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The next Zelda should take a page from Metroid: OM's book
Editorial by 
(Editor)
March 02, 2010, 20:29
 
I'm sure you've read about how M:OM did away with floating missiles and power pellets (oops, wrong game) left behind by enemies that you have to pick up. This IMO is a good thing. It eliminates the need for farming and steamlines the game. Instead of standing next to a pit that spawns enemies to fill up your missiles, you just have to clear out a room of enemies (a challenge in itself) to catch a break and gain enough time to automatically fill them up. I guess in a way it's like the shield in Halo, except here you're not running for cover in order to recharge, instead you overcome the challenge each room represents before being able to enter the next one fresh.

Anyway, I think Zelda could stand to reevaluate why it does things the way it does. It seems to me there are a lot of vestigial conceits that are unnecessary in modern Zelda games, and the games would just be better if those conceits were done away with completely.

Having to pick up seeds or arrows, for instance. Honestly, did you ever run out of arrows in Twilight Princess? I don’t think I ever came close. I was, however, extremely disappointed every time I opened a chest that contained a bundle of them. Plus, if I were to come close to running out of them, having to break pots or cut grass to find more wouldn’t have been very fun. But my point is, if they’re so plentiful and you never run the risk of running out of them, why not make arrows flat out unlimited? Then the player wouldn’t have to deal with the disappointment of opening a chest full of them. AND sometimes I find the mere possibility that I might run out of them, as improbable as it is, prevents me from experimenting with them.

Because you see, even though I know I won’t run out of arrows, I will still avoid using the bow until I have to. So basically, all the arrow limit does is prevent me from using a fun item. Wouldn’t it be better if the game ENCOURAGED you to use the bow whenever you want instead, while taking care or not making it overpowered? I think so.

This rant is running a little long already, so I’ll briefly mention how the rupees in Twilight Princess seemed like a formality and nothing more. The game « rewarded » you with them all the time, but you have nothing to spend them on, so why have rupees at all? There were perhaps one or two meaningful items you could buy, but tell me what is more rewarding : finding some rupees and buying an item from a store, or going through a cleverly hidden, challenging cave and finding a cool item at the bottom?

Let’s do away with the obligatory collectathon while we’re at it. I don’t know why with the shift to 3D, Nintendo decided collecting 100 doodads to gain a bigger wallet was a fun thing to do. It’s not. Especially when the reward is so underwhelming and so completely useless at the point you finally get it. What happened to throwing a boomerang in a sacred pond and gaining a super boomerang in return? The latter felt like a cool discovery, the former feels only like tedious work.

The ideas above, IMO, can only be improvements. Implementing them wouldn’t change in any way what fundamentally makes a Zelda game, unlike some of the ideas I read like « Zelda should copy Oblivion’s overworld! ». They’d just be getting rid of conceits that have no place in modern Zelda games. If having to replenish your supply of arrows isn’t difficult enough to be meaningful, if collecting rupees is so easy and so pointless it isn’t meaningful, if killing 100 spiders or catching bugs is tedious and unrewarding, then get rid of those elements. Focus on making combat meaningful again. Focus on rewarding gamers for finding truly hidden secrets and completing actually challenging tasks.

Make Zelda better while preserving what it’s about.

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03/02/10, 20:29   Edited:  02/24/11, 23:06
 
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One man's tedium is another man's adventure.

Nothing in Wind Waker comes close to the tedium of forced Wolf sections for me.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 02:22
I don't know what to tell you. The fact that so many people genuinely love the sailing proves that its not tedious for them. Kind of like I find stamp collecting tedious, but others don't. Personally, I got bored of it rather quickly but it wasn't long till I got the teleportation ability so it wasn't a big deal to me.

The wolf is Link with very limited abilities and you're stuck on a boring fetch quest for bugs the whole time without the choice of going off to explore or do sidequests. That's the main problem.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 02:48
@Jargon

Naaaah man a lot of people hated sailing. I hated it.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 02:53
You're right. A lot of people hated sailing. I don't see how that clashes with anything I just said.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 02:56   Edited:  03/03/10, 03:40
Simbabbad said:
Well, if they had the same quality, I'd prefer Wind Waker. But Wind Waker's basic mechanics (sailing, the wind waker) are so tedious, I prefer Twilight Princess even though I like the story less, I like the visuals less, I like the characters less, I don't link adult Link, etc.

