Why I Love The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Despite often selling absurdly well, handheld consoles often feel like they're pushed under the rug compared to their more popular home counterparts. Handheld entries in popular series often feel somewhat forgotten, and in some cases like Sonic, they're not even regarded as mainline entries. And that's a bit of a shame, I have a real soft-spot for games build around handheld play because they have a unique design philosophy that you don't see with home consoles. They often have a more condensed and focused feel, being built with short play sessions in mind, and feel more willing to experiment and try new and weird things since they have that leniency. The original Game Boy is a great example of this, as Nintendo was still trying to figure out what made a handheld game work, so we got really strange and experimental titles like Super Mario Land 2, The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls, and Donkey Kong 94. But the most successful experiment the console had to offer was Link's Awakening:

Link's Awakening is a game that stripped the Zelda series of its pre-established conventions and came out the other side not only having paved the way for the future of the series, but ended up becoming my favorite 2D Zelda in the franchise. It's a perfect summation of what made handheld gaming so magical.

When talking about Link's Awakening, it's impossible to not bring up the story, which easily ranks as one of my favorites in all of gaming. Despite being a Game Boy game, this is one incredibly rich and medium-aware narrative. The main premise completely eschews any of Zelda's conventions, with Link washing upon on the Island of Koholint and being tasked with finding eight instruments to wake up the sleeping Wind Fish. There's no Zelda, no Ganon, no Triforce, no Hyrule, it's an entirely new story with an entirely new cast, and quite the likable one at that. Link's new friend Marin in particular stands out as one of the more likable female leads in Zelda. To complement this strange new setting, Link's Awakening goes for an incredibly comedic, light-hearted, and almost parodical tone. NPC dialogue often references the fact that you're in a video game, enemies are sourced from other game series like Mario and Kirby, and the game frequently tosses surreal imagery at you like a raccoon suddenly transforming into Marin's father, a talking owl that pushes you forward, and Link holding Marin up as an item.

But it's not all fun and games, Link's Awakening counter-balances this light-hearted tone with a feeling of melancholy that permeates throughout, only getting worse as more gets revealed. The characters in Link's Awakening are so likable that the looming realization that Link will eventually have to leave is already a bit sad, but then, you get the game's big reveal: Koholint Island is the Wind Fish's dream, and waking it up will causing Koholint and everything on it to disappear, which of course leads to an absolutely heart-breaking ending where you do exactly that. Even though the people on Koholint aren't technically real, they feel real, and having to essentially kill them to leave is a harsh pill to swallow. It takes the infamous "it was all a dream" cliche and mines it for an impressive amount of dramatic potential, while also kinda commenting on the medium as a whole? Because the characters in a game aren't really either, they're pixels on a screen, but that doesn't mean you can't get attached to them either. Link's Awakening is one of the earliest games that I can think of that feels medium-aware, and uses that awareness to comment on the medium, something that's fairly common and popular in games nowadays. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, that this game's writer just so happened to be Yoshiaki Koizumi, the guy responsible for writing Majora's Mask. Who else at Nintendo could use the simplistic nature of a Game Boy game to craft such a thoughtful and emotionally resonant story?

On the gameplay front, Link's Awakening is pretty standard by Zelda standards nowadays, but at the time, I think it's one of the most influential games in the series in terms of establishing that traditional formula we all know today. Link To The Past was obviously important, but it had a few strange quirks particularly in its dungeon progression, but Link's Awakening really refines everything. In terms of moment to moment control, the biggest improvement is in the combat. Link's sword now swings in a wide arc making combat a cinch making it far easier to hit enemies, and the game introduces the Roc's Feather, a common item in the 2D entries that allows Link to jump. This is likely because Link's Awakening was built off the fantastic JP exclusive The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls which had 2D platforming segments, which are also brought over to this game.

But ultimately, the bigger changes in Link's Awakening mostly came from the progression, both in terms of the overworld and the dungeons. Zelda 1 and LttP both had fairly open overworld maps in which most dungeons could be discovered simply by stumbling upon them. In Link's Awakening, however, the overworld must be slowly opened up as you progress through the story, and each dungeon needs to be uncovered by doing some sort of quest prior. Personally, I prefer this structure way more as it allows the game to modulate the pacing more carefully. As the game goes on, you get more freedom and it holds your hand less, and there's a nice balance between overworld exploration and dungeon crawling rather than the lopsided bias towards the latter that the earlier games had. It also helps that the overworld quests in question are incredibly fun and varied, ranging from saving a Chain Chomp from a Moblin base, to doing an elaborate trading sequence to get the Magical Boomerang, to returning a ghost to its resting place. It's not just the structure that's improved, but the substance of the game as well.

The dungeons themselves are also better structured, similarly establishing the formula many games would follow. The first half of each dungeon has you stumble upon a bunch of dead ends, then you find the dungeon item and you're able to use it to open all those dead ends, culminating in the dungeon's boss serving as a test of that item. In LttP, the dungeons items were often only used once or twice in each dungeon if at all, but here, each dungeon feels designed entirely around each item. The dungeon design in Link's Awakening is generally fantastic, with each dungeon being fairly open but with enough of a progression that fully unraveling them all is super satisfying. They also amp up in complexity at a perfect pace, culminating in the absolute behemoths that are Eagle's Tower and Turtle Rock, two of my favorite 2D dungeons in the series. The bosses are quite fun too, all taking advantage of the dungeon items, and the final boss Nightmare similarly stands out as one of my favorites in the series. As a whole, Link's Awakening doesn't really have any weak moments, it's all fun with pretty much no down-time, and the entire world is so tightly-knit. Aside from how little buttons the Game Boy has, I'd be inclined to call this a damn near perfect video game.

Eventually, the game got ported to the Game Boy Color as Link's Awakening DX, a fantastic move that allowed the game to hold up a lot better over time. Not only did the addition of the GBC's distinctly bright color palette help Link's Awakening really shine visually, but it adds some neat extras like an exclusive dungeon and a side quest built around taking photographs, meaning this version pretty much completely replaces the original. And Ii 2019, we ended up getting a top-to-bottom remake of Link's Awakening for the Switch by the same team that made A Link Between Worlds, and it's fantastic. It adds in a lot of modern conveniences like smooth screen-scrolling, eight-directional movement, and more buttons to limit the amount of time spent returning to the inventory which already makes it my preferred way to play the game. On top of that, this remake expands on a lot of the side content in Link's Awakening, adding in more Secret Seashells to find, fleshing out the Trendy Game, adding in a now obligatory Hero Mode, and introducing a rudimentary dungeon builder with a bunch of hidden dungeon tiles to find and missions to complete. But the biggest change is the new toy-like visual style, which I personally love. It's super charming, it looks fantastic, it feels timeless, and it fits with the game's story and themes quite well, and I can't wait to see it return in Echoes Of Wisdom. That being said, while I love the remake, I don't think it replaces DX entirely for me. DX's more simplistic graphics still have a lot of charm, it's a lot easier and faster to breeze through and 100%, and the photographs in DX didn't return in the remake which is a bit of a shame.

I also can't go without mentioning the soundtrack to Link's Awakening, especially since music is such an integral part to the game as a whole. It's easily the best soundtrack on the Game Boy, and one of my favorite in the Zelda series as a whole. Equal parts quirky and ethereal, it perfectly complements both the game's comedic tone and the dreamy setting, especially the overworld themes. Sword Search, Mabe Village, Peaceful Villagers, Mysterious Woods, the Ballad Of The Wind Fish, and especially Tal Tal Heights all rank as some of my favorite Zelda tracks. And the remake's soundtrack is equally stellar, using both orchestral instruments and the original chiptune to craft a reverant OST that perfectly captures the original's feel, and even expands on it like with many of the dungeon themes, Angler's Shrine and Face Shrine being the notable highlights. I go back and forth on which OST I find better though, the remake manages to elevate so many of the original's less interesting tracks, but the original chiptune has an incredibly atmospheric feel to it that fits the game really well. Either way, they're both standout Zelda scores and the game would be worse without them.

