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I'M JUST GONNA LEAVE THIS HERE WITHOUT MUCH FURTHER COMMENT.
Posts
kentona
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CloseOkay, I got around to skimming the article... what a baby. And one man's "open world" is another man's "unfocused mess".
In a nutshell, I agree with this statement:
And Zelda 2 was awesome.
In a nutshell, I agree with this statement:
LockeZ'New tools acquired -> New areas open up' is pretty much the crux of Zelda games, imho.
I'm not sure this is actually true. The core thing of the Zelda series as far as I can tell, the thing that makes it Zelda to me, is the tools. While obviously you can add more roaming than exists in most of them, there have to be places that you can't get without the hookshot and the bombs and the bow and the fire rod and all the other tools. There have to be a pretty good number of them for those tools to have any meaning.
And Zelda 2 was awesome.
prexus
309
I agree that Tools are what makes Zelda games, well, Zelda games. It can be handled in different ways, though.
Right now, it seems as though developers decided on a linear development. The tools you get in one dungeon are used/required there, and may later add flavour to other dungeons and boss fights. You get every item in order. Boomerang -> Dungeon 1, Bombs -> Dungeon 2, etc. and it alls flows linearly.
This is an area of complaint. You may as well have all the tools available, all the time, and just put keycards in the dungeons that require you to go to one room (get the tool) and backtrack to an old door (use the tool to progress.) Aside from the Out-of-Dungeon experience, tools are never needed before they are required.
uh I started writing a whole bunch of crap about this but realized I was kind of rambling and its not all necessarily well thought out but I left it incomplete in case anyone wanted to read it but don't quote me on it or use it in discussion unless you can further rationalize the points.
Right now, it seems as though developers decided on a linear development. The tools you get in one dungeon are used/required there, and may later add flavour to other dungeons and boss fights. You get every item in order. Boomerang -> Dungeon 1, Bombs -> Dungeon 2, etc. and it alls flows linearly.
This is an area of complaint. You may as well have all the tools available, all the time, and just put keycards in the dungeons that require you to go to one room (get the tool) and backtrack to an old door (use the tool to progress.) Aside from the Out-of-Dungeon experience, tools are never needed before they are required.
uh I started writing a whole bunch of crap about this but realized I was kind of rambling and its not all necessarily well thought out but I left it incomplete in case anyone wanted to read it but don't quote me on it or use it in discussion unless you can further rationalize the points.
The Out-of-Dungeon experience seems to be the sore point that is being harassed in later iterations of the Zelda franchise. While a lot of the items/areas were actually accessed Out-of-Dungeon in Zelda 1, the Out-of-Dungeon stuff is usually extra curricular in the later iterations (Which I believe was a change made around the 3D era.) By having it in the style of Zelda 1, you could access items early, unlock shortcuts, and get some of the extra power-ups early. Fuck, if I remember correctly in Zelda 1 you can get the upgraded Tunic, the highest level shield, and bombs, and a whole slew of things before even stepping foot in the first dungeon.
This is where another way of handling the 'New Tools Acquired -> New Areas Open Up' method comes into play. By having more of these tool related areas been thrown about, visible even before the tool is known about, you can create a sense of desire in the player. A sense of 'where do I get what I need to get across to that area?' When you make items optional, able to be recovered out of order, and with side-events to upgrade their effectiveness, you suddenly make exploration a big factor. Unfortunately, there are players who don't want this
This is where another way of handling the 'New Tools Acquired -> New Areas Open Up' method comes into play. By having more of these tool related areas been thrown about, visible even before the tool is known about, you can create a sense of desire in the player. A sense of 'where do I get what I need to get across to that area?' When you make items optional, able to be recovered out of order, and with side-events to upgrade their effectiveness, you suddenly make exploration a big factor. Unfortunately, there are players who don't want this
Meh, just another guy with a romantic/nostalgic notion about games and with no idea what game design implies or the merit it possesses.