Oh my... What wondrous words! I couldn't agree more (to an extent).

@Pandareus

Regarding the topic at hand... I am most certainly in agreement with you with respect to the silly reward aspect of Twilight Princess. I can't tell you how many treasure chests I had to leave unclaimed simply because my maxed out wallet was full. I had nothing to spend my easily collected rupees on, as you mentioned being the case for yourself, and the feeling of opening a chest of ten rupees made the experience of treasure chest finding feel cheap. One of my favorite aspects of the Zelda series is leaning in the glowing chest with the cool little jingle, and finding a nifty trinket. While some of the effects are dampened with rupee chests, the thoughts are the same. You want something interesting out of them, not something useless to dampen the mood.

I am also in agreement with you in that I often times keep myself from utilizing items because I don't want to deplete my inventory - either because the replenishments are sparse or because I feel I may need to create a mini-stockpile just in case. In certain Zelda games arrow, bomb, and magic refills were iffy, but later in the series you grow a quick supply only to never really need to make use of what you've acquired. So while I'm not sure if I've arrived at the idea you were expressing in your mentioning of this, I would like to see a better balance in the next Zelda game.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 02:56   Edited:  03/03/10, 03:27
@Simbabbad

The wolf isn't "just link with different abilities" in the beginning. It's Link, with different abilities, forced on an extremely linear path, and having to use a mode that obscures everything and shows you a bread crumb trail to follow, and 3 sections of forced collectathon.

I'll take the sailing over it any day. While you're also forced on a linear path at the beginning, it opened up way quicker, it was beautiful to look at, and the mechanics of sailing were fun to me.

I liked TP a lot more past the first 10 hours, but I'd take all of WW's flaws before than first 10 hours of TP any day.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 03:02
I was split in the sailing. On the one hand, the longgggg sailing was tedius. On the other hand, it gave me time for quick bathroom breaks (lol). And I loved the feeling of this huge open overworld and secrets to find and everything.

I was split on the forced wolf stuff too. I didn't mind the "collect-a-thon" (and some areas had some clever mini-puzzles built into that part) but the wolf didn't really add much to the game either. It almost seemed like an arbitrary design choice, and arbitrary is NOT how Nintendo usually rolls.

Overall I enjoyed Twilight Princess more, but if Wind Waker had more dungeons I dunno...

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 07:33
Sailing was made to show off the best god damn gamecube TP camera can suck a dick 3D camera in gaming history.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 08:06
I always loved the sailing.

Not because it was fun, but because the music and scenery was just so epic.

Really made the mood of the game for me.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 13:49
I was really hoping for a Wind Waker sequel that took place on land. That little part of Hyrule you see looked so nice to me. I figured there was plenty of time for a realistic Zelda in the future, but that they probably wouldn't go back to the Wind Waker style if they ditched it after one game.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 14:14
@Jargon

The problem is that they did go back to the Wind Waker style, but on the DS. Look, I love the Wind Waker style, but it has no place on the DS. It can't do the style justice. Everything looks pixelated and crappy and anyone who says "realistic should stay on consoles, cel-shading on handheld" is a moron.

That said, I liked some of the improvements they made to sailing in Phantom Hourglass. Being able to use items while sailing and battle enemies was cool. I wasn't a huge fan of not being able to control the path without re-drawing it, but it did have some improvements. What they need to do is make it like Simba said, and allow you to use items while you sail.

The problem with your argument, Simba, is that it's the exact same thing as Epona was in Ocarina of Time. It's just a vehicle to get you somewhere, that limits your abilities. In OoT, you could only use your bow, but you generally didn't even have to because there were next to no enemies -- it just happened that the world was much smaller in scope, so you only had to ride for a short time. People claim they want a bigger world, but that was their main complaint about Wind Waker. In TP, you could use your sword and the horse combat was a bit improved, but I still prefer the boat. And I think they could improve the boat and make it much better than riding a horse.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 17:26
Well, in OOT, you have direct control over Epona, so it's not really the same thing.

I just think some people were happy to take a break from controlling and soak in the atmosphere, kind of like people do when they're really sailing.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 17:29
You don't have direct control over the boat in Wind Waker?

