In yesterday’s Round 1 of this week’s “Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” Vs. Mode, Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal admitted that he’s a “Zelda” newcomer and I grumpily huffed and puffed about how the series was showing its age.

In today’s Round 2, we do what Nintendo has been largely unwilling to do with “Zelda.” We alter our tried-and-true formula. Instead of the standard exchange of e-mails, this round and the next are a full transcript of a conversation between the two of us about the “Zelda.” See, what happened is that I ended the last round inviting N’Gai to get a crash course on the two N64 “Zelda” games, “Ocarina of Time” and “Majora’s Mask.”

On Saturday, October 20, he agreed and stopped by my Brooklyn apartment for several hours of N64 gaming goodness. I walked him through some of “Majora’s” and then had him play “Ocarina.” How did the Ivan Drago of video games journalism manage the experience?

In the exchange I ask him the following about “Ocarina“:

You spent one hour going from the opening of the game to the beginning of the first dungeon–which basically required you to get the sword and the shield. And then you spent I think two hours in the first dungeon, Deku Tree Dungeon, which I said at the end of the first round of our exchange was what I felt epitomized all that’s great about Zelda and Dungeons and in fact I think is the best Zelda Dungeon.

So I gave it a lot of build up, did I oversell it? What did you think?

The full exchange, which, admittedly has some crazy-long sentences — such is the nature of a transcribed, informal dialogue — now follows. It will wrap up in tomorrow’s Round 3 and then this session was close with a more customary Round 4.

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

Croal: You just got through showing me a sampling of N64 era “Zelda” games. Why did you think it was important?

Totilo: “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” on the DS is the first “Zelda” game that you’ve played, and as I said in Round 1 of our exchange, possibly my last “Zelda.” I’ve played 11 others before this. I feel like I may be at as much of a crossroads as you. I’ve been badgering you for how many years?–seven years–to try a “Zelda” game or really give it an honest try. Once I started playing “Phantom Hourglass” I got a little concerned that, okay, now you were finally giving a “Zelda” an honest try, but you may not have been giving the ideal “Zelda” an honest try. So I invited you to my apartment where we’re recording this so that you could get a look at “Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” which many people think is the best game ever made let alone the best Zelda game, and then my personal favorite game “Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.”

Croal: Did “Ocarina of Time” get a 10 from Edge?

Totilo: I don’t know, but I think their Top 100 Games of All Time poll just put it at the number one game.

Croal: So as you know–and some of the readers who have been regular readers of my blog know–I’m a relative newcomer to games both as a journalist and as a player. I did play some in my childhood and then pretty much from ‘94 through ‘99 I may have played like 10 games tops. And then in ‘99 I started seriously covering it for Newsweek and that brings us to where we are today. So from your vantage point–one of the things that’s always impressed me about you is that you have a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of console games. I sort of joke about it, but I call you my gaming sensei because of that. We’re both game journalists, what do you think of the fact that here I am supposedly seriously covering games, but up until now for this Vs. Mode I haven’t played a “Zelda” game before. Is that a serious deficit in my gaming literacy?

Totilo: Yeah. I mean, it’s infuriating. But if “infuriation” is a word–and you are the expert on big words, so you can tell me–let’s just call it rage. If my rage over you not having played a “Zelda” game before was…intense, I guess it’s abated now that you’ve finally gotten a chance to play some. Because I really would love to know what you thought of the last four hours, where I had you watch the “Majora’s Mask” stuff that I showed you and then the “Ocarina” stuff that you played. I think that if you are somebody who wants to be able to think seriously about games, you certainly need to play some of the most formative games ever made, and certainly ones that if there is “Citizen Kane” of games would be considered that “Citizen Kane.” I think in “Ocarina of Time” most people would say, “Hey, that’s the closest to the medium has gotten” — at least in terms of a game that has some semblance of narrative, some semblance of adventure and a sense of linear progression that is all driven by gameplay and that is executed in a way that many people just found so enjoyable from beginning to end or as far as they got. So, again, this is Round Two of our exchange. We’ve already gone back and forth a little bit on “Phantom Hourglass.”

