So, Chrisbg99 and I were talking last night about Skyward Sword and how I was going to mention in my future review of it how I actually liked Twilight Princess.

He told me that contrary to the loudmouths that dislike TP, it was really well-received, it's just the vocal fans that dislike it.

But now I'm starting to see people comment with 'TP is the most underrated Zelda game' on videos of the Medley of TP from the 25th Anniversary Soundtrack.

And that got me thinking... doesn't this always happen?

I mean, every time there is a console Zelda released, we have these fans who say, 'It will never be as good as OoT', and then afterwards, when the next console Zelda releases, it ends up becoming an underdog in a few fans' eyes, and eventually starts to get it's own loving fanbase.

It happened with Majora's Mask
It happened with Wind Waker
and I'm starting to see it happen with Twilight Princess.

Then there are the fans that just want the 'next OoT', but really... there won't be another OoT. So those fans' expectations are always shot no matter what you give them.

What are your thoughts on this?

Reminder: This is about OoT ruining/saving the fanbase, not the franchise.

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Simbabbad said:

The dialogue from the Skyloft sidequest dispensers is horrid. They stand there with no conversation repeating their objective again and again without any context, tens of hours before you can do anything about it. Terrible design.

I get the point that you're trying to make, and perhaps I'm horribly misremembering Majora's Mask, but didn't the dialog of the townsfolk (and just about every other NPC) repeat every time you turned back the clock ad-nauseum?

@Hinph

I'd be all about Retro trying their hand at the Zelda franchise. Nintendo's farmed it out before (to Capcom), so it's believable.

Yeah... Capcom worked out pretty well. I mean, the guy who directed the games over at Capcom is the very same guy who directed Skyward Sword.

Nintendo should just go ahead and rename Retro to EAD Austin.

I adored Skyward Sword, screw you guys. The segmented sections reminded me of Corruption too while playing, and I liked it. I liked it in Corruption and I like it here. I personally would've preferred more towns and more NPCs to interact with, but what can you do. It's a personal gripe, I don't think the game is worse because of it. From a gameplay standpoint it makes for a lot more puzzle-solving, combat, and just quality, pure gameplay overall, even outside of dungeons. I liked that dynamic, and I thought this game has the least filler out of any Zelda game, at least after the beginning portions.

If you guys want to forget about gameplay and think about the "experience", it makes sense here too - this is the first game in the timeline. "Hyrule" doesn't exist yet. It's just a bunch of natural landscapes filled with monsters and a few friendly creatures here and there. You don't get to explore a fully connected world because there isn't any. The only real population that exists is in the sky, which is why the "surface" is such a mystery to them. And Link just dives down to random spots of the surface, and he finds what he finds. I actually felt like this was a very ancient land while playing, filled with nothingness outside of random architecture and weird creatures, and I liked it.

If you prefer a Zelda game with more characters to meet, towns to see, side-quests to do, and just more genuine exploring overall, that's fine, but you shouldn't knock Skyward Sword because it isn't that. It's not an inferior experience by any means.

also, Zelda by Retro = WANT. WANT SO MUCH. I DON'T THINK I CAN WANT ANY MORE THAN I ALREADY WANT

"Loudmouths," huh?

I guess you can't speak out against anything anymore.
So long, Free Speech! Yay, Totalitarianism!

Well maybe I should clarify...even though SS isn't quite the Zelda I want to see in the future, it's still amazing. Amazing concepts, music, great visuals despite some dated graphics technology. I didn't put like 50 hours into the game because I didn't like it, haha.

I just like talking about Zelda and where I'd like to see the series go.

I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't think Zelda has ever had a problem. I don't feel it needs saving and I certainly don't fear it's in any danger of being ruined.

I like the OoT structure. I like the NES structure. I like the LttP structure. I like the SS structure. I like the MM structure.

If Zelda Wii U plays like SS, I'll be happy. If it plays like a modern day version of NES Zelda, I'll be happy. If it plays like OoT/Wind Waker/Twilight Princess....I'll be happy.

