First Impressions: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (NS2)

 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
System: Nintendo Switch 2
Release Date: November 5th, 2026
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Time Spent: Unknown / First Played 4 Days Ago (November 5th, 2026)

Prior to watching the announcement during the Nintendo Direct five months ago, I wasn't very excited about the rumors I'd been hearing for a while about an Ocarina of Time remake.  It was admittedly not my favorite game of the franchise, as I much preferred the sequel, Majora's Mask, when comparing the two.  I had never been really happy with the sound chip quality of the music, especially when there was music that was the quality of ActRaiser on the SNES eight years earlier and on the previous console.  I'd already played through the game dozens of times on the N64, and I have a copy of the 3DS remake (which I haven't played yet).  I felt that going backwards from Tears of the Kingdom to such a smaller, more contained version of Hyrule wouldn't do the series any favors, at least in my opinion.

But that Direct lit something in me that I thought had long fizzled out.  Then Nintendo released their Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct with a three-and-a-half-minute gameplay trailer, and that solidified the decision to pre-order the game.  And so I set up the pre-order that afternoon after weighing my different retailer options.

I haven't played that much of the game so far, maybe around three hours.  I've only just talked with Princess Zelda and Impa at Hyrule Castle, but I have been wandering around and looking at everything in the game.  I haven't so much as B-lined my way through the game as A-to-N-to-K-to-D-to-E-lined my way through.  I don't know how much time I spent wandering around Kokiri Forest before I even made it to the Great Deku Tree, but it was easily an hour.  I should also mention that I have the In-Game Interface set to Pro, which states "Display with minimal information," and what little information there is seems to only be button cues such as "Press A to Talk"; hearts are visible when I take damage, but then disappear, and a counter shows up when I collect items like rupees, Deku seeds, and the like.  I'm also enjoying the fact that there is no map because it's easily been, at least, 25 years since I last played Ocarina of Time, but I'm still finding the world to be nearly the same.  I am finding that the added jump mechanic to be intuitive, but I did move the jump button from the X button to the B button, because it just feels better.

I'm really happy with this game so far, and I especially feel that Koji Kondo's score, arranged here by Masato Ohashi, Hayato Sato, Kairi Hamada, and Rika Hayashi, has been what I've wanted from this music from when I first listened to the soundtrack 28 years ago.  Being performed in-game on real instruments has brought this soundtrack more life than I'd given the MIDI compositions credit for.  There have been so many times I've thought while playing that "this is now the definitive version of the game," and "This must've been what Nintendo's original vision for the game was, before the tech was developed."

I am having a blast, and I love it.  I'll have more to say as I play more of the game, or I'll just come out with a Game EXP by the end of the month.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Did You Capture the Euphoria

MIDI Week Singles: "The End (Reprise)" - Mass Effect (PC)

 

"The End (Reprise)" from Mass Effect on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows (2007)
Composer: Jack Wall, Sam Hulick
Album: Mass Effect Original Soundtrack
Label: Sumthing Else Music Works
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: BioWare

I felt that this song as the MIDI Week Single was apt, considering EA announced the closure of BioWare last week.  This track plays as the game reveals the final outcome of the decisions the player made as Shepard and the Council's decision on who should lead the Human race.  The track then leads straight into the end-credits song "M4 Part II."

The song itself is rather simple, yet effective.  The first half is driven forward by the electronic drum beat, accompanied by ambient strings that feel very vibe-based, reminiscent of, if not nearly identical to, the beginning of "Mass Effect Main Theme."  There is a feeling, a hint of melody that really only comes about when the brass comes in about 45 seconds in.  Then, at 0:54 seconds, and I might be hearing it wrong, there are three descending notes, played in the most victorious way possible, that sound vaguely reminiscent of a few notes from "Saren's Theme."

I've talked a bit about the closure of BioWare in Monday's article, but I'll reiterate that the studio's closure is sad, even if it felt inevitable at this point.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Han lämna plogen vid årkerns teg

Monthly Update: November, 2026

 

Damn, where do we start?

First off, if you're reading this on Monday, February 2nd, then please drop off your ballot if you have a mail-in ballot.  No matter where you live in the US, it's likely too late to mail your ballot and have it delivered to the designated location in time to be counted.  If you don't have a mail-in ballot, then please go out and vote tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026.   It's likely the only way that the next two years are going to be tolerable for a good portion of us, and for others actually able to survive.  Maybe that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but is it?

