Realism

I know that this is a fantasy game and all, but it would be cool to have some realistic aspects.

A few that I have been thinking about are as follows:

Clothing - What if Link's clothing becomes frayed and torn as he progresses throughout the game? Could he become more vulnerable in his defense as his tunic is damaged? Could there be a seamstress or tailor in the town that could fix these clothes for a price. Maybe you could have a side quest to get a new fabric that increases the defense of his tunic.


Injury - We all know that Link recovers from injury fairly quickly. Well, what if aside from the temporary damage he sustains, he is also able to gain more serious damage? I doubt it would be a common occurance, but what if he was able to have an injury from a weapon that caused massive damage to his arm for example, now he can only hold swords of a certain size due to his decreased capacity to hold heavy objects.

Leg damage could result in slow walking, walking going in misdirected paths to what you control or other minor annoyances. Then you could have head damage that makes the screen shake on occasion, or have the frames of the screen slow down and go stilted to mimic Link's perception.

Of course you can go and get these cured by the local doctor or whatever you may call it.


Horse Equipment - Going off another idea I once had, about having a blacksmith to give chain mail, armour, upgraded shields and swords, then the other sidequest possibilities. I thought it would be good to be able to buy horseshoes, reigns, bridle, saddles and other equipment for your horse, especially if you use it frequently in a game such as TP.

These would all allow for different results. New horseshoes could allow for previously unavailable terrains to become available for access, for example long grass, shallow water, craggy hills, steep slopes. The reign upgrade would allow you to have increased speeds for the horse, while the bridles would allow you to increase the horses stamina so that it could maintain the speeds. The saddle would take some of the weight strain off the horses back so that you can carry and use your equipment while riding (I know you can use your items in TP, but this gives an adequete reason why you can do this).


Horse Caring - I thought that if you were going to spend time on buying equipment for the horse, why not spend more effort on caring for it? I wouldn't want to make this too much of a struggle, but I think that giving the horse food, water and comfort bars would be a good idea. I think you should need to stop at lakes, ponds and fountains to allow your horse to have a drink.

You should occasionally need to get off the horse to give it a break and recover its comfort, especially when riding in desert areas (you could even have cactii in the desert and have Link use his sword to cut them open to provide water for the horse to drink from!). Also food should be needed for the horse, we had display carrots in OoT and MM, butg they weren't physical.

I think Link should need to go to market and buy carrots that provide long term food fulfillment forthe horse, or he can slice up some grass in the fields for the horse to eat and recover a small amount of energy.


These are only a few ideas I have had. What do you think about these to be integrated into a game? What other realistic features can you think of that would be useful? Enjoyable? Or simply there as a means in which you can have a more domestic Link when you feel the need.

Oh man, it'd be so cool if Link had to stop for bathroom breaks, too! If you didn't, his bowels would rupture in a chocolate-coloured mess! Here's another great idea, too: what if Link could age and develop cataracts? The screen would become all blurry and you'd have no idea what was going on. Better yet, the developers could simulate an acid trip when senility creeps in! Who's with me?

All those things would slow the game down. It wouldn't even feel like a zelda game. Tell me, when has link ever stopped to sleep or even eat during his adventures? IT"S A GAME. IN FACT IT"S A ZELDA GAME.

Also, if all those elements were included, you'd stop thinking about the things important in the game. The whole time you would be occupied on keeping your head unharmed and your horse up-to-date that your mind will stray from the important things in the game like side-quests, finding secrets, and just advancing the game in general.

Hm. I like that idea. Some of it might be slightly annoying, but I wouldn't really care! I always had the idea that Link could learn how to farm different crops from the villagers and he could take some of them in a bag or something. When he's running out of health, a tomato or carrot could boost his life! Small tidbits like that make a game more interesting.

sounds more like an Elder Scrolls style idea rather than Sims. if you've played Morrowind or any other Elder Scrolls game, you'd know what i'm talking about.

as amusing as it would be to play a Zelda game EC style, i just don't think all those options you proposed would help Twilight Princess "feel" the way Nintendo is intending it to.

