A Sneaky Side to Link in the Next Game

After renting Metal Gear Solid, then playing Wind Waker in Forsaken Fortress 1, a thought hit me: Ocarina of Time nor Wind Waker fully tapped into the possibilities of areas in which Link must sneak past enemy guards without being seen. While Majora's Mask had some great stealth scenes with the Deku Scrubs and Gerudo Pirates, the series generally should tap into the possibilities of stealth areas.

I think the next game should place more of an emphasis on stealth. How much more? Each dungeon should have one or two rooms in which a large number of powerful guards forces Link to go through without being seen, and getting caught would result in a loss of heart(s) and getting tossed out of the room (or even to the dungeon's entrance). Any more than one or two sneaking areas per dungeon, and the gameplay probably wouldn't be Zelda-ish enough. The game should introduce the player to sneaking through a fun minigame, such as a hide-and-seek game where Link must get to a goal without being found by the seekers. The player must get introduced to sidling (pressing up against walls), looking around corners while sidling, rolling from obstacle-to-obstacle to remain hidden, and hiding underneath barrels (like in Wind Waker where you hide under a barrel, walk when the enemy isn't looking, then stop when they look at the barrel). Using barrels should be a little bit tougher than in Wind Waker; perhaps forcing the player to stand still near other barrels when somebody is looking would make the hiding a bit tougher (i.e. guards should notice out-of-place barrels). The game should ease the player into sneaking, with progressive dungeons having more elaborate guarded rooms.

If they could put more emphasis on sneaking, the Zelda adventure genre would become ever-so deeper. What do you all think?

It would be great, and work quite well though I don't wquite understand wht you mean about the barrels. They could also have changing outfits to resemble the person but get too careless like standing stil while others patrol you could get found. Though that does seem kind of MGS-like.

I editted my post to describe the barrel idea better.

Different outfits might be cool too, if executed correctly.

Think about stealth in the context of an adventure game. Making sneaking too complicated might work against an adventure game as opposed to complementing it.

I personally I hate when stealth is the only option I get. I especially hate getting tossed into dungeon places. It worked fine for Gerudo Fortress in OOT, but if I was forced to do it every dungeon I'd die. I'd rather you be allowed to sneak past using stealth or fight the enemies if you wanted.

I think a combination of the way it was doen in M and TWW would be a nice addition. TWW had a nice way of looking like you're sneeking soemhtign that none of the other games had really. Sidling, barrels; they were great. At the same time Majora's mask ha a lot mor in the way of timing your intrusions with both the pirates and even the Deku scrubs. When sneaking by a moblin it didn't feel right to me, they were jsut too dumn.

I think a good sneaking aspect would do well to compliment a game.

hmm I agree with you ZeldaFreak, I think the enemy's AI should go up, the moblins do seem too dumb in fact. As for the stealth, I think its a good idea, but don't overdue it. Like Coby1 said there should be more than one option to get past an obstacle, and sometimes only one. But every single dungeon? umm I'd have to say every other dungeon, and have more dungeons in the game (IMHO tWW had too little dungeons)

I think stealth sounds good, but maybe it should only in key parts of the game. Like these:

Getting to a temple; after Ganon knows you are trying to defeat him, he sets up guards and patrols entrances to dungeons

Main step points in the game; like in tWW when you get the master sword, instead of frozen enemies, you must sneak past them or get overkilled, because your sword is not powerful enough.

Getting to Ganon for the final confrontation; you must sneak past the much too organized and powerful enemies in Ganon's Tower to beat him; this could also make for a good "ending after the ending" the 1st being when you beat Ganon, the 2nd after you clear Hyrule/wherever of his disarrayed minions to truly restore peace.

Link has been the solo hero but in games like OoT you see several Hyrulian soldiers and I've even been given the impression that Hyrule is no push-over kingdom. I'd love to see a game where Link is almost a mere mercenary amongst an armies of allies and foes where he runs around and does his thing WHILE great battles are being fought...and then the option to choose to help fight in those battles...including some you can't win and have to retreat.

