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[C.A. Sinner]

The souls series is better than the later Zeldas.
However, I'd prefer games in the future to not be hand-holdy snoozefests like Zelda or infuriating exercises in masochism like Demon's Souls.

There needs to be a balance between the two extremes.


But goddamn, we always need more "WELL HERE'S A WORLD, HAVE AT IT.".

i didnt actually find the souls games all that hard (by "hardcore" game standards) but thats beside the point.

i think the writer of the article is off base on the "difficulty" thing as well. difficulty isn't what made the souls games fun, it was just a vehicle for something else like it usually is in good "challenging" games (already talked about this in the dark souls thread). what i guess he really wants is for zelda games to react to the player in more interesting and meaningful ways (mechanically not just aesthetically) and he wrongly identifies difficulty as the key to that.  i dont think making skyward sword's combat harder would make the game that much less boring tbh.

i've noticed that a lot of zelda 1 diehards (ok, paul eres ) cite majora's mask as their favorite "new" zelda. it can't have anything to do with difficulty because mm isn't any more challenging than other new zeldas. i think the reason is that it's more "interactive" (has more player agency) with the mask collection stuff and the clocktown sidequests than games like oot or twilight princess.

TL;DR: i agree with you on everything except the souls games' difficulty

[Paul Eres]

my friend komera (artist in SD) who is an even bigger fan of the zelda games than i am also likes majora's mask best of the modern ones, and zelda1 best of the classic ones, so it's not just me

i agree that it's not just difficulty though. i think difficulty is a side effect of good design, not the goal of good design. you can't have a good game without difficulty (at least in the sense of requiring that the player think, learn, and develop skills), but you can have difficulty without a good game

[Schoq]

I'll just quote myself from a similar thread on another forum:

I first beat the original Legend of Zelda a few months ago, and had a great time with it.
I really enjoyed how free and open it all felt. How where to go wasn't obvious. How I had to find so many things for myself with only vague hints (if that) to go on. How there's no set dungeon order you have to follow.
A very genuine feeling of exploration and adventure.

I'd actually like to see more games where you initially don't have a clue what to do or where to go, and where things can be done "out of order". Figuring stuff out is fun!


I think one reason why nine year olds could beat it 25 years ago, and adults today get stuck after three dungeons, might be that the latter usually don't play it with the manual (that, and less free time, more distractions, etc).
I'd recommend anyone playing The Legend of Zelda for the first time to refer to it. I found it to be entertaining and of great help.

[C.A. Sinner]

my friend komera (artist in SD) who is an even bigger fan of the zelda games than i am also likes majora's mask best of the modern ones, and zelda1 best of the classic ones, so it's not just me

oh i didn't mean to imply you were the only one, just the only zelda 1 "fan" i could think of off the top of my head who also likes majora's. i know quite a few people who love LoZ but dislike the other games in the series (which isn't surprising seeing as it's pretty different).

[Ben_Hurr]

i didnt actually find the souls games all that hard (by "hardcore" game standards) but thats beside the point.

i think the writer of the article is off base on the "difficulty" thing as well. difficulty isn't what made the souls games fun, it was just a vehicle for something else like it usually is in good "challenging" games (already talked about this in the dark souls thread). what i guess he really wants is for zelda games to react to the player in more interesting and meaningful ways (mechanically not just aesthetically) and he wrongly identifies difficulty as the key to that.  i dont think making skyward sword's combat harder would make the game that much less boring tbh.

i've noticed that a lot of zelda 1 diehards (ok, paul eres ) cite majora's mask as their favorite "new" zelda. it can't have anything to do with difficulty because mm isn't any more challenging than other new zeldas. i think the reason is that it's more "interactive" (has more player agency) with the mask collection stuff and the clocktown sidequests than games like oot or twilight princess.