And maybe, just maybe, with some checks and balances in place after two years, there might finally be some kind of federal pushback against all of this AI infrastructure, which is set up to run more and more AI models that totally won't do something they're not supposed to do.  Again.  Maybe that will lead to a "more" normalization around RAM prices as mega data center production is brought under more federal/state regulations.  Because I don't think the gaming community as a whole has realized how much this "RAM shortage" will affect them until the prices for both the PlayStation 6 and Xbox "Project Helix" are set.  $1,800 for the next Xbox console is absolutely bonkers.  Then the PS6 swooping in with a price tag of potentially only over $1,000 seems downright reasonable at this rate.  I get that it's not all just RAM prices but also impacted by the instability caused by Trump's tariffs and Trump/Israel's war against Iran (and the resulting increase in fuel prices, thereby having an impact on nearly every sector of the global economy). Still, the RAM issue is what caused the most recent price increase, from $449.99 to $499.99 for the gameless base model of the Switch 2.

In other uplifting news, I'm sure that everyone has now been made aware of BioWare shutting down, although Jason Schreier (Triple Click, Bloomberg), in a recent interview with Polygon's Simone de Rochefort and Matt Patches, said that the writing has been on the wall for some time since BioWare was down to a staff of 50 from 300+ in 2019.  Schreier also goes through a whole host of issues EA had with BioWare over their last three games (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, Dragon Age: The Veilguard), compounded by the debt incurred by EA when EA was purchased by Saudi and American private equity firms, and a large chunk of the debt incurred by that purchase was put on EA's books.  But it's not like I've been an avid supporter of BioWare in the last 20 years, only having "recently" purchased the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which is only the first three games in the franchise.  It's a legacy thing.  Like when that one diner you visited a lot 14 years ago, that you've only been to once in the last three, closes.

But what have I been playing recently?  Dr. Potts and I started up Big Walk because I kept hearing great things about it, and it had been a long-ass while since I've played video games with that kid who I played in the gutter with when we were wee babes.  We've played three times, meeting once a week, and each time has been a lot of fun, exploring a fictionalized mountainous Australian region with a funky bird-like creature.  I just finished Still Wakes the Deep, also on the Steam Deck, and I'm hoping to have a Game EXP article up on Friday.  On my laptop, I'm coming to the end of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve and that story, while heavily anime-like, has been chock full of more emotion than I was expecting from an air-combat flight shooter.

On the Switch (family of systems), I've been playing Fire Emblem: Fortunes Weave a bit and still playing Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster.  Did I mention that I finished Triangle Strategy?  After 81 hours, which doesn't seem like that much time considering how long I've been playing it, I have a lot of thoughts about the game; we'll get to that article next week.  I also picked up Nintendo Switch Sports Resort on the Switch 2 since I never really experienced Wii Sports much outside of two of the jobs I worked (assisted living facilities), and I thought The Squire would love to play a "motion" game where he gets to swing his arms around.  I'll probably have a First Impressions article coming up for that in the next two weeks or so.

Let's call it there.  Some bad, some sad, some good, and maybe some hope on the horizon.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

First Impressions: Still Wakes the Deep (SOS)

Still Wakes the Deep
Systems: Windows, Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 5, Linux, Steam OS
Release Date: June 18th, 2024
Publisher: Secret Mode
Developer: The Chinese Room
Current Time Spent: 4.7 Hours

I love the games developed and published by The Chinese Room, so I already knew ahead of time what I was setting myself up for with Still Wakes the Deep.  I already enjoyed narrative-based walking simulators (Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Gone Home, Kholat, Sagebrush, SOMA, What Remains of Edith Finch), so playing another horror-based walking sim that took place on an oil rig in the North Sea felt like a great place to spend a handful of hours.  And by handful, I mean just under five, as of this writing.

I'm not really sure where to start.  You play as a character named Caz, an electrical engineer on an oil rig operated by a Scottish company in the North Sea, around December 1975.  I haven't found any contextual clues for the game set in 1975, so my immediate assumption is to limit the amount of available technology (e.g., cellphones, satellite phones, social media, etc.).  A cursory search also brought up several articles about oil rig accidents in the North Sea in the 70s and 80s, and it looks like that had a significant impact on the story and location, as well as being an isolated location where The Chinese Room could tell a "Thing on an oil rig" type of story.

Like any good horror story, the game starts out with a normal world.  Caz greets other members of the crew on his way down to the canteen, and then to the supervisor's office for a reprimand; I haven't figured out why yet, which is odd because I don't think the supervisor is of sound mind at the point I'm at in the game; but I'm getting ahead of myself.  On his way to a helicopter to fly him off of the oil rig, there's a drill-induced explosion that rocks the entire structure, and in the process of trying to help a fellow crew member who's hanging over the edge of the helipad, Caz falls overboard.  After being rescued, the rest of what I've been playing has been one thing going wrong after another in a series of events that Issac Clarke from the Dead Space series could empathize with.  