 Overall, Link's Awakening is an incredibly important  game. It's the first Zelda game to really nail the formula with its incredible world design and fluid gameplay, while also showing how malleable the series can be with its more comedic tone and experimental feel. It's a true showcase of how much you could wring out of the humble Game Boy both in terms of music and scale, and it demonstrated how the Zelda series could tell subtly powerful narratives through a simple action-adventure game formula. And out of all the great 2D Zelda games, Link's Awakening is the one that really left the biggest impact on me. On pretty much every level, it's an absolute delight.

Why I Love The Ape Escape Trilogy

I've spent a lot of time raving about Sony's many platformer trilogies from the PS1 and PS2. However, it's finally time to get to talking about my favorite Sony platforming trilogy... again. I've already praised the series to high heavens in my Million Monkeys post, but now, I'm going to really go deep into why I think the Ape Escape trilogy is as close to platforming perfection as you can get.

The first Ape Escape for PS1 is far and away the most influential and highly-regarded entry in the series, and for many, it's the best game in the series. While it's not my personal favorite, AE1 is incredibly close behind and stands out as one of the biggest stone-cold classics on the original Playstation.

The main premise of Ape Escape is pretty simple. Monkeys are running wild across different time periods, and you play as a kid named Spike who time travels around to catch all of the monkeys. AE1 introduces a lot of major characters within the series, and as a whole, has easily the most iconic cast out of any of these games. Accompanying Spike, we have the bumbling Professor, his snarky assistant Natalie, and his friendly AI program Casi. Meanwhile, on the villains side, there's the wonderfully hammy main antagonist Specter, and Spike's rival Jake. It's a solid cast, but AE1 in particular has some pretty comically amateur voice acting compared to every other game in the series. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely hilarious, but it does make it hard for me to take the story or these characters all that seriously compared to the later entries. That being said, at one point, Natalie and the Professor get kidnapped by Specter leaving you alone with only Casi to guide you. And you know what, I genuinely kinda missed them. Despite the poor voice acting, the characters were endearing enough that I did actually get pretty invested in them by the end, and Casi in particular ended up becoming one of my favorite Ape Escape characters because of this part of the game.

Ape Escape was the first game to require the use of the PS1's dual-stick Dualshock controller, it's a game entirely built around twin-stick gameplay in pretty much every way. You're given a wide range of gadgets that you can use to catch all the monkeys in each area, ranging from a simple net to a slingshot to an RC car to a propeller, and they all utilize the right analog stick in some way. There's even a whole bunch of vehicles like tanks and boats that also utilize both of the joysticks. The controls are certainly a bit unconventional nowadays, you use the trigger to jump rather than any of the face-buttons, but I think it's still really intuitive once you break out of that standardized mindset of how platformer controls should be. I've seen many people say Ape Escape is the Sony game that feels the most like a Nintendo game, and I think this design philosophy is exactly why. Ape Escape took a singular idea of building a game around the Dualshock, and used that to inform every aspect of its design, and a result, we got a seriously addictive gameplay loop out of it.

The level design in all of these games are generally pretty good, offering up increasingly large areas for you to explore and hunt for monkeys in. The first game, however, really uses its time travel theme to introduce a ton of inventive environments, ranging from prehistoric fields, to mysterious ruins, to the inside of a giant fish, to the Great Wall Of China, to a castle, to a futuristic city. However, as far as levels go, I think AE1 has one notable standout, the last one. Specter's Castle is an absolute behemoth of a final stage, starting off in an amusement park where you visit a bunch of attractions to save your friends, before transitioning to you climbing up into space to fight off Specter. It's a lengthy and brutally difficult gauntlet that tests you on everything you've learned throughout the game, and it stands out as both the highlight of AE1 and one of my favorite final levels ever made. Both of the sequels would also introduce pretty large-scale final gauntlets like this, but none of them really captured the same magic for me.

Ape Escape 1 also introduces the series' tradition of having a metric ton of side content, even beyond the impressive 204 monkeys you need to catch. Each level has a bunch of hidden Specter Coins to find to unlock three surprisingly fleshed-out minigames, each taking advantage of the Dualshock in their own unique ways. I think AE1 has the best overall roster of minigames in the series too, none of them are all that weak. Add in a hefty postgame where you get one super powerful gadget called the Magic Punch you can use to get the last few monkeys, and a Time Trial option, and you get a game that just feels like a complete package all around. The presentation of Ape Escape is also incredibly polished. All the games in the trilogy look colorful and clean, utilizing charming chibi character developments and cartoonish environments to great effect. However, the Mega Man Legends-esque low-poly look of the first game allows it to hold up remarkably well, and I'd honestly say it's still my favorite game in the series in terms of purely art direction. As for the soundtrack? Well, you know where this is going. Ape Escape's soundtrack is an incredible house album by Soichi Terada, a mainstay composer within the series. It's a defining PS1 soundtrack, filled with quirky, catchy, and frenetic jungle music. There's a ton of fantastic tracks, but highlights for me have to be Time Station, Dark Ruins, Cryptic Relics, Stadium Attack, Coral Cave, Sushi Temple, Crumbling Castle, Specter's Factory, and Specter's Castle. 

Ape Escape 2 is often regarded as the weakest of the trilogy and I'm inclined to agree. Being sandwiched between the far more influential first game and the far more inventive third game will do that to you. That being said, AE2 is still one of my favorite 3D platformers on the PS2 and has a hell of a lot of strong points.

Ape Escape 2 takes place directly after a spinoff called Ape Escape 2001 that released only in Japan, where you played as Spike and had to suck up all the monkey's pants so the professor could wash them (it's not as weird as it sounds, I swear!). Introducing continuity to the series, AE2 introduces Spike's cousin Jimmy who accidentally sends back the monkey helmets back with the pants, causing the apes to start running loose again. This game starts the trend of each entry in the trilogy having new protagonists, and I'd actually say Jimmy is my favorite Ape Escape protagonist. Where Spike is more spunky and has a serious attitude, Jimmy is just kind of a massive ditz, but with a big heart. The game focuses primarily on his dynamic with Natalie who returns from the first game, and their banter is an absolute joy to watch. It's especially enjoyable in the original US dub since they managed to get Veronica Taylor and Rachael Lillis to voice Jimmy and Natalie. That's right, they're literally Ash and Misty, all the way down to their personalities, interactions with each other, and the fact that you spend the game catching stray animals.

Putting aside the funny story quirks though, Ape Escape 2's gameplay is mostly just a refined version of the first game's. It doesn't add too much new to the table, but the original formula was already great and all AE2 really needed to do was clean up some of the rougher edges. The movement feels a bit more fluid, the monkey AI is more advanced and puts more effort into fighting back, the difficulty curve is quite a bit smoother, the Magic Punch-affected objects are now outlined making the postgame a lot brisker, and you get more gadgets on top of the entire roster from the first game. The level design is based on different countries this time around which isn't quite as varied as the time travel from the first game, but they're still consistently fun to explore and feel further increased scope compared to the original stages. But the biggest gameplay improvement in my opinion is the addition of dedicated boss stages where you fight the Freaky Monkey Five, a newly introduced elite team of monkeys. I'd actually say AE2 has the best boss roster in the series, most if not all the boss fights here are a ton of fun, with the highlight being the singing fight against Pink Monkey.

