Rosaluma Smash 4 Edits

Rosalina & Luma (Rosaluma) were announced for Smash 4. So here's some edits I did with her.

Rosalina & Luma are property of Nintendo.

Review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. The direct sequel to the 1992 SNES favourite The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. This game was just awarded Game of the Year by GameSpot earlier this month. I just recently beat it (not 100% yet, but I'm only 5 Heart Pieces away), so I felt it would be good of me to review this game completely, now that I've gone through the main quest. Here is why I feel that this is the best top-down Zelda entry ever.

The Nostalgia is Real
I started playing the Zelda series probably in 1989. I started with the first one on the NES. The SNES game ALttP holds a very special place in my heart. When I heard back in June 2013 during E3 that a direct sequel to this beloved classic was in the works, I was through the roof ecstatic. Between this announcement and Mega Man being in Smash 4, I couldn't contain myself the whole month. ALBW did something that a Zelda game hasn't done in ages or seasons (see what I did there? ;)). There was no tutorial stage, no assistant like Navi or Fi. Nope, Nintendo went old-school and let us use our smarts to figure out the game. And bringing back the beloved world of Hyrule (the Light World) and introducing the Dark World as Lorule (genius naming) along with key music & sounds from the SNES days hit me right in the childhood, as I'm sure it did for many old-school players. ALBW did absolutely right by its predecessor. Nintendo, please continue to amaze us with this franchise that I've followed for almost 25 years!

Freedom of Exploration
I love the fact that Eiji Aonuma decided to break with the Zelda formula of dungeon order sequence & item obtaining in said dungeons. No, we were free to explore dungeons in any order we wanted. Also, you could rent any items you wanted so long as you had the rupees for them. Signs were posted outside the dungeon indicating the key item you needed to complete the dungeon. Here's the kicker: If you fell in battle, you lost all your rented items. When you got to a certain point in the game, you could buy the items for keeps and died all you wanted after that (not that we want you dying in the game). At first, I was taken aback by the break from tradition, but I soon found it quite useful. If I got stuck in one dungeon, I moved on to another. I warmed up to it especially when I got to the Lorule dungeons.

Wall-Merge Mechanic
This single in-game mechanic made for excellent puzzles, probably the most memorable for me in all my years of playing Zelda. It took a bit to get used to, but I soon found how many uses I had for it. It gave way to stealth puzzles (entering the Dark Palace in Lorule, for instance), avoiding enemy attack, and travelling great distances to previously inaccessible places. You couldn't stay merged in a wall forever: You had a stamina meter that depleted over a period of time and you got unstuck from the wall when it was empty. But, if there was no way for you to exit the wall if you were stuck, the stamina meter didn't deplete. Smart programming there. Speaking of the stamina meter...

Item Usage & the Stamina Meter
The stamina meter was used for more than the wall merge. It also dictated how much you could use your items. Yes, this means that for items like bombs & arrows, you didn't have any ammo. Once your stamina meter was empty, you couldn't use items any more till it refilled. And, if you fell in a hole, your stamina meter was topped up immediately. There were jars you could use to refill your stamina meter contained in pots & bushes in dungeons & outside.

The Most Unique Puzzles
This game had the most unique puzzles ever. Not just with the wall merge. I remember particularly in Skull Woods there were some inaccessible switches and I couldn't figure out how to hit them. Well, this dungeon, like Skull Woods in ALttP, had Wall Masters - hands that came from above and, if you were snatched, were sent back to the entrance to the dungeon. Well, I finally noticed that this Wall Master in one room hit the top of a mesh platform I was standing under, which had a switch on it. I then proceeded to stand directly under the switch. Lo and behold, the Wall Master hit the switch for me! Genius! There were other puzzles, too. But Skull Woods really stood out for me.

For these and other reasons I can't enumerate right now, this is why The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is simply the greatest Zelda ever. Yes, even greater than Ocarina of Time. There! I said it! I grew up on top-down view Zelda games. It was awesome of Nintendo to return Zelda to its roots. If you have a 3DS but don't have this game, go get it. Now. Right this second! This is Nintendo's finest work in 2013, just edging out Fire Emblem: Awakening for me. Thank you for reading this review.