Author Topic: LOZ: 2005  (Read 687573 times)

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Offline Gamebasher

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2675 on: July 09, 2007, 09:57:32 AM »
Miyamoto has always said that he likes to surprise people, and to make each new game fresh and exciting. That is all fine and dandy. But I would like to see that they work at not forgetting to look back at what made previous Zelda games successfull. A simple look at the sales numbers for each of the Zelda games would reflect back to them which of the Zelda games was most popular, second most popular and so on. Then repeat the formula of the most successfull games albeit with new settings in anywhich way they choose. I believe that would be the wisest thing for them to do. That way they would supply the gaming world with the game designs we liked last time, and give us more of the same. People like that I heard. I do! Halo is all about more of the same, as is Metroid.

Hell, you will not see that there is any difference in where Master Chief comes from, where his home his, how it looks, no deviation in that story from Halo 1, 2 and 3 (the latter hasn´t been released yet, but I doubt Bungie would suddenly claim he comes from Planet Mars instead of Planet Earth). Same with Metroid. Samus is Samus, and she continues to originate from where she always has originated - Planet K2-L next to Planet Zebes. But Link´s home in Hyrule keeps moving around. Must be annoying to be Link. Yes, I know that Samus, and Master Chiefs specific houses on Earth has never been shown, but it matters little to me. Their story is always the same in the way it starts.

What I would like to see in future Zelda games is some more consistency with regard to where Link lives and comes from. In O.o.T. he came from Kokkiri Forest where his Hylian mother had delivered him before she died. Awesome storytelling there, hugely impressive cutscenes. In Majora´s mask it was the same, allthough we didn´t see that as the game started with him riding Epona in the forest before he is attacked by skull kid. Just as awesome storytelling. Neat cutscenes. In WW he was from an island which we later learn sits on an ocean which has flooded Hyrule beneath it. In TLP you only learn that he is a young farm boy from Ordon Village and that is it. I prefer my home in one specific place all of the time. I do think that Link do too, and that his home should thus always be in Kokkiri Forest.

Just generates too much confusion in me when he is moved around like that. You can´t just first move a game characters home from a beautifull forest to an island world, and then back to some village that lies in a new Hyrule, that was supposed to overshadow the Hyrule seen in the first 3D Zelda namely O.o.T.  The Hyrule field in TLP is the most barren and depressing field I have ever seen. And that horse is obsolete, once you get to the warping ability. So why keep Epona in there at all.

Whichever way they choose to work on Zelda´s in the future they had better keep in mind that it´s not themselves but gamers who will play the endresults. So for all of their ideas, I would advise them to create a system which take note of gamer feedback on the games they ship to retail, so they know what a majority wants (and not argue with the gamers with arrogant remarks like they did when people at E3 and in many other places gave them the thumbs down after we learned to our grief that they had made Link into a girlish cartoon character) and keep a better cooperation and timing between themselves and their 3D team plus other teams that work with them on the games they make.

The wait for a new, and hopefully satisfying Zelda, and when it finally comes out after years of waiting - a huge dissapointment (I dumped WW after trying it out for weeks, and might do the same with TLP) is unacceptable to me and I think many others out there. People have tastes and likes and dislikes, Nintendo! Is it YOU or THEM who should tell what these are? More like them, right!!

I am indeed a fan of Zelda, but I started playing the series with O.o.T, and to me that is still the best 3D game I have ever played. The sales numbers for the game should hint at the fact that I am not the only one who loved that game for it´s design. To date I think that O.o.T. is that game which has sold the most copies of any home console Zelda game AND it was the first Zelda game to hit the VC on Wii which speaks for itself. People loved it, Nintendo knows it. So why can´t they just give us more of the same if it sold so well the first time around?

Because Nintendo have to experiment, and mess around with the formula time and again? Or because Miyamoto isn´t directing the Zelda´s anymore? If you ask me, that is kind of nerve wracking to wait years for something more of the tried and tested, only to get something so different you can´t recognize it anymore!!!! If they mess up on the next Zelda again I think I drop the series. I have had it with being dragged around their testing arena like some guinea pig or clown. Really mean that. No offense intended on those who had no trouble with the series wildly alternating directions.