I like the idea of injury affecting you in the game. The others sound just annoying. It would really take the feeling out of the game to have to stop and feed Epona. Think about it. Riding towards the next Temple. The wind in your face. Suddenly, Epone stops. You have to get off and waste ten minuted of precious time to feed and clean her. As for that clothes thing, paying for something you started with?! What a waste of money!

Epona may be lacking compared to SOTC but was great at the time and to be honest, the lifelikeness of Epona doesn’t bother me, I am buying this game for the beautiful sights of fields and a medieval-like foreign world with great immersion, the simplistic fighting that that is chaotic and accessible but very varied and a lastabilty due to dungeons an puzzles, Shadow and the colossus and Ico spend a lot of time on little things and are great games heir own rights but more quality over quantity.

Nintendo seem to be heading Twilight Princess in a well balanced quantity and Quality direction so there will be less realistic detail like Shadow of the Cololusus but this will be made up with variety and a bigger lifespan and what I prefer in my opinion.
Little details like a life-like horse can increase the positive experience and polished feel but lastabilty and variety can do it even more.

The injury idea is ok if you limit enough--head trauma making the screen go all wonky would be fun (but not for extended periods) and more realistic. The thing is, too much realism is boring. I could be doing homework in hyper-realism, but I want to play Zelda. It's not a simulator, so its realism is really dependent on the small touches rather than the central game ideas. Having hearts be different foods, footprints and on-the-mark sound effects go more towards convincing realism than living Link's whole life for him.

I agree with Zelda Gaiden and Klew. yeah, I liked the footprints in the sand in tww. I want the hearts to stay, though.

What would be really cool is if, when you got hit, instead of flashing red, the screen would blurr and shake for half a second. It might get annoying, though.

Seriously, do you want the games to give you extreme seizures instead of just plain ones?

Realism in games is the reason I don't like playing Sims and Harvest Moon... I'm watching something in a game do something I could do myself in real life... meh

I don't like any of these ideas, it doesn't go with Zelda. Think of the children!!! Think of them!!

I really like the idea of Link's tunic tearing and getting worn after battles and stuff. Thats what i love about TP I want realism but not too much (I cant really explain lol) but its exactly what TP looks like to me.

I know it would have made me annoyed very quickly to have to get Link's tunic replaced every other level. But alas, such is life, no?

I have to replace bombs and arrows (but not slinghot pellets) so the concept is not too foreign.

I think that adding to much realism to the game would make it lose the fantasy aspect of the game. Sure it would be fun to see some actual injury on Link, but having to stop to give the horse a drink of water in the middle of a fight with moblin riding giant pigs might be a problem.

Realism, to a certain extent, is boring, and not fun. Period. I mean seriously, just look at what Sear said above. I think what you posted is going too far. I like Zelda just the way it is.

-TFS

I think more realism in Zelda games is a great idea, but it would have to be used to a certain extent. Although some of those ideas you mentioned are awesome and would seem like a lot of fun, it'd be far too tedious and annoying for the game. As someone previously said, you'd be constantly worrying about feeding your horse, watching your brain (or arms and legs), etc. It'd take away some of the "zelda" feel in the game. I think, for future Zelda games (or even TP for what we know), developers could include some of the clothing aspects you mentioned, and maybe even sustained injury (to the extent of cuts or other wounds simply being visible and lasting for a certain amount of time, but not affecting gameplay). I'm sure there are other fun elements they could add, as well.

Maybe I didn't make some of those very clear, but I didn't intend for them to be an overwhelming part of the game. The injury thing was meant as a very rare occurance (maybe once every couple of dungeons), the feeding and drinking for your horse wouldn't be excessive, nor would the extent of your damage to your clothing.

What I don't understand is why no one would want to gain upgrades for your horse, I don't mean for them to be necessary, but I persoanlly would feel they would be an improvement.

Anyway, each to their own, these are just ideas I feel would be interesting.

Damage to clothing would be a great idea, when your hearts go low. The lower your hearts get, the more tattered your clothes get. However, once you use a fairy/get extra hearts the tattering in your clothing should fade away. Not really realistic, but then again, it wouldn't be a Zelda game if there wasn't any fanstasy.

That would be kinda cool. It would be better than that damn beeping noise.

True. The beeping noise got SOOO annoying, especially if you had a migrane. If you didn't it eventually gave you a migrane. LOL But at least it got your attention that you were about to die!