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+--- Thread: Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker (/showthread.php?tid=3078)
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Smoke - 28th July 2005
Quote:Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Wind Waker director Eiji Aonuma have admitted that the last instalment in the GameCube series wasn't quite up to scratch - promising they'll do a lot better with Twilight Princess. Aonuma told Swedish magazine Reset that the gameplay in Wind Waker was "dull", admitting that he was in a bit of a hurry when it came to working on the triforce piece hunt.
"At the end of the production we fought against the clock and there were parts that I was forced to approve even though it didn't feel complete," he said.
"I apologise that we didn't fix the triforce hunt at the end of the game. It was slow and dull."
But lessons have been learned, according to Aonuma: "During the development of Twilight Princess, I refused to repeat the same mistakes.
"It means more responsibility for me, but this time we can't let things go wrong."
Miyamoto echoed Aonuma's comments, telling Reset that he wants Twilight Princess "to contain all sides of what people think of the Legend of Zelda series.
"I have absorbed the criticism we got from The Wind Waker, that the sea was too big and the number of dungeons and caves were too few," he said.
"The new game will have more dungeons. Many more."
As previously suggested Twilight Princess will be a lot darker than previous Zelda games - Link is an adult now, and the storyline is "long, complex and occasionally serious," according to Miyamoto and Aonuma. It's slated for a November release and, as you'll know if you read our first impressions of the game, it's shaping up very nicely indeed.
Eurogamer.net: Zelda producer slags own game
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Great Rumbler - 28th July 2005
Good thing he realizes that because it means he won't do the same thing twice.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 28th July 2005
You see?! Even the developers admit they screwed up!
Well, this gives me a LOT of confidence! Yay!
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 28th July 2005
The Triforce Hunt wasn't as cool as a temple or dungeon but I thought it was fun and added to the whole nautical/sailing thing.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Weltall - 28th July 2005
Thus making it not completely 100% boring-as-fuck.
Just like 94% or so.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 28th July 2005
Now don't get me wrong, trolling for treasure is an interesting idea, just not "I'd enjoy it even if I had to repeat it in a massive stretch of water filled with treasure spots" fun. More like, fun for the first 10 or so times and then never again. Finding the charts was a LOT more fun than finding the actual triforce pieces. Sailing is fun, but well, I think I've gone on long enough about it.
It's just nice that the developers acknowledge their own mistakes.
Now apologize for Sunshine! :D (Well actually I can't really find a flaw in the sense of anything like WW in that game, but it just wasn't as enjoyable as SM64, and that water gun didn't really do much for the gameplay. A super jump isn't all that innovative.)
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Smoke - 28th July 2005
I hope the next Mario game is the kind of evolution SMB3 was to SMB.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - A Black Falcon - 28th July 2005
I didn't really mind the sailing (though a usable warp point closer to the northwest corner would be nice), but that triforce hunt definitely got really, really old... and there were too few dungeons as well for sure.
The one I'm most interested in, though, is difficulty... I felt that that was by far the biggest problem. After all, Majora's Mask had just five dungeons (including the last one) and it wasn't thought of as easy (though having gone back to it some recently I think that that's more because of the timing and day cycle thing than the actual standard Zelda gameplay or combat because I almost never die (especially since I got the white-rimmed hearts... still have the basic sword, but have white-rimmed hearts. :))...). And the sailing... for the most part I enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't want to find all the treasures or anything, but it was nice to have a Zelda game that felt like it was in a truly big world... and a sea was a great way to get away from the standard irritating tricks 3d games use to wall you into areas.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 28th July 2005
"The last one"? You need to finish Majora's Mask ABF. I'm sorry to say, there is no last dungeon. You just plain kick Majora's ARSE in the moon. I know you may think from what we have said of it that it's a dungeon, but the most dungeony thing about it is just the extra side quest to get the Fierce Diety mask there, and that's not much.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - A Black Falcon - 28th July 2005
Quote:"The last one"? You need to finish Majora's Mask ABF. I'm sorry to say, there is no last dungeon. You just plain kick Majora's ARSE in the moon. I know you may think from what we have said of it that it's a dungeon, but the most dungeony thing about it is just the extra side quest to get the Fierce Diety mask there, and that's not much.
