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Notes -
Making a game that takes months for a child to complete when you only have 128kiB of rom space to work with necessitates some very annoying game design. This ended up working to Nintendo's favour because kids on the playground would discuss the game and trade secrets.
I remember A Link to the Past being pretty straightforward. But I haven't played it since I was a kid.
The big problem with early N64 games is that they expect you to be so wowed by the 3d graphics that you'd try things a modern gamer would never think of trying. Ocarina of Time gives you fire arrows when you try shooting your bow at the sun. Mario 64 has a level that you enter by turning to see where a light effect is coming from.
Oh and Zelda 2 the Adventure of Link is just completely unfair.
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