The state of Zelda

Critics are complaining the series need drastic change. Before Twilight Princess, perhaps around and a little after Windwaker time, fans wanted it back to or even more 'OoT', now people say the franchise needs a face lift.

To be quite blunt, Zelda should have gone in one direction after Ocarina, and that is the path it started out with; Majora's Mask. No problem here, next? Windwaker, again, a nice change to the series and adding a few new things in, and in short, giving Zelda a new lease of life in a refreshing and calm manner.

All good, and then we get Twilight Princess. I, personally found this the best Zelda, no doubts here for me, the most well rounded Zelda ever, but if there was ever a term for what Twilight Princess is, then it's 'Masturbatory Exercise'. It happens in nearly every medium. Music, for instance, when a band just goes all out, makes the album for themselves, but not necessarily doing anything new, literally just cramming in everything that made them a success into one CD. This is what Twilight Princess was. It threw every Zelda convention into one game, making a few little improvements and then pumping up each of these conventions about ten times. In a word, excessive, but not fulfilling.

What we need is another separate little work of art like Majora's Mask, because that's how i view MM, a work of art. Carefully crafted, all killer no filler. It was a work of art. It's somewhat isolation from the rest of the timeline and franchise to an extent is what made the game special and gave it the feeling of proper creative genius. It was it's own. WW somewhat emulated this feel, and I felt it was only let down by the rehashing of the 'first collect 3 items then so fourth'.

I could really care less if the story side of the game is shorter, length means nothing if it isn't used well. This isn't a knock off on TP, because that game had a lot of momentum from start to finish, but then we can look at MM or even WW to see length doesn't diminish the fun of the game, well, as long as it's a reasonable length.

The other issue I'd like to address is the time line. I'd like the time line to play a very subtle role in the game, such as the way it did in MM. I keep going back to MM. The reason is because it felt like its own game, not overly played as part of some over arching storyline.

We need a new land to go about in, we need the time line to be a lot more subtle and downplayed, this in itself will feel refreshing. We need a good amount of the Zelda conventions or cliché's thrown out of the window and into the next garden. I'm not saying get rid of everything, but enough to cut this game off from the rest of the franchise while still retaining what is compulsory to make a game 'Zelda'. So, essentially the triforce, Zelda to a degree, dungeons and the items, but, if i may use MM as my example again, this game didn't have the first two mentioned (Zelda or the triforce) in it or playing a major role and it still felt like Zelda, so people who say this or that isn't 'suited' to Zelda can just stay quiet.

So, in a sentence make each game in the franchise its own little, separate, piece of art.

Thanks,

Slight bump

neeeh It's that zelda became too simple. Everything is linear, same puzzles etc etc. If they made a game like oot or alttp, nobody would complain. Eventhough I enjoy twillight princess, It's still not at the level of OOT and Alttp

Originally Posted by Dragohan

neeeh It's that zelda became too simple. Everything is linear, same puzzles etc etc. If they made a game like oot or alttp, nobody would complain. Eventhough I enjoy twillight princess, It's still not at the level of OOT and Alttp

OoT and ALttP are just as worse as TP in terms of puzzles and in linearity, theres like a few dungeons you can do in a different order. And in what ways is TP not at the level of OoT and AlttP? Because I've played both AlttP and OoT. ALttP has more repetitive puzzles and more boring dungeon designs than both OoT and TP.

So if your saying TP was not at the level of OoT and ALttP, then are you saying that Nintendo should turn Zelda into an RPG, or maybe a shooter. How about that?

P.S. Your arguement points are really crap.

Originally Posted by Ganon the King

So if your saying TP was not at the level of OoT and ALttP, then are you saying that Nintendo should turn Zelda into an RPG, or maybe a shooter. How about that?

Wow that makes absolutely no sense. What a random thing to say.

It really needs a difficulty system, Nintendo could still apease to the younger players with normal settings, and then appeal to the more adult or hardcore gamers with harder settings. As for the story, the story is good and involving, but they need a few extra elements and maybe some more backstories to reinforce the main one.
Also:
MINIGAMES! TONS AND TONS OF MINIGAMES! TP really angered me when they had hardly any minigames.
Also maybe a little bit deeper enemy...biographies that you could view or collect...maybe more ranks for more bad guys....like how dark nuts have rank color and etc.
And lastly they need to implement a ton of side quests...any good rpg or adventure rpg has multiple side quests that don't really deal with the main story.