I guess you're referring to the wind. You're right about that I guess, but my point is that if we had a bigger world (like Wind Waker's) that was all land, and you had to ride a horse all that way, it would probably be boring too. I don't think the problem is entirely the sailing, though yes, changing the wind is a bit of a pain. It's also the fact that there's so much space between the destinations.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 17:33   Edited:  03/03/10, 17:38
The sailing in Wind Waker sucked, IMHO. I hated it. I hated the Fetch Quest, too. Wasn't a fan of the "kiddie-gloves/this-game-is-so-easy" difficulty either. And I've never been a fan of the art direction. I'm cool with cel-shading... I'm just not sure why Link has to look like a 4-year-old. The forced stealth section in the beginning of the game was crap, and the bosses weren't all that great either - I thought the final boss was a let-down... too easy. The scenery/location for that fight was sweet though.

On the other hand, I thought the music was terrific. The story was probably the most engaging one for me in a Zelda game since Link's Awakening. I like the parry-system in battle. I liked being able to pick up my enemies' dropped weapons and use them myself (even it was pointless). I like the various NPCs and the sense of humor the game had. The mini-games were pretty cool, too. And even though the final boss was disappointing overall, my jaw literally dropped when Link delivered the FINAL BLOW. That was bad-ass. Totally wasn't expecting that...!

Oh, and I'll admit, even though I'm not a fan of the art direction, there's no denying the fact that the bright, vibrant colors, distinct style and "flavor" of the presentation are far more timeless than any other game in the series. The Wind Waker is going to look as good as it did when it launched for much longer (maybe forever?) than pretty much any other game.

I have a love/hate relationship with Wind Waker, obviously. In contrast, I freakin' loved Phantom Hourglass. I don't know what that says about me, but there you have it.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 17:41
@rebonack

Maybe I'm misremembering the mechanics of sailing, actually. It's been too long since I've played. The sad part is I specifically brought it along with me to Venezuela, but we don't have a TV.

Personally, just riding around on the overworld with Epona is more fun than sailing around, just on a visceral level. Also having to balance your carrots and stuff, while obviously minor, makes riding more fun than riding around in say World of Warcraft, where its just exactly the same as walking but faster. Either way, be it boat or horse, Nintendo is wise enough to allow teleportation to cut down on the travelling time if/when you get bored.

I'd be very interested to see what Epona looks like cel-shaded. Another reason to root for a Wind Waker console sequel.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 17:56
@GameDadGrant
I agree with almost everything you said, except that I looooove the art direction of Wind Waker. I actually wish they had taken it in a much more cartoony, Tex Avery direction, like the first trailer. Man, I was so disappointed that Wind Waker played like a stiff Ocarina rehash, instead of the vibrant, fluid, pratfall-filled action/puzzle game that I thought we were getting. From the initial trailer, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted, cerebral spin on Prince of Persia/Indiana Jones, with Link swinging across chasms in the nick of time and triggering traps to defeat (or even just goose) enemies. Ironically, the swinging was one of the worst aspects of the game. The hookshot, in particular, pissed me off. When you threw it, it always went to that damn cutscene. And when you came back, the angle you had thrown it from wasn't even reflected in the motion! Bleah...

It shocks me that so many people like Wind Waker so much. It may be 'charming', or whatever, but I find it to be one of the least polished, most unbalanced, most padded, most mechanically flawed games that Nintendo (certainly EAD) has ever made. I don't remember TP having a 'slow' beginning in the slightest (it actually really grabbed me, starting right from the introduction to Link's village, with the variety of target practice, sumo, herding, that weird monkey temple, the wolf sections, etc.), but getting lost in that big stealth-driven castle at the beginning of Wind Waker was NO FUN. And then you had to go back. Bleah. So much tedium in that game.

Anyway, I did love the art style, right from the get go, but we will never get it on console again, sadly. Too much bitching from the good ol' US of A.