I adore Skyward Sword for going in a different direction. It's super linear, yes. I don't care. The first NES game is incredibly non-linear. I love that too.

As long as the series remains FUN to me, they can go in any direction they please.

This post definitely makes me sound like a total Zelda fanboy. Oh well, it's probably true.

For the record, I don't think Mario or Metroid have ever needed saving either. I love Other M and I love Super Mario Sunshine.

OrbitalBeard said:

As long as the series remains FUN to me, they can go in any direction they please.

This post definitely makes me sound like a total Zelda fanboy. Oh well, it's probably true.

For the record, I don't think Mario or Metroid have ever needed saving either. I love Other M and I love Super Mario Sunshine.

Yes yes yes!

While I didn't enjoy Other M as much as the Prime's, I did feel it was worth my time and money. Sunshine is indeed great. And I've loved every Zelda they've released except... for AoL but that's subjectively my issue.

I think a few people are missing one key word in the title.

I said fanbase,

NOT franchise.

@Zero

I think the thing with Ocarina of Time is, and maybe this is just me, but I spent hours upon hours just exploring all of the areas in OoT. And I think a lot of that was because it was the first, true 3D adventure game I had played at the time. Even if the exploration aspect was fruitless in a lot of ways, it was something that you just wanted to do. Even if 9/10 times in OoT, you messed around in an area only to find nothing of note, that 1/10 times that you found a secret, it was really satisfying. Again, at the time. I think there are a lot of things about Ocarina of Time, where it benefits from being the first 3D Zelda...I keep waiting for another game, particularly a Zelda game, that revisits those feelings I had when first playing OoT back in the day, but I'm not sure that game is ever going to come along. Metroid Prime 1 & 2 came close, though, from anything that's come out since.

You are right about Wind Waker and Twilight Princess going bigger in the overworld department, but my biggest gripe with TP is basically what you stated about Wind Waker. In a lot of respects, it's a bigger OoT. There really wasn't a whole lot going on in the game, despite the scale and scope. In a lot of respects, exploration was just as fruitless here as in WW or OoT; there's just a lot more to explore in WW and TP, it's just more space but doesn't really add a whole lot of value. Even with Majora's Mask's pretty basic overworld, the fact that everything was condensed made it feel like a lot more was going on. It wasn't so much exploration, but seeking out different things to do or find in an area that was pretty predictable and familiar on the surface. And I think that's made MM a much stronger game. There was a lot of "Oh, I didn't know this would happen if I went here at this time" and so on.

I'm with you, I'd rather see a better overworld than what the 3D Zelda games have offered, but until they can get it right with a world the size of TP (that ended up being largely empty), I would take the MM style over it, in a heart beat. Although I haven't done the side stuff in SS yet, everything does feel a lot more condensed.

I think one possible direction for the series would be to have significant areas that you don't visit in the main storyline. And I don't mean random islands in the ocean or sky, but like, something like the Lost Woods or Death Mountain. More towns that have a lot of stuff to do. It would make the after-main-adventure stuff feel a lot more fulfilling. And like @PogueSquadron mentioned, maybe do away with the whole "forest over here, fire over here, snow over here, field connecting everything", etc. and make everything feel more unified. And I don't necessarily mean do this for every Zelda game in the future, but I wouldn't mind a Zelda game where a lot of the areas fall under a more consistent theme rather than ranging all over the place. It does feel too disjointed and still very "game-y" at this stage. I'd like to see Zelda be less like Mario Galaxy, where they show no restraint over level design and throw whatever the heck they want in the game as long as its fun and unique.

@TriforceBun

I think Pogue and I and others really liked what Nintendo did in the Lanayru area. It's definitely the standout area of the game. It's the fact that the other areas were a lot less creative by comparison, that was readily apparent.