^^Yeh. Thats what made TP underwhelming, the lack of minigames and most of all sidequests. It had awesome graphics and a good story, but they really failed to capitalise and it was empty. Theyll have to go in another direction now as theyve just done Hyrule again.

Yeah, minigames and NPC character depth is what TP really, really lacked. I connected with MM and WW so much because each NPC character had some sort of backstory, some sort of glimpse into their lives you could unlock by interacting with them and completing some sort of sidequest. Oot had the skeleton of it, MM built greatly upon, and WW regressed a little from it but still had more depth than Oot. TP actually had NPC's that didn't talk at all, and that just made me feel like I was playing a video game rather than being immersed in a fictional world. It's the same thing that marks a good book from a bad book, or a good movie from a bad movie. It's got to grab your imagination and immerse you, or else it just falls short.

As far as gameplay goes, TP was far better than most of the zelda games. It just didn't grab me like the other games did, and that's the only thing that really disappointed me. I still play MM again and again, because that game never ceases to amaze me or grab me. MM, final fantasy 6, and chronotrigger are the probably most unique and well written games of all time, in respect to creative story and immersion. I definitely wouldn't call chronotrigger or MM the masters of gameplay, and I think TP achieved gameplay far better than any of the other games I mentioned did.

Originally Posted by HylianShroom

^^Yeh. Thats what made TP underwhelming, the lack of minigames and most of all sidequests. It had awesome graphics and a good story, but they really failed to capitalise and it was empty. Theyll have to go in another direction now as theyve just done Hyrule again.

Oh my god. It doesn't need mini-games.

I've only ever played a few RPGs in my life (not implying TP is one of them), and look at ToS. I never did any of the mini-games through my first play-through or after it either and still haven't even gone to play all the mini-games and I'm okay.

What TP needed was strong things. Remember all the good things MM had? Goron-racing at Snowhead, Milk Road, Gorman Brothers, all the people you do things for. I guess that's what TP needed to be more fulfilling. I'm sick of seeing people say TP wasn't the best Zelda, because it blew ALttP and OoT out of the water.

Oh my god.
There was zero lack of mini games in TP. It had far more mini games than any other game in the series, they were of far higher quality too.
You can bring up the bow anywhere you want so there's no need for any target range.

Originally Posted by Ganon the King

What TP needed was strong things. Remember all the good things MM had? Goron-racing at Snowhead, Milk Road, Gorman Brothers, all the people you do things for.

Hahahahaha, all these things are minigames/sidequests. Exactly what i said was lacking. And you have emphasised that. Thankyou.

I agree we need somthing new. Whatever it is it will be good. I have complete faith in what ever they choose to do. MM was great. My favorite Zelda. I hope they go off and do somthing completely unexpected and awesome, and I hope there are a lot of fans dissappointed when they announce the new title because that is when it is great. What Cell shaded graphics? Huh? A time limit? So many people weren't to happy about the idea, yet I think Majora's Mask and Windwaker are on the better end of the scale on Zelda greatness.

And look at TP...it was pretty much what everyone wanted, but everyone is complaining. It is a great game and it's what everyone wanted. Nintendo delivered and so many people are disappointed.

Originally Posted by Ganon the King

Oh my god. It doesn't need mini-games.

I've only ever played a few RPGs in my life (not implying TP is one of them), and look at ToS. I never did any of the mini-games through my first play-through or after it either and still haven't even gone to play all the mini-games and I'm okay.

What TP needed was strong things. Remember all the good things MM had? Goron-racing at Snowhead, Milk Road, Gorman Brothers, all the people you do things for. I guess that's what TP needed to be more fulfilling. I'm sick of seeing people say TP wasn't the best Zelda, because it blew ALttP and OoT out of the water.

Uhh, buddy...those ARE practically mini-games/sidequests. Something TP horribly lacked, and did need. You said before TP probaby didn't need sidequests, but you just now contradicted yourself with this statement... so which is it?

You say you're sick of people saying TP isn't the best Zelda... well get this through your head for once... That's other people's OPINIONS... It's your opinion it's the best Zelda... it's others opinions that it's not, or that it's a fairly bad Zelda game.

Live with it and move on...