TL;DR: i agree with you on everything except the souls games' difficulty

Yeah to let you in on a little secret, I don't actually find the Souls' games that hard either.  It's just the long ass game over screen and having to walk back to get your stuff that makes me want to claw out my own eyes.


I never really got into Majora's mask, despite how others say it's so good.  It just seemed like Ocarina only convoluted time-sensitive npc sidequests and TIMELIMIT DUN NUN NUN. 

HURRY HURRY HURRY

[Paul Eres]

i forgot about the manual; yeah, zelda1's manual was required reading. i can't imagine playing it without reading it; the manual is almost as fun as the game itself too, lots of great illustrations and little tips and lore

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Yeah Demons Souls isn't hard per-se (although you could say it's harder than most modern gen games) but in order not to die you do have to think. I'm not sure why but it certainly invokes the feeling I used to get from the zelda series. The sense of wonder when you find a new area etc.

I stopped playing Zelda at the gamecube one. I did try some of the newer zelda's and got bored for 2 reasons I can immediately identify. Too easy and too much travelling through fairly boring environments.

LTTP is still my favourite

[Capntastic]

i forgot about the manual; yeah, zelda1's manual was required reading. i can't imagine playing it without reading it; the manual is almost as fun as the game itself too, lots of great illustrations and little tips and lore

I never had the manual, since my mom got the game for me second hand.  I do remember the manual for Adventure of Link having a nice ball of storyline in it.

[C.A. Sinner]

I stopped playing Zelda at the gamecube one. I did try some of the newer zelda's and got bored for 2 reasons I can immediately identify. Too easy and too much travelling through fairly boring environments.

Skyward Sword was particularly bad in that respect (as well as most other respects lol). Lots of busy work in that game.

[Blademasterbobo]

The souls series is better than the later Zeldas.
However, I'd prefer games in the future to not be hand-holdy snoozefests like Zelda or infuriating exercises in masochism like Demon's Souls.

There needs to be a balance between the two extremes.


But goddamn, we always need more "WELL HERE'S A WORLD, HAVE AT IT.".

Demon's Souls isn't even difficult

[Faust06]

I'm not sure why Zelda is being compared to Demon's Souls in the first place. Aside from open-world exploration, there's too little in common (well, combat feels clumsy in both and the lock-on of DS reminds me of the newer Zelda games starting with OOT). The combat difficulty is secondary when it comes to the popularity of these games. The biggest draw, for me, when it comes to Zelda is the puzzle-element and to a lesser extent exploration. It's all about the dungeons man. Demon's Souls seems to have the open-world element, is principally combat-oriented with rpg elements, and does that passive online interaction that everyone seems to make a big deal out of. Frankly, DS seems to have more flaws, but makes up for it.

It's nice that DS pressures you to think about a plan of action in some cases, yet combat has been done better in numerous action games prior, though without the stat attributes and the like. People get a huge hard-on for exploration, strong rpg elements, online cooperation to any degree, with or without difficulty. It's like WoW or Diablo for elitists.

[Paul Eres]

the original zelda is being compared to demon's souls, not modern zeldas

[JDM]

Puzzles, as such, weren't introduced in the series until the Link to the Past games, really.  Everything in the first two games was combat and lock-and-key tasks, which is not unlike the Souls games at all.  The Souls games also share the joy of finding good weapon/item combinations, which the first game was all about, and Link's Awakening really perfected (to my tastes).  The combat in both the NES games was all focused on maintaining rooms of enemies or large bosses and striking in the right place in the right moment, much like the Souls games.  Dark Souls kind of feels like a combination and evolution of Link's Awakening's and Adventure of Link's battle systems.

So there's some grounds for that comparison.  I feel like I've argued for more connections in the past

[Faust06]

I concede that my mind was focused on games other than Zelda 1, probably because it bores me, but I noticed a post here about DS being better than the Zelda SERIES, not just Zelda 1, and that's what I was calling out.

[Blademasterbobo]

but... DS is better than the Zelda series