The Legend of Zelda

[Operation Awesome]

"Most ambitious Zelda to date."
Oh, you mean like that other one. You know, that one other Zelda that was real ambitious.

Seams possibly neat, though I will remain Cautiously Optimistic.

>"Cautiously Optimistic"
>fucking ZELDA


what is even with that qualifier there

[wordNumber]

Skyward Sword was a decent game, but in retrospect didn't live up to my expectations, and ultimately suffered from a condescending, encroaching tutorial system, and heavy linearity. I Don't want to be let down as I was, so I'm saying, "Yeah, it'll probably be good and fun, but I won't assume that it's breaking too much ground and just take what I get, rather then settle for something that didn't live up too my expectations."


e: Don't get me wrong, SS is still great fun, but it had problems, and some things let me down, or just struck me as poor decisions. I'm going into this game knowing that for everything good it does, it probably won't be perfect, and that's fine by me, as long as it's enjoyable.

[YCobb]

My only real complaint with Skyward Sword was that the areas were so separate. (Though I haven't beaten the game, maybe it gets worse)
I'd expect Nintendo to at least notice that that didn't work well, so I'd say this game will probably at least beat SS.

[Lordy]

That was because of console limitations, if I remember correctly.

[Kamak]

Skyward Sword was a decent game, but in retrospect didn't live up to my expectations, and ultimately suffered from a condescending, encroaching tutorial system, and heavy linearity. I Don't want to be let down as I was, so I'm saying, "Yeah, it'll probably be good and fun, but I won't assume that it's breaking too much ground and just take what I get, rather then settle for something that didn't live up too my expectations."


e: Don't get me wrong, SS is still great fun, but it had problems, and some things let me down, or just struck me as poor decisions. I'm going into this game knowing that for everything good it does, it probably won't be perfect, and that's fine by me, as long as it's enjoyable.

The tutorial was a hell of a lot better and more streamlined/didn't make you feel like you were just doing a tutorial than TP. I mean, 3+ hours of tutorial bullshit with characters you're "supposed" to care about made me not give the slightest fuck about what was going on.

And while SS was linear, the locations weren't. A lot of the time, I'd just wander around aimlessly to explore, and I think SS excelled at giving us places that were gorgeous and enticing us to look into them deeper. Twilight princess suffered from the "Bigger is better" mentality, and as such, most of the world isn't worth exploring. Sure you might ind hidden grottos in Hyrule Field, but who wants to find it in such a massive boring place?

I think SS is definitely one of my favorite Zelda games, maybe below WW and ALttP, but probably above or tied with OoT.

My only real complaint with Skyward Sword was that the areas were so separate. (Though I haven't beaten the game, maybe it gets worse)
I'd expect Nintendo to at least notice that that didn't work well, so I'd say this game will probably at least beat SS.

They wanted a way to connect all of the places that was supposed to be a plot centric place (maybe the Sealed Grounds was supposed to be there?)> It was supposed to be an area of it's own, a 4th region just as big as the others, but hardware prevented them from doing it, and they figured it would take forever to load a new area when you left. They could at least hide loading screens when you dive into an area, but walking out of a cave into the forest wouldn't cover it.

Anyways, SS did have its flaws (though it was a daisies fine Zelda game, which is saying something), but I'm hoping taking a crack at the same style with a larger team and a more powerful console will result in an even better game.

[DoNotDelete]

I didn't get the need for that bit in TP either - if that first part was meant to make me give a daisies about Ilia and those other kids it really didn't work.

I liked TP for its gothic-ness, but I don't get the need for Zelda games to be so heavy on superficial story when all I really want to do is explore and discover stuff by accident.

Wind Waker wasn't really to my tastes though - I got to Ganon's fortress/whatever but didn't finish it - and I still haven't bothered myself to finish Skyward Sword either.

It's like when these games hit the hi-res graphics period beyond OoT they lost something (probably because the developers lost their focus about what made the games of the past so great - i.e. not graphics, redundant side-characters or rubbish storylines).