That makes my enthusiasm for Zelda less with each new game they release to market. And I might add, that I think that is the same with many Japanese gamers.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2676 on: July 09, 2007, 10:05:13 AM »
I really don't think you should use sales figures to determine quality, if you want to take that route then Metroid has failed by staying "Familiar" in its origins with the sales of MP1 and more importantly 2.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2677 on: July 09, 2007, 10:19:49 AM »
See I would disagree with you completely there Gamebasher.

For starters, they DO follow the same formula of what made the game popular. They pretty much always have in the main storyline of the series (see: exploration, dungeons, news weapons to help you advance through the game, etc.) the only exception being Zelda II which was more of a side scrolling RPG.

The reason Links location, story line and all that stuff changes is because it isn't the same Link and if you stop to thing the story would be horribly boring if they kept it the SAME Link and make little to no sense. Link would have beaten Gannon in LoZ, then he would beat him again in ALttP, then again in OoT . . . and again in WW and yet again in TP.

The story would be rather stale and repetitious and actually make less sense than having it as a new Link from time to time. It wouldn't make sense if the Link from LoZ was the same as a LttP. How did the world change so much? How is Link still so young if it took say a long time for Hyrule to build up like that? Same with OoT story, how would Link be a kid again if he was the same Link from LoZ.

The aspect of it being a different Link for most games (aside from the direct sequels of course) is something I enjoy.

See it's hard to say "Nintendo needs to listen to their fans and do that and make games based of of that!" because everyone has different views on what makes a game GOOD. I REALLY didn't like OoT and it's one of the few Zelda games I only played through once, so if they did just keep duplicating OoT to a T I would be out of the Zelda series at this point.

The point is, the Zelda series has ALWAYS been based on a changing Hyrule. In fact, no game in the Zelda series revisits the same locations as the previous one. The same names yes but never truly the same place. I like it that way. If WW and OoT was based on the same Hyrule I would be bored out of my skull already. The ever changing world of Zelda is what makes me look forward to games because I know it will be new with locations that are based on the previous games but still they are different.

Keeping a winning formula doesn't always work. See: Mario Sunshine. Was it good? Yeah. Was it boring to have a nearly identical experience to Mario 64 except with less polish? Yes. I'd rather they keep changing things up and keep working to advance the series then just stick with the same old designs.

Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2678 on: July 09, 2007, 10:45:43 AM »
What people fail to realize about Zelda and it's supposed "story" is that the Legend of Zelda is exactly that, a LEGEND, a timeless epic, a truth that crosses boundaries of geography, of people, of time, of circumstance. This is why Link is always reborn, why Zelda is always reborn, why there's always a great evil, why it isn't a love story but a DESTINY. It's an epic tale in the classic sense of the word, reincarnated again and again in different people and different times, but ALWAYS the same legend, ALWAYS with the same core, ALWAYS the same struggle between good and evil.  
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Offline NinGurl69 *huggles

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2679 on: July 09, 2007, 10:46:23 AM »
Zelda sucks, people.  Get over it.  Toilet Princess can't touch the greatness of Majora's Mask (a real gamer's game, complete with CHALLENGE and lots of it).

Toilet Princess ended with 10 hours of disappointing fanboy fluff.

What's interesting is many "hardcore nintendo gamers" go thru the 20-30 hours of disappoint that Toilet Princess is, yet not complete a good, solid, satisfying 20 hour game like Metroid Prime 2.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2680 on: July 09, 2007, 10:47:24 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Kairon
What people fail to realize about Zelda and it's supposed "story" is that the Legend of Zelda is exactly that, a LEGEND, a timeless epic, a truth that crosses boundaries of geography, of people, of time, of circumstance. This is why Link is always reborn, why Zelda is always reborn, why there's always a great evil, why it isn't a love story but a DESTINY. It's an epic tale in the classic sense of the word, reincarnated again and again in different people and different times, but ALWAYS the same legend, ALWAYS with the same core, ALWAYS the same struggle between good and evil.


That pretty much sums up the way it is. Well said Karion.

Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2681 on: July 09, 2007, 10:49:37 AM »
Another thing people have to realize is that Zelda isn't a hardcore game. Zelda is mind-blowingly easy and, in many cases, predictable. Zelda is, above all, an attempt by Miyamoto to manifest the feelings he had when he was younger, feelings of adventures, of discovery, and of stumbling upon limestone caverns when he was out on a family picnic.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2682 on: July 09, 2007, 10:57:52 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Kairon
Another thing people have to realize is that Zelda isn't a hardcore game. Zelda is mind-blowingly easy and, in many cases, predictable. Zelda is, above all, an attempt by Miyamoto to manifest the feelings he had when he was younger, feelings of adventures, of discovery, and of stumbling upon limestone caverns when he was out on a family picnic.


For some reason I don't think of any the Zelda's (well maybe Wind Waker) as mind-blowingly easy especially the 2D ones!
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2683 on: July 09, 2007, 11:01:36 AM »
Yeah I concur GoldenPhoenix. Death Mountain from LoZ and the Water Temple in OoT come to mind.

Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2684 on: July 09, 2007, 11:01:52 AM »
Well, maybe "mind-blowingly" was overstating it, but whenever you come up against a necessary puzzle in Zelda, there's a 90% chance that the following question will help you: "What item did they just give me?"
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Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2685 on: July 09, 2007, 11:04:18 AM »
Well, okay, the first Zeldas were hardcore, but that was just a sign of the times. ALL NES games were hardcore back then. And the water temple was an anomaly really: a heavy-navigation-3D-spatial problem in what is traditionally a tool-oriented-puzzle game.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2686 on: July 09, 2007, 11:09:52 AM »
Yeah I mean I don't think any of the later titles are really all that hardcore insanely hard but yeah it isn't supremely easy. It usually has the right balance of difficulty and fun which is why I enjoy the games so much.  

Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2687 on: July 09, 2007, 11:32:42 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Mashiro
Yeah I mean I don't think any of the later titles are really all that hardcore insanely hard but yeah it isn't supremely easy. It usually has the right balance of difficulty and fun which is why I enjoy the games so much.


One thing I never understood why is a game hardcore if it is hard, must mean Superman 64 is super hardcore because it was so poorly designed it was hard . Personally I find Zelda games to be hardcore in that they are lengthy adventures that require a bit of puzzle solving along with alot of exploration. I definately agree, I think the Zelda games have a good balance in difficulty, they aren't overly hard but not just anyone can finish them either.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2688 on: July 09, 2007, 11:38:00 AM »
Well hardcore in the sense that the game doesn't just appeal to those whom are well...hardcore. You don't need to be an insane puzzle wizard to complete a Zelda game for example.

I guess I am using it in the following way: A contra game is hardcore when compared to say Mega Man X which is somewhat challenging yet fun and not overly difficult to the extent of driving you insane.

=)

Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2689 on: July 09, 2007, 11:40:41 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Mashiro
Well hardcore in the sense that the game doesn't just appeal to those whom are well...hardcore. You don't need to be an insane puzzle wizard to complete a Zelda game for example.

I guess I am using it in the following way: A contra game is hardcore when compared to say Mega Man X which is somewhat challenging yet fun and not overly difficult to the extent of driving you insane.

=)


True, I guess it all depends how you define it which we all seem to define differently. Personally if I were to take your definition, I think Zelda would fall between "Hardcore" and "Mainstream". Then again Superman 64 must be pretty too, it is insanely difficult and you need to be pretty hardcore to play LOL.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2690 on: July 09, 2007, 11:42:23 AM »
Yeah that's a very good way to put it and pretty much how I see the title.

Edit: And Lol @ superman 64

Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2691 on: July 09, 2007, 11:49:44 AM »
LOL. Sorry, I didn't define my terms. I'm just thinking of a self-professed "hardcore" gamer I know who can't enjoy Zelda because it was way too easy. Of course, other hardcore gamers are sometimes scratching their heads with regards to Zelda: some hardcore gamers, especially from the role-playing side, want a massively different or more epic or whatever story, for instance. As I pointed out previously, Zelda is not that kind of hardcore game either.
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Offline Bill Aurion

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2692 on: July 09, 2007, 11:54:30 AM »
So the definition of hardcore gamer is now "people who like frustratingly hard games"?  I remember back when being hardcore just meant you spent a good deal of your time enjoying playing and talking about videogames...
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Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2693 on: July 09, 2007, 11:59:01 AM »
Yeah, I apologize, the term wasn't defined well at all. But regardless, the message is still the same. Zelda is not a typical big-budget videogame, nor should it be even thought of one. It's something else entirely, never truly bending to the same rulestick used to define other games. Oh sure, it shows influence from other things, it evolves, it changes, it copies and adapts and has similarities, but these things are all superficial. That's why there's never been a lasting Zelda clone really, so many times they copy the superficial things while not even seeing the core of what makes Zelda, or many classic Nintendo games, special.
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Offline Gamebasher

