GiriOni wrote:@shellscriptcoder
Well I'll say it here... first point, the "why don't you tell us how you really feel' is an internet sarcastic phrase indicating that while expressing your opinion, you slightly went a bit overboard.
And puzzles in the original Zelda were existent, and you needed items too... example 'omg this place is dark' *uses candle* 'yay! I can move on!' and similar with burning bushes in the overworld. Thus FORCING you to acquire an item. And if the ever present hints of the old man were not puzzles, then what are puzzles? Sure it's a different type of puzzle but it does not mean that it isn't a puzzle.
And heck! I love cut-scenes, and the stories they tell. And making the shield decrease? And giving Link running? I loved those aspects! And my argument on COD (not really recommending it to you) is that it has remained incredibly close to the first game and changed little, so I thought it was the closest thing to what you were wanting. (BTW I have never played a first person shooter, except Metroid Prime games) The things I LOVED in SS weren't in LoZ either so I will still love SS, LoZ and EVERY LOZ game in existence (except the cd-i's)
If you want to be stuck, unable to accept change, that is your choice. I will never pressure someone to change their opinion, and it seems like you are very adamant on this opinion. If you want to complain to everyone about how bad Zelda is becoming, continue doing so...
Meh, you're still misunderstanding my point. First, let me address the ones you made.
Using a candle to light a dark area is not a puzzle. First off, you don't actually need the candle. If you're a skilled enough player, you can navigate the dark areas without the candle. Unlike SS where every item is required to progress the 'story'. In terms of burning bushes, there were items that you would want to get if you wanted to progress to the next dungeon. But unlike SS, the purpose of the game was not to beat all the dungeons. It was honestly, really, and truly more about exploring Hyrule. Sure, the dungeons were fun to play. I'm not denying that. I personally challenged them, not to beat the game, but to test my skills. I didn't consider them elements in a grand design, but instead as challenges waiting for me to approach them. If you want further proof, then consider this: why were you able to buy keys in the shops? It was because the dungeons weren't considered these elements of monumental importance. They were a sideshow, just minor details in a huge land. And if you grew up in the 80s, you would remember: When we talked about Zelda in school, we didn't say, "Hey guys, I just beat the 7th dungeon! Aquamentus was pretty tough, but I had the sword beam, so I beat him on my first try!" No, we traded secrets: LoZ was truly a reality to us. "Did you find the cave in the wall a few screens from the river?" "Yeah, you mean the one you had to bomb? That was so hard to find... But I got so many rupees!" We were in awe of this mystical land and its many secrets. We would swap maps and take them home, and it would be so exciting to find new areas and bombamble walls written on ours when we got them back. Hyrule was a massive land, and we worked together to find its secrets. The fact that Zelda isn't this huge phenomenon among children especially nowadays is proof enough that something is wrong. I'm not averse to change, but I am against devolution of one of my favorite series.
In LoZ, I would get the raft because with it, I could reach new areas of Hyrule. Similarly, I would get the candle to see what secrets lay in wait under bushes. I didn't get these items so that I could move on with the dungeons. That is what someone who wants to beat the game quickly would do. What with all the obsession over 'beating' games nowadays, it's understandable that you would assume that every game's purpose is to be beaten.
The old man's hints? They weren't puzzles in that sense so much as they were keys to secrets. "Eastmost peninsula is the secret" is hardly a puzzle. Finding the old man was a reward for the hard work you've done in exploring an area, and he'd reward you by telling you areas to look for secret locations. Definitely not the 'puzzles' of SS. At any rate, it's one thing to have a few puzzles. It's another to center the game around them. From beginning to end, I can describe SS:
Cutscene. Tutorial. Unnecessary humor. High school drama story. Cutscene. Tutorial. Puzzle. Cutscene. Puzzle. Cutscene. Tutorial. Cutscene. Tutorial. Cutscene. High school drama story. Cutscene. Puzzle. Minigame. Cutscene. Tutorial. Puzzle. Dungeon. Puzzle. Fi. Puzzle. Fi. Tutorial. Fi. Puzzle. Fi. Puzzle. Fi. Puzzle. Fi. Cutscene. Boss. Fi. Puzzle. Fi. Cutscene. High school drama story....