I can vaguely relate to some of the things he said, though. I haven't played many Zelda games, but I recall the intricacy of the world and its relation to the "keyring" in Link's awakening, to be pretty clever, and far surpassed that of The Minish Cap, for example. But even though I enjoyed the former more than the latter, I can still recognize there's lots of thought behind both games. - The author of that article sees this development as negative, and advocates a return to a time where not much thought was put on games at all... Lame. =/
Edit: Inb4 a link to the "The costumer is always wrong" thread. ;D
I can vaguely relate to some of the things he said, though. I haven't played many Zelda games, but I recall the intricacy of the world and its relation to the "keyring" in Link's awakening, to be pretty clever, and far surpassed that of The Minish Cap, for example. But even though I enjoyed the former more than the latter, I can still recognize there's lots of thought behind both games. - The author of that article sees this development as negative, and advocates a return to a time where not much thought was put on games at all... Lame. =/
Edit: Inb4 a link to the "The costumer is always wrong" thread. ;D
The amount of vitriol this article was greeted with is surprising...but in hindsight maybe it oughtn't be.
After all, most of RMN comes from the exact opposite place this guy is coming from, design wise. They want to push polish and accessibility and playability and user-friendliness at all/any costs. The sad thing is that we have been trained to be this way by players with no patience who are looking for any excuse at all--such as player failure--to drop your game and move on. I've talked about this a lot and I'd say game design wise it's my big hangup. So we design around making player failure impossible, at least the beginning, and we make games that are constrained in the same way as commerical games for the same reason--because we want a bigger audience.
Oh, at this point with my modern projects I've drank the "user-friendliness/accessibility at all costs" kool aid because...it works. And the opposite often doesn't. Like...I have never beaten the original Zelda or even come close because a) I kept dying and b) I didn't know where to go. Modern games spoiled me, and I never had the stick-to-it-iveness to actually get GOOD at Zelda. And that's not an experience I'm looking to emulate with my games: in the end I want more players, not less. But it kind of sucks to see so many so-called "indie" RPGs forced into the same mold as 90% of commercial games for the same reason: the desire for a larger audience.
(Tagent: Everyone should really stop getting their panties in a bunch when I say something like "most of RMN", by the way. If you don't feel it applies to you, then it doesn't, you're automatically off the hook. Generalizations are just that; generalizations. Just because you think you might be an exception--and you might be right--doesn't mean you need to fly into a towering rage-based fury because I made a generalization. Generalizations are a useful and valid way of approaching thought-exercises, they're not a tool of the devil.)
After all, most of RMN comes from the exact opposite place this guy is coming from, design wise. They want to push polish and accessibility and playability and user-friendliness at all/any costs. The sad thing is that we have been trained to be this way by players with no patience who are looking for any excuse at all--such as player failure--to drop your game and move on. I've talked about this a lot and I'd say game design wise it's my big hangup. So we design around making player failure impossible, at least the beginning, and we make games that are constrained in the same way as commerical games for the same reason--because we want a bigger audience.
Oh, at this point with my modern projects I've drank the "user-friendliness/accessibility at all costs" kool aid because...it works. And the opposite often doesn't. Like...I have never beaten the original Zelda or even come close because a) I kept dying and b) I didn't know where to go. Modern games spoiled me, and I never had the stick-to-it-iveness to actually get GOOD at Zelda. And that's not an experience I'm looking to emulate with my games: in the end I want more players, not less. But it kind of sucks to see so many so-called "indie" RPGs forced into the same mold as 90% of commercial games for the same reason: the desire for a larger audience.
(Tagent: Everyone should really stop getting their panties in a bunch when I say something like "most of RMN", by the way. If you don't feel it applies to you, then it doesn't, you're automatically off the hook. Generalizations are just that; generalizations. Just because you think you might be an exception--and you might be right--doesn't mean you need to fly into a towering rage-based fury because I made a generalization. Generalizations are a useful and valid way of approaching thought-exercises, they're not a tool of the devil.)
prexus
309
I don't think that is why we are up in arms about it.
I think it has more to do with the fact that the author is writing an article about the state of current generation gaming based on nostalgia. We've all come across the "I think this game is great because of its story characters and graphics and the best gameplay ever." when, compared to other games of the time and many new ones, it really doesn't compare. That person just loves that game so much because of nostalgia. Rightfully so, too. There are many games out there that deserve a lot of praise for what they accomplished. I mean, the author of this article himself gives Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past a walk from his raving, yet it has many of the same problems that he is pointing out in other games.