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2694 on: July 09, 2007, 01:56:01 PM »
OK, I get it I guess. I understand better the why´s of Nintendo´s actions concerning Zelda. But I tell you that I think TLP sucked big time. Toilet Princess? Hardly. But my expectations were not met. That is certain. And I might add that a LOT of other peoples expectations weren´t either. That has got to count for something at NCL.  
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Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2695 on: July 09, 2007, 01:58:35 PM »
Personally, I'm amazed at how some people, and even some media outlets, can absolutely buy into the hype that this'd be "the best Zelda evar." It was good, don't get me wrong, but TP is in my opinion nowhere near such an accomplishment.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2696 on: July 09, 2007, 02:32:33 PM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Kairon
Personally, I'm amazed at how some people, and even some media outlets, can absolutely buy into the hype that this'd be "the best Zelda evar." It was good, don't get me wrong, but TP is in my opinion nowhere near such an accomplishment.


Key word being "opinion". Personally I think TP is the best 3D Zelda.
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Offline Kairon

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2697 on: July 09, 2007, 02:34:02 PM »
Ah, but can you back that up with specific instances of excellence?
Carmine Red, Associate Editor

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Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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RE:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2698 on: July 09, 2007, 02:44:42 PM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Kairon
Ah, but can you back that up with specific instances of excellence?


The creative and fun boss battles, the engaging story, the unique art direction and character designs, the solid pace. Lots of exploration to do, creative and fun horseback battles, emotionally charged character and dialogue. Midna is the best companion out of the Zelda series, and the unique and well implemented wolf transformation sequences.
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Offline Mashiro

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RE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
« Reply #2699 on: July 09, 2007, 02:52:59 PM »
I too think TP was the best of the 3D Zelda titles. As I've said I didn't like OoT, it was good but I never got into it. Wind Waker was awesome and the gameplay was more refined then OoT and overall had a really interesting story.

TP had a lot of greatness to it even if it lacked in some areas. Here's my breakdown:

Graphics: Bar-none the greatest looking Zelda game ever created. Beautifully rich designs covering all of Hyrule bringing the world to life more so than any of its previous 3D counter parts. It has the best 3D Link design, it gave birth to great character designs showcasing human emotions more and better than any Zelda before it. Elemental effects and particle effects are all used wisely too and bring the game together in the graphical department. All in all, a top quality AA title that is the new benchmark for how Zelda games will and should look.

Gameplay: Absolutely amazing. The best gameplay in the Zelda 3D series. It takes the refinement of WW and adds on to it creating a well balanced and perfectly handled game. The upgrades and new weapons are also a blast. From the boots that let you cling to walls, to the double hook shot, the weapons in this Zelda game add a lot to the gameplay and are greater than the previous 3D Zelda titles.

Sound: Though it lacked full on voice acting, the sounds were still there and followed suit like much of the other Zelda games. No complaints for the sound except for the horrible audio that played through the Wiimote speakers. It's not the game fault that the speakers suck but it certainly doesn't add to the gaming experience.

Music: Ok, so it isn't orchestrated but the music is still beautiful. The new Hyrule field theme is the best from any of the 3D Zelda and adds to the feeling of heroic-ness your character has. Yet there are still those more tender subtle moments that play out beautifully too thanks to a well written sound track and the moments of when you are in the heat of battle often have haunting or fast paced music to accompany the situation. From the awesome emotion you feel from entering Hyrule field for the first time to the chilling echoing, somewhat drawn out, music from Hyrule Castle, the music adds much to the game. However, an orchestrated sound track would have been better for this style game and it's a shame they didn't go that route.

Story: Not the best in the series but it is somewhat interesting none the less. Good but not overly fantastical. Though I will say the two Zelda scenes I will always remember is Links crazy dream segment and Gannondorf killing one of the 7 sages.

The complete packagee, is overall, the best 3D Zelda experience I have had.