I liked the show, and honestly I think people are judging it way too harshly. At the time it was made people knew basically nothing about the characters or the story at all. In fact most of it was invented for
ALTTP years later. With nothing but character sprites and very very little info given in the instruction manuals the writers had essentially nothing to work with so they pretty much just invented a typical 80's era cartoon show that just so happened to be Zelda themed. Essentially we know nothing about Hyrule at all, or Zelda, or Link. We have character sprites and some scant amounts of info placed in the instruction manuals that only really just give us the setting of the game. Hyrule is a magical world, Link is a sword wielding hero,the evil pig monster Ganon kidnapped princess Zelda and there are triforces that everyone wants to get their hands on. With just that information alone to work with a writer has to do a little more than just fill the gaps. They have to basically create an entire world on their own with just a couple small details that are essential to the plot. Hero, wizard, princess, magic...go! I actually think they did a pretty good job with it considering what they had to work with at the time.
People that got into the series a little later on are a bit spoiled because we know so much like what the triforce really is, what Ganon's motivations really are and what he is actually like. Before he was just a pig monster that did bad things because he was a villain. Comparing a quickly made up cartoon to a game series that has evolved over years through characterization and the work of a legion of developers is not quite fair. The development of
OoT took much longer than the work behind the cartoon, and probably had more people working on it. Plus they were building upon the work of
ALTTP that came before, not to mention games that came later on after that which only made the story even richer.
Besides bumbling Ganon that often shook his fist in the air and said things like "I'll get you next time!!!" fit perfectly in with all the other great villains of 80's cartoons.
As long as we remember that
OoT Ganondorf characterization did not come along for another 9 years and the people at Dic were making another cartoon show about an evil wizard that wanted to get his hands on a magical artifact to rule the world only to be stopped by the hero each episode, then he is in good company. Because compared to the others he does not stand out at all. In fact I would place him right there on the same level as Skeletor since he was...an evil wizard in a fantasy universe that wanted to get his hands on the ultimate power so he could rule the world only to be stopped each time by the sword swinging hero.
I have always said that the only real failing of the Zelda cartoon is that it did not last long enough and have enough episodes to create that huge level of nostalgia people have for other 80's shows that are much better remembered than rewatched. Try watching an episode of He-Man or Gi-Joe, they are pretty much of the same quality but people love them more because they remember loving them so much when they were younger. Zelda was not on TV long enough to create that same sense and draw up a huge fanbase.
04-16-2012, 01:04 PM
Zelda was always treating Link like crap even though he's saved her how many times? That wasn't great but the show was still good looking past that. Way better than the CD-I games in everything. Even minor characters like the Witch of walls were good. It kinda sucks the Triforce of Power had only one line through out the entire series they had a voice actor for it and everything instead of recycling people like everyone else does. That guy kinda got screwed.