I won't go into too much detail, but it's events like having to get from Point A to Point C to fix a mechanism so that Caz can access Point B back at Point A while also trying to rescue anyone else he comes across along the way.  Once he gets through to Point B, though, one of the crew that he thought he had rescued ends up dead like Satipo in Raiders of the Lost Ark (minus the betrayal subplot).  Caz then receives (another) intra-rig phone call asking for his help getting to the helipad, but first something needs to be fixed, repaired, or moved to a different location before he can get back to his friend in the canteen or find a way back up to the helipad to let the pilot know that something horribly wrong is happening to the crew members on the rig.

I'm playing on the Steam Deck, thinking that it would be a fun game for Conklederp to watch at night (when the game isn't filled with the screams of Caz's crewmates, or the mechanical whirring and chunking of machinery being ripped apart by [REDACTED].  For the most part, the game runs fine on High graphical settings (a step below Ultra, or whatever the highest setting is) with the frame rate capped at 30 fps.  The most aggravating thing, though, is the load times.  The game takes between two and three minutes to load up to the starting screen, then an additional minute before I can actually start playing the game.  Dying too often requires a minute of loading before I can respawn at the previous checkpoint, which thankfully is usually pretty close to where I died.  

I'm not overly bothered, though.  Sure, it can be annoying when I want to start playing or jump back in after getting killed for the third time after misjudging the distance I was from [REDACTED] or how fast [REDACTED] could move around a shipping container or through a hallway.  I'm sure there's meaning behind the imagery in the loading screens post-death; I just haven't quite figured out what it means yet.

I am having a great time with the game, and I'm very happy to be playing another game from The Chinese Room, a studio Dr. Potts first introduced me to over 14 years ago at the beginning of the baseless accusations that walking does not constitute a video game.  Now, if I could just help Caz survive in a fashion that couldn't be described as Lovecraftian.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Transfixed in a Stare

P.S.  After I finish the game, assuming it isn't a 30-hour endeavor, I'm probably going to play through it again, but turning the spoken language to Scottish Gaelic, because how often is that an option in a game?  And it wouldn't just be for the achievement either.

MIDI Week Singles: "Vacant Room" - Resident Evil (NGC)

 

"Vacant Room" from Resident Evil on the GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 3/4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows, Nintendo Switch (2002 - 2019)

Composers: Shusaku Uchiyama, Misao Senbongi, Makoto Tomozawa

Album: biohazard Sound Chronicle Best Track Box

Label: SULEPUTER

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 4

"Vacant Room" first plays in the 2002 remake of the original Resident Evil when you play as Jill in the Dormitory/Guardhouse after leaving the mansion.  It plays when you first enter the room using the Residence Key where the Umbrella Employee has hanged themselves.  Just this song and the slow, metronome-quality creaking of the rope as the body gently sways.  What happens next has been burned into my memory since I first played the game on the PlayStation 26 years ago, and I was thankful the scene was kept.  After Jill enters the bathroom, there is a sound.  In the original PlayStation version, I recall it sounding like a digitally compressed "thump,"* but in the GameCube remake, it was a snap and thud simultaneously.

It's pretty obvious what this meant, but to 20-year-old me, who had never played a survival horror game extensively, I really hoped the sound didn't mean that the person who had been hanging just a moment ago was now up and moving around.  But that's exactly what that sound meant.  And that's an awesome, fun realization.

Musically, the star here is the tinkling piano with the accompanying "aahing" vocals.  And the tinkling piano part is really just two notes, repeated over and over with slightly different note lengths.  Then at 9 seconds into the song, the tinkling piano part doubles (triples?), creating a frantic rhythm while the tempo remains the same.  I used "tinkling" to describe the first piano, because the second piano that comes in at 0:35 has a more typical sound while it plays a slightly off-kilter run with seemingly no tonal center.

I believe this song is used again in another Residence room where the player learns about the V-Jolt substance (if they don't know already) and leads into the fight with Plant 42.  For me, though, "Vacant Room" will always be the theme for the Residence room where the developers did exactly what I had hoped wouldn't happen, which is exactly why it needed to happen.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Really Don't Know Why I Can't Spit it Out

*The problem with trying to locate a YouTube video focusing on this specific moment is that the majority of the longplays I found all skip going into the room and instead head straight for the bathroom and drain the bathtub.  All three longplays I watched could have been the same video except for the channel tag or watermark, but their actions were all in the same order and nearly identical.  I guess I'll just have to replay the original version and make sure that I get the bad (which is actually the best) ending.