@rebonack
I really love riding Epona. It's fun. Especially when you can take on enemies on horseback. I really wish Twilight Princess had a huuuuuge land to tromp around in, with tons of little fences and crags and chasms to jump and elevation changes to navigate. So does my nephew. He loves steering the horse, but there aren't many wide-open fields, so he usually gets kind of frustrated.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 18:11   Edited:  03/03/10, 18:55
@anandxxx

I've seen a lot of scorn for the sneaking around in the tower, but I had no problem with it. It wasn't amazing or anything but it was pretty fun. And the fact that you came back was pretty much a plot device to show how much you've grown as a warrior since the beginning.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 18:35
anandxxx said:
@GameDadGrant
I agree with almost everything you said, except that I looooove the art direction of Wind Waker. I actually wish they took it in a much more cartoony, Tex Avery direction, like the first trailer. Man, I was so disappointed that Wind Waker played like a stiff Ocarina rehash, instead of the vibrant, fluid, pratfall-filled action/puzzle game that I thought we were getting. From the initial trailer, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted, cerbral spin on Prince of Persia/Indiana Jones, with Link swinging across chasms in the nick of time and triggering traps.


You know what? I'd LOVE to play that game. Sounds fun!

anandxxx said:
Ironically, the swinging was one of the worst aspects of the game. The hookshot, in particular, pissed me off. When you threw it, it always went to that damn cutscene. And when you came back, the angle you had thrown it from wasn't even reflected in the motion! Bleah...

I think you mean the Grapple Hook (since the Hookshot in that game worked like it does in every other Zelda) - but yeah, I agree. Swinging should have been much more fluid and seamless. Kinda like how the Snake-Whip was used in Spirit Tracks. Quick, intuitive, and works the way you'd think it should. And no damn cutscene.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 18:36   Edited:  03/03/10, 18:37
@Jargon
I dunno. I pretty much despise stealth. Especially half-assed 'stealth elements'. A couple of screens in Ocarina? Acceptable. A whole damned castle at the beginning of a Zelda game? HELL NO.

The only stealth game that I ever really enjoyed was the first Manhunt. That game doesn't get enough credit.

GameDadGrant said:
You know what? I'd LOVE to play that game. Sounds fun!

I know, right?! That initial trailer hyped me to hell and back. While (almost) everyone else was whining, I just kept watching it with a big smile on my face, imagining the possibilities of a Zelda that fully rejected realism in favor of inspired lunacy. In the end, it was just a really pretty Ocarina with a boat.

I did mean the Grapple Hook.

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 18:53   Edited:  03/03/10, 18:56
Sailing was tedious as all hell for many reasons.
Obviously, the time it took to get from one place to another is a major reason. Even after getting the warp song you had to equip your Wand, sing the song, do the correct directions while waiting for the beat, changing the wind direction, equip your stupid sail (perhaps the most annoying thing of all to me), make sure you're pointing the boat in the right direction and make damn sure you don't want to veer off or you'll have to do the song again and readjust the wind's direction. All this just to get somewhere...anywhere. And if this somewhere wasn't easy to reach on the map than it'd be even more tedious. To sail comfortably you have to sacrifice two items for your wand and sail, which was annoying as all shit every time you stepped out of the boat and onto a piece of land and had to re-equip whatever you actually want to use. The sailing is tedious because of the time it took and how poorly it was balanced. I fail to see how the Wolf segments in TP compare to any of this.

Also, I could never remember what was where. You have 50 different islands on the damn map, some of which you have to zoom into just to see. Then, it's a guessing game to find out which island is which. Uh, Dead Man's Reef? Mother Sister Island? Father Daughter Island? Come ON. If anyone here remembers the islands and can distinguish them well I applaud you, but I simply cannot do it.

The sailing completely ruined the game for me. WW would me much higher on my list if it had a regular overworld. The dungeon's were fantastic and some of the series' best. The actual islands themselves were quite well designed except for the fact that they were islands. When I got to Hyrule proper I said to myself "damn, all that shit in the background is what I want to see".

Edit: Let's not forget you had to have bait and find the Man fish just to IDENTIFY the islands. Also! He gives you tips which are IMPOSSIBLE to remember. IMPOSSIBLE! There's a manfish for EVERY square on the map!! EACH one tells you a new secret/clue. Now what if you forget the secret he told you? You'd have to go back and find the EXACT fish which told you said secret. Fuck that.
I really do love Wind Waker as much as I complain about it, but the sailing aspects were just horribly broken. More proof that even in a great game, Nintendo can make horrible mistakes (which is why I'm so damn scared of M:OM).

Posted by 
 on: 03/03/10, 23:04   Edited:  03/03/10, 23:36
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