next »

[JDM]

"The Zelda series" is a pretty broad thing to talk about.  There are throughlines, sure, but there are some pretty different games to talk about.  The Zelda tradition that most people seem to picture when they talk about "the Zelda series" and definitely the one they talk about when they're talking about what supposedly needs salvation is the one that began either with A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time.  It's not a fundamentally broken tradition, but it is a somewhat different thing that I think is buckling under its own weight.

Skyward Sword is fairly linear, but I prefer that linearity to the faux-openness of Twilight Princess, even though I see that as a step away from what I see as an opportunity to reclaim the exploration and discovery aspect from the series' early days.  I haven't spent all that much time with Skyward Sword (and haven't found myself eager to), but my biggest beef so far is that the text crawls so damn slow.  Even when you ask it to speed up.  So damn slow.  (And there's so damn much of it.)

For what it's worth, I'd put Dark Souls and Demon's Souls right near the top of my list of my favorite games (all these deep, obvious flaws everyone keeps mentioning really don't strike me as so apparent, I suppose), but then so would Zelda 1, Zelda 2, and Link's Awakening.

[Fun Infused Games]

I really disliked Skyward Sword. A lot. Linear is a part of it but I've struggled controlling the game well too. Plus talking to people is painful. I need a better way to speed through it or cancel out if I talk to the same person twice.

I doubt in this day and age, I would have completed Zelda 1 if I was first playing it. There is a lot of wandering around, aimlessness, and I just don't have the time like I did when I was younger. But it's also a great sense of exploration that the current games are missing. I'd like to see the Zelda games come back more towards the original but with modern features such as a better map system, waypoints for tracking, and a better save system.

[kukukupo]

Frustratingly hard game = good game?

Not by my standards.

I’m still a Zelda fan today, but I’m not an apologist.  Zelda sucks, and it has sucked for a long time.  It’s not the greatest series in gaming, and Ocarina of Time is certainly not the greatest game of all time (it’s not even a great Zelda).  The original Legend of Zelda is the greatest Zelda, Skyward Sword is the worst, and the trajectory is mostly downhill with a few exceptions (the bold horror of Majora’s Mask, the focused charm of Wind Waker).

I stopped at this paragraph. I concur that Ocarina might not be the best game ever, but the rest of what the guy wrote is bull.

Really?  I find everything in that paragraph surprisingly accurate myself.

[RAMINATION]

That article was pretty much spot on!

I don't really know though which game is better, the first Zelda or A Link to the Past. At some point I used to think aLttP is better but now the article made me appreciate Zelda 1 like I used to.

It's amazing how unique the world in Zelda 1 feels. It really feels way more open than in later games, and it definitely feels way more mysterious. Damn, even the very first screen is amazing. You can go which ever direction you like and there is already a mystery cave to give a tease for the later possible caves to be found. The player isn't told to go in a certain place. The world just is there and you can find A place, not THE place. A Link to the Past forced you to go to the castle. Zelda 1 doesn't force you to go anywhere.

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

I've never played Majora's Mask. The whole mask whing was the first thing to put my interest down. Then I found out about the time thing. The concept is pretty good. I like the fact that there is a game that goes a bit like Groundhog Day, but I started to feel frustrated when I thought about it more. When I add that to the whole mask thing, it just makes my interest fall into zero.

But damn, I'd like to test that game just because of that music.

I'd love to play a not-elf game with not-mask-animal thing going on that has this feeling of time ending and this music playing.