Game EXP: lily's world XD (PC)

lily's world XD
Systems: Windows
Release Date: September 17, 2026
Publisher: Kwalee
Developer: SonderingEmily
Time Spent: 5 Hours

Maybe it's a cop-out as someone who plays video games and attempts to write reasonably well-thought-out reviews, but it's one of those games that the less that's known about the finer points of the story, the better.

lily's world XD is in the genre of "found device" games where you play as a person who's found a laptop straight out of the early-mid 2000s.  After logging into the computer, you have access to a handful of files and a Netscape-era web browser complete with access to MySpace-era social media pages and LiveJournal-type blogs of introspection.  The sound of the mouse clicks and even the animated mouse icon are all straight out of the early to mid-2000s.  There is a choice to have an optional ambient audio track in the background, and while I did try turning it off to maintain the immersion, I found that it actually accentuated the "feeling" of playing in the world created by SonderingEmily.

Like other "found device" games, lily's world XD is full of puzzles to access different parts of the laptop, unlocking private folders, and accessing online accounts that have been dormant for the last 20 years.  There is a compelling narrative mystery as new areas of the laptop are uncovered and communications with long-silent accounts are rekindled.

The game is broken up into several gameplay loops.  You solve puzzles, gather information through conversations, and discover other details on your own.  Using information that's given to you and that you read about on your own is what gives you the answers to the puzzles.  And repeat.

 You are presented with a handful of puzzles to solve, such as figuring out a password or where ot use a login ID from only a handful of available websites, where you end up finding a new website through a hyperlink on another website.  Then there are information/context/exposition dumps you receive from the laptop owner's friend Iris, who is your primary messenger contact.  Then it's rinse and repeat, but not in a bad way.  Several of the puzzles actually reminded me a lot of playing an escape room with Conklederp, Himo, and Folly (friends from college who we've been doing escape rooms with for the last 10 years), if we were all working to unlock different parts of a single laptop.

That's all I'm going to say about this amazing game (except for the P.S., but that's optional).  If you like 'found device' games and/or escape room-style puzzles and have a nostalgic view of early-mid 2000s computer aesthetic, I can't recommend lily's world XD enough.

~JWfW/JDub/TheFaceplantman/Jaconian

Katkeruuden liekin polttama?

P.S.  The quick and easy explanation for why I don't have a lot of images up for the game is that I inadvertently had the Notes app open on the in-game desktop, which contained a lot of the answers to passwords, email addresses, and other bits of information that I took down while playing.  Most of the pictures would then include a mass of censored lines to prevent spoilers.  I guess that's one of the biggest issues with not thinking ahead while taking screenshots during the game.  And so I decided to only include a few screenshots, ones that give off more of a vibe that the SonderingEmily was creating with the UI, and not include a bunch of screenshots with information blacked out.

P.P.S.  Below are spoilers of sorts, so proceed with caution.

There were several instances where the game messed with me in a way that can best be described as Eternal Darkness-esque and fourth-wall-breaking.  How that manifested (I'll link here if you're interested, but I won't include it in the article to avoid spoilers) was in ways more personalized than I've ever experienced in a video game.  More often than not, I was more excited by the creepy things happening than genuinely scared.  

There was also one instance where my webcam was accessed, but because I had the shutter closed, I didn't realize what was going on until after the scene was over.  There was a later moment in the game where the webcam footage was called back up, but because it had originally been closed, there was just a grey placeholder image, which was a little disappointing.

MIDI Week Single: "The City of Ruin" - Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PSX)

 

"The City of Ruin" from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis on the PlayStation, Windows, Dreamcast, & GameCube (1999-2006)
Composer: Masami Ueda
Album: Resident Evil 3 Nemesis Original Soundtrack
Label: Mars Colony Music
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom

"The City of Ruin" is a great song that plays right after Jill leaves Bar Black Jack after her conversation with Brad, but only if you're able to save Brad.  During that conversation, Brad warns Jill about someone hunting STARS members and that they're all going to die.  Brad flees the bar on his own, allowing Jill a moment of respite and time to find the ammunition hidden by the cash register.  When Jill leaves the bar, that's when "The City of Ruin" first plays, with Jill now (vaguely) knowing that something is hunting her and her fellow STARS members.

What I really like about "The City of Ruin" musically is how sad the song feels.  Chock full of slow MIDI strings and a choir, all in a minor key.  Then, at 18 seconds in, there's a chime followed by five percussive notes that come across as ominous, foreshadowing Nemesis's arrival outside the Raccoon City Police Department.  At that point, the song changes from one of melancholy to one of menace and dread.

My biggest critique of the song is that those five percussive notes and the later presence of the MIDI French Horn don't actually play "Nemesis's Theme," or that those five notes are not incorporated into "Nemesis's Theme," even though both songs were composed by Masami Ueda.  But that one thing aside, "The City of Ruin" is a great transition song between the first section of the game, where Jill only has to contend with the zombies she was familiar with from the original game, and now having to avoid the stalking horror of Nemesis.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

On With Hope to the Grave