 

I praised the first game for being absolutely flooded with content, but Ape Escape 2 manages to go even further with it. As usual, there's a whopping 300 monkeys to catch, three unlockable side minigames of varying quality, a beefy postgame that has you revisiting old levels with the Magic Punch, and Time Trials. However, Ape Escape 2 also introduces a gotcha minigame that you can invest coins into to get a ton of items ranging from tips, to skins for your RC car, to monkey-themed fables, to concept art, to my personal favorite unlockable, the manga pages. In case you wanted to spend even more time with the fun cast of Ape Escape, AE2 has some incredibly charming mangas that were always a joy to unlock. But easily the best bit of side content in the game is a New Game+ where you play as Spike, having all your gadgets from the start of the game but with the monkeys being far more aggressive. None of the other games in the trilogy has something like this and it's a damn shame because AE2's New Game+ is awesome.

 

One of the most polarizing elements of Ape Escape 2 is definitely its soundtrack, which was done by Koji Hayama rather than Soichi Terada like all the other Ape Escape scores. On one hand, yeah, it's kind of a shame considering how much Terada's jungle style formed Ape Escape's identity as a series. On the other hand, I think people really sleep on AE2's soundtrack because it's a serious bop that I return to constantly. If Terada tried to capture the chaotic nature of Ape Escape's gameplay through frenetic drum n bass, Hayama managed to achieve the same effect, but with quirky dance pop with sampled monkey sounds. The entire soundtrack is charmingly goofy in its instrumentation, but the melodies manage to be ridiculously catchy as well, with highlights being Liberty Island, Gadget Trainer, Ninja Hideout, Vita-Z Factory, Viva Apespania, Skyscraper City, and especially Pirate Isle. Besides, any game soundtrack with a vocal track composed of Veronica Taylor singing monkey puns for three minutes is automatically a 10/10. 

As good as the first game is, though, Ape Escape 3 is my favorite game in the series. While AE2 is a great refinement of the original game's formula, Ape Escape 3 expands upon the series' gameplay loop in some truly wonderful ways.

Ape Escape 3 is the first and only game in the series to give you two protagonists, Kei and Yumi. Being able to pick your character's gender is always a plus, and I like that both of these characters have their own unique personalities (that being said, Yumi is way more entertaining). However, aside from that, I actually think AE3 has the weakest story of the trilogy. It goes for a denser and wackier tone, leaning a lot harder on goofy comedy, and the new villain Dr Tomoki doesn't really do much for me. Otherwise, though, I think the presentation is still great. The visuals are probably even better than in 2, with the colors popping way more in this one, and Soichi Terada returns for yet another fantastic soundtrack. The music in AE3 is a bit more muted than the previous two games, but it keeps up that typically frantic Ape Escape energy and offers its fair share of fantastic bangers like Fantasy Knight, The Big City, Bootown, Western Village, Mount Amazing 2, Arctic Wonderland, Mirage Town, Eversummer Island, and Tomoki City 1/2. Mount Amazing 2 and the Tomoki City tracks in particular just scream the early-mid 2000s, they're such a vibe.

In terms of the gameplay though, I think Ape Escape 3 manages to be a soaring improvement over its predecessors. Ape Escape 3 introduces a new costume system which allows your character to briefly change forms and gain new abilities. There's a solid variety of costumes each with their own unique movesets, like a cowboy costume that primarily uses pistols to take out monkeys, a ninja that can run on walls, or a kung fu costume that lets you use melee combos on the apes (yes, it's very similar to Princess Peach Showtime). You can only use these costumes for a limited amount of time, so you're encouraged to go fast and get as many energy pick-ups as you can to hold onto the costume for as long as possible. It's a really fun system to use especially because of how fluidly many of these costumes control, and with the monkey AI getting even more complex and devious, these costumes give you way more options in dealing with them. It's also just charming to see all the different costumes, especially since some of them have gender differences between Kei and Yumi. For example, Kei's Cyber Ace costume is a tokusatsu hero, and Yumi's Cyber Ace costume is a magical girl.

The real highlight of Ape Escape 3, though, is the level design which easily stands out as the best in the series. AE3 is primarily themed around movies, so each level is based on a genre of film, from fairy tales, to horror, to children's media, to sci-fi, to civil war, to Asian action cinema, to noir, to superhero. One particular highlight is a level that takes place in an entire TV studio filled with a variety of different sets you can hop in and out of, AE3 really runs with its premise and it's filled to the brim with charming movie references. But even more than just the theming, these levels are massive. Some of the earliest Ape Escape 3 levels already start to rival the last few levels of the first and second games in terms of sheer scale, and they are absolutely filled to the brim with side areas, hidden nooks and crannies, and entire location shifts. Mount Amazing, for example, starts on a mountain before taking you to up to some kind of heavenly shrine. If there were any things I like better in the previous games, I prefer the Magic Punch to the Super Banana costume you get in the postgame, and the bosses were a bit better in 2, but aside from that, I feel like Ape Escape 3 is just a far more vast, substantial, and mechanically rich game than the previous two.

And once again increasing the scope from the previous games, Ape Escape 3 is one of the most content-rich videogames I've ever played. The monkey count has been upped from 300 to 476, but that's only scratching the surface. The Gotcha Box has been replaced with a full-on shopping district to explore which brings back some of 2's collectibles like concept art and RC car skins, but also introduces some new ones like nonfiction stories, trading cards, and channel guides. Sadly, there's no manga this time. Each level also has a camera that you can use to shoot a cute movie with some apes hanging around the set, and once you get all the movies, you'll unlock a full-on movie editor in the theater, which you could easily waste hours tinkering around with. There's also a Survival Mode where you have to run through each stage in one go, a fortune telling mode with a number of unique fortune types to mess around with, and the introduction of Free Play which lets you replay levels with all the apes spawned in. But easily the best side mode in not just Ape Escape 3 but the entire series is one of the minigames, Mesal Gear Solid. The other two minigames are pretty much standard fare, but Mesal Gear Solid is a 1-2 hour long Metal Gear Solid crossover game where you play as an ape, culminating in said ape meeting Snake in person. This was part of a mutual crossover, with MGS3 getting an Ape Escape-inspired side mode of its own, and it's probably still the greatest crossover in all of gaming? Like not only is it utterly hysterical in how incompatible these two series are, but the fact that we got two genuine quality side modes out of it makes it all the better.

The Ape Escape games are just fun. Everything about them feel meticulously designed so that the player can have as much fun as humanly possible. The levels are so welcoming and fun to explore, the characters are so immensely charming and likable, the music is consistently catchy, the gameplay loop is addictively simple, and each game in the trilogy has increasingly more content to dig into. But what really solidifies this trilogy as my favorite out of Sony's platforming series is that it stays consistently fantastic from start to finish. There's no slow start or slightly underwhelming finish, Ape Escape knows what it wants to be right from the first game and just keeps refining the formula from there.

Kirby's Dream Land: A Deep Dive

I've enjoyed doing those Mega Man deep dives so much that I wanted to branch out into delving into some of my other favorite series, and one in particular is Kirby, my favorite video game series of all time. Kirby is a series that just doesn't get fully analyzed much on a game design level, so I wanted to change that and really pick apart what makes these games work so well for me. So, let's start with the first game in the series, Kirby's Dream Land.

Why I Love The Trails In The Sky Trilogy

Falcom is a studio that has made countless incredible RPGs, from the Ys series to Gurumin to Xanadu to Popful Mail to Zwei, but their biggest and arguably most well-known work is the Trails series. With over a dozen Trails games released so far, each around 50-100 hours in length, picking a favorite entry is a big undertaking for a lot of people. But not for me. My favorite arc in Trails has always been the Trails In The Sky games, they're what introduced me to Falcom to begin with, and they're some of the most emotionally invested I've been in any RPG ever.

The story of the Trails In The Sky games is quite a lot to sum up in a single blog post, so I'll try to boil down the things I love about it.

