Legend of Zelda thread - Lorefags GTFO!

[One Winged Pear Farmer]

Zelda could have worked with the open world formula; just not with the post-apocalyptic scenario... And maybe with some more engaging combat

Yea I think if they took out weapon durability, added some traditional gadgets/puzzles, removed the building and sheikah slate abilities, and put in real dungeons it would’ve helped immensely. I did the desert place first and genuinely got excited when I thought they had actual dungeons only to discover the place was fake and gay

 

[whatever I feel like]

I guess I’ll say that Breath Of The Wild is my favorite Zelda game, though Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are also up there.

I’m a fan of both styles.

BotW for me too, even though I totally accept that Tears is a more well rounded and mechanically sound game.

 

[Weltraumfürst]

I'm gonna be boring and say OoT. Even if I take off the nostalgia goggles, it's a spectacular game and it's amazing how right they got it with their very first attempt at a 3D Zelda game.

 

[pork and beans]

I guess I’ll say that Breath Of The Wild is my favorite Zelda game, though Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are also up there.

I’m a fan of both styles.

i really, REALLY enjoyed breath of the wild despite all of its flaws but i didnt like totk at all- i really enjoyed the open world but like others have said before me i dont disagree that a stricter path (whether in these two games or the ones going forward) would be (or would have been) a better idea

I'm gonna be boring and say OoT

good to know, im currently playing it

 

[Weltraumfürst]

good to know, im currently playing it

Great, I hope you have lots of fun!

 

[Mega Black]

really, REALLY enjoyed breath of the wild despite all of its flaws but i didnt like totk at all

Despite its flaws I did enjoy BOTW a lot when it came out. I think as a glorified tech demo it is one of the best, and I really like a lot of what it offered, even if it had the depth of a puddle.

Tears, the more I sit on it, the more I realized I really didn't like it that much at all. Tears has an insufferable amount of tedium in almost every regard, and I absolutely hated the dog shit awful story and characters. Especially the characters. My God they never stop fucking talking!

I've never played a game with NPCs that have so much to say about nothing at goddamn all.

Everything that was simple about BOTW got a bunch of added hoops to it, and everything that was new was a bland disappointment. It was an incredibly lazy game and if it wasn't Nintendo or Zelda it would have been fucking eviscerated by the public consciousness.

I basically have zero hope for whatever they make next because they've made it very clear that bland open world Zelda is here to stay and they don't have any interest in giving fans classic elements like proper dungeons, boss fights, or a story worth the page space it takes up.

Aounuma has taken everything that made Zelda compelling and his obsession with making the series a bland Ghibli movie with magitech and bad voice acting will hopefully kill it in the next ten years.

My personal favorite is Wind Waker even though that game has big flaws. Not enough fun nautical games. I hope they revisit the great sea and island concept one day with underwater explore though I expect that will never happen.

 

[pork and beans]

i havent played windwaker so i cant speak on it (although i love the art style) but im with you 100% on what you say about botw.

it had very little depth indeed, but it was so, so beautiful... and at first, pretty fun to play. I didnt get BOTW at launch, but i hadnt seen much of it apart from playing a couple of times at a friends house... and i was still mesmerized.

It seems that for some time now opions on TOTK have shifted, but i felt really crazy the first months after it came out. I DID get TOTK on launch and the period where mostly everyone was praising it and shutting down every criticism was insane lol. Then again, that probably happens with every hyped game.

I do think TOTK was so disappointing to me that I've kind of forgotten some of the grips i had with BOTW.

I know in hindsight this is a very lame thing to say, but I was very disappointed there wasn't any sort of post-game, especially because a lot of NPC´s do hint at what's next after defeating Ganon. The videogames I like most don't have any sort of post-game either, so I don't know why I expected one here, but I really did!
It's been almost five years since I beat the game and I still haven't forgotten, lol. I specifically remember some Gerudo NPCs talking about creating a special squad post ganon or whatever which got me all hyped to get to the end. I should've known it was just dialogue with no deeper meaning, but.

As well as the usual things everybody has said before, obviously, like the way every seemingly interesting quest leads to a shitty shrine or how the health sponge enemies coupled with the weapon-breaking make the combat tedious instead of hard.

Even then, though, I played a lot of BOTW when TOTK had come out and I hadn't been enjoying it, so I guess I am fond of it, warts and all. Can't say the same for the other one.

