Video game ramblings

 I'm not even gonna make up an excuse for this; I just wanted to blog out stuff about video games. (Spoiler alert for Zelda and Pokémon games!)

First off, I am so excited for Pokémon Legends: Z-A now that we've finally got more information on it! It seriously looks like everything I wanted out of the next Pokémon game (and more): massive open-world roaming done right (not sidequest-less, 90%-empty-landscape Paldea), innovations to the combat system that are actually going to make anime-style battling a reality for the first time (which is something old-school fans like me have been dreaming of since the Game Boy days), and (my favorite) some super awesome lore!

I am really psyched to return to Kalos, because I always thought it was a shame that despite its vibrant design and hefty layers of culture and history, it only featured in two games (or more accurately, two versions of the same game). It's going to be wonderful to revisit Lumiose City, presumably after the events of X and Y, and see how everyone is getting on. Also, AZ and his Floette. Yes. This is what I have wanted since 2013. You can't just show their reunion at literally the last second of the post-credits scene and then pretend like that's satisfactory after they've been apart for 3,000 years. I really enjoyed AZ's character in XY and it's going to be fun to hang out with him and Floette. It's really nice to see them doing well for themselves in Z-A. (I don't trust Jett at all though. That lady looks like she knows some stuff she's not letting on. Then again, I completely didn't see the whole Volo thing coming in Legends: Arceus, so I am clearly not a good judge of fictional characters.)

So yeah, I am way pumped for this game and I don't even care that it's not coming out until later this year, because something this amazing is worth the wait. I'll just be over here internally squealing about it all for the next few months.

On a somewhat similar note, I've been reminiscing (is it reminiscing if it's something that just happened last year?) about playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (and replaying Breath of the Wild with my outrageous niece), and man, I know this goes against the general trend of the series, but I really hope the Zelda developers make more games set in this particular incarnation of Hyrule. Breath of the Wild was amazing enough, but I think Tears of the Kingdom really solidified the setting and characters, and by the end of the game, I was completely emotionally attached to everybody, and I can't stand the idea of never getting to spend time with them again. 

(Can they also please just make up an excuse to put the four Champions, Rauru, Sonia, and Mineru in future games? I know they've passed on, but they're just such awesome characters that I need more of them and I don't care how many plot holes that creates. And I also really love that BotW was the first Zelda game that I feel actually successfully sold the whole Link/Zelda thing through giving them both some excellent character development, portraying the progression of their relationship, and flashbacks and Zelda's journal entries giving Link an actual personality outside of when the player is controlling him. It was really refreshing, considering how the usual Link/Zelda dynamic is either "I saved you, okay credits time" or "yay we saved Hyrule together, I guess that automatically makes us a couple now?" Even though they tried to push Zelink pretty hard in Skyward Sword, it basically boiled down to Zelda flirting with Link and Link being like "savin' Zelda because that's what Links do" which was not super convincing.) 

I'm sure this sounds completely odd, but I'm actually having a difficult time getting myself to want to play Echoes of Wisdom--not because it doesn't sound like a good game (and I've certainly wanted a game where you get to play as Zelda for a long while and let's just pretend the hideous CD-i ones don't exist), but because I just love the BotW/TotK cast so much that I need more of them, and right now I don't feel like sort of emotionally starting over with a totally different Hyrule. (I'm sure I'll play EoW eventually though.)

I feel like, even by the end of Tears of the Kingdom, there was so much more potential for that setting and its characters. I want to pal around more with Sidon and Yona and Dorephan because they're just so adorably friendly and nice (even though my niece absolutely despises Sidon for reasons I don't at all understand). I want to settle the antagonism between the Sheikah and the Yiga and make a 10,100-year-old injustice right (and in TotK, Kohga's fate was once again left ambiguous, so he's very likely still alive). I want to laugh along with Purah's and Robbie's research shenanigans and go on more friendship-affirming adventures with Zelda and the Sages (and aforementioned deceased characters somehow, too). I want to learn more about the Leviathans (which in my headcanon have something to do with the Wind Fish maybe?!?!?!). I want to do something with the Zonai ruins instead of just leaving them floating up there forever with all of their useful technology and self-aware constructs. I want to assert my right to register a Stalhorse at a stable. And I need more ancient Sheikah tech because that stuff is sweet. (I am currently using a Guardian as my Switch user icon.)

(And I demand follow-up on the whole Ancient Hero thing that they totally teased in TotK. Also, the concept of draconification leads to some really intriguing/disturbing conclusions about Dinraal, Farosh, and Naydra that I'd really love to see more on. And what's with the discrepancies between surface ruins identified as Zonai, and the completely different Zonai architecture found on the sky islands? Is it indicative of different phases of Zonai culture? Why do the sky labyrinths display the same architectural style as their surface and Depths counterparts? And what happened to the Zonai such that Rauru and Mineru were the last of their kind and elected to descend to the surface? Also, I demand an explanation as to how Rauru and Sonia were able to revert Zelda back into a human at the end of TotK when it was pounded into our heads all throughout the plot of the game that the draconification process is irreversible. 

Basically TotK gave us more questions than it did answers, which just begs for another another game in the setting. Wait, was it maybe that Rauru and Sonia used Recall on Zelda? Does that mean we can use Recall on the other dragons?! Rauru I need your arm back for a sec)

Actually, you know what? What I really want is a live-content game set in this Hyrule, so I can just adventure around it forever. Because I feel like the Zelda developers did such an incredible job with this incarnation of Hyrule, its cultures, its lore, and its characters, that no matter how much of it they gave us - two very substantial games and an alternate-history spinoff title - it wasn't enough. I think they created a Hyrule that has taken on a life of its own on a level that no other Zelda game has been able to achieve, and I just really hope they find ways to keep this particular ball rolling. I can't stomach the idea of just tossing aside this deep, beautiful, meticulously-crafted world and its endearing characters like last week's news, and getting distracted by whatever shiny new Hyrule pops up in future games. That's not how I operate as a gamer.

Anyway, that's enough out of me for now. I'm going back to replaying Pokémon Mystery Dungeon DX, because I feel like the people who give the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games bad reviews just don't find grindy dungeon-crawling micromanagement as strangely meditative as I do. (Speaking of franchises that need a live-content rendition, I've mentioned this before, but I'd really love a PMD mobile game. Or just a new PMD game in general. Am I the only one who likes this series?!)