I'm sorry, but I honestly don't believe you when you say that you prefer Link and his stamina bar to Epona. "The stamina bar makes the game more realistic!" Yes, because floating green pizzas appear over people's heads all the time nowadays. In all seriousness, though, if it were to be realistic, then Link's stamina would increase the more he ran. When I run, I gain the capability to run more. And I don't think you find it fun to be running along at a pace Epona would laugh at, and then be forced to stop as Link's body glows red as though it's about to explode and he moves around like a slug. And if you say that it's more fun to have your shield break than it is to simply use it as, well, a shield, then I will laugh at you. At any rate, if you want a realistic game that accurately mimics all the nuances of real life, then why are you playing the Legend of Zelda? It's a fantasy land, elements from real life don't belong. I play Zelda to escape from the problems of life and journey into a fantastic land in which I may roam freely, without anyone telling me what to do or where to go. What I don't appreciate is a game that proceeds in a linear fashion, artificially extending the length of the game by forcing me to complete arbitrary sidequests. What I don't appreciate is the attempts of the developers to insert random elements of everyday life, forcing me to play with the constraints of reality holding me back. What I don't appreciate is a 'helper' that gives me less help than a two-year-old could, who enjoys disrupting my gameplay experience with the most idiotic phrases that provide me with a creature that barely resembles a tin can, let alone a full-on robot.
When I buy a game, I want to play a game. You do too, right? When you buy a game, you're paying your hard-earned money to be able to play a game. So why are you buying SS, which has so many cutscenes it's a borderline movie? I'm not saying this is a SS-only problem. Games today have so many cutscenes, you might as well slap a video of someone playing on the big screen and call it a day. But really, why so many cutscenes? I'll take the game, not the narrative, please.
The only FPS I've ever played is Quake, and it wasn't too bad, But I'm not the type of person who likes shooting people for fun, I guess. I suppose that's more of a thing for younger people. With the absence of good games to play (I don't own an xBox or a PS3, so I'm restricted to my PC - the Wii is out of games, sadly), I've turned to older text-based games for Unix. I use a Fedora Linux OS, so I can play that sort of game easily. I've started to get into text adventures like Adventure, and ASCII-based games like Rogue. I've also taken up Minecraft. It's not so much that I want a game that holds true to its respective original as it is that I simply want a good, fun game to play. And I think that's the point you may have missed when writing your responses - it's not my mission to revert every game back to its original. It is my mission, however, to make games better, and if going back to square 1 is the way to do it, then back to square 1 we go.
I don't like all the hatred against the CD-i games. Oracle of Ages & Seasons weren't developed by Nintendo either, but people like them just as much as Link's Awakening. It's also interesting to see that while you say you're open to change in the Zelda series, you're so averse to the CD-i games. After all, they have more cutscenes than LoZ. By all accounts, you should like them better.
And that's where we delve into popular opinion. Forgive me for saying this, but you seem to be a very stereotypical Zelda player. I assume you shower praise on OoT as well? It was fun, of course, but it wasn't the best LoZ game of all time. The Water Temple and the fact that you can see bombable walls hold it back from that position. Yet you probably consider it one of the bestm if not the best LoZ game of all time. Why? It didn't make any significant innovations. All it did was spark the change to 3D for Zelda, which was, in my opinion, a downgrade rather than an improvement. ALttP made far more significant changes, as well as innovative uses of items and an expansion of Hyrule with the Dark World. It also brought us a depper understanding of the creation of Hyrule, and Triforce lore in general. Why, then, is OoT praised so much more highly? Because it is the popular opinion that it is the 'best' game. Along with that opinion comes a senseless hatred of the CD-i games and the idea that Aonuma is a virtual 'god' of gaming, who can make only innovations and improvements, and who has done nothing but improve the series since he arrived on the team. I will prove this to you by a simple test. I will say somenthings to you, and you will watch your reactions.
OoT was a terrible game. It made no innovations to the series at all. The 3D was clunky and confusing. Navi was very annoying. The dungeons had too many puzzles. The Triforce lore was just a rehash of ALttP. The final battle was disappointing. The game was not realistic at all. The Epona sidequest took forever. Rupees were not useful enough.
Do you see? You, yourself, are a victim of popular opinion. I'm sure you're coming up with counterarguments to everything I said as you read this. You need to learn to look past what the modern Zelda community believes and decide for yourself what makes a truly great Zelda game.
I'm not complaining about the fall from grace Zelda has experienced so much as I am mourning the series that made up my childhood. It's truly comparable to a man lamenting his beloved father. Zelda was the game I grew up with, and it brought me through thick and thin. It was my friend when school was rough, and it was my life on rainy days. If you loved a series that much, only to see it slowly be killed by a man who put trains in Zelda simply because his son likes trains, a man who can't beat an Octorok, a man who was hired simply because he made wooden dolls in college... You'd be 'complaining', too.
I could also say that everyone I know loves Skyward Swords and you'd have no way of proving me wrong. And just because YOU don't like Zelda anymore, doesn't mean that no one else does or doesn't have the same fanaticism for it as you did. But wait, I forgot, anyone who doesn't agree with you has a "popular opinion," right?
