I mentioned in a
previous article that I get a lot of my entertainment from the internet these
days. In some instances, talking about a channel broadly is not sufficient to
describe my thoughts on the subject. This classification of “Watch Party” is
for those instances where I can talk about one entertainment event and why I
think it is important to consider. For this first segment, we will be talking
about a video game playthrough of a game I own but never bothered with because
of the special multiplayer component. Instead of a review of a game, this is an
article about pokecapn and company’s playthrough of the Legend of Zelda: Four
Swords Adventures for the Nintendo Gamecube.
Four Swords
Adventures is notable because it made the most of the Game Boy Advance to
Gamecube connectivity, and this playthrough shows it off. Each player gets a
window of their own screen in addition to the main game screen. Because the
Game Boy Advance does not have a proper AV out port, the troupe brought
together 4 Gamecubes with 4 Game Boy Players and connected them to Wii to
capture the footage in the highest definition. You get to see everything that
the players do as they move between caves and different dimensions like in
Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past. You also see dialogue boxes for characters
talked to and the votes at the end of the round for the player who helped out
the most and the player that did not help out. Sure it’s easy for the viewer to
see that a new building just appeared on the main screen, but the players are
unaware and end up walking around the whole map before figuring out what
triggered earlier. Extra entertainment value derives from the players in the
beginning of the area consulting a guide to make sure they would not get stuck.
The best part of
watching this playthrough is seeing the competition between the players develop
as the game progresses. Throughout the levels pokecapn, Medibot, Kung Fu Jesus,
and My Name is Kaz compete for the most force gems at the end of the round
because competing for rupees, the actual Hyrule currency, is something for
another game series apparently. While the playthrough was being uploaded,
members of the Something Awful forums tracked the competition progress. One of
them even tracked the force gem acquisition of each player throughout one video
in graphical format. There are so many times when divisions between players
cause them to steal each other’s gems upon one losing all their hearts. Even
through they may be screwing up during a boss fight, have hope as one player
helps his friend achieve a certain force gem count for the glory of Satan.
Fierce competition is balanced out with Kung Fu Jesus’ resignation that he will
not beat the others in raw force gem collection for any level. Somehow he still
beats the other three players in total force gems for one of the rounds of
play, at least if the final standings chart is of any indication.
The Legend of
Zelda Four Swords Adventures is a hard game to show off because a good portion
of the multiplayer action happens off the main screen. For the sheer amount of
effort required to set up the recording, you should watch as pokecapn, medibot,
Kung Fu Jesus, and My Name is Kaz fight for gem collection, sabotage efforts to
keep force gems, and work together to solve puzzles and defeat foes, some of
which also sabotage efforts to keep force gems. The playthrough is mirrored at
their own site, and you can watch the full romp on YouTube. One day we might
get to see another game that requires the elaborate setup as accurately
diagrammed below with even more inside jokes that you understand if you watched
the player’s previous video game playthroughs.
No comments:
Post a Comment