Aren't there a few minidungeons on the moon? Or is that just for the Fierce Deity Mask (which I will not be getting as getting all of the masks is nowhere near worth that amount of time... I probably will beat that game sometime, though, given that I actually did play it a few days ago (beating rightside-up-Stone-Tower, and saving and quitting before going in upside down).)...
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 29th July 2005
That's about right. There are 4 small mini-dungeons (if you can call them that even) but you only see them if you take up the miniquest. Basically, there are 4 people you have to give a large number of your masks to, and they will send you to various places to test your abilities. They basically all consist of a path you have to take that's on the tough side, but basically is a straight shot. There are some pieces of heart in them too.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - A Black Falcon - 29th July 2005
But to get the Fierce Deity mask I'd need to do all of those annoying highly timing-reliant quests in town (and a few out of it), which I really don't want to do because of how frusterating it quickly gets... so no.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 29th July 2005
Hey I wasn't saying you had to do it, I was just explaining that it wasn't a dungeon. If you don't want to go through stuff like Anju and Kafai's quests then so be it (though if you ask me that was one of the most fun things to do in the game, the dependance on always being in the right place at the right time was part of the thrill to me).
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 30th July 2005
Nothing gets your palms sweaty like tying to accomplish a side-quest 20 seconds before the world ends after spending the 3 in-game days and ALL you NEED to DO is just TALK to this ONE GUY who's on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET :D
it's definitely a love/hate relationship with MM's mechanics but the feeling of accomplishment and the thrill of it all made it not only one of the most original Zelda incarnations but also one of the more difficult and more funner Zeldas.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Darunia - 30th July 2005
I definitely liked Majora's Mask. The three-day thing is a burden, but the world is just so big, colorful and fun to explore... thats what made OoT such a great game, and made WW subpar by comparison.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 30th July 2005
Subpar? I've played through WW probably 10 times and while the difficulty level is somewhere between threading a needle and tying your shoes it offers a huge expansive world where every island has a mini-dungeon and/or side quest and/or mini-game. Even the tiny ones where 'nothing happens' turns out to be the favorite stop of a ghost ship or giant squid or rare sea chart. I've played WW more than OoT or MM so that's definitely saying something; once you start a game of WW it's hard to walk away from it.
The only downfall of WW is the lack of dungeons and of course the lack of a 'final' dungeon. WW needed alot of full on dungeons with lots of variation (the mini dungeons didn't make up for it in that respect). A game like MM can get by with having so few dungeons because of the time limit obviously but also because every square inch of the world was a task in itself.
If WW had a little more time in dev and had more dungeons that reached in to MM level of difficulty then WW would have been better than OoT but I think it was planned from the start of WW's production that there would be more than one Zelda on the GC.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 30th July 2005
Side quests are certainly WW's strength. Not ALL of them are great, but a number of them are fun. I will say after a certain point I did in fact get sick of the redundant quests...
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - N_A - 30th July 2005
Not only was it lacking dungeons, it was lacking in any kind of challenge. I didn't mind the cel shading too much. Afterall, the graphics were an afterthought - at least it should have been, but since the game wasn't all that great, it wasn't. Majora's Mask, with the same number of labryinths, is still Aonuma's masterpiece, and acheived far beyond what Wind Waker did. It was dark, it was challenging, it was mysterious, and it brought the world alive. We can only hope Twilight Princess is as dark, challenging, and interactive as Majora's Mask- and hopefully it will be longer as they promised.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 31st July 2005
Dark? Why is that automatically better? Further, Majora was a pretty normal villian. Ganon on the other hand actually revealed a human side to his personality. What, that's not deep?
