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"Why did you never get into comics?" "I was told by my publisher I wasn't good enough, and find another career."
"Why did you never get into TV writing?" "I was told by my agent I wasn't good enough, and find another career."
"Why did you never get into writing novels?" "I was told I wasn't good enough, and find another career."

"Why did you get into technical support?" "No one said I wasn't good enough."
"Do you like it?" "Not really."

"Why did you get into webcomics?" "Because it doesn't matter how good I am."

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Three weeks of enforced bedrest = I've Gained So Much Weight. :/

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The post-Austin plans.

1) Get PO Box in Austin, so I can still have an Austin "address" for job searches.
2) Get storage in Austin in order to cut down on moving it all to San Antonio and finding someplace for it in the house.
3) Move to San Antonio with family.
4) Restart job-search. Anywhere in the Texas Hill Country.
4a) By mid-November, if no one has hired me, see about getting back to Nintendo. Stay as long as they'll have me, homesickness be damned.
4b) Get that Transparent job (don't bank on it).
5) if 4a or 4b don't happen, go back to 4.

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You know, I still think Curse of Fenric is the best episode of Doctor Who, but Inferno is WAY WAY WAY up there. We finally see what happens when the Doctor fails.

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Why the "Play all the Zeldas Quest?"

My very first Zelda game was the Adventure of Link in 1988. Apparently, I got just to the very end when the battery on it died sometime in the mid 90s. Good game, put it aside, didn't play another Zelda game for a long while (I was familiar to Link to the Past, only because a friend's mother was playing it while I stayed with them). Eventually, in the late 90s, I got out of gaming all together.

Fast forward to 2009, when I was unexpectedly working for Nintendo, which reawakened the gamer in me. In 2011, I played the E3 demo of Ocarina of Time 3D and (being one of the few people who actually seem to LIKE the 3D aspect of the 3DS) was so impressed by the Water Temple demo, that I picked the game up after release, and spent a few months finishing it.

At the end, I wanted more. Sadly, I was told, that's the best of the Zelda games, and the rest would probably be dissapointing. I did pick up Skyward Sword when it was released that Christmas and sat down to play. It took me nearly a year to finish and I fell deeply in love with the story and visuals.

I then grabbed a few more games, and was nearly sidelined by original Legend of Zelda's difficulty, until I was told "Don't kill everything first. Explore first, level your weapons up, THEN start the massacres." Finishing that first one showed me how deep the later games got from these beginnings.

With the release of the Hyrule Historia and it's timeline, I decided to sit down and play each game I hadn't already finished in the timeline order, to experience the story. I wasn't dissapointed. Well, maybe with one or two games.

Now that I'm finished, I'm thinking of replaying one or two of them, this time, taking my time and exploring, and looking around. I learned to like that from Wind Waker. :)

I'll post up what I thought of each game, worst to best, in a few posts.

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Had some wierd dreams where I was in South Austin, looking at the sunset...but there were four suns. I thought it was "one hell of a sundog." Then once they set, the sky was one giant spiral galaxy. There were others looking, too, wondering what was going on....

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Jenn's I-Don't-Want-To-Say-Worst-Zelda-Games-As-They-Weren't-Completely-Terrible-But-Definately-Bottom-Tier Zelda Games:

#13 - Minish Cap
-The Story: During the Picori festival, Vaati uses his position as winner of a sword tournament to turn Princess Zelda into a statue, and to flood Hyrule with monsters. He then takes off to find the Light Force, a power the previous hero of Hyrule wielded.
-The Good: Really the only one of the Four Sword games I really enjoyed. Even one more step up from Four Sword Adventures, by removing the "collect everything you can to power up" mechanic, it's the only one that really feels like a Zelda game. It's got a vast overarching and deep story that the other Four Sword games are missing. The shrinking and growing mechanic are really well done, and integral to the game.
-The Bad: It's probably just me, but the Picori, while a lot of fun, didn't work for me. There was too much of a disconnect between them and the Hyrulians above.
-The Ugly: The Kinstones. So so so many kinstones. Too too many kinstones.
-Jenn's Fave Music Track: Not so much a fave, because a lot of the music is based off Link to the Past, but one I hear in my head when I think of Minish Cap - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89AYwg2CK_A
-Final thoughts: A great little portable Zelda game


