Freedom or storyline?

Freedom or storyline? For some reason these two things are always on the opposite side of the spectrum. As Zelda loses it's freedom it gains a lot more storyline and vise versa.

Freedom: In the earlier Zeldas this is what the game was all about. The ability to go whereever you want without anyone telling you, you can't go here. The only thing that could stop you was tough enemies and not having the right weapons to move on. But besides that Hyrule was free to explore.

People who want more freedom are usually the type who want to ditch the partner character...and are people who envision an overworld like Shadow of the Colossus. Huge and yet empty.

This is the downside to "Freedom" it usually goes hand and hand with a lack of storyline and NPCs. Freedom can bore people who need modivation. It may be uninteresting to anti-sandbox people and it may be confusing to people who need advice and direction.

Storyline: In the newest of Zelda games storyline is being emphasised more and more. It is the prime modivator to make the player keep going on with the adventure. Characters are an important part of the storyline and quite recently partner characters have been real attached to the storyline's purpose.

People who want more storyline are the ones who'd like waaay more focuse on character developement and interaction, like a lot of RPG games I guess.

The downside to "Storyline" is that it prevents the player from doing what they want. They are more likely to be forced into following the set path. This is really annoying to people who just want to do what they want to.

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I have concluded that Zelda needs a balance of both...but when it's balanced it still doesn't come close to satifying everyone. Take TWW for example...the KoRL makes sure you go to the right places...the game is very story driven up until the Tower of the Gods-Triforce hunt where you are free to roam wherever...Some people love the first half and hate the second and vise versa...the same can be said with TP...Very story driven for the first half...and very caged in until after the 3rd level where you are able to do whatever you want...downside is the lack of storyline...Hmmm

What's more important Freedom or Storyline!?!

TP had a far better storyline than WW did.

They need to put storyline as a priority, til the chronology is connected, at which point they can do whatever they like.

Gameplay will not suffer at all because of story, bout time people got with the program.

The two things aren't actually mutually exclusive, though. There are plenty of games with freedom that still manage to have a compelling storyline. First case in point to me being Grand Theft Auto Vice City, which had plenty of sub-missions but maintained an overall story-thread tying everything together.

Dragonquest VIII also had an amazing level of freedom, and yet still an amazing level of story-telling.

So if other, looser games can do it, there's no reason a Zelda can't.

Originally Posted by Lelouch

The two things aren't actually mutually exclusive, though. There are plenty of games with freedom that still manage to have a compelling storyline. First case in point to me being Grand Theft Auto Vice City, which had plenty of sub-missions but maintained an overall story-thread tying everything together.

Dragonquest VIII also had an amazing level of freedom, and yet still an amazing level of story-telling.

So if other, looser games can do it, there's no reason a Zelda can't.

i totally agree

but the thing about zelda is that its not about 'doing what you want', not anymore at least
there are tons of oither games to play for total freedom
in fact pretty much all games being released now have gone totally towards freedom, so zelda would just be a follower, not a leader
i mean, how popular was cod4, and it was completely linear

and people like sotc because the enviroment is open and beautiful
just because an enviroment is big doesnt mean its empty, that is totally wrong. sotc's enviroment was empty on purpose, just like ico before it. those were the emotions they wanted to evoke

I thin a game like Majora's Mask, for example, was quite open-ended. There was a linear fashion for the main story-based stuff, but there were plenty of side-quests.

The more popular games that are linear just generally have good gameplay. Freedom is not always necessary, but in games that claim to be adventures, some level of freedom is absolutely necessary.

arite, you can have a great sense of freedom while still having a compelling storyline...I dunno why people say you have to pick one or the other...

why can't the storyline adapt to how you progess through the game?

"omg its too hard to program"

no...no it isnt...

it wont take 3 months like all the other casual bullcrap Nintendo has been feeding us lately but it cetainly wont take forever...


I wish I could go into more detail about how I think it should be done but my r, h, f, and y keys aren't working and going to the character palette each time isn't fun...

Okami.

I rest my case. That's last gen to boot.

Any prime examples of anything will probably be either last gen, or the generation before that. We all know current-gen sucks anyway.

Mmm, hawt lesbian secks with Ammy.

I haven't yet played a game that topped Okami's awesome.

I need to rebuy a PS2 and play Okami again.

I need to actually play Okami. So far as far as artsy games are concerned, Shadow of the Colossus tops them for me.

See, Shadow of the Colossus had that feeling of freedom even though you had to kill the Colossus in a particular order. All that nothing, and all the time in the world to explore it.

Okami isn't really an artsy game.

It is however by far the best Zelda game ever. ;3

Oh, I see what you did there.

I should probably buy it so we can try and fit Amaterasu into Zelda theories.

I'd like a little more freedom in the Zelda games.

It just seems that everything is extremely limited in the games until you are ready to face a challenge that you couldn't surpass before when you were weak and in need of greater power.

But in MM, exploring Clock Town was brilliant. Everything seemed to be open.

WW worked pretty well because no one can swim across the entire ocean with the small body length that Link had. (By the way, if he can run and fight so much, why does his swimming metre never lengthen).

id like to see more freedom, more than mm anyway, but i dont want freedom with the main storyline, just the world.

Even still, to have Zelda without a storyline is blind.

Okami is honestly better than any Zelda game I've played.
Not sure why it was compared to Zelda originally though, maybe simply because it's action adventure.

I thought that the character of the wolf made it feel similar to Zelda from the release of TP.

I think both CAN be done.

Is it hard. Yes. But that's when you get a masterpiece. Like pong. (joke)

But really, it can be done.

But if I were to choose. I'd say a little more storyline in zelda would be nice.

Originally Posted by Eternal Legend

I thought that the character of the wolf made it feel similar to Zelda from the release of TP.

Yeah... that whole Okami = zelda rip off because of the main character being a wolf needs to stop. Okami was a hell of a lot more innovative then any recent zelda game I've played. They're not really all that similar to begin with(I didn't think so anyway).

It wasn't innovative, but it was way more awesome.