The graphics weren't really an afterthought. They worked on the cel shading for a long time and it took quite the effort to get it right. I actually liked the artistic style of it. (You have to think of it in terms of being similar to old culture's murals.) The last part of that comment, "well it should have been", sounds like you are coming up with a defense predicting someone to say that. If that's the case, why state as a fact that it was an afterthought if you had reasonable doubt as to make such a comment as that at the end? There would not have been a need if you were convinced of it to the point that it was beyond reasonable doubt.
No matter. I will only say that the display actually is important. If the gameplay sucks, the game will suck, period, this is true. However, I believe I have mentioned many times that a good setting well done can be the difference between "eh" and "wow this is an amazing experience!". You seem to agree with that in terms of atmosphere at least (though I should say a story can be both lighthearted AND deep).
In conclusion, YOU ARE A MILLION YEARS UNDEREVOLVED! Primitive MONKEY! *sends N_A soaring with a smack from a guitar*
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - N_A - 31st July 2005
Lighthearted and deep ? Well, usually lighthearted stuff by definition is meant not to get too serious and so it tends not to dwell on things, where as deep means its there to make you think about stuff and get into the thick of it. You could do it in terms of gameplay, as Nintendo is very good at doing that with games like Mario and all his spin offs, but when it comes to storyline, I think lightheartedness and deepness are mutually exclusive. Darkness to a game tends to allow you more freedom to create deeper storyline and setting, whereas lightheartedness by definition means you're not intent on delving deep into problems that can be tragic, or sinister, etc. As we all know, the classic theme of Bowser kidnapping Princess Toadstool is something Nintendo usually makes a pretty lighthearted game about, but the gameplay of every Mario game has been pretty deep, but for sure, its storyline is skin deep. WW was lighthearted, but unfortunately, both its story and gameplay were pretty shallow.
The statement about graphics is that I had no problem with it, and probably wouldn't have picked at it personally, but when the game itself sucked, then the graphics that kind of turned off plenty of other players becomes more of an economic problem for Nintendo, and so it was kind of a stupid move on all ends on Nintendo's part. My main gripe about WW is still that the gameplay sucked. As you know, graphics are usually an afterthought for me, it only becomes a forethought when I have more to gripe about when the gameplay sucks.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Great Rumbler - 31st July 2005
Quote:but when it comes to storyline, I think lightheartedness and deepness are mutually exclusive.
I wouldn't say that. Go watch just about any Hayao Miyazaki movie, most of those have both except for Princess Mononoke which is more dark than his other movies.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 31st July 2005
I understand. Regarding deep stories needing to expound on things like tragedy though, I don't think that is needed. I think a story can be very deep but only really analyzing the good side of humanity in depth. Link doesn't have to have a tortured past or anything, but being able to be lighthearted and cheerful despite what may be going on around him can say something rather deep as well. He's a boyscout that doesn't bother really dwelling on anything that much, but hey, that's alright. I really don't want Link to ever be dark or brooding a character, no matter how deep the story might be.
Oh and, you know, at this point I wonder... Could it still be a Zelda game if one time they decided not to have a guy named Link as the main character? I only ask because I've had some ideas on new gameplay concepts that kinda exclude a human, or the game only letting you play as one entity at once. I guess what I'm saying is they could make some story involving a side quest not involving a hero with a certain fate and certainty and go with that if they needed to, but well, would that be okay in the eyes of the fans? I dunno, I'm sure if Nintendo announced a new game where the main character is plural, and is in fact two dekus with all manner of deku unique abilities, would they complain or just eye the whole project with skepticism until it came out? Something to think about anyway...
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 1st August 2005
Kind of a Final Fantasy twist on the Zelda Universe? That would be cool. Like playing as a character that has nothing to do with Link or Zelda but turns out to be an integral aspect to the legend indirectly. It could even be secret, so that game players only find out at the end of the game that it's connected to the legend of Zelda, yunno?