@Simbabbad

Yeah, I totally get what you are saying. I haven't done any of the side stuff in SS yet, so I'll reserve judgment in that regard, but you're spot on with Majora's Mask. As awesome as Twilight Princess's main adventure was, I was left pretty disappointed when I finished playing it, because it fell so, so, so far short of what was achieved with Majora's Mask. The majority of the characters in TP, their sole existence, seemed to be to stand around waiting for Link to come up and talk to them. Completely different from MM, where you felt like part of something dynamic, rather than the sole attraction of everybody. Everything felt a lot more natural, and again, this was a game that came out 11 years ago now. It really should have become a standard for the series, but it's pretty apparent that gameplay and dungeon design is the sole driving force right now. It's fun, and ultimately leads to a very good gaming experience nonetheless, but emotionally I felt very detached from everything that went on in Twilight Princess.

In a lot of ways, Eiji Aonuma has become the Rivers Cuomo of video games.

@TheBigG753 I can admit that maybe I had higher expectations for what 3D was capable of than video games were able to pull off at the time. I didn't really follow the industry back then and I didn't know much about tech limitations and yada yada. I also had this sort of strange reaction where I assumed the PS1 was pulling off all of these amazing games with amazingly rich worlds because people kept telling me how dumb I was to have bought an N64 instead of a PS1, so I naturally assumed that PS1 had a bunch of uber impressive 3D games (I later found out how wrong I was with that assumption) and I had no idea that when Ocarina of Time debuted there was truly nothing else of that polish and scope out there at the time. I also felt like Super Mario 64 really nailed something that Ocarina of Time did not, but I guess they were really two very different games.

All I knew is that I went from the 2D Zelda games which felt super tight and exploration-focused to me (as Super Mario 64 felt) to Ocarina of Time which just had a lot of open space yet somehow managed to feel super linear. And I know a lot of people specifically liked the fact that there was all of this open space, but I found it kind of boring, to be honest. Hyrule Field is often cited as this technological marvel, whereas I just found it tedious to travel across all the time. And I really, really didn't like the idea of a single hub connecting everything, I wanted options in where I explored.

So maybe if I knew the history of 3D gaming and such I would have recognized what Ocarina of Time accomplished at the time (as I do now), but would I have enjoyed the game any more with this knowledge? Possibly not. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, I just felt a bit let down was all.

TheBigG753 said:

I think one possible direction for the series would be to have significant areas that you don't visit in the main storyline. And I don't mean random islands in the ocean or sky, but like, something like the Lost Woods or Death Mountain. More towns that have a lot of stuff to do. It would make the after-main-adventure stuff feel a lot more fulfilling. And like @PogueSquadron mentioned, maybe do away with the whole "forest over here, fire over here, snow over here, field connecting everything", etc. and make everything feel more unified.

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the significant non main storyline part. Nintendo is more and more with Mario creating a game that has a ton of content, including entirely new areas, that isn't required to see the credits. Why not with Zelda as well? This would require a bit of non-linear exploration involved too, such that you would be exploring the world knowing that you might unlock a totally new area to mess around in. Twilight Princess had a small bit of this going on, but I'd like to see a lot more.

@Zero

True, I definitely understand your perspective on it. OoT was the first Zelda game I played, and since I really enjoyed it, that kinda became the benchmark for what I wanted/expected from Zelda. Obviously, I probably would have a different take on it if I had started with LTTP or some of the other earlier games.

I'm sort of in the same position when discussing the merits of old school RE against people who got into the series with RE4 and think that should be the gold standard...not entirely the same because the Zelda genre didn't change entirely, but it's an intriguing parallel.

OrbitalBeard said:

I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't think Zelda has ever had a problem. I don't feel it needs saving and I certainly don't fear it's in any danger of being ruined.

I like the OoT structure. I like the NES structure. I like the LttP structure. I like the SS structure. I like the MM structure.

If Zelda Wii U plays like SS, I'll be happy. If it plays like a modern day version of NES Zelda, I'll be happy. If it plays like OoT/Wind Waker/Twilight Princess....I'll be happy.

I adore Skyward Sword for going in a different direction. It's super linear, yes. I don't care. The first NES game is incredibly non-linear. I love that too.

As long as the series remains FUN to me, they can go in any direction they please.