Croal: It’ll be Round 2 or 3, it depends on what we decide in the final–it’ll be game time decision.

Totilo: Yes, yes, a surprise round at some point. We can’t call it a Bonus Round, because Geoff Keighley has that trademarked. So we’re working around that. So enough with the preamble. I had you look at “Majora’s Mask” first, so let’s just talk about that. I gave it to you out of order; what I wanted you to see in “Majora’s s Mask” was just sort of what I thought was kind of pure “Zelda.” I didn’t take you into any of the dungeons in that game, but I showed you the overworld, I showed you how the time system works, which… for people who don’t know: basically “Majora’s Mask” was like the movie “Groundhog Day,” where you could play the same 72-hour experience of this town–72 hours leading up to the apocalypse–and then warp yourself back to the beginning of that stretch [of time] and keep running through the 72 hours with more items. It’ll have you take different shortcuts so that you weren’t really repeating that much, like what you’d done previously. So I showed you the 72-hour cycle. I showed you the masks that you can wear in the game that allow you to transform into the different creatures. Of course I was also showing you the N64-level graphics that you probably hadn’t seen in a long time. The N64 framerate. And you were playing on an N64 controller which was something I hadn’t even done for a while.

Croal: Authentic, vintage N64. We did not play this on the Wii, we did not get this from the Virtual Console. This was the real deal.

Totilo: Right, this was like on a black and white television–

Croal: –and we walked uphill both ways in order to play it.

Totilo: Exactly. So what did you think of “Majora”’s?

Croal: I thought from what you showed me–I thought it was genius game design. The idea of, as you said–which I think I said before we started recording, and it’s obvious when you see the game–the “Groundhog Day” design concept. The way that the missions or the quests are tied to the time schedule over those three days and that there would be certain things that you missed because you missed them on the schedule and you’d have to get them on your next go around. The fact that you get various [items] that will let you sort of skip through time and things like that. I thought it was genius game design. I don’t think I’d ever play that game all the way through and–

Totilo: Because it’s old?

Croal: Not because it’s old at all. I mean, I thought–other than the fact that there was, you have a very sunlit apartment and so there was a bit of glare when I was trying to play the game at some points–so the graphics–

Totilo: That was the brilliance of the game shining at you.

Croal: [Laughs.] Blinding me with its brilliance?

Totilo: Yeah.

Croal: No, the graphics didn’t bother me at all. In some ways it’s similar to watching an old movie; you have to give yourself over to the pace and the rhythm. But the game is ultimately modern enough, certainly, in terms of the gameplay elements and the controls. The graphics… obviously it’s a little tough on the eyes. And the level of detail, sometimes it was–there’s a point in “Ocarina” where I was swimming through the water; there was a switch on the bottom of the floor and I couldn’t see it. It took me a long time to see it, but no, I mean I don’t think the graphics, the controls, none of that stuff [was a problem].

It goes back to something I said in our first exchange: the idea of the difference between being a linear gamer and a circular gamer. To recap, the way I like to play games and the kinds of games that I tend to respond to are the ones where you, as I put it, “clear, hold and move on.” You move into an area and maybe there’s some things that you do there, but it’s pretty contained and then once it’s done you move forward and you don’t go backwards. So games like this one–I mean this is like, as you said, the definition of a circular game.

Totilo: Because it’s circular in four dimensions, right? So it’s not just circular in the amount of terrain that you’re exploring, where you’re remembering, “Oh, this thing in this cave that I got can now get me through the swamp over there.” But now it’s also: “this thing I got in the cave at the end of the third day can actually get me through the swamp on day one.” So, [you're] also thinking about the dimension of time when moving through the game.

Croal: Which, like I said, is genius. But I think that I would get antsy and frustrated playing that as a game, like…patience. I don’t think I would have the patience to play something like that all the way through.