I think it has more to do with the fact that the author is writing an article about the state of current generation gaming based on nostalgia. We've all come across the "I think this game is great because of its story characters and graphics and the best gameplay ever." when, compared to other games of the time and many new ones, it really doesn't compare. That person just loves that game so much because of nostalgia. Rightfully so, too. There are many games out there that deserve a lot of praise for what they accomplished. I mean, the author of this article himself gives Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past a walk from his raving, yet it has many of the same problems that he is pointing out in other games.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Considering my RMXP game is currently set to have Zelda style tools but no exploration at all (thus making it more like Lufia 2 or the Wild ARMs series) this is admittedly a pretty relevant discussion to me.
I agree the Zelda games are getting more linear. I play Ocarina of Time and there are a dozen tools you can actually get out of order, some of which are necessary and some aren't. Same with Link to the Past, Majora's Mask. Not so much with Wind Waker, they got rid of most of that and instead put treasure maps and stuff that you can do out of order (but 95% of the treasure maps just give rupees so fuck that). Even less in Twilight Princess or any of the handheld ones.
A pattern emerges though. The amount of nonlinearity is directly linked to the number of different tools. The three really nonlinear games all have about 30 different tools, while Wind Waker and Twilight Princess have about 20, and the handheld games have closer to 12. The only real exceptions are, as the article points out, the NES games, in which I think a lot of stuff is hidden by clues rather than locked by tools, and thus you can go out of order if you find the secrets before you get the clues that lead you to them. Of course, finding the secrets before you get the clues that lead you to them should be ridiculously unlikely, but since a lot of the clues are incomprehensible in the English versions (and not much better in the Japanese versions!), and thus a lot of exploration is done by just checking everywhere rather than following clues, it actually happens a lot.
I agree the Zelda games are getting more linear. I play Ocarina of Time and there are a dozen tools you can actually get out of order, some of which are necessary and some aren't. Same with Link to the Past, Majora's Mask. Not so much with Wind Waker, they got rid of most of that and instead put treasure maps and stuff that you can do out of order (but 95% of the treasure maps just give rupees so fuck that). Even less in Twilight Princess or any of the handheld ones.
A pattern emerges though. The amount of nonlinearity is directly linked to the number of different tools. The three really nonlinear games all have about 30 different tools, while Wind Waker and Twilight Princess have about 20, and the handheld games have closer to 12. The only real exceptions are, as the article points out, the NES games, in which I think a lot of stuff is hidden by clues rather than locked by tools, and thus you can go out of order if you find the secrets before you get the clues that lead you to them. Of course, finding the secrets before you get the clues that lead you to them should be ridiculously unlikely, but since a lot of the clues are incomprehensible in the English versions (and not much better in the Japanese versions!), and thus a lot of exploration is done by just checking everywhere rather than following clues, it actually happens a lot.
TheNecromancer
3160
author=Max McGee
Why am I not surprised that you got first post in this thread. -.-
haha I just happened to be online when you posted the link. Despite what my name and current list of games(and avatar) would suggest, I'm not an obsessed Zelda fanboy u.u All that stuff is just carried over from my past. It was DBZ for a while, then Death Note, and now I'm obsessed with Star Trek. I'm whimsical like that.
I would say the biggest reason why I loved OoT is because it was the first 3D Zelda game. It's not really the best game ever, for me, it just one of the most influential. Kind of like that feeling when you played Mario 64 for the first time. Your mind was blown wide open.
I actually liked sailing in Wind Waker. It felt really adventurous, there was treasure to find, random islands. You could teleport eventually to ease the tedium, but I personally never felt bored with sailing.
I'm kind of scared to play TP and SS now..I hear so many negative things about it. I'm a PS3 guy now, anyways. I have other games to play besides Zelda, it's just a link to my past now.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I don't honestly think you can like Ocarina of Time and dislike Twilight Princess. I mean there are parts of it that aren't done quite as well, and parts that are done better, but overall it is the Zelda game that definitely comes closest to feeling like a new OoT.