You could have a game that takes place thousands of years in the future with a more modern society where the end of the world is about to take place (kinda Chrono Triggerish) and while you cant stop the end of the world you can track down the cause of it (Ganon) and destroy it as a hero which would create a new road in the time line that would alter Link's in the same way that in OoT you locked up Gannondorf in to the Sacred Realm giving him free reign to create the Dark World.
It would be really cool to expand on the universe like that but it wouldn't be a Zelda game.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 1st August 2005
Well Ganon has always been evil attuned to the triforce of power right?
Well, in a "present day" ish world with some new guy, what about a villian who treasures courage above all else? Someone who can be both evil AND brave? That'd be interesting...
It would be interesting. Certainly it wouldn't be a Link game. Link's Awakening didn't have a single thing to do with Zelda, at all. That was an odd one.
The only reason I bring this up, story reasons aside, is just that it could expand the gameplay possibilities to not be stuck with the man in tights all the time (not that that's really a BAD thing).
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 2nd August 2005
LA and MM had nothing to do with Zelda but everything to do with Link, though those stories might influence Zelda at some point.
I like your idea. Imagine a context where the Triforce of Wisdom has been destroyed by Gannondorf (killing Zelda from the continuum) so that the entire universe is balanced in Courage and Power and everything would be thrown out of whack. Gannondorf and Link are still in the continuum but they've become corrupt and totally different entities. Link could be a teenager living in the Bronx and Gannondorf is a financial tycoon in New York, but they have no idea who they really are.
You play as Michael Klin and live in a small apartment,, you're having dreams about these two women who stand over the body of another woman and begin to cry, the dead woman has been stabbed by a sword. While you're going to work the next day you bump in to a girl who lives on the streets who's name is Natalie and she's looking for her sister Diane who owns a company in the city. When you bring Natalie to meet Diane all hell breaks loose and they begin to fight. The fight escalates in to the streets as Diane begins to egnite everything on fire through her touch and Natalie forms huge force fields to stop her fire, an all-out comic book super hero battle takes place and in the commotion of the fight you get a vision of the dead woman who tells you they wont stop fighting until you find their third sister and that she hasn't been born yet.
Diane leaves the battlefield after Natalie is knocked unconscious, their battle has all but destroyed a few blocks of the city. Diane realizes her powers and returns home to her husband Gerald King of King Industries who's been watching the entire thing on the news, Diane tells him what happened and King tells her of the dreams he's been having about a dead girl. Diane tells him she has the same dreams and sees her husband killing the woman. She knows the woman is her sister and she sees where she's killed; a small house near the ocean. King tells her he knows that house and they both flee the city in search of it.
Meanwhile Michael carries Natalie away from the fires in the city that Diane started and takes her to a hospital. The doctors tell you that she's stable but heavily wounded, she cant leave the hospital. You go in to see her and she tells you that you must find a woman who lives on a beach, she's about to give birth to a girl who is a sister to Diane and Natalie. If Diane gets there first the baby will be killed. She tells Kiln about a dream she's had since she was a child, a dream about a man with a sword. She hands Kiln a massive tome, in it are phone numbers, pictures of people and drawings of different objects. A 6 shooter revolver, a wedding ring, the handle of a cane... none of it makes much sense. Then Natalie tells him that the sword existed once but now has been destroyed and melted down in to what she believes are these objects that she's tracked down over the years. She has one of the objects already, an ornate necklace with the engraving of an egyptian looking owl clasping a sword in it's talons.
Michael must find all 7 objects and bring them back to Natalie before Diane and King find the unborn sister. Michael leaves the hospital unable to believe what Natalie has told him and opens the old leather bound book, seeing that a few of the objects are here in New York. Kiln hears the voice of a man behind him but sees nothing. The voice says he will help Kiln find the objects and that he must trust him, the first object is a ring worn by an evil man who preys on young girls. He has a tattoo on his back of a crab with one eye.