Totilo: Right. So there’s one bit in there that I queued up for you and sort of gave you the linear game experience of it. It’s a side quest. Because to me it represents one of the best circular game quests in the game. If a circular quest would be epitomized by the idea of getting something and then actually not only just knowing, “Okay, now I can go back and apply this thing I got, this weapon I got,” — the cave to the swamp thing I just described — but it would also be [the process of] being able to recognize when the game is telegraphing to you that “this thing you got is one of four more things you’re going to get that are eventually going to complete this circle for you.” That to me is the excitement of these types of games, when a game properly telegraphs you. It really gives me or any player the drive to say, “Okay I want to go and I want to get the rest of those things.”

So I showed you this bit that’s in the Milk Bar in the clock town of “Majora’s Mask” and, as Link, you have the Ocarina and you basically go into the bar–

Croal: Should we say “Spoiler Warning” for those people who haven’t played it already?

Totilo: The game came out in 2000 so the statute of limitations on spoiler warnings is over, but you just gave people a warning anyway.

So you go in with the ocarina, you talk to the manager there who’s upset that there’s nobody on stage to perform a set at this bar. And so he says, “Will you play for me?” You say, “Sure;” you get on the stage; he asks you to take a certain spot; he queues you up to play a certain tune on your ocarina. When you first get access to this bar — which requires its own mini-quest to get to — you realize that he really was looking for a full band and so just having Link there is not enough. And part of “Majora’s Mask” is about getting other masks that allow you to transform into other types of creatures. If you are clever enough to transform into the Deku form or the Zora form, or Goron forms and talk to the guy again, he’ll say, “Oh, can you play me something?” And if you’re the Zora, for example, you don’t have an ocarina. You have a guitar, and he’ll ask you to stand in a different spot on the stage. He’ll ask you to play a song for him or a tune, and you press different buttons. Then, after your character plays the jingle back for him, you then see that [the game] remembered Link playing as well and you now see Link and the Zora form of yourself on stage together. You realize that you are now literally a two-man band playing two different pieces of music that combine into one piece of music and that’s when you realize, “Oh my goodness, I know what I need to do.”

In fact, I got the sense that the light bulb went on over your head right as you were doing it, I looked over and you were smiling. I was like: “I may be converting N’Gai into circle gaming-dom right then and there.” Was I on the verge there? Did I almost push you over the limit?

Croal: Well, yes and no. One of the things I’ve said about the “Zelda games”–well the “Zelda” game from playing “Phantom Hourglass”–is that charm is one of the defining characteristics, at least of that game in particular. And I felt that that was an ultimate, charming moment. It was kind of like I was seeing a “Rock Band” being brought to life years before Harmonix has even shipped their game. It’s this moment where you see Link as this one-man band, a bit like Prince, or when Billy Corgan went back into the studio on “Siamese Dream” and re-recorded all the parts.

Totilo: But you also saw–let’s talk about that micro moment where you had done the quest halfway and I kept my mouth shut. So you saw there what it was going to take to complete the band right?

Croal: Absolutely.

Totilo: And did you find that compelling? Did you think, “Oh, if I was in the middle of a game and I didn’t have the other [mask] forms, this would be the thing that would help drive me or give me added incentives to collect the other forms? And I would want to do that and come back here and then assemble the whole band?”

Croal: Actually…I think it would make me want to experience that in fiction that I personally found more compelling than “Zelda.” It’s ultimately a Men in Tights kind of game, and so I think I love the gameplay, I love that game moment, but thinking of circle games — I mean certainly one of the most celebrated circle games or circle genres of the moment is the “Grand Theft Auto” series. And that in “Grand Theft Auto” would probably have that effect on me. But in this, in my mind, I would be doing the calculus, “Okay, the amount of patience it would take me to get to that point in the game–I probably wouldn’t get to that point in the game.” And honestly, in “San Andreas” I didn’t make it out of Los Santos.

Totilo: Well, there you just defeated your own argument, because you implied that a different fiction would compel you to play more of a circle game–and I’m guessing that maybe “Boyz in the Hood” isn’t your favorite milieu, but you clearly prefer it over Men in Tights or Elves in Tights–and yet you didn’t get out of Los Santos either. So clearly it’s the circle game thing that’s causing you problems more than the fiction.
Let’s kind of jump off that for a sec–or for a while, actually–and talk about your experience of “Ocarina of Time.” You watched me play “Majora’s Mask,” but then you went and I had you play “Ocarina of time.” You spent one hour going from the opening of the game to the beginning of the first dungeon–which basically required you to get the sword and the shield-and then you spent I think two hours in the first dungeon, Deku Tree Dungeon, which I said at the end of the first round of our exchange was what I felt epitomized all that’s great about Zelda and Dungeons and in fact I think is the best Zelda Dungeon. So I gave it a lot of build up, did I oversell it? What did you think?

