David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 276

What The Heck Was In The Letter In The Original Legend of Zelda?

Does anyone else wonder what the heck was in the letter the old man gives you to give to the old woman in the original 8 bit NES Legend of Zelda? Those unfamiliar with the game won’t know what I’m talking about, but those who played surely remember:

The old man gives you the letter so that the old woman (for some reason, all human inhabitants of Hyrule other than Link and Princess Zelda are an identical old woman and old man).

But…why wouldn’t she sell you the medicine without the letter? What could possibly have been in it? It isn’t like people weren’t supposed to know who Link was. He didn’t need an introduction. So, what was in the letter? A prescription? Blackmail material the old man was going to use on the old woman if she didn’t cooperate? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Sure, I understand that the point was to make you have to get something extra before being able to buy the highly valuable medicine, a video game goal. But, what was the point in the hypothetical world?

I can’t figure it out and it bugs me. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Ungrateful People In The Original Legend Of Zelda

I’m not done talking about the original 8 bit NES Legend of Zelda as of yet. Today I want to gripe about the ‘pay me for the door repair charge’ guy. I’m sure you remember this ungrateful jerk:

I understand that Hyrule isn’t full of people who want Link to win. However, this guy isn’t one of Ganon’s minions. I can understand he is too afraid of Ganon to help Link, but does he really have to charge Link money for breaking his door? Seems a bit ungrateful to me.

After all, it wasn’t a door. This guy lives sealed inside a cave, strangely in multiple places in Hyrule. It is only when Link blasts a bomb on a rock wall and finds his way in that he ever gets to the guy. Is that really a door? Why the heck is he even sealed in a cave? Who the heck has a fixed charge all set up for repairing the blast? Believe me, I looked around. I found absolutely no “fix holes blasted in walls” shops. There aren’t any. This guy is just making the charge up. Worse, he takes your money and never fixes the ‘door.’ That blast holes stays there for the rest of the game. And you can’t refuse to pay either, it just comes right out of your money (even if you do the trick to die immediately from the pause screen so you can save, the money just finishes depleting when you start the game again.

The whole set up is ludicrous. I know this is just a trap for people looking for hidden heart containers and other secrets, but inside the game world it doesn’t hold up real well. Regardless, this guy always ticked me off and I hope Link ‘got’ this guy after he beat Ganon. At the very least, the ‘pay me for the door repair’ guy is guilty of being a Ganon collaborator.

Bad Business Models In The Original Legend Of Zelda

I know I’ve been talking about the original 8 bit NES Legend of Zelda for a few days now, but I’m not done yet. One thing I want to talk about is how dumb it is for merchants to sell the arrow:

Let’s think about this. Presumably this guy is trying to make a living by selling things. Let’s ignore the fact that Link is apparently the ONLY customer in the entirety of Hyrule. Ignoring that, one of the items this guy tries to sell for a living is the arrow. However, there is apparently only one bow in existence in Hyrule. Further, once Link buys an arrow, he never needs to buy another. Instead, he just loses a rupee (a gem that is used as money in Hyrule, duh) every time he shoots an arrow.

Does this sound like a good business model? Why base your business around something you can only sell one of? That merchant only has room for three things in his shop. He should really save that room for things he might sell multiple of. At least the bombs run out and link might have to buy (or find) more. The shield too, Link can at least lose that and it is well advised for him to buy another if he does. Not so for the arrow. Bought once, he never goes back to the merchant for it again. Eventually, he finds the silver one and doesn’t even need the one he got from the merchant anymore.

I’m pretty sure that if you went for a business loan and told them 1/3 of your inventory was going to be something only one person would need to buy once, you wouldn’t get that loan. I don’t know much about what the economic state of Hyrule was on a whole, but I can’t think it was good if people were forming businesses like this. It just doesn’t make any sense. No wonder Ganon took over so easy.

Who The Heck Designed The Dock With The Heart Container In The Original Legend Of Zelda?

I’ve been thinking about the original 8-bit Legend of Zelda game over the past couple days and there is another thing that always bugs me. Who the heck in Hyrule designed the raft dock where the heart container is stuck that you need the ladder to get to?

As players remember, raft docks are places you can take off across the water using the raft. Obviously, someone in Hyrule supposedly built them so that they could go places on a raft (apparently the only water travel vessel ever invented in Hyrule). However, the one above you need the ladder to get to because neither of these are connected to the land.

