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Originally Posted by Mirren
You do realize that the majority of games are linear, right? And a lot of those linear games are still praised? Hell, look at Shadow of the Colossus and Resident Evil 4. They're pretty linear, they're both in the action/adventure genre, and they're two of the highest rated games of all time.
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SotC give you an entire world to explore right off the bat, so I wouldn't call in linear. Sure, you had to fight the Colossus in order, but I won't consider it linear when you could go anywhere at anytime.
Resident Evil 4 is an action shooter like Gears of War. I'm not sure why you'd compare it to Zelda...
Anyways, Zelda is different. Like Metroid, it was built on the idea of non-liear exploration. Recently, it has been lost in the Zelda series, and that has to do with the dumbing-down of the Zelda games.
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Exploration is not the essence of Zelda, to say that one thing is the essence is foolish. If anything is, it should be what has been in every last game, and what is the most featured part of them; the dungeons.
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The exploration is what made the original Zelda so revolutionary and popular. The puzzles were also a distinct feature in the series. Dungeons, not so much. What adventure game didn't have dungeon-crawling back then?
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Nonlinearity can be good when used right, but when nonlinearity becomes the forcing of you to walk around flat terrain without any tasks outside of speaking to a few people, it can barely be considered 'exploration'. It's barely gameplay, it's not a real challenge, and it's not special or creative in the least bit.
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Oh, yes, of course. I completely agree with you here. One of the reasons I can't play the original Legend of Zelda is because it drops you in the middle of a huge world without giving you any guidence. It's more frustrating than fun, and it makes the game feel cheap to me.
I like games like Metroid Prime or Majora's Mask where you are giving a tutoral on where to go and exactly what to do, but you also are giving hints on where to go. That way, you have a basic idea of where to go (limited to one region rather than an entire world), but there is plenty of room to explore. I think that is a very creative way of progressing through a game.
Now, I not hate linear games. Final Fantasy X is my favorite game of all time, but that game still offers plenty of challenge and strategy in other areas like battle and puzzles. You are also given a lot of room to be creative with you party in most boss battles, which leads you to using different strategies everytime you play the same boss again when you start a new game.
Zelda isn't like that anymore though, especially in Twilight Princess. Every time you start a new game you must do everything in the same order, and fight the bosses the exact same way. It also doesn't help how you can't skip through the hand-holding cutscenes (or can you?). The dumbed-down nature of Twilight Princess just completely ruined the game for me.
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It requires them to find things, without any real tasks. What's challenging about walking around playing "guess and check"?
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I agree with you here. When you have absolutely no guidence at all, like in the original Zelda, things are just frustrating, not fun. So yes, the game should reward the player with hints, but step-by-step tutorals, ala Twilight Princess, are uncalled for and cheapen the experience.
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Wasn't that I couldn't find things, it's was that I'd always lose all of my items after going back in time, or that I couldn't complete a sidequest because I was on a different day without ever knowing of the mission before the three-day cycle began, or how after going through that long sequence of events before a dungeon, I'd have no time to do anything there, so I'd have to go deposit my rupees and waste more time traveling back to the first day.
Hard, yes. Resonable? I don't see what's reasonable about it.
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I understanf your frustration. Majora's Mask certainly has an oldschool attitude to it, much like Metroid Prime 1 and 2. You have to know the world and figure a lot out on your own, or at least know the people to talk to to get the good information.
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Too hard to decide, I think all of you are very pessimistic, melodramatic, distrusting and impatient.
To be honest.
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Reminds me of
this thread--the lame attempt to cry about everyone who doesn't agree with your opinion of Twilight Princess being a great game...