Croal: No, I think it’s an excellently designed dungeon. They build the teaching experience into the game in an excellent way. There’s that part where you step on the spider webs and the fairy Navi tells you that you can look down.

Totilo: Right, as soon as you walk into the dungeon.

Croal: Exactly. You see stuff that’s down there and so you realize at some point you’re going to be able to get down there and then in fact you are able to get down there. There’s an exchange that we had in a previous Vs. Mode about architecture in games and I quoted Clive Thompson talking about level design and all the dark arts that get blended together to make level design what it is. The dungeon you showed me at the opening of “Ocarina of Time” is exemplary as far as level design because there’s a logic and flow to it. It’s not exactly like designing a street or designing a building, because the purpose to which it’s being put is in some ways more complex than that. And so even when I–there were some points where I got stumped and got frustrated; again, because I’m a linear guy I assume that what I need is not here, because it’s a fairly small enclosed room that I’m in, so I’m kind of like, “Well, if I’m having this much trouble when I’m in this room I must’ve missed something.”

Totilo: Right. And they don’t operate that way. When they lock you in a room, they only lock you in a room if you have everything that you need in order to get out. It was interesting for me because I knew how to get out of all those rooms. I’ve played through that dungeon a million times and it was interesting to watch you kind of puzzle your way through it and you’d have a few missteps. Just when I thought you weren’t going to get it, because you were hitting a switch in order to open a door, when in fact — finally — you take out the stick and then you learn that, “Oh, I can light the tip of the stick on fire and I can use that to light the other drowned-out torch and then, there I go, I’ve got two torches going.” And you were out the door.

Croal: Well, Luke Smith from Bungie reviewed our playthrough of “Halo 3,” how would you review my play through of the first dungeon in “Ocarina of Time”?

Totilo: Well, the difference between me and Luke is that Luke helped make “Halo.” I didn’t help make “Zelda.” But you figured out everything that you needed to do. What was interesting was that you did seem to get stymied by some of the things that at the time were really progressive, but because you were only playing them now they’re somewhat backwards or at least archaic. You were having a lot of trouble with the Z targeting. At the time in 1998 that was a great advance from the 3-D design of “Super Mario 64” where it was really hard to focus on a character when you only had a single analog stick and you wanted to stay looking at that character and still walk around them and focus. The Z targeting of pulling down the trigger and having a lock on [an enemy] was really a great step forward, but for you it was really challenging because you were looking for that second analog stick or just some other smarter camera system that would’ve enabled to stay sort of focused on that. So you seemed to actually have more trouble with the enemies than you did with some of the level design.

But it was a pleasure to watch you play through it, because it’s always so hard to recommend games to people–especially older games–because I’m always concerned that people can’t get over the technological hurdles or at least the appreciation of something. You and I were just looking at “Ratchet and Clank Future” that I had running on my TV right before we popped in the N64 “Zelda.”

Croal: Your SDTV, we should clarify

Totilo: My SDTV, and still the game still looks brilliant. And then we plug in the N64 “Zelda”s in it, I mean, it took me a bit of time to adjust to it before you came by because I was just queuing up some stuff, and I think it took you some time as well. So I’m playing “Majora”’s for you and I’m like, “Wow, this game is only seven years old and yet I cannot fathom anybody coming near this game for the first time ever really wanting to sit through the graphics as they are.” I think most people just wouldn’t be interested and it was therefore a rare pleasure to watch you actually become engaged by the dungeon and to watch the genius and the level design triumph over the age of the technology. And it seemed like you were pretty into it. I mean you seemed pretty giddy by the time you got down through that spider web that you mentioned. And when you were right about to fight the boss you seemed to really be having a good time. That was pretty cool to see. My cat’s behind me meowing, so she’s got some opinions about this as well.

