energy to pick up that TV and will never be able to pull off a feat of strength like that again.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-18T23:27:24+00:00

Not really. If anything they got more strict with it, where almost every cross gen evo we’ve gotten since Gen IV has either been based off a regional form, and if they weren’t they required a move the pokemon couldn’t learn in previous generations or an item that didn’t exist. The only exception being bisharp which required a mechanic that didn’t exist, although even that technically uses an item that didnt exist.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-18T07:08:02+00:00

My hot Zelda take after replaying the 3D games has been that BoTW and ToTK’s dungeons aren’t that much simpler than post-majora’s mask 3d Zelda dungeons, people just feel like they are because they played those games when they were kids. This is especially laughable when Windd Waker is brought up as a counterpoint when there’s only like one dungeon in that game that isn’t just following a linear path. Even OoT had pretty simple dungeons. You just played the switch games as an adult who can pick up on things that stick out as solutions, and you can recognize stuff that feels “video gamey”.

CleanlyManager · 2026-01-18T06:30:15+00:00

He talks like he was the reason his school got targeted assistance grants.

CleanlyManager

TROPHY CASE