Who the heck supposedly built these things and for what purpose? I could never figure this out. I mean, I know this was just put in so you’d have to get the ladder to get the heart container, but I mean in theory that this was supposed to have been built by someone in Hyrule. Were they high? This dock is completely useless for rafting. Only a moron would have done this.

Personally, I think this is just a case of something being done for play of a video game that doesn’t make sense within the actual context of the hypothetical world. Regardless, it always bugged the crap out of me. It makes no damn sense within the game world.

There Is A Chance That Ganon Wanted To Die In The Original Legend Of Zelda

After yesterday’s post regarding the original 8-bit NES Legend of Zelda, I found myself wondering whether or not Ganon actually wanted to die in that game. Sure, he kidnapped the princess and all that so you wouldn’t think so. Still, there is at least one thing that makes me think either he was trying to commit suicide by Link or he was really, really stupid.

I’m talking about the silver arrow. For those in the know, this is a magic item found in the last level, the same dungeon as Ganon. This item is REQUIRED in order to kill Ganon (you hit him a couple of times, he turns red, and then you shoot him with the silver arrow to kill him). You cannot kill him without the silver arrow.

That alone wouldn’t be much, but think about the fact that Ganon controls the world in this game. Further, it’s in the same dungeon as him, guarded by his own minions. If he could not be killed without the silver arrow, why didn’t he go get it and keep it in his pocket? If Link couldn’t get it until he killed Ganon, he’d never be able to kill Ganon because it was a required item for the killing. It’s not like Ganon didn’t know this, or where the silver arrow was (it’s not like there was a whole lot of stuff in the dungeon, and it was guarded by Ganon’s minions). Ganon could have lived forever.

No, I think Ganon wanted to die. It’s either that or he was just too stupid to think about leaving the one thing that could kill him lying around.

What Twisted Person Decided To Have You Choose Between Medicine And Heart Containers In The Original Legend Of Zelda

Okay, I want to know what twisted person first came up with the idea of offering you medicine or heart containers in the original 8-bit NES Legend of Zelda:

This person obviously had to have been a cruel, cruel person. I mean, the heart containers are permanent. They extend the total amount of life energy you can have and thus the total amount of damage you can take before dying. To the contrary, the medicine just refills your life once (and, being red, then turns to blue medicine which can be used one more time before disappearing completely). It isn’t permanent and since there are only so many heart containers you can get in a game, it’s a total waste to get the medicine.

Heck, you can buy the medicine on your own. It’s only 68 rupees if I remember right, which doesn’t take long at all to pick up. Plenty of items cost more, and you definitely can’t buy heart containers. If you pick the medicine at any point, you reduce the amount of total life energy you’ll be able to have when you try to finish the game.

Really, other than hard-core people who are trying to get through the game within a time limit and under a self-imposed handicap for challenge, the only possible people who would pick the medicine are people who don’t know any better. That’s right, whoever designed this wanted to trick innocent new players into making an unfix-able mistake that they could only remedy by deleting their save file and starting over from the beginning (I never had to do this, but I knew people who did).

Who would be that cruel? I guess they just didn’t feel that there was enough challenge in the game without throwing in a few sucker punch tricks for the unwary. Either way, whoever thought of this, I don’t think they were a very nice person.

Soda Not Yet Illegal In NYC

Well, at least for the moment, it is still legal to sell giant sodas in NYC. A judge has struck down Bloomberg’s proposed law, though mainly on the ground that the law intruded on City Council authority. Some places in NYC are still selling big sodas, but others have already switched to smaller cups for sugar sodas on the chance that Bloomberg wins on appeal. Really, I’m only interested in this because of how bizarre it is.

I mean, I recognize that obesity is a problem in the United States. I’ve seen the stats. I spent a good number of years around 30-40 pounds overweight myself. However, I balk at legislating health. I know some people may need help, but I just don’t go for a paternalistic view of government. Frankly, I’d rather have to protect myself from sugar sodas than have someone make me not have them.

And, really, will this ban go far enough to justify the intrusion into people’s lives anyway? I’m sure some think it will, but it only covers some kinds of drinks at some kinds of places. Given the mega load of calories and fat available in fast, frozen, and other kinds of food commonly consumed in the United States, I’m just wondering if soda size is enough to do a huge amount.