The main plot is primarily about Estelle and Joshua, who travel around the kingdom of Liberl in the hopes of becoming Bracers. Trails is the definition of a slow burn series, with the first game in the trilogy, FC, being primarily focused on thoughtfully building up the world of Liberl and introducing the player to the characters that inhabit it. The world-building in these games is nothing short of marvelous, it's intricate and detailed, and you get a real sense of the inner workings of each of the locations you visit. But even more important is the character-building. FC has a fairly slice of life feel to it, with you getting to spend a lot of time getting to know characters like Estelle, Joshua, Schera, Olivier, and Kloe. And these are great characters, all super rich and likable, though Estelle is far and away the highlight. Her determined personality, biting wit, and deep character development makes Estelle my favorite RPG protagonist, if not my favorite gaming protagonist of all time. Many RPGs just have the plot enter full throttle within the first few hours, but Trails In The Sky gives you an entire game to grow attached to the party before shit really hits the fan in FC's crushing cliffhanger. It's the kind of longform story-telling that I love about TV shows, and as a result, I think FC is my favorite game of the trilogy. It has a uniquely comforting vibe to it that not many other games in the genre could really replicate.

That being said, Trails SC is still pretty stellar. For many people, SC is the peak of the trilogy, if not one of the high points of the entire series and it's not hard to see why. This is the game where everything that FC set up gets paid off, and in spectacular fashion too. Estelle is fun in FC, but SC is where she really gets put through the wringer and matures as a character. I'm really trying hard not to spoil too much here, but SC has one especially cathartic scene between Estelle and Joshua that serves as the perfect summation of what makes this series' writing so good. SC also introduces Renne, another one of my favorite characters for being one of the best examples of just how deep and complex Trails' cast can be. On the gameplay front, SC also takes a pretty huge bump in difficulty compared to the previous game and I think that really aids the story-telling. FC is all fun and games, a light-hearted romp through this complex world. But SC pits you against much tougher enemies right from the start, immediately illustrating how much higher the stakes are.

And then there's Trails 3rd, easily the strangest game in the series. For all intents and purposes, FC is the end of the Trails In The Sky story, and 3rd feels like more of an experimental epilogue. It takes on a unique dungeon crawler progression system that it uses to flesh out the cast of Sky, particularly Kevin and Renne, and offer them all catharsis for issues left unresolved. I kinda like the dungeon crawler stuff, even if it doesn't top the feeling of exploring this massive world, it's surprisingly addictive in its own way. And despite how strange and disconnected it is, I just can't bring myself to separate Trails 3rd from the other two games in the trilogy. It feels like a testament to how much Falcom loves these characters they've crafted, and offers some of the most ambitious and gutsy story-telling and gameplay design in the entire series. 3rd has some incredibly funny and memorable bits of levity (Estelle fishing!), but it also dives into some truly haunting, sickening, and horrifying material (Star Door 15, if you know you know). At its peak, 3rd has some of the most emotionally-resonant moments in the trilogy so even if it's probably the weakest one, 3rd absolutely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as its predecessors.

I don't have as much to say about the gameplay, the Trails games have always felt like story-first experiences to me. That being said, they're still really fun. The battle system is a bit of a middle-ground between turn-based and strategy, battles are quick but there's an element of planning around the placement of the characters and their turn order which helps them remain engaging. And like all the best RPG battle systems, there's even a small element of customization in the Orbments where you can equip each character with special attacks based on their elemental affinities. But even better than the battle system are the sidequests. Trails In The Sky has the best sidequests I've ever seen in an RPG, they check all the boxes. From a story standpoint, they flesh out the game's many NPCs further, introduced a myriad of smaller side arcs of their own that are just as much of a joy to follow as the main story. And from a gameplay standpoint, almost all of them manage to offer a unique gameplay experience that further fleshes out both the world navigation and the battle system. And 3rd's sidequest system is even better, in my opinion. Trying to unlock and discover the various Memory Doors hidden around the world is a ton of fun, and each door offers unique changes of pace ranging from minigames to battle challenges to character backstories.

As for the presentation, it's tricky to describe. Falcom's games around the 2000s had this distinct style to them where the characters are these prerendered chibi 3D models, and the environments are these fully 3D isometric dioramas with realistic textures. It's very much a low-budget look, but it just comes together so well, it just screams "mid 2000s PC game" but in a good way. The steampunk world design for Liberl is also a highlight, I particularly like the intricate clocks that litter FC's UI. And then there's the music, which is so good it singlehandedly got me into the series. Seriously, I heard Sophisticated Fight in a YouTube video once and I thought it was so good that I needed to know where it came from. Falcom Sound Team has put out a lot of incredible soundtracks, but the Trails trilogy was their peak in my opinion. FC has a whimsically jazzy and nostalgic feel to it thanks to the work of Wataru Ishibashi in one of his last gigs at Falcom before stepping away, SC's more intense rock-heavy tone sounds more like classic Falcom and marks the introduction of my favorite FST composer Takahiro Unisuga, and 3rd boasts a uniquely ethereal synth-heavy soundtrack buoyed by newcomer Ryo Takeshita, who didn't spend long in Falcom but really made the most of his time there. With three games, picking out all the highlights is practically impossible, but I will single out Silver Will, Sophisticated Fight, Hollow Light Of The Sealed Land, Looking Up At The Sky, Fateful Confrontation, Overdosing Heavenly Bliss, and Dreamy And Boisterous Holy Land as my favorite tracks in the trilogy.

I'm not someone who often has the patience for massive RPGs, I still haven't beaten a single Xenoblade despite how much I like that series. So the fact that I was invested enough to sit through not just one but three massive RPGs is just a testament to how gripping and well-written Trails is. The impressive world-building, sense of scope, lovable and fleshed-out characters, detailed sidequests, and thoughtful dialogue make for one of the most well-realized worlds and casts in the entire medium. But you can say that about any Trails arc, so why is Sky my favorite? Honestly, I think it's just the vibes. Even in spite of its darkest moments, Trails In The Sky has such a comforting and welcoming atmosphere to it, carried by its wonderful visuals and phenomenal score. I love games that feel like they're taking me on a grand adventure, and the Trails In The Sky trilogy is one hell of a magical adventure.

Why I Love Densetsu No Starfy 3

As a fan of the Kirby series, I was always intrigued by the somewhat similar Starfy games, but due to most of them having only released in Japan, it took quite a bit for me to actually get into the series. Nowadays, we're living in a pretty good time with the original trilogy officially available on NSO and released patches for 1 and 3, but back then, I had to get through most of these games with a guide, not really being able to understand a lot of the story. So when I say that Starfy 3 managed to leave a massive emotional impact on me despite not understanding a single word, that should say a lot about how damn good this game is.

The Starfy series has gotten five games so far, and they're all varying degrees of great, in my opinion. However, the first three on GBA are the most interesting since they actually form a trilogy. Each entry expands on the previous, and there's even a bit of running continuity, but it all culminates in the third game, which I feel fully capitalizes on the potential of Starfy as a series.

The Starfy series doesn't quite have the same level of lore-building as Kirby, but it has some pretty fantastic characters. Starfy is a charmingly innocent and friendly protagonist, his more cynical ally Moe is an incredibly charismatic and witty side character with a surprising amount of depth, and the main antagonist Ogura is a fun mustache-twirler, at least in the first two games. Starfy 1 and 2 briefly touch upon darker themes in their end credits where we learn about Moe's troubled past, as his parents divorced leaving him to take care of his three siblings with little money to keep them afloat, but Starfy 3 not only expands on those theme further but expands on all the major characters as well. Starfy gets the introduction of his brattier sister, Starly, who's a very welcome presence in this game for multiple reasons. Moe reunites with his father throughout Starfy 3, which leads to probably the most infamous and heart-breaking gut punch in the entire series. And best of all, Ogura gets a fantastic resolution to his character arc as we learn he's working for an even greater threat named Evil who predictably doesn't really respect him. Despite not having played Starfy 3 with a patch, the cutscene direction for the major story events are still clear enough that the game's emotional beats still managed to hit really hard for me.

