I need to vent. I'm a little frustrated right now. I think its been over a year since I've done a gamer brain blog and I think it's because I've been enjoying gaming so much the past year, I haven't had many issues with my "gamer brain". So why I am frustrated? Because I am really not enjoying my time with the best game of all time!

Ok let's take a step back. Over the past year I've made an effort to stop trying to play everything that's considered a must play and more of a must play for me. If I watch some video or read a review of a game and am excited to play it based on that, I will. If nothing coming out one month appeals to me, I'll go back to classics that I enjoy like Dark Souls and Skyrim. I feel like this change in mentality from trying to enjoy every style of game to putting more thought into what I actually enjoy has been a big game changer for me. Does this mean not trying new things, of course not, just not forcing myself to play things I don't enjoy.

Then why am I currently frustrated? Because I want to like Zelda games. I love the games' world, characters, story and best of all it's music. The kind of music that just makes you all tingly inside. For years I have bought Zelda games, had mixed feelings about my time with them and proceeded to never finish one (except for Oracle of Seasons by Capcom for some reason.) My latest attempt has been the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time (Which I bought when it came out and have been struggling with ever since) and I so want to like it, that's what makes it so much more problematic for me. So I ask myself, why do I get so frustrated playing Zelda games?

There's no avoiding the fact that Japanese game design is very tedious. Early Final Fantasy games didn't let you save in dungeons so that if you die in there you have to start from the beginning and lose any XP you gained along the way. Dead Rising gave you super strict time constraints, forcing you to restart the entire game if you screw up as an artificial means of adding tension. And don't get me started on Monster Hunter. Then there's Dark Souls. Dark Souls makes you fight through an entire area over and over every time you want to have another try at the boss fight again. So why is it I love Dark Souls so much that I could even consider it the best game ever made and can't stand Ocarina of Time? Dark Souls is way more cruel and tedious in most respects. So why? I truly believed that I just didn't have the patience to play a Zelda game. But then why do I have all the patience in the world for Dark Souls? Well the answer is so simple that its been staring me in the face the whole time. (A bit like how some puzzles in a Zelda dungeon are way more obvious than you think). I don't enjoy playing Zelda games.

I know that sounds dumb and I should have figured that out a lot sooner, but I just didn't want it to be true. I want to enjoy the colourful and exciting adventure that is a Zelda game, but I don't. I don't like the combat. I don't like how the boss fights are only difficult because of the clunkiness of the controls and camera, which I can overcome in Dark Souls because I love the combat. I don't like the puzzle solving because sometimes it just seems so obscure that unless I read a faq would never have guessed it (especially the side quests). So when did Ocarina break me you ask? I like to call it the horse incident:

"The open field area in Hyrule takes forever to travel on foot, but you can get a horse, a very pretty horse in fact. To my feeble brain, getting this horse was a wtf moment. To get this horse you need to ask for a ride at the stable so you can challenge the stable owner for a race. But no you cannot even ask for a race until you ask again for another ride. Then you need make sure you've learned a specific melody, by going back in time and talking to someone at the stable and then showing her your ocarina(not a euphemism!), so you can call for the specific horse to ride, not the one the guy gives you which is super slow(cheating jerk!), which you need to be on when challenging this guy to a race. Once you beat him, you have to race him again but this time he blocks your way a lot more aggressively and if you lose, you lose 50 rupees and have to find some more money and do it all over again. Just give me a god damn horse! That's when I calmly took the cartridge out of my 3DS, put Pokemon Y back in and put Ocarina back in its case for good." -Me

It's not I don't have patience for playing games like Zelda, I just can't have patience with something when I'm not having a good time. Dark Souls can throw all the Japanese design tedium at me it wants, I still love it because I'm so happy playing it. Zelda throws me tedium and I throw a fit. It's me, not Zelda, not Dark Souls. Both are amazing games, but only one is for me. I just have to accept that and move on with my gaming life. Some people in life you will never get along with or agree with. Does it mean that person is an asshole? Yep... I mean no of course not. You're just not meant be friends. I'm not going to put on a mask and change who I am to become friends with someone like that so I shouldn't put on Majora's Mask and pretend that Zelda is for me (get it? Majora's Mask! Ha see what I did there?). If you're always being yourself, you'll always be happy. Sorry about the rant, I know the Zelda games are extremely well made and I'm not trying to hate on them, quite the opposite really.

Now I think I have a craving to go and play Okami again. I loved Okami...

Want to know if you have the same taste in games as me or are you a Zelda fan who wants to see how different our taste of games is? Check out my Top 26 games of 2013.

EDIT: Changed a few things to make it a little less vulgar.