This post definitely makes me sound like a total Zelda fanboy. Oh well, it's probably true.

For the record, I don't think Mario or Metroid have ever needed saving either. I love Other M and I love Super Mario Sunshine.

Post of the year. Couldn't agree more. Bravo. But I don't like Sunshine lol. Don't HATE it either, but I'd rather we have less Mario's like that.

@OrbitalBeard

@carlosrox

Again guys, the original post is about the fanbase.

NOT the franchise.

I never said Zelda had a problem or needed to change, it was those other people posting here who brought that up.

Yeah...that's probably my fault. I think I got off on a tangent at some point. Sorry!

Anywho, I think as time goes on, Ocarina won't be held to the status that some people still hold it to, and people are less and less inclined to proclaim that it's the greatest game ever made. I think we've already seen a lot of people start changing their tune about that, especially after seeing 3 games do a LOT of things that Ocarina did, but better (at least from a technical perspective).

I think more than anything, NINTENDO has to realize that they can't keep trying to remake Ocarina of Time, and that simply trying to do everything Ocarina does but "better" won't necessarily make it a better game. They can't just keep chasing the ghost of that game, and I think in many ways, they've finally been able to 'exorcise that demon' with Skyward Sword. They've stated as such in many interviews, where they felt like they were trying to remake OoT ever since it came out, and that they wanted to get away from it.

HOWEVER, I do think that they still have a lot of Ocarina on the brain, and that in some ways, this has actually held the series back a little bit.

Perhaps the fanbase constantly refers back to Ocarina of Time because on the whole, the other 3D Zelda games really aren't THAT much different. Like @TheBigG753 said, Skyward Sword is essentially Ocarina of Time 5 in many ways. While SS does many, many new things that we haven't seen in the franchise, the core gameplay still very much feels like an evolution of what was found in Ocarina of Time.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but unless Nintendo rehauls the Z-Targeting/combat/camera system and/or reinvents the puzzle solving paradigm and/or significantly overhauls the way you progress through the game, I think that comparison to OoT will always be there. If this was a science experiment, I guess you'd view OoT as the "standard," while the other 3D games introduce variables to that standard.

Paleo_Orca said:

I think a few people are missing one key word in the title.

I said fanbase,

NOT franchise.

Ooooooooh... Oh.

@OrbitalBeard

Well I think the "problems" with Zelda, if you want to call them that, basically boil down to the series stagnating in some ways, regressing in others and only growing incrementally while other series are taking larger strides even if they're not on Zelda's level as a cohesive whole.

Simba's point about the narrative is spot on.

If current me could travel back to the point in time where I put down the controller after 100%ing Majora's Mask on my first playthrough and tell past me, "In 2011 Zelda's characters will be less interesting than they were in A Link to the Past" I wouldn't have believed myself. But it's true. There's more life in the first walkthrough of Kakariko Village in LttP than there is in all I've seen of Skyward Sword. People tending to their lawns, someone I can't catch yet, stuff in houses that's obviously out of reach, you name it. It's all there, right away, from jump street. Skyloft LOOKS like it has a lot more going on, but it doesn't. And unless shit with the map changes, there's more to do in Kakariko than there is in the entire "overworld" of Skyward Sword.


If current me could travel back to the point in time where I put down the controller after 100%ing Majora's Mask on my first playthrough and tell past me, "In 2011 Zelda's story will be less interesting than A Link to the Past" I wouldn't have believed myself. But it's true. Majora's Mask is one of those rare games where the story is not only quality but it's unique to the medium. You could NOT tell that story as effectively any other way. And it also succeeds in a way that few other games do... it gives based on what it gets. The player can ignore tons of optional content and quests and still complete the game. No harm, no foul. But if you dig and work, the game rewards you in spades with humor, emotional content, gameplay goodies, background information and pushes you towards the "real" ending. It's fucking awesome. Skyward Sword has regressed to 8 bit levels of storytelling. Your goal is always just out of reach for no cogent reason other than that's what the game needs.