Starfy is often referred to as a marine platformer, meaning it takes place almost entirely underwater. Wait, wait, hear me out! The Starfy games actually control incredibly well, swimming around is fast and fluid, and Starfy even quickly gets a dash that lets him zoom through the water. There's even a neat combo system where you can get more of the game's currency by quickly chaining together enemy takedowns, really encouraging you to move fast. That being said, there are still aboveground sections which are more focused on traditional platforming, and they feel great too. Starfy 3 expands on the series' gameplay loop by introducing Starly as a playable character, and she has her own share of moves like a wall jump and crawl. The game frequently makes you swap between Starfy and Starly to keep the gameplay varied and make the most of both characters, and I think this mechanic adds some much needed complexity to the series. And in the post-game, you can swap between Starfy and Starly at will to find hidden treasures, opening up the game even further to great effect.

The level and boss design in Starfy 3 is another huge step-up over previous games, with each world offering a fair share of fun and unique mechanics that feel a lot more involved. There's an extremely memorable ghost world early on where you have to use floating cutlery as platforms, an ice world built around riding bowls of crushed ice around, a volcano area with a fittingly large focus on aboveground platforming, and a trippy trench area with gravity flipping shenanigans. Though of course, the best world in the game and arguably the series is Starfy 3's eighth world, the Undersea Ruins. Why is it so great? Well, it's because Wario shows up for a few stages and you have to help him around to discover hidden treasure. It's not just a fun cameo, Wario is built into the gameplay of this stage and the sections involving him are so much fun. The boss fights are also really good here, they feel a lot more involved and puzzle-oriented compared to the often very easy encounters of previous games.

Another thing I love about the Starfy games is just how much replay value they have, and Starfy 3 is no exception. The main campaign alone has a pretty impressive 40 levels spread across its ten worlds, but once the postgame opens up, you unlock another 40 new levels to beat to unlock the true final boss, along with all the main stages getting converted to harder variants with tougher enemies and more pearls to find. There's also a bunch of unlockable minigames, with Starfy 3 having some of the most varied and memorable in the series, along with a robust shop containing music tracks and costumes you can use to dress up both Starfy and Starly. And on top of all that, there's even a bestiary with each entry coming with a witty remark from Moe, if only I could read them all.

Visually, Starfy 3 looks absolutely wonderful. Despite remaining on the same console, each GBA entry slowly amped up the graphical detail, and Starfy 3 is easily the best-looking game in the series. Befitting the game's slightly darker tone, Starfy 3 boasts much harsher shadows for its environments, along with more detailed animations, atmospheric fog, and striking lighting effects. There's a ton of stunning background effects, like one level in the jungle world having a cylindrical-looking background or the ice world boasting a beautiful aurora borealis. The soundtrack is also great, boasting a similarly moodier tone than the previous two. Highlights include Coral Coast, Crushed Ice Alpine, Jungle, and my favorite track in the series, Undersea Ruins, along with the great remixes of tracks like Tone Of The Ocean, Lobber's Cave, and Kigurumi. I don't think it tops the first game's soundtrack for me, but it's definitely one of the series' best.

Densetsu No Starfy 3 is probably my favorite Game Boy Advance game ever made, it just hits all the right beats. It's a gargantuan expansion on the groundwork the previous games laid out, offering more involved gameplay, fantastic level design and bosses, a ridiculous amount of content, a deceptively heartfelt story no matter what language you speak, and a top-notch presentation. And with both the English patch out and the game officially available on NSO, I can't wait for even more people to discover this immensely hidden gem.

Smallville (Season 3)

The first two seasons of Smallville were fine. Enjoyable, but they rarely elevated to being extremely good. Season 3, however, is a different story. In a similar vein to shows like The Next Generation or The X-Files, it feels like the quality took a massive boost with Season 3 right off the bat.

Smallville's third season is pretty interesting in terms of plot because I think many of the overall story arcs are a fair bit weaker than the ones last season. There isn't a strong central theme like Season 2's family theme, unless you count putting the entire cast through the winger as a theme. Jonathan starts the season making a deal with Jor-El to bring Clark back after he left in the finale, and most of the season has them both dealing with the consequences of that, leading to a decently touching arc where Jonathan develops a heart problem. Lionel is probably the strongest part of the season, he's at his most cruel here between blackmailing and firing Chloe, gaslighting Lex, and leaving a certain other character to die. Speaking of which, probably the weakest part of Season 3 is once again the Lana plot in which she meets a new guy named Adam Knight who's later revealed to be a spy for Lionel. This is a great concept in theory, but the jig is revealed way too early, before Adam and Lana could really develop an interesting dynamic. On the other hand, I truly appreciate how much less romance there is this time. The Clark-Lana-Chloe love triangle isn't completely dead, but it doesn't impact the overall plot of the season nearly as much, and the writers took great strides to make Chloe in particular feel quite a bit more mature and likable again. Lana developing a weird friendship with Lex is also genuinely really fun, she's come a long way since the rough first season.

However, the highlights this season were primarily the standalone episodes. Season 3 really went wild with the Freaks Of The Week, offering some super creative and fun concepts.  There's no way to really articulate how cool these episode ideas are without just listing some of them out, so here goes. Clark facing off against a meteor freak hunter, a dream sequence episode, a comedy episode where Clark gets nagged by a hapless reporter played by Chuck McGill, Clark going blind and developing super-hearing, Chloe's friends getting brainwashed into trying to kill her, Clark entering a relationship with a meteor freak over their shared experiences only for her to be a yandere, the group getting a call from a future Lana, I'm sure you get the point by now. I think the big change that made this season so much fun compared to the previous two is that standalone episodes are less focused on a specific meteor freak and their abilities, and more focused on putting the characters in engaging and memorable situations.

Highlights

Exile: Smallville has had a pretty good track record with its season premieres so far, but Exile in particular was a unique breath of fresh air as it took place almost entirely in Metropolis, with Clark using red kryptonite to run away from his problem. I liked seeing Chloe, Lana, and finally Jonathan try to convince Clark to come home in their own ways.

Extinction: Extinction was the first standalone episode of Season 1 and it immediately set the bar by focusing more on the public perception of meteor freaks, with even Lana harboring a bit of a discriminatory mindset after all the times she's been put in danger by them (no wonder Clark doesn't want to tell anyone). I also really liked Van as a one-off villain, despite not having any powers, he's been one of the closest to actually killing Clark. 

Truth: Putting aside that one incredibly uncomfortable moment where Chloe accidentally outs a gay person... this episode was very enjoyable. Chloe gaining the ability to wring the truth out of others and going mad with power over it is both a fun and creative concept for a one-off episode, and it's able to facilitate some exciting bits of plot progression. Among other things, we learn Lana is going to Paris, Pete is in love with Chloe, and best of all, Lionel admits to killing his own parents on recording (which he sadly confiscates).

Memoria: And immediately after, we got what's probably the best episode of the series to date. Memoria was the culmination of all the drama between Lex and Lionel up to the point, finally revealing what really happened with Julian. The reveal that Lex took the fall for his mother is crushing, and the episode makes it clear in brutal fashion that his relationship with Lionel is irreparably screwed up because of it. The subplot of Clark learning about his own mother is cute too, though, especially as it contrasts Lex's rougher past.