Twilight Princess is the reason I bought a Wii at launch. It was worth the cost of the entire system to me on its own, and probably still is even though I've beaten it. If my house burned down I think I would buy another Wii and another copy of Twilight Princess.
Twilight Princess is the reason I bought a Wii at launch. It was worth the cost of the entire system to me on its own, and probably still is even though I've beaten it. If my house burned down I think I would buy another Wii and another copy of Twilight Princess.
Volrath
2760
Honestly, I read this whole thing and it seems like a very long way to say "I wish Zelda games were harder." I also find the hand-holding in newer Zelda games sometimes obnoxious and it really was over the top in Skwyard Sword. However, I don't really support a return to the days where you were urged to put bombs on every tile of rock in the entire world map because there was no other way to find out which walls had secret passages behind them. That might have been engrossing when I was a young kid, but I'm a married adult now with a full-time job and I don't want to devote my limited free time to carpet-bombing entire mountain ranges. Regardless of what else we might say about them, Zelda games have never stopped being a massive time commitment. For the record, I completed the first Zelda eventually but never the second quest. It was just too obtuse. I also beat Zelda II....somehow.
The writer has been alienated by the transformations Zelda has undergone through various console generations and I feel for him. I could say the same about Ninja Gaiden. The first one is one of my favorite games of all time (and in terms of difficulty, right up there with the old Zeldas) and the Xbox Ninja Gaidens don't interest me. But it's not like the original Ninja Gaiden disappeared. Any time I'm feeling nostalgic, I fire it up on the Virtual Console.
The writer has been alienated by the transformations Zelda has undergone through various console generations and I feel for him. I could say the same about Ninja Gaiden. The first one is one of my favorite games of all time (and in terms of difficulty, right up there with the old Zeldas) and the Xbox Ninja Gaidens don't interest me. But it's not like the original Ninja Gaiden disappeared. Any time I'm feeling nostalgic, I fire it up on the Virtual Console.
Part of what drives me to make games in RM, is to evoke that kind of nostalgic past, but it is different because my games didn't exist in the past, but it brings about the sentiment of golden-age snes era games/rpgs.
I think that those types of games deserve celebration, and credits 2D gaming in a way that shouldn't be ignored/discontinued. This is why we make games.
I think that those types of games deserve celebration, and credits 2D gaming in a way that shouldn't be ignored/discontinued. This is why we make games.
This author does not want to save Zelda. He wants to go back in time and pines for a bygone era. As a paleontologist would pine for dinosaurs. Games with a nostalgic past have gone back to their roots before and were not met with thunderous applause but a mediocre 'yay' and a long sigh for an opportunity missed. Megaman and sonic come to mind.
Maybe if he changed his cry from "new Zelda should be like old Zelda" to "more new games should be like old Zelda" we would all agree with him? Demon's Souls was everything he wants new Zelda to be, and it *did* meet with something approaching thunderous applause (and imo deserves every cent of it). So an audience for the kind of game he pines for does exist and is substantial.
Crystalgate
694
author=Max McGee
After all, most of RMN comes from the exact opposite place this guy is coming from, design wise. They want to push polish and accessibility and playability and user-friendliness at all/any costs. The sad thing is that we have been trained to be this way by players with no patience who are looking for any excuse at all--such as player failure--to drop your game and move on. I've talked about this a lot and I'd say game design wise it's my big hangup. So we design around making player failure impossible, at least the beginning, and we make games that are constrained in the same way as commerical games for the same reason--because we want a bigger audience.
I don't know if it so much that we push those things at any cost as it is that those things are generally good and and should only be sacrificed for a good reason. Let's say you have a feature that is integral for providing depth to your game, but adding that feature will make it less user friendly. In that case I can see a point to sacrificing user-friendliness since otherwise you sacrifice depth instead. However, I see no point in merely making a game less user friendly than it need to be.