On the water thing you mention, I was SO sure TOTK would have underwater exploring because of the cave underground trailer. It always struck me as odd that you could swim in BOTW but not dive. God, TOTK had so much wasted potential. The caves could have been so cool if they weren't the same thing copypasted a bajillion times. And I will never understand the decision to make the cooler and biggest sky island the one in the TUTORIAL... That's just shooting yourself in the foot.

I know I'm not saying anything new here, but the cool thing about the plateau is that the first time playing it's incredible how big it is and then you realise the sheer magnitude of the rest of the map (even if it ends up being super shallow lol)...

 

[Mega Black]

it had very little depth indeed, but it was so, so beautiful... and at first, pretty fun to play. I didnt get BOTW at launch, but i hadnt seen much of it apart from playing a couple of times at a friends house... and i was still mesmerized.

I think BOTW is carried very hard by the serene atmosphere and sense of exploration. Despite the elements mostly being shallow, the stripped back nature of the game added to this sense of calm and open-ended exploration. It's comfy I guess. Very few games manage to make exploring the wilderness feel like you're actually out in the open but BOTW does. The map is empty, and yes your rewards are almost always a shrine, but at least those rewards feel like rewards and the zones that aren't filled in have a sense of mystery and ancient history that makes the world feel real, even if there's no tangible gameplay benefit to exploring them.

To contrast Tears is the worst of both worlds. Hyrule has more shit layered on top of it but it's all obnoxious copy and paste garbage where your rewards are fully cooked meals or ten rupees a pop. It feels very videogamey and half hearted which leads to the once empty but immersive world to be still pretty empty but full of immersion breaking crap like the same stupid asshole needing you to build something to hold up his sign 1000X.

was SO sure TOTK would have underwater exploring because of the cave underground trailer

So was I, it just felt like what would be a natural inclusion for a sequel that was meant to expand the Hyrule we already explored in interesting ways. But that would have necessitated actual effort on the part of the devs.

All in all it feels like Nintendo is mostly just five or six boomers more interested in playing with weird techband gameplay mechanics than they are doing something more conventional but better designed.

I can count the amount of contraptions I built and used on the game with one hand. It was a worthless mechanic but I felt like it took up most of the dev time.

 

[pork and beans]

Very few games manage to make exploring the wilderness feel like you're actually out in the open but BOTW does

Definitely. I like hiking and I was blown away at how similar some of the mountains and rocks in botw looked to mountains ive been in. It was so cool. And the birds, the skies, the grass, the trees, the way every section flows into the next, it was so cool. It was so realistic but so magical at the same time.

It feels very videogamey and half hearted which leads to the once empty but immersive world to be still pretty empty but full of immersion breaking crap like the same stupid asshole needing you to build something to hold up his sign 1000X.

One hundred times this lmfao. I felt so cheated by that guy.

I can count the amount of contraptions I built and used on the game with one hand.

Same.
And the sci-fi techy look couldve been cool if they fully commited to it, but it was a weird middleground- one that also retconned the sheikah lol. If i wanted actual high tech puzzles I'd just boot up Portal. At least then the puzzles would be good.

 

[Mega Black]

And the sci-fi techy look couldve been cool if they fully commited to it, but it was a weird middleground-

When they give Link a shotgun and have him run around a cyberpunk Hyrule I'll say they have balls. It was just lazy on their part.

 

[Another Random]

i just started playing oracle of seasons (is oracle of ages better?)

Ages and Seasons both take different directions for their designs, so this really is a matter of taste. Keep in mind that originally, the three games would be based around the Triforce/Deities, as seen in the Oracles being Din and Nayru, so the themes were actually Power, Wisdom, and Courage.

As such, Ages is a bit less combat-centric and relies less on normal Zelda bosses, while Seasons basically has all of the Zelda 1 bosses for the dungeons. It's also a little more gimmicky in a few ways, with puzzles like colored floors that you must walk in a specific order, or rolling dice blocks so they are in a hole in a specific color. If you ever played Link's Awakening GBC, it's got more puzzles like the Color Dungeon basically.

 

[pork and beans]

Thanks, thats unironically really helpful. Ages being less combat-centric sounds nice. This is my first time ever playing any 2d zelda, so im a total noob lol. I do like puzzles in games though

 

[pork and beans]

also hey sorry to doublepost but do you guys recommend A Link between worlds? whats your take on it?

 

[Kit Marz]

also hey sorry to doublepost but do you guys recommend A Link between worlds? whats your take on it?