Covenant: In yet another crazy Smallville cliffhanger episode, we get, like, half a dozen cliffhangers in the span of a few minutes. Seriously, let me count:

- Clark is taken by Jor-El to be reborn
- Jonathan is left unconscious in the caves
- The Kent farm gets a Kryptonian symbol burnt into it
- Clark learns about Lex investigating him and breaks off their friendship
- Chloe and her father get blown up
- And Lex gets poisoned

It's not all just for shock value though, like last season's finale, Covenant feels like a tragedy that the whole season was building up to, though I wasn't nearly left as mixed by what ended up transpiring. The main plotline of "Kara" showing up did feel like pretty blatant bait, the real Kara would never appear this early in the show, but I think it works in the context of Jonathan's deal finally coming back to haunt the family. The Lionel stuff is even better though. As cool as it was to see Lionel finally face consequences and get denied bail, he was able to wreak havoc on everyone who's wrong him in return. Clark and Lex falling out was a long time coming but it hurt nonetheless, and the final montage of Lionel getting his haircut was fantastic

Overall, Season 3 of Smallville was easily the best one to date. It may not have been as iconic as its predecessor, but it feels more refined. The writing is tighter, the acting is better, the standalone episodes are more inventive, the dramatic highs are more impactful, the romance is diminished, and the final stretch was pretty stellar. The Adam plot was still pretty weak and the middle stretch of the season dragged a bit, but otherwise, I thought Season 3 was a great step-up. Let's hope senior year can stick the landing for this era of the series.

4/5 Stars

Mega Man 5: A Deep Dive

As I've said several times before, Mega Man 5 is one of my favorite Classic games in the series, a fairly uncommon take from what I can tell. It seems a lot of people consider MM5 to be the most forgettable and uninteresting game in the series, and I just can't fathom that at all. Mega Man 5 does have its issues and I'll certainly dig into them, but if there's one thing I absolutely can't call it, it's forgettable. MM5 focuses less on adding new mechanics and more on refining what's already been established, boasting some of the freshest level design and most solid boss design of the series so far.

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Link To The Past

While the first two games certainly have their merits, I think most can agree that Link To The Past is where the Zelda series really started to come into its own, introducing many of the series' most prolific conventions and bits of iconography. And of course, that applies doubly so to the dungeon design. There's multiple floors, dungeon items, Boss Keys, a balance between more linear and open dungeons, it's all great stuff. This is the first Zelda game to really feel like I'm racking my brain while playing it, between juggling the Light and Dark Worlds, and the increasingly navigation-focused dungeon design. That being said, like with the game itself, I think there's still a fair share of weird growing pains here. Keys are often placed in enemies or under pots which makes it pretty easy to miss them, the Boss Key is used to unlock a chest with the Dungeon Item in it rather than the boss door, the Compass doesn't show you where the chests are, many dungeons still have a good amount of almost entirely useless rooms, and with a whopping 13-14 dungeons, the ratio of overworld to dungeon exploration still feels a bit off. I still really like the game though (even if I think Link Between Worlds kinda overshadows it now) and the many improvements and iterations it did make are absolutely worth acclaim, but I do think it's those little quirks that makes LttP's dungeons quite interesting to talk about.

Dungeon 0: Hyrule Castle/Secret Passage

I'm not fully sure if this section of the game fully counts as a dungeon, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. LttP has one of the coolest openings to a Zelda game, to the point where I think this is one area it even beats out A Link Between Worlds. Breaking into Hyrule Castle and freeing the princess is a fun and exciting way to kick off a game, but your first visit to Hyrule Castle also serves as a solid tutorial of Zelda's mechanics. You get a few keys and locked doors, multiple floors, a few items to immediately mess around with like the Lamp and the Boomerang, the more open castle entrance immediately followed by the more linear dungeon area, and some lever-pulling environmental puzzles in the sewers. I also really like the way combat is introduced, LttP's combat was always kind of iffy, your sword is stubby and only does half of a swing arc if you spam attack. It's really built around using items and everything in your environment, so I like how this area  is primarily designed to encourage stealth and taking out enemies with pots, at least unless you want the Boomerang. So yeah, while I'm not sure I'll be counting this as a dungeon, it's a fantastic intro to the game in its own right.

Dungeon 1: Eastern Palace

Once again, the Eastern Palace is a solid introduction to how dungeons work in this game. It's fairly short and straightforward, but it's quite efficient as well, balancing optional exploration with a guiding hand. The main, intended path forward is fairly linear, but there are a lot of optional goodies like Rupees and the Dungeon Map hidden in side paths. Many rooms in this dungeon have multiple, often disconnected levels to them forcing you to frequently double-back to rooms you've already been to but on different paths, which in turn makes the dungeon feel more sprawling. The arguable main mechanic are switches hidden under the ground or in pots which is a fine enough way to encourage the player to explore, but it's not too remarkable. There are also a few rooms with rolling cannonballs you need to dodge and while they're easily the highlight of the dungeon, there just isn't enough of them. That being said, the dungeon item is the Bow which actually gets a decent amount of mileage here since it can help with fighting Armos Knights. Many dungeon items in LttP don't have this same level of versatility. So while Eastern Palace isn't super remarkable, it does do most of what it's trying to do pretty well.

Dungeon 2: Desert Palace

The Desert Palace is unironically one of my favorite dungeons in the game, it's got everything. The first half is incredibly nonlinear, tossing you into a large open space with a bunch of rooms to explore, while the second half is a linear, more combat-focused gauntlet. The main gimmicks here are the fact that most of the dungeon is sandy meaning enemies can often pop out of the floor, and the Beamos which swivel around and shoot lasers at you on sight. I actually really like the Beamos, they're placed pretty well here like in the room where you need to find the pot with the switch hidden under it while dodge the Beamos' shots. There are a few other memorable setpices though, like being able to briefly go outside the dungeon (something that later games start to really phase out), that cannonball run to get to the Big Key, the introduction of the floating floor tiles, and opening a path by lighting some lanterns almost as if you're a tomb raider. My only gripe is that the dungeon item, the Power Bracelet, is only used once here, but otherwise, the Desert Palace is as good as early Zelda dungeons get.

Dungeon 3: Tower Of Hera

Something you'll learn is that many of my favorite Zelda dungeons involve spatial navigation, taking the dungeon as a whole and trying to figure out how to get yourself from Point A to Point B. Tower Of Hera is probably the first dungeon to make this a focus... but unfortunately, it doesn't do that very well. Tower Of Hera introduces a few neat mechanics such as the ever reliable blue/orange switches and switches that swap the active floor tiles. Unfortunately, you're rarely ever challenged to figure out which switch needs to be pressed at which time, particularly with the former. There is a neat puzzle to get the dungeon item where you need to open up the floor at the right spot and drop down to a lower level, but that's the only puzzle like that in the entire dungeon. Speaking of which, Tower Of Hera is short, too short. Despite being a vertical climb with five floors, almost every floor is composed of a single room which means you can easily blaze through it in about 10 minutes. The concept of a vertical tower dungeon built around navigation puzzles is a great concept, but it's nowhere near developed enough in this case. Thankfully, many later Zelda games would end up rectifying this. Oh yeah, and I didn't even mention the dungeon item. It's just the Moon Pearl that stops you from turning into a rabbit. You can miss the thing completely and not notice until you get yourself stuck in the Dark World.

Dungeon 4: Hyrule Castle Tower

This is one of the more iconic LttP dungeons and for good reason. Just as the opening where you storm Hyrule Castle and break out Zelda is badass, storming Hyrule Castle again but this time getting to wreak havoc with the Master Sword is even more badass. And yes, it's incredibly cathartic and fun to take out every soldier in sight with the Master Sword, but I can't really say there's much more than that. Layout-wise, Hyrule Castle Tower is a vertical straight-shot with little deviation or exploration. It's just a bunch of rooms entirely focused on combat which once again is fun, but it's not especially engaging on a mechanical level which is why I can't really rank it above many of the more standard dungeons.