[Syobon]

Do you mean the first time you get to the Forsaken Fortress in WW DND? That's too bad, the best part is after that.

[Kamak]

In other news...

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. I missed the one in Austin because of family bullshit and was really disappointed, but now there's gonna be one in San Antonio!

Fucking yes!

[DoNotDelete]

Do you mean the first time you get to the Forsaken Fortress in WW DND? That's too bad, the best part is after that.

I guess so - it was the Fortress at the Bottom of the Great Sea or whatever.

I just got tired of it at that point - like I just completely lost interest in Skyward Sword when I finally got into that cloaked ship in the desert.

I saved my game inside that dungeon - and just never went back to it - which is bad really; I mean I should be excited to be exploring a new dungeon, right?

[Kamak]

That was my favorite Dungeon of SS. It was a bit simple, but I mean, the game forces you to walk through the entire dungeon first, then fight the Captain, then work through the dungeon with timeshifting and sniping pirate bokoblins.

Something about it really gelled with me.

[Syobon]

Ah, that's the final dungeon in WW I think. That one isn't very memorable so I guess you didn't miss out on much. Although I thought the black and white thing was pretty nifty. The last boss fight is awesome too.

[Madican]

I think one thing I don't particularly like about the Zelda games are the claims that it has exploration. It really, really doesn't. What it does have are little paths you can only reach with a particular item which you don't have yet. So you have to remember to come back later. That's not exploration, that's more like a fetch quest.

[Kamak]

Exploration used to be a thing in the Zelda games. Mainly in the 2D ones. ALttP had tons of exploration, things off the beaten path, OPTIONAL items. Hell, that's how you get things like the Golden Bee and the Ice Rod.

and in Link's Awakening's case, exploration was needed because the game didn't tell you exactly how to find everything. You could talk to the old man on the phone for a hint, but actually finding what he meant resulted in a bit of hunting for the key to the next dungeon. But that was more of a "not telling you what to do = exploration = making the game longer"

[DoNotDelete]

Awakening was probably my favourite Zelda, but OoT had a sense of 'completion' to it.

[Winchester]

I feel bad for this but...I really hated Skyward Sword. I don't think it was a bad game (which yeah that sounds really hypocritical), but man it just was not a good Zelda game for me.

The first thing that immediately bothered me was the difference between the way the official art looked (which is gorgeous) and the way the game actually looks; I kept thinking they were two different art styles. I guess maybe the difference was because of hardware limitations? I don't usually care about graphics too much, but I found SS's to be a disappointment. Idk, maybe I'm being nitpicky.

I also really hated the heavy linearity of where you could go, and the really weak sidequests. Before SS came out, I remember reading somewhere (I believe it was from an interview, with whom I don't remember) that there was going to be sidequests similar to the ones in Majora's Mask. I also read that the reason the overworld was divided the way it was, was to make the whole game feel like one big dungeon. One thing I loved about the Zelda series was when you completed a dungeon and returned to the overworld, it felt like such a huge relief and it gave a sense of completion. I never got that from SS and I think that was a big reason I felt stressed throughout.

But the biggest thing for me was that I felt bored and frustrated through the entire game. I replayed through it recently, and I gave up at the third time you battle The Imprisoned because holy shit do I hate those fights. They are not fun, they are very stressful, and I just dreaded them so much. At this point I realized that the feelings I have towards The Imprisoned battles were a stronger version of how I felt towards the game as a whole. In fact, the first time I played through the game, I didn't even beat Demise. Playing SS just felt like a chore.

There were moments I loved, yes, like Groose is one of my favorite characters in the series and I loved Faron Woods, but those were just a few bright spots in a game I overall found to be deeply unpleasant.

I want to like SS, and I feel envious towards those who do love it, but I don't think I'll be playing through it again.
(oh man my writing skills suck haha I've really gotten rusty. I feel like this is a weak opinion on SS oh god)