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Originally Posted by BloodRaw_Engine  MM is more the shining example. If not strictly of shallow characters and story, then still poor focus on such things as cahracters and story--if that's a clear enough rephrasal. |
I didn't have a problem with how your statement was phrased; I merely strongly disagreed with it.
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Originally Posted by BloodRaw_Engine Giving the supporting cast more prominence than the main characters to the point of nearly replacing them as the major focus is just short of convoluted were it not for how little they actually did focus on the main characters in MM. |
Main characters are nothing without a strong supporting cast. Without a strong supporting cast, the main characters have nothing to stand out against.
MM's main characters didn't need much focus. Link is already probably traumatized by what he saw in Hyrule and Termina. He's practically a shell-shocked veteran inside a ten-year old's body. That much we can already infer. The fact is, placing more emphasis on supporting characters is what made
MM so significant. For once it felt like the world was bigger than just Link and his adventures, something no other game since then has been able to emulate.
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Originally Posted by BloodRaw_Engine The same is basically applicable for the story itself. Spending more time on the side stories than the main one until you're 95% through the game simply makes for a weak story altogether. |
That's not really how it worked. Most of the sidequests occurred because of the harmful aftereffects of Skull Kid's evil deeds. Most of them were small scale, but they added to the main story collectively.
It's much like voting. Individually, a person's vote doesn't make much of a difference. But when you group all of those people together in one group, they DO make a difference. It's the same thing with
MM's sidequests. Individually, they didn't add much to the main quest, but grouped together, you realize that they are all pieces to a much bigger world.
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Originally Posted by BloodRaw_Engine The characters did nothing for Link as a character (not even the ones directly involved with him like Tatl and the Happy Mask Salesman), and only in LA, TP, and (partially) WW was that ever done to a notable degree. |
But whether that's good or not is debateable (Did I spell that right?) Personally, I find the prominence of supporting characters in
TP to be that game's biggest flaw. Games that center around the Triforce trio (Link, Zelda, and Ganon) should focus on those characters. Instead
TP focused on Midna and Zant, which, while interesting for a while, became annoying when Midna became the first one Ganon spoke to in the final confrontation, and Zelda's appearances were limited to three cutscenes. With
MM, this was okay, because it had a different story that changed things up.
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Originally Posted by BloodRaw_Engine I'm not about to say that one engaged couple and a cute little farm girl is a big enough exception to be regarded as an excuse, esepciallly since, like most other things awarded to you after the longer quests in MM, all the work was for a very useless reward. |
I won't really argue about that point because it's different for different people. That's why I hate getting into debates about whether items or rewards are useful or not. It all depends on the creativity of the player. Personally, I found all of those sidequests to be 100% worth it because of the Fierce Diety Mask.