Legend of Zelda: New and Old

[Meiscool]

I'll keep it short because I have the unpopular opinion here.

1) I like Zelda games for the sheer fun they have.
2) They have been getting stale. I don't look forward to one anymore.
3) The general series is average.
4) The stories are bland. It's the same format over and over, but don't get me wrong. They serve the purpose they were written for. It's not a game which selling point is the story. But please, don't tell me it has a great story because it does not. It has a decent bland video game story.
5) Remake? Seriously? You think it's a great Zelda year because of another remake?

For the tl;dr: Zelda is meh, it good mindless fun but it's way overhyped.

This is pretty much exactly my opinion. I haven't played any since buying (and not finishing) twilight. Just not really anything to get excited about anymore I feel.

[daoman89]

Oh, that kind of realism, I see. Makes sense.

At least we got that topic out of the way though, right? hahaha

[desiderata]

While the Zelda series generally is thin on plot and heavy on gameplay (did the first or second games even have plots?), I think that ALttP, Majora's Mask, and WW all had good and more in-depth premises than other Zelda games.  I loved the Oracles games, but being randomly pulled out of Hyrule to solve some other people's problems is not the way I want to start my day.  In fact that's a great way to piss me off, when the world wakes up on the wrong side of my bed, and I'm a morning person, for God's sake.  Whereas in MM, your quest starts with your search for your missing horse(?) (if I remember, it's been a few years since I've had the opportunity to play it) so it starts with an instant emotional backdrop set by Epona's absence (I'm pretty sure.)  WW is pretty much a post-apocalypse scenario a la Cloud Atlas, and you're Tom Hanks before shit gets heavy.  And ALttP... well, I just really like that one the most because it reminds me of my grandparents' home-away-from-home-and-I-don't-have-to-deal-with-family-issues-here basement, and I won't apologize.

Sidebar: I think I should write game reviews.

[fruckert]

(did the first or second games even have plots?)

Yes.
Yes they did.

(the backstory and stuff was in the manual)

[Prpl_Mage]

I'm pretty sure you had a horse in MM but searched for your little fairy friend Navi who totally ditched link once he saved the world.
Then Skull kid appears and steal your horse and turn you into a cool deku.

(the backstory and stuff was in the manual)

Like FFXIII, although the manual is a thing reached from the game menu.

[daoman89]

he nv finds Navi... That bitch up and left. Probably held a grudge for that 7 year long wait and when it was finally over she said, **** you Link, im out!  Can you really blame her though? Did Link ever care about her feelings? No, he ignored her all the time. The hero of time was a selfish douche! It even shows in MM. He gets super cocky and starts flipping over gaps. I bet none of you put yourselves in her shoes! She lost over 7 years of her life, 99% of which Link was knocked out. Idk their lifespan, but i doubt it's long. Shes lucky Link didn't shove her *** in one of those bottles. Link, she left you because you're a natural dick, plain and simple! She led you to Termina for karma. Payback's a bitch, aint it!?

[Prpl_Mage]

Must've been horrible, watched her kin being trapped in bottles and consumed while she was made to watch.
Also trying to get Link to actually save the world when he just sat around doing fishing or chasing cucus or spending time at the archery range. And when she pointed it out he just kept doing those sidequests like she never existed.

[SaiKar]

Not interested in a WW remake. The original WW wasn't that great. It was okay enough to tide me over (har har pun) but had too much sailing and not enough dungeon delving. And there was only one dungeon I reallllly liked (the undead one with the bird chick). As we all saw in the OoT remake, they didn't add jack **** to the game, so I wouldn't expect anything new out of the WW one either.

A Link Between Worlds is a different story though. That's NOT a remake, but a sequel, and a sequel in one of my favorite Zelda settings. The SNES game was far more heavily involved in exploration and weird items and dungeoning, and, like Like's Awakening, it's a style that Zelda has moved away from, with the Oracle games sort of being the last hurrah. So I'm interested in seeing if they've still got what it takes to make that type of game where the graphics can't carry it and the story doesn't matter, so the gameplay better be solid.

[Prpl_Mage]

Didn't they add some sort of boss-fightning mode to OOT and made the master quest mirrored?

Not that it might count for something , but it's there.

[daoman89]

Didn't they add some sort of boss-fightning mode to OOT and made the master quest mirrored?

Not that it might count for something , but it's there.

They did, but I agree with SaiKar how they could've added more details maybe even a bonus dungeon.  Perhaps put more enemies on the damn field.  It was still great though.

I heard ALBW is very smooth, but it feels different.  ALttP, LA and Oracles were 2D zelda at its finest.  Minish Cap was good too, it just needed more dungeons lol.  I would've liked PH and ST more if they allowed me to use the damn dual pad and buttons.  ST was definitely better than PH for me, but they both lacked in ways.  Like the ice town in ST was so poorly designed and looked awful.  ST was really fun though.

And I bet Navi led the skullkid to Majora's Mask.  Just to **** with Link...  That evil, vengeful chattering fairy!

[Apex]

What bothers me in a Zelda game: the opening sequences just keeping getting longer and longer and less involved. I have played Zelda before, I know what to expect, give me my sword and point me to the nearest dungeon. I don't want 3-5 hours of exposition before I get my fourth heart, I wanna play Zelda damn it.
Twilight Princess despite being better than I originally gave it credit for, has an opening that will keep me from ever starting it again, and Skyward Sword got about 30 minutes of my time before I realize that I was never actually going to get into the meat of the game and be perpetually stuck in the limbo of generic Zelda story telling.
I swear, if I have to watch how the three goddesses created the planet and Triforce one more time in OoT, I'll never start that game up again.

I'm not a retro-only clenched butthole, but damn do I miss the older Zelda games when you wake up in a bed get your shield and travel 7 screens before you get your sword and unleash hell.

[Cerebus]

I miss bird-eye view with side-scrolling maps. I miss having 8+ dungeons. I miss square-shaped World map.
I don't mind waiting a bit before "real action" starts. I'd just rather have it retro-styled.
I also prefer "Young" Link.

This new Zelda game looks promising, but I'll wait before making a judgement. If it contains like 4 dungeons I probably won't bother trying it.

[daoman89]

The creators know we want lots a dungeons and stuff.  I agree they should start the intros with more action than running around.  I didn't mind SS beginning because exploring the town was fun, but TP was a lil boring.  Maybe they should send Link through a mini dungeon to teach you the ropes.  WW's beginning was short so it worked and **** went down within like 15-30 minutes depending on your exploration tolerance.

[Archem]

I... Actually agree with the mini-dungeon for tutorial purposes. I usually dislike those, but if done well, I can see it being nice. I'm thinking that it would be something of a cold open like the 007 films typically do. Unrelated dungeon crawling with no connection to the story, immediate drop into the action, finish it up, bad-*** intro sequence commences. Maybe treat it similarly to Super Mario World where there are tips that you can ignore if you already know what you're doing. As for explaining how link got into things, they could do a number of things. Make the intro somewhat surreal and call it a (day)dream, use a fake-out art-style and have it be revealed to be a story or something, or even have the dungeon itself be a flash-forward where you come back at a later point in the game, but with context. There are a lot of ways to put it in and not mess with the "unsuspecting hero" thing they like so much.

[daoman89]

Maybe Link needs to rescue a friend who's on a high cliff, but the original path has been destroyed so he needs to improvise.