If current me could travel back to the point in time where I put down the controller after beating Ocarina of Time and tell past me, "In 2011, the last 2 portable Zelda's and one console Zelda will barely have anything that qualifies as overworlds or allow for meaningful exploration" I wouldn't have believed myself. But it's true. Wind Waker's overworld was a harbinger of doom. Big, boring with almost nothing to do between goals, a minimum of control and almost no true exploration to speak of. And with the exception of Twilight Princess, this has only gotten much, much worse. Aside from that? You land in the first surface area and are told to dowse for Zelda. Why? There is only ONE direction to go! Why am I being directed to go to the ONLY place I could POSSIBLY go? It's ridiculous. And then I need to look for the little creatures, and again, I'm told to dowse. Why? The area they're in can be completely explored in less than 10 minutes. Nothing to explore, nowhere to get lost. The first dungeon? No path but the critical one. Yes, it's the first dungeon. That doesn't change the fact that the Level 1 in LoZ is more interesting to explore than the first dungeon in Skyward Sword. Dramatically so.

Despite all this, the game is still fun. But unlike 1998, the console adventure game scene isn't a one horse town. And while there may not be one SINGLE game that gels as much as Zelda does (great music, colorful world, good gameplay) there are absolutely games that do individual things MUCH better. The swordplay in Skyward Sword is awesome. The music is incredible. But in a series that used to thrive on adventure, exploration and legend? The world and characters in which that swordplay happens and that music is played has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY less interesting since Majora's Mask. And that is a fucking shame.

I've noticed that many people hang onto a certain entry when 'defining' what a series should be (usually one of the early ones). That's especially true for Zelda (and Zelda). I can understand people's gripes with certain aspects of Twilight Princess. I just don't care, personally. I can understand what they love about Wind Waker. I love that stuff, too. But those particular aspects are lower-priority, for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Where the fuck is my Zelda II sequel?

As for the topic, I never reached 100% synchronization with Ocarina, so my perspective is somewhat different. For me, Twilight Princess mostly achieved my vision of what I wanted from Ocarina, in terms of overall... smoothness? And after Nintendo refined and polished that approach, they went Skyward. That works for me.

Simbabbad said:

The truth is Nintendo is switching their franchises toward the linear, popcorn game model. They started it with Twilight Princess, they tried it with Other M, and they finally did it with Skyward Sword. The problem is, the competition simply does it leagues better.

Agreed. And despite (still) really enjoying their games, I don't think this trend is going to stop. Because the games that fit into that "popcorn" category sell the most. Twilight Princess is one of the highest-selling games in the franchise, and one of Nintendo's best selling-games period. Skyward Sword is on track for that, too. Games like NEW Super Mario Bros. Wii outsold both Mario Galaxy games (individually), and that game is about as linear as they come. The only "outlier" is Samus's latest adventure, but Other: M's narrative/story hasn't really deterred its sales. It still sold on par to what other Metroid games sold. So yeah, Nintendo ain't gonna stop.

And apparently, the audience lapping it up (myself included, admittedly) doesn't seem to mind. The competition (whoever those may be) may do things better, but few games sell as well as Nintendo's. And so long as Nintendo sees the money rolling in, we all know they are going to stay the course. As a business, why wouldn't they?

As for me, the jury is still out on whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or moot point. *shrugs*

@GameDadGrant

There's no reason to expect it to stop. Why bother crafting a game where the world is cohesive, the characters are compelling and the narrative is meaningful? The game is still fun, critically acclaimed and will sell by the truckload despite the fact that the "overworld" is basically the equivalent of a map selection screen (except you can't just select a destination, you have to fly there to pad the length of the game), not a single character has anything interesting to say and the plot is almost identical to the original Super Mario Bros.?

I mean shit, I'm saying this and I bought the game and am enjoying it. I'll probably buy the next one, too; there's enough there to pull me in.

How the hell is TP popcorn? Just cuz MM forced itself to be slow, boring, and repetitive (probably to artificially lengthen the game as others have accused of WW and SS), it doesn't mean the games after have become COD or GOW.

I find MM praise hilarious.