The thing that I was wondering about, though, was that I brought this game up–both of the games up–as a contrast from “Phantom Hourglass,” because I felt that “Phantom Hourglass” was kind of this weird crossroads game where they looked like they were still trying to recapture the pure essence of “Zelda,” but also try these new things. As I articulated in the first letter, I felt like that was a poor direction for them to have gone in, and that I would’ve preferred that if they wanted pure “Zelda” that they would’ve just remade an old “Zelda” because I think there’s genius in those old game designs–just polish those games up and put them back out on the market. If they really wanted to try some brand new stuff make it a brand new game or make it a radically different “‘Zelda” than–and again I think that would just mean making a new game. Did you find–

Croal: Did “Majora’s Mask” feel like a radically different “Zelda” when it came out?

Totilo: From…?

Croal: The previous one.

Totilo: It felt like they had put enough aside and done enough that was new that at the time I thought, “Well, this is a worthwhile and different enough experience. We’re going from a game where it’s primarily about “Explore the territory at age 7 and then age 14. I can sort of see the distinctions.” So taking that idea and warping it so that it’s this 72-hour repeated cycle, and then adding the whole mask system in–which was a whole new way to interact with the world–seemed like a significant addition to the formula. At the time there had only been a handful of “Zelda”s before it. Since that “Majora’s Mask” game there have been two Gamecube “Zelda”s; a Game Boy Advance “Zelda”; two Game Boy color “Zelda”s; and a Wii “Zelda.” So there have been six “Zelda”s since then, and that’s part of where–at the time the world could’ve still used more high quality “Zelda”s–but they’ve knocked it out of the park enough times that that’s where I’m feeling like, “Maybe they don’t need to make any more.”

Croal: Well, it’s an interesting design choice, looking at the mask system and the 72-hour system repeated. Because I wonder if any game developers making games now–you look at this whole thing of shorter games; some people were complaining this “Heavenly Hours” is just six hours and –

Totilo: “Heavenly Sword.” Certainly not “Heavenly Hours.”

Croal: [Laughs.] “Heavenly Sword” is only six hours and “Gears of War” is only nine or ten hours. What you get out of designing a game [like "Majora's Mask"] in that way–and it would be interesting to sort of go back and talk to the people who worked on the game to see if that was something they thought about–is you get density of game play as opposed to scope of gameplay. The world itself doesn’t need to be as massive to give you that rich gameplay experience. You can use a more limited amount of architecture, levels and dungeons, but make it denser because the mask system brings those areas of the world to life in new ways once you’ve accessed a new mask.

Totilo: Right, you can certainly make game worlds denser. “Phantom Hourglass” presents a denser ocean with more islands in it than “Wind Waker,” so I agree with you that it’s one direction that people can look at it. In some ways, what is “Majora’s Mask” other than a game that’s sort of emphasizing the replayability of a game. You know, giving you new ways to constantly re-experience the same territory, which other games have tried. If you go back to it, even the very first “Zelda” on the NES, had a whole second quest, which is just saying, “Hey, replay this game, but experience it differently.”

But what I wanted to know is–I didn’t want to really review your playing of the game; this was really kind of a self-serving exercise here because I’m the one at the more dire crossroads than you. You simply get a chance to decide whether or not “Zelda” is a blind spot in your gaming career to be embarrassed about or to feel vindicated that you could afford to skip it, but for me I’m at this crossroads where I’m like, “Am I correct in feeling that ‘Zelda,’ that the world has had enough ‘Zelda’ and am I correct in having the hubris to say that I know that Nintendo should move on?” Or am I a victim of my old age and, is it the case that when I say, “Oh, this ‘Phantom Hourglass’ doesn’t have as good dungeons as the ‘Zelda’ in my day,” am I onto something or not? You’ve now played “Phantom Hourglass” dungeons, therefore you’ve played 21st century “Zelda” dungeons and you played 1998 “Zelda” dungeons and the Deku Tree. Were they the same?

IN THE NEXT ROUND: N’Gai tells me if the problem is me or “Zelda”….