Alright, we’re at the end of the Angry Video Game Nerd Phillips CD-i Trilogy! What a terrible show it’s been so far. I mean, the CD-i and the games presented, not the Nerd, he’s great here! Honestly these are some pretty good “golden age” Nerd episodes, and this one is a great ending to the CD-i trilogy.
James begins by covering Link: The Faces of Evil, the twin game to Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. They are basically the same core game – same engine, same terrible controls, what have you. This one, however, has a little bit more going on, and not to the games benefit! Really, this one looks to be far more frustrating than even Wand of Gamelon, and that’s saying a lot. That pillar rant, oh man, it may take up a solid minute of the video, but damn is it a prime example of how the little things can completely ruin a game.
The discussion about Faces of Evil continues for a little longer before we finally get to the meat of the episode: Zelda’s Adventure!
This. This is something else. It’s almost a good game. It tries to be a proper Zelda title, to boot — while the previous two games were more in the style of Zelda II, being side scrolling platformers, Zelda’s adventure follows the traditional top-down view and play style of the original game and then then-recent Link to the Past.
Too bad it doesn’t copy their quality. It’s better, sure, but it’s still a slow mess with poor controls and confusing gameplay. Really the problem seems to be the focus on visuals that the CD-i had — when you see the game in motion you will understand exactly what I mean. They just didn’t let the experience take focus like it should have. This was the early 90’s, however, and such was the standard for CD-ROM based games. I’m glad we eventually realized we should just make normal games and use the discs to make more massive conventional games and not eye candy.
In the end, it’s what you expect. Terrible control, and absurd inventory system, awful voice acting…. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: It’s a mess. It’s all a mess. Everything about the game is just bad. Even where they it’s good at a glance, like the visuals, it quickly becomes a confusing mess!
The Nerd doesn’t finish this one, partially because his unit won’t save (certainly a dead battery) and because it’s just too much to spend the time on finishing in one setting.
Final Rating 4.0/5
Another quality episode, and a good one to finish this “Unholy Triforce” of episodes (and games) on. I can’t really say much more than hasn’t been said in the past 2 reviews — the episodes are pretty damn great, and James keeps the Nerd well balanced between being informative and being a profane, excessively angry gamer who just can’t stand this crap, yet keeps on playing it which is, of course, the whole joke of the series.
Enjoy!