It was a long time since I played the first Zelda, but IIRC, things could be hidden at random places. A bush standing among dozens of other bushes could hold a secret, or worse, something mandatory. That improves absolutely nothing for me. Having Link bomb every wall and burn every bush makes him look more like a pyromaniac than an adventurer. There's little to no thinking in it, try everything instead. I don't see any gain elsewhere either. It's just busywork for the sake of busywork.
jnf1985
0
I read the whole article. What I feel like he is saying is he wants the first Zelda with Twilight Princess graphics and little to no storyline.
Maybe a nice middle ground would be Zelda in a sort of sandbox game a la Grand Theft Auto? (But you know, without all the bank robberies, drive bys and what not).
I do agree though the Zelda games starting with OOT have alot of handholding.
And I don't understand why he complains about fetch quests. Wasn't there one just to get the Master Sword upgraded or something like that? Sorry, but it has been a couple of years since I have played that game.
Fetch quests have always been part of Zelda games and the RPG genre in general. I think he is upset because that is really the only "Sidequest" available in most Zelda games. Maybe they should add more sidequests to the Zelda games which expand and go in depth to the lore of the Triforce and Hyrule. Don't know if this has already been done in the latest entries since the last one I've played is Oracle of Seasons.
I have only played OOT, LTTP, LA and The Oracle of Seasons from beginning to end. Eventually will play Twilight Princess and if I ever find a job get the money to buy and play Wind Waker and Skyward Sword. Always have loved though the whole world of Hryule and its storyline.
Maybe a nice middle ground would be Zelda in a sort of sandbox game a la Grand Theft Auto? (But you know, without all the bank robberies, drive bys and what not).
I do agree though the Zelda games starting with OOT have alot of handholding.
And I don't understand why he complains about fetch quests. Wasn't there one just to get the Master Sword upgraded or something like that? Sorry, but it has been a couple of years since I have played that game.
Fetch quests have always been part of Zelda games and the RPG genre in general. I think he is upset because that is really the only "Sidequest" available in most Zelda games. Maybe they should add more sidequests to the Zelda games which expand and go in depth to the lore of the Triforce and Hyrule. Don't know if this has already been done in the latest entries since the last one I've played is Oracle of Seasons.
I have only played OOT, LTTP, LA and The Oracle of Seasons from beginning to end. Eventually will play Twilight Princess and if I ever find a job get the money to buy and play Wind Waker and Skyward Sword. Always have loved though the whole world of Hryule and its storyline.
Super_Llama
66
author=kentona
And one man's "open world" is another man's "unfocused mess".
I have to agree with this. Too much freedom right off the bat can be just as bad as being railroaded. To be honest, I don't like the original Zelda all that much. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it, but I found it annoying that the game doesn't give you any direction. Having an open world is fine (some of my favorite RPGs ever let you go anywhere you want right off the bat) but when a game just drops you off somewhere without any indication of where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to do, and expects you to just figure it out after a few hours of dicking around, it's really annoying.
Related, and from the same meta-source, although not the same author:
http://nightmaremode.net/2012/02/you-are-here-how-games-have-become-domesticated-16726/
http://nightmaremode.net/2012/02/you-are-here-how-games-have-become-domesticated-16726/
See, he defeats himself in the final statements. If you want a certain type of game, there is a niche for that, and the burgeoning glut of developers (indie or amateur or otherwise) virtually guarantees that there is someone filling that niche. The notion of one-game-for-all by one developer is eroding.
If he doesn't see that, then he is just complaining that the "big" publishers aren't pandering to his specific tastes.
If he doesn't see that, then he is just complaining that the "big" publishers aren't pandering to his specific tastes.
You only need to look at a spaghetti sauce aisle in a grocery store to know that. Spaghetti brands used to just have one type of sauce that was "perfect" for everybody.
Good grief! What's wrong with those people? If you're so eager for Surprise! and Discovery! and have some kind of fetish about getting lost, then go get lost in a forest or something! Chances are you'll be making us all a big favor by doing so, and you'll even contribute to someone else's sense of Discovery! when they find your body... Just don't forget to put some rupees in your pockets beforehand!
Gee, I'm sorry, but how can anyone address this kind of topics seriously anymore? :(
Gee, I'm sorry, but how can anyone address this kind of topics seriously anymore? :(