Dungeon 5: Dark Palace

And here we are, the Dark World dungeons. Overall, I'd say the Dark World dungeons are generally better and more interesting than their Light World counterparts, but on the other hand, they don't tend to require that much more work to access. So like with Zelda 1, this half of the game will mostly just have you darting from dungeon to dungeon. As such, the Dark Palace is your introduction to how Dark World dungeons work, even echoing the Eastern Palace in its first room before slowly branching out into its own thing. Dark Palace doesn't really have much of a standout gimmick, but it stands out as having some of the best dungeon design in the game. With how simple the Light World dungeons could be, the Dark World immediately amps up the complexity in pretty much every way. There's a big emphasis on blowing up walls and the floors with bombs to get to important collectibles, and I especially like how you can see the chests on a balcony next to a cracked wall, forcing you to figure out which room that wall connects to. I actually kinda got stumped at one point trying to figure out how to get to the dungeon map, simply navigating this place is a puzzle and that's what makes it so fun! I also love the dungeon item, the Hammer, which is not only pretty important for getting around the overworld, but is also thoroughly explored and utilized within the dungeon itself.

Dungeon 6: Swamp Palace

The Swamp Palace is the first of many incredible water dungeons in the Zelda series (yes, I said incredible). Like many future Zelda dungeons, the main mechanic here is changing the water level, and it's established right from the very start. I love the opening puzzle where you have to realize that you can go to the Light World and change the water level to affect the Dark World, and the game keeps expanding on this central concept as the dungeon goes on. Another highlight is a bit where the lever that you use to change the water level blocks your path so you have to figure out how to open it from the other end. I'd say the middle section is the real highlight though, it's a big open area akin to Desert Palace where you have to figure out how to get to the Boss Key. What results is a pretty complex puzzle involving dropping through a floor, dealing with a color switch, and changing the water level, and I found that really engaging. Just to sweeten the deal, the Swamp Palace introduces one of my absolute favorite dungeon items to the series, the incredibly fun and creative Hookshot. And once again, the Hookshot actually gets some use within the dungeon and, from what I can tell, is required to beat the boss. The Swamp Palace is pretty much everything a good dungeon should be. It has engaging navigation puzzles, a strong central identity, and a fun dungeon item utilized well.

Dungeon 7: Skull Woods

The Skull Woods has one of the most interesting concepts for a Zelda dungeon, as it's split between the overworld and the inner dungeon, so you're forced to constantly consider where you are in relation to both of these planes. There are several items that you can only collect if you drop into the dungeon from a specific spot, and the dungeon itself is segmented across three different entrances in the overworld. Just to spice things up further, those floor switches from the Tower Of Hera are brought back and utilized in far more creative puzzles this time around. This time, you'll often have to hit the floor switch in one room to open a path in a different room. The dungeon can feel a bit aimless due to its unique structure, but the compelling navigation makes up for any of that. However, my biggest issue with Skull Woods comes from the dungeon item, the Fire Rod. The Fire Rod is fairly well-utilized, but it can feel a bit situational in that it's hard to tell what it can or can't work on. Figuring out that you need to use the Fire Rod on that giant skeleton feels wrong since you can't actually burn skeletons in real life, and yet you can't use the Fire Rod on the vines on the walls, those need to be slashed. This dungeon also introduces Wallmasters and, I don't know, I don't love them but they're not awful enough for me to hate them. They're just kind of annoyances. But overall, despite its few issues, Skull Woods still holds up as a standout dungeon in the game.

Dungeon 8: Thieves Town

Thieves Town is a mediocre dungeon with a great twist. The first half of the dungeon takes place in this four large connected square rooms where you have to look for the major items. Finding the Big Key is a bit of a puzzle, but overall, this area of the dungeon is really repetitive to navigate since everything looks the same. The second half is thankfully a lot stronger, though it still has its issues. This area is mostly comprised of cramped hallways of varying shapes, along with a fair amount of tricky conveyor belt gauntlets. But most importantly, you get the incredibly memorable moment where you free a maiden from prison, break open the flooring from an upper level, and reveal said maiden to be the dungeon's boss, Blind. It's a super fun twist but even it's not perfect. If you try to go upstairs with the maiden in tow, she'll run all the way back to the prison which not only spoils the twist pretty blatantly but means you'll have to go back down and pick her up. In addition, after three dungeons that utilized their items pretty effectively, Thieves Town introduces the Titan Mitts which is probably the most easy to skip item in the game.

Dungeon 9/10: Misery Mire

The one thing I like about Misery Mire is that you can choose to either do it or the Ice Palace first. You're meant to do the Ice Palace first, but I did the Misery Mire first this time because it can make the Ice Palace easier... and because I wanted to get this godforsaken dungeon over with as quickly as possible. Misery Mire truly lives up to its name. It's one of my least favorite dungeons in the series, and a jarring low-point in an otherwise solid roster of dungeons. The worst thing I can say about it is that it feels like, for lack of a better word, filler. Misery Mire doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't add any new interesting ideas, no surprising changes to the formula, even the theme of a swampy marsh makes for a visually drab dungeon. I guess you could say it introduces Wizzrobes... yay, I guess. Layout-wise, Misery Mire is a complete and utter maze which sounds like it would be right up my alley, but none of the navigation puzzles here are all that interesting. You don't have to think critically about your place in the dungeon, you just have to aimlessly wander around until you find a key, unlock the nearest door, and rinse and repeat. It also doesn't help that out of every dungeon, Misery Mire has the most completely optional and useless rooms, so fully exploring it doesn't even feel rewarding. It's just such a nothing dungeon.

Dungeon 9/10: Ice Palace

Something that you'll come to notice is that the most hated dungeons in each respective Zelda game oftentimes end up being one of my favorites, and the Ice Palace is a perfect example. This dungeon gets a lot of flack for its confusing layout and tricky ice physics, but you know what? It's my favorite in the game, and it's everything Misery Mire wishes it could be. Ice Palace is another mostly vertical dungeon, but unlike the Tower Of Hera, you're descending rather than ascending, and each individual floor is a lot more complex. From figuring out where to bomb the floor, to making sure the color switches are set correctly, some of the puzzles in Ice Palace are devious in the absolute best of ways. Of course, the highlight is that one block-pushing puzzle at the end, arguably the most complex of the game (assuming you don't play Misery Mire first). I will admit that some of the backtracking can be a bit rough, but in a similar fashion to the Water Temple's fixes, the GBA version tones it down enough to mitigate the issue. I also love the individual rooms, there's a ton of varied and memorable obstacles like firebars, conveyor belts, falling floor tiles that force you to a lower floor, and of course, ice physics. My one gripe with the Ice Palace is that one key in the hookshot room that I always miss for whatever reason, but that's more of an issue with how LttP as a whole handles chests and key hunting rather than this specific dungeon. Otherwise, I love the Ice Palace. It's still a maze, but it's a far tighter and more intricate maze than Misery Mire with more interesting and unconventional navigation. It's an honest to goodness puzzle box, satisfying to unravel, with not a single room wasted.

Dungeon 11: Turtle Rock

Turtle Rock is another one of the more polarizing dungeons for me, as it once again takes a somewhat different approach. Unlike many of the other multi-tiered Dark World dungeons which require you to jump between floors, Turtle Rock has you slowly descent deeper into the mountain floor by floor, with the only reason to go back upstairs being if you happen to miss anything. Structurally, it's actually really similar to the Shadow Temple from Ocarina Of Time, a dungeon which you'll find I have some really mixed opinions on. A dungeon being a strictly linear gauntlet means that if you happen to die, it's a long trek back to where you left off. It also doesn't help that, like the Shadow Temple, Turtle Rock is a bit of a magic sink so if you happen to run out, you're pretty much screwed. Despite this, however, I think Turtle Rock has some of the most fun single-room puzzles out of any dungeon in the game. Each floor tosses a new idea at you, from a complex web of rails that you can ride on using the Cane Of Somaria, to a surprisingly fun and intuitive pipe maze, to a complex color switch maze to unravel. The one miss for me is that pitch-black room where you have to dodge firebars while riding on those aforementioned rails, something way harder than it sounds, but overall, Turtle Rock is a fun time, structure be damned.