Link might not beable to take down armies of foes on his own, but he's definately a heavy weight to help tip the scales. A system where Link is "just" a big piece to a much larger puzzle would be incredible IMHO, where you have to pick and choose what battles to fight, where you might want to hold your ground and know when you need to flee and regroup later. Battles where you are needed most or not needed at all ontop of side missions and dungeons...yummy

I think it would be a bad thing thing to add so much stealth,e.g. in OoT and MM I never got far without the hover cheat because of the stealth parts, which I never finished without.

I really dont like stealth things in games because im really bad at them. But I liked what they did in TWW. It wasn't too hard, yet it wasn't too easy.

If i were to do the stealth thing, this is how i'd do it:

If they found you, they'd attack you and you would have to fight them, or else you would be kicked out to the previous room.

If they did what the topic started suggested....I'd make sure i'd never play Zelda again and buy an X-Box. All because they made stealth too hard.

I suck at sneaking pass baddies some times.

Rolling behind barrels/trees, using the barrle thing, sidling along the walls and peeking over, that's cool.

C'mon, don't be afraid of challenge!

Seriously, I'm not saying that the sneaking parts should be exceedingly difficult. My idea, however, would require the sneaking parts to start off really easy, then get somewhat difficult near the end of the game. On top of this, the game should actually give you pointers on how to sneak properly.

I'd like stealth in the next game, but not to the point where you would have to change your clothes or something. I like your idea with having tough enemys and getting by them easier though mystic. They should enhance the way they used the barrel and looking around corners though.

It does sound like a nice idea, but I'm saying NO. Why? I hate stealth games, always did. The TWW-stealth part wasn't every enjoyable for me, so no thanks for me... We've seen that kind of stuff in OoT and MM, but not exactly the way you describe it or as in TWW.

More stealth would be nice. the enimies should have a line of sight rather than just knowing when your there or popping out of nowhere, so you could sneak up on them or past them, but you should only be able to do this rarely, never required except on one or two ocasions, and have sneaking moves but not at all sneaking based. example: a room full of enemies and a door somewhere above, you could sneak past climb the rope, stay in the shadows, and sneak through the door, if you get seen the door slams shut and you have to kill all the enemies to open it. the enemies would just be easy to kill peons rather than hard to hit terrorists like in mgs.

It would be really neat if the monster interacted with eachother, talking to eachother etc. Then you could sneak up and spy on them, gaining usefull but optional information.

I personally wouldn't like it at all..... I'm not a casual Zelda gamer, but I do like the gameplay as it is now.... No one has ever been to powerful for Link to defeat in the past... so why change gameplay controls just for a few rooms of stealth in there.... Sounds like you would have to make the full game like Splinter Cell..... I personally would bore of it withing minutes.... I like the concept, but not if it changes Zelda completely

For the barral thing I agree that the AI should be much smarter. I was rarely worried, the only time I can remeber is the time where the Moblin started sniffing my Barrel. I would like some stealth added to the next one, maybe they could have some sort of noise thing such as if you have arrows and you attack pots, the guards/monsters go and investigate.

My idea does not require the whole game to be sneaking. I'm thinking one room a dungeon would be sufficient. I thought a bit about having the optional "sneak or fight," but then I realized that fighting in Zelda games generally isn't too difficult to begin with, so why sneak when you can just kill anyway? I think one room a dungeon should be a "sneak or else."

One problem I found with the sneaking in previous Zelda games is that they don't really prepare you for it, nor do they make it progressively harder. They just throw you into the areas and you're expected to sneak through no problem. My idea REQUIRES the game to teach you the skills necessary to make the sneaking parts actually fun.

However, I do agree that making the sneaking parts too hard would just suck the fun right out of the adventure. The game should still focus mostly on combat and puzzle solving, not sneaking.

I didn't like the stealthpart much in tWW. There could be good stealthmissions in a Zeldagame, but I wouldn't like the stealthpart to be out of survival. Maybe, to complete the mission, you would have to keep the enemies alive. It might be a spy mission where you would have to know where they hide the key or overhear when they plan to attack the village.