Mind you, soda is not insignificant. According to this site, a 1.3 L (44 oz) fountain Mountain Dew has 624 calories. If you’re supposed to have 2000 calories per day, that’s about a fourth of your food for the day. It’s actually more than two McDonald’s cheeseburgers (300 each). Still, if you reduce soda and still eat four big macs at a single meal (550 calories each, or 2100 calories total), you still aren’t going to end up doing real well.

The whole thing just seems weird, but it looks like we’ll have to wait a while to see where this ends up anyway. The City Council could just sign off on the ban (unlikely, since this is unpopular) and then the current court challenge would drop off anyway.

In any event, I only care so much. I drink diet anyway (and will probably have all kinds of health problems due to artificial sweeteners, I know).

Another Pointless World Record Attempt: Fake Mustaches

I’ve complained about this before, but I just saw an article that made me want to do so again. Some town apparently is going for the world record for the most people wearing fake mustaches. Again, I say that the madness must stop.

After all, is this even really a record? Sure, there is some organization involved, but this isn’t even an accomplishment. It’s a condition. Are people wearing fake mustaches? Yes/No. The only bit about the record is that fewer people put them on in the same place in the past.

Wasn’t there a point when records were actually achievements? Fastest runner? Longest jumper? When did we get to the point that records were just something that someone hadn’t bothered to do before? That’s all this is. It isn’t an achievement, there are just more people wearing fake mustaches.

I may be missing out on the fun of this, but this world record thing is really starting to bug me. I think we should save world records for things that are actual achievements, even weird ones, as opposed to just being stuff no one ever bothered to do before.

That’s my two cents.

Boston AWP 2013 Scandal Report Day 5: Entire AWP Conference Snaps And Starts Forcing Ordinary Citizens To Read

Commentators hoping that the winding down of AWP 2013 in Boston meant that the scandals associated with this year’s conference were over were disappointed today as yet another scandal erupted. Though the conference is actually over, the entire conference populace apparently had some sort of mass psychotic break and swept into downtown Boston, catching ordinary citizens and forcing them to read conference attendee’s books.

It is not known why the conference attendees finally snapped, or why they did so en masse, but the effect on the ordinary population of Boston has been devastating. Many Boston residents who hadn’t read a book since high school or college were forced to read some of the most literate prose and poetry that they’d ever had to experience, some of which was even experimental.

“It was awful!” Genefried Hinklewarttt, jr. of the East Side whined. “Why’d they do that? I just wanted to watch the Jersey Shore! Now I gotta think about stuff! How can you even have a novel without characters anyway?”

Luckily, Boston police have the situation well in hand at this time. Though a few writers managed to make it out of Boston, most were captured in a police sting operation that posed as a government-sponsored independent literature award ceremony. While awaiting trial, the writers have been pacified by being misinformed that their cells are green rooms where they are to await being called for an award.

At the very least, the arrest of the majority of the conference has apparently returned safety to the nation for another year. Whether or not this incident will aware the country of the danger in allowing writing conferences in general still remains to be seen. We can only cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Boston AWP 2013 Scandal Report Day 4: Margaret Atwood Turns Out To Be Fictional Construct of Jorge Luis Borges

Another scandal has rocked AWP 2013 in Boston. This time, it has been discovered that Margaret Atwood isn’t real. In fact, the amazing author turns out to have entirely been a fictional construct of Jorge Luis Borges.

The sham was discovered when a young writer attempted to talk to Margaret Atwood in a corner at the AWP bookfair. Bewildered by Atwood’s reticence at speaking, and indeed the famed author’s presence at all since Atwood was not reported to be attending the conference, the young writer reached out and touched Atwood’s arm. It was at this point that Atwood was revealed to be nothing more than a manikin with a stylish wig. Borges confession followed shortly thereafter.

Many were confused how Borges could have successfully fabricated one of the most prolific and popular writers of the modern age. By way of explanation, Borges reportedly indicated that he had pulled her works from “The Library of Babel,” a well-known story by Borges premised on a library that contained all books that could possibly ever be written. Borges apparently then published the books under the name ‘Atwood’ for extra money.

At this time, it is unknown how Borges managed to access a fictional library from one of his own literary creations. Literary experts have simply explained that they’d believe Borges could do anything and aren’t really that surprised by this.

Regardless, Borges has yet to apologize and sales of Atwood’s books have yet to be affected. We can only hope that there are no more scandals as AWP 2013 in Boston winds to a close. The nation has been through enough.