Dungeon 12: Ganon's Tower

Okay, so I've beaten this game before several times, but in this replay specifically, my game crashed midway through Ganon's Tower and I lost a ton of save progress. So that left a pretty awful taste in my mouth, and I'm gonna have to do some of this by memory. That being said, my own unfortunate experience aside, Ganon's Tower is a good final dungeon, maybe even a great one. Your skill is tested in pretty much every single one of the game's mechanics, from the dungeon items to the several gimmicks ranging from color switches to conveyor belts to moving spikes to Beamos. The first half of the dungeon is a complex maze at the bottom floors testing your navigational skills, and the second half is a more linear gauntlet testing your skills at combat and dodging obstacles. There's even a few boss rematches scattered around to shake things up, it's just a great culmination of everything the game has been teaching you, which is what a good final dungeon should do. As far as issues go, there are once again a few too many dead-ends in the maze area, and the dungeon as a whole lacks the strong identity or convention-breaking twists that some of the others do by virtue of being a final dungeon, but those are mostly small things.

Overall, my ranking of Link To The Past's dungeons would be:

12. Misery Mire
11. Tower Of Hera
10. Eastern Palace
9. Thieves Town
8. Hyrule Castle Tower
7. Turtle Rock
6. Ganon's Tower
5. Dark Palace
4. Skull Woods
3. Desert Palace
2. Swamp Palace
1. Ice Palace

And here's my ranking of Link To The Past's bosses:

12. Moldorm

Moldorm and I have history, I remember going absolutely crazy trying to beat him for the first time as a kid, and he still gives me grief to this day. The worst part is that it's just so simple. Moldorm is a big worm who moves around, and you need to hit the weakspot on his tail a bunch of times. Every time you hit him, he moves faster. However, the arena is surrounded entirely with pitfalls and Moldorm is very eager to bump you into them, sending you to a lower floor, and making you climb back up to start the fight all over again. Moldorm's movement gets so fast, so erratic, so unpredictable that getting good at him feels like an impossibility. Either you're lucky enough to land a hit, or you'll be spending hours climbing back up the tower over and over again trying to finally take the bastard down. If it wasn't for Smog, LttP Moldorm would've been a shoe-in for my least favorite bosses list, and he still stands out as a low-point within the entire series.

11. Vitreous

One of the easiest boss fights in the series. Vitreous starts by sending out tiny eyeballs at you to fend off, while also shooting lightning across the center of the screen, before charging at you himself in his second phase. Sounds complex... until you discover that you can stand in the corner of the room, spam your sword swings, and take out both phases without budging an inch.

10. Lanmolas

While several of LttP's early fights feel more like they're against beefed-up enemies, the Lanmolas probably get this the worst. Their attacks also don't synergize especially well, it just feels like you're fighting three entirely disconnected forces rather than a unified boss. They each pop out of the ground and shoot out bits of dirt for you to dodge, which can be a bit hard to see on the sandy ground, and aside from the last remaining Lanmola shooting out more dirt, there isn't much evolution or variation to the fight. This isn't a bad boss, but it's not especially remarkable or fun.

9. Armos Knights

The Armos Knights aren't the most impressive first bosses out there, they are pretty much just larger enemies, but their attack pattern makes up for it. They dance around the screen and even occasionally form a wall in an attempt to trap you, and once you've taken out all but one, the last Armos Knight left goes red and starts angrily trying to stomp you. It's just a fun fight and it makes good use of the Bow.

8. Arrghus

Arrghus is a boss that pretty much demands the use of the Hookshot, and that's pretty cool. The first phase is a fun time as you need to hook away the clouds surrounding its body, which looks and feels incredibly satisfying. Unfortunately, the second phase is a bit of a let-down. Arrghus starts to dart around the room, but can be easily hit by just spamming your sword swing. The fight against Arrghus is certainly enjoyable, but it's not especially complex or mechanically interesting beyond the Hookshot usage.

7. Kholdstare

 Kholdstare is an interesting boss in that it doesn't really ever attack you. In the first phase, he's enclosed inside a cube of ice, and in the second phase, he splits himself in three and starts aimlessly flying around. Despite this passivity though, this is not an easy fight. Right from the start, you'll have to be dodging icicles that fall from the ceiling at a fast-rate, and once Kholdstare splits into three, the fight gets quite chaotic.

6. Trinexx

Trinexx is a pretty cool boss, a giant three-headed turtle where you need to use both the Fire and Ice Rods. I always felt his design was a bit too derivative of the Helmasaur King, but it's still sick as hell. However, the implementation of Trinexx's fight isn't quite as good as it probably could've been. At this point in the game, you should probably have gotten the Golden Sword, and each of Trinexx's heads goes down to a mere three swings of it making for a really short fight. The second phase where Trinexx turns into a worm and starts moving around Moldorm style is also a bit of a let-down after a much stronger first phase. And finally, while using both the elemental rods are really good, they use up a ton of magic which is particularly notable after a very magic-heavy dungeon. Trinexx's fight is still pretty fun when all's said and done, but it has a decent amount of issues.

5. Agahnim

Ah, Agahnim. This is the first of many energy tennis bosses in Zelda where you need to knock their projectiles back at them, but Agahnim does a decent job of keeping things fresh. He teleports around the room, shooting at you from different angles, and also tossing in homing shots and screen-clearing lightning strikes for good measure. And his even better second encounter has you content with multiple clones of Agahnim as well, which gets incredibly manic to deal with. My one gripe with this boss is that Agahnim cycles through his attacks almost entirely randomly, meaning that you might have to wait a while before getting a shot type that you can actually hit back at him. But otherwise, this is one of LttP's better boss fights and a solid difficulty bump for the game overall.

4. Blind

I already raved about the Blind twist when talking about Thieves' Town, so this is just about the fight itself. Blind's fight takes a fairly simple pattern and slowly amps up the complexity to great effect. He starts by flying around shooting slow lasers at you, but every time you take him out, his head starts flying around at you shooting bullets. By the end of the fight, you'll have to deal with two flying heads along with Blind and his lasers which makes for a pretty hectic and fun battle.

3. Ganon

As a final boss, Ganon is easily the best one the series has had so far. It's a far more fast-paced and involved fight with multiple phases, and even a neat throwback to the original game's final battle. The first phase has you weave around the fire bats he shoots out as you try to land hits, and the second phase requires you to light candles to illuminate him and hit him with silver arrows. However, I do feel like this fight just almost crosses the line into being kind of annoying. Ganon has a lot of invulnerability periods, between teleporting, surrounding himself with fire, and going invisible. Even worse, if you happen to fall into the hole he creates in the second phase, you fall out of the arena ala Moldorm and have to do the fight again. But at least Moldorm is short, this just feels needlessly cruel. But despite those annoyances, you can't say he isn't immensely satisfying and rewarding to take down.

2. Mothula

Mothula is a very love-it-or-late-it boss because of just how chaotic of a fight it is. Not only do you have to deal with Mothula flying around and shooting beams at you, but you also have spiked walls slowly moving across the arena, along with the arena floor itself randomly moving in various directions. For some, it's just too much to deal with, but for me, I relish in the chaos. The fight against Mothula is fun, frenetic, and really satisfying to take down, but it doesn't feel frustrating in the way that something like the Moldorm fight.

 1. Helmasaur King

The Helmasaur King is easily my favorite boss in Link To The Past, a perfect balance between challenge and fun factor. Chipping away at the boss's mask feels really satisfying, especially when you land that final hit and it blows itself apart. And the boss's design is really sick and menacing, with a technically impressive swinging tail that he uses to swipe at you and a ton of fireballs that split apart in an almost bullet hell-esque pattern. It's primarily built around the dungeon item unlike many of this game's bosses, but it also allows you to try other options, Bombs can deal some pretty hefty damage to the mask if you can use them correctly. It's just a cool concept executed pretty much perfectly.