#14 - Four Swords Adventures
-The Story: A far-off sequel to the multiplayer Four Swords, Zelda is worried that the Four Sword seal is failing. She calls six sages to check on the seal, when Dark Link shows up, traps them all in crystals, and takes off. It's up to Link to rescue all the maidens.
-The Good: They took everything that was good about Four Swords, and added some great stuff to it (like "story" and "puzzles"). It was also a serious flashback to Link to the Past (considering it's almost all recycled sprites and textures from that game), which is always a nice thing.
-The Bad: It's definintely a game made for multiplayer, and while you can play it as a single player, much like Four Sword Anniversary Edition, you can play as one person. It can be a chore, though...only so many ways one person can control four Links and not have your brain fry. And like Four Swords - the game doesn't "feel" like Zelda. But it feels it a whole lot more Zelda than Four Swords.
-The Ugly: Good luck playing this using the Game Boy as a controller. I tried with my original GBA, and the lack of backlight made it horrifyingly bad to play. Playing on a GameBoy Advance SP with backlight made it much easier, but I always found those systems too small for my monstrous hands. Good thing, though - you can play without the Game Boy systems. I just wanted the full experience.
-Jenn's Fave Music Track: As with all Link's Awakening based games, it's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eErXCCYm1l
-Final Thoughts: A much needed step up from Four Swords.

#15 - Four Swords Anniversary Edition
-The Story: Zelda shows Link the Four Sword from it's own game. He grabs the sword releasing Vaati and splitting link into four seperate Links. Link has to collect a whole lotta rupees to get to Vaati and rescue Zelda.
-The Good: It's just...well...collecting rupees, and hoping you get enough to move on. Once you get to the bosses, it turns back into a portable Zelda game. Some of the themed levels are neat, like the NES/SNES and Game Boy themed levels were clever...but really more of the same.
-The Bad: It's just...well...collecting rupees, and hoping you get enough to move on. Also, it's built really to be a multiplayer game, and with some kajiggering made it into a one player game. I think it'd have been more fun as a multiplayer thing.
-The Ugly: It uses randomly generated levels, and more often than not, I found myself locked out of my objective and having to restart the level so it would regenerate a whole new randomly selected level.
-Final Thoughts: It really doesn't feel like a Zelda game. It feels more like Crystal Castles, with Zelda theming. In fact, it felt so "other" that I'm surprised it's on the official timeline. While I defeated Vaati, there was much much more to do after that. I was so bored, though, that I felt I'd finished the game and left the extra levels for some other time.

#16 - Phantom Hourglass
-The Story: A direct sequel to The Wind Waker, Link and Tetra are on a quest to find The Ghost Ship, an unruly band of lawless pirates to teach them a thing or two. Instead, they kidnap Tetra, and it's up to Link to save her.
-The Good: This is definitely one of the funnier entries in the series. Linebeck's cowardice isn't just hilarious, but becomes a nice plot point and character development point near the end of the game. It sort of comes out of the blue, but is handled really well, otherwise.
-The Bad: The overuse of the stylus controls. While it's neat to be able to draw ont he screen, and make paths on the screen...using it for attacking and moving is problematic in action scenes, often because the game sometimes confuses an attack with a directional move. Many times, I'd end up rolling right into an enemy instead of attack it. Having to use the stylus to control the path of the boat, the camera angle AND the canonfire all at once really hampers the game play. Other than the controls, the enemies were fairly weak...this game REALLY likes ChuChus. Even the music was mediocre. There's not one track off this game I want to listen to again.
-The Ugly: The Temple of the Ocean King. Having to go back and replay this dungeon over and over and OVER again really pushed one of my gamer buttons. I'm not a fan of repeating things over and over again, especially with little to no progress being made each time. Which was how this dungeon was freakin' designed. Speaking of repetition, the battles with Jolene, repeated and over and over again, became tedious. I was actively trying to avoid her, because she just got in the way of an already very long trip between islands.
-Final thoughts: Not a terrible game. It's an ANNOYING game.