I really enjoyed it. It's not one that I felt the need to return to, but it's a fun sequel to Link to the Past. The puzzles surrounding the wall ability were fun

 

[starborn427614]

also hey sorry to doublepost but do you guys recommend A Link between worlds? whats your take on it?

It's pretty good and the gimmick is well thought out.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Yea I think if they took out weapon durability, added some traditional gadgets/puzzles, removed the building and sheikah slate abilities, and put in real dungeons it would’ve helped immensely. I did the desert place first and genuinely got excited when I thought they had actual dungeons only to discover the place was fake and gay

Removing the weapon breaking, insta-game-break food reserves, and adding in some mother fucking dungeons would fix many of my issues with nuZelda. The story delivery formula via memory drops also has to fucking go. Open world games already suck at crafting tense stories without being gimped by the "everything must be open to the player" design. Throwing out all the superior lore including the importance of the golden goddesses was also a big fucking mistake (though skyward sword started it). Removing the pivotal >world-creating< triad and the dichotomy of Courage/Wisdom/Power and replacing them with basic bitch Hylia and studio ghibli Furries was utterly baffling to me.

Imagine Final Fantasy removing summons like Bahamut or Shiva or Tolkien removing Illuvatar... it would just be silly and retarded after franchises running for so long. Even if you are "reinventing a series", you Do Not Destroy The Building Blocks.

 

[Weltraumfürst]

Even if you are "reinventing a series", you Do Not Destroy The Building Blocks.

Which is my main issue with Breath of the Wild. No heart pieces, no green tunic, you cannot name Link, motherfucking voice acting. All staples of the series for 30 years and they threw them out all at once. There is reinventing a series, and then there is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

[Lurking Lulu]

onto another topic, though, which one is you kiwis favorite zelda game and why?

Wind Waker ever since I was a kid. I am a weirdo and enjoyed all the sailing and island exploring. It also has my favorite version of Ganondorf.

Skyward Sword for all of its faults has a special place in my heart. Ghirahim is (in my opinion) the best Zelda villain. Every scene with him is a treat and his duels are fun and difficult (at least for me). The final battle with Demise is so great. The first time I knocked him down and tried to do the downward stab I freaked out when he rolled out of the way at the last second. My arms hurt after killing him, but it felt like I earned that win.

I will continue to simp for Spirit Tracks. Zelda is now my favorite companion. She has so much personality and the interactions between Link and her are downright adorable. The final battle is also amazing. Besides the silliness of trains the only thing holding it back is getting wrist pain from the DS + stylus controls.

Also Hyrule Warriors gets an honorary mention. The original one, not whatever the BotW spin off one was. Being able to play as so many different characters is a blast. I even enjoyed its story with Lana and Cia. I also want to mention the skins you unlock for characters, and that one you get for Midna is her wearing the Ordon shield on her face. The only thing that bums me out is there is no reference to Minish Cap. I would have loved Vaati as a playable hero, but I'm guessing that because of Capcom it was not feasible.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Which is my main issue with Breath of the Wild. No heart pieces, no green tunic, you cannot name Link, motherfucking voice acting. All staples of the series for 30 years and they threw them out all at once. There is reinventing a series, and then there is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I found it funny that nuLink besides being a twink doesn't really get a heroic title of his own. OoT Link is the mother fucking Hero of Time, WW Link is the Hero of Winds, TP Link the Hero of Twilight. What is nuLink? If you look at his gear he's just "The Hero" like it's a generic placeholder. Since it's an open world series now, you can basically cheese your way into Hyrule Castle early and defeat the final boss without actually doing anything really heroic for the world at large. Another consequence of that design, it's more difficult to craft a meaningful "hero's journey".

 

[Mary the Goldsmith]

Forgive me if I already said it but, I'm still salty there were no Dodongos in Death Mountain, and the abscence of Guardians in TOTK makes the open world feel to safe to explore the phantom hands don't really serve as a replacement since they are very few and far between.
And there should have been Darknuts in Hyrule Castle, wielding Royal Guard weapons, marching around, and the ones equipped with a shield would be able to parry your blows that would have been cool.
I liked the Open World map but agree with the others that the dungeons should have been linear, the retarded "find 5 X to fight the boss" is retarded, completing puzzles to progress is the core of the series and even teh fucking Shrines do it so they can't even say that "everything had to be open world"