And then the adventure would begin, typical Zelda style gameplay but with a slightly modified presentation. As the game progresses it becomes more and more related to past Zelda games. Dungeons would be the alleyways, office buildings and sewers of the city and surrounding areas while the bosses would be mostly human, but as you collect more of the Master Sword it gains power and begins to change the people who own it's shards changing them in to monsters.
The entire scope of the game could be an 'Unbreakable' like ideal of the Zelda story. In other words the take on it would be "What if the legend of Zelda was real in today's world?" Lon Lon Ranch could be a junkyard where a female mechanic restores old cars and made a custom v8 engine for a Mustang out of one of the sword shards, so there's your Epona. :D
As far as the character breakdowns I think it would be interesting that Link (Kiln) would exist without purpose (Zelda doesn't exist so there's no need for a Link) and has to create his purpose by letting the 3rd sister be born, thus creating the balance and restoring Zelda to the continuum.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 2nd August 2005
Interesting take on it. Something that departed might actually be easier to do, as far as story and artistic freedom, if it just didn't have anything to do with the Zelda storyline at all. That said, you could actually do that right now if you could just get a team together. :D The reason it seems like a tough fit to me is, well, actually it really doesn't contradict anything but it would add elements that could restrict things in the future. What I mean is, you have made an interesting Final Fantasy style situation, where the very existance of the world actually depends on the state of the triforce. As in that game, altering the triforce (or in many FF games, the elemental crystals) has drastic consequences on the very way the world works. This is a lot more drastic though. This is something like the ending of Chrono Cross, with the entire world and all it's people being utterly remade into the modern world. Actually Illusion of Gaia ends in a similar way... Hmm... At any rate I always thought the world would be able to persist without the triforce completely. I had imagined a future event where the entire triforce, after being abused both by light and darkness (as for how light could abuse it, imagine too much depending on being able to just wish the world back to normal, and as a result, you start neglecting to save everyone, because you can just wish them back to life after all and there are more important things) is shattered and vanishes forever. The world was made before the triforce, so it could subsist without it, but the heroes would need to learn to live without dependance on the triforce (and by extension, dependance on the 3 goddesses).
Anyway, you also make an interesting storyline idea of Zelda vanishing completely due to the destruction of the triforce part the Zeldas of the world have always been alligned to. (Oh and don't think I didn't notice the idea that a world without any wisdom at all takes the form of modern society, brilliant joke on your part.) She may be a preselected vessel for wisdom and all, but from what I gathered it simply selected whoever was most alligned to wisdom at the time when one who isn't in balance grabs the triforce, so it could have been another, if it was in another time. I think by extension what I'm trying to say is that her existance probably doesn't depend on the existance of the triforce, but her preordained purpose kinda does.
No matter, anyway your idea has merit but to REALLY strike home as a "twist ending"... on the moon, you may want to more or less make up a whole new world. Imagine starting the whole game off where all the players assume that's simply the way the world is and the fantasy elements are something encroaching on it. When it's revealed the only reason the world is even like that is due to a catastrophe in a fantasy world (of your imagining), it could really do a better mind warp than one who already thinks from the start "this is a ZELDA game, it's not supposed to BE like this!".
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Moving along, I think I'll try and expand on my ideas for a story. I've kinda humored it for some time, but it's basically set in something RESEMBLING the present day but set in the kingdom of Hyrule. I'll sort of bounce around here so pardon the mess. They might still have a king or have gone on to some other leadership, whatever, but if I ended up making the king into a president, at this point it might be seen as... well cheesy.
So anyway, setting it in something like modern day has only one real purpose, giving Link, or whatever other character I may have in that game, access to new kinds of gameplay. Think of the technology they added in certain parts of other Zelda games purely for the purpose of gameplay. They put a phone on Koholint for example, simply because it was the easiest way to give you access to Uncle Ulrira. Well, I suppose they could have had HIM in all the huts, following you around, but this worked too.
Anyway, Link could drive around and have to manage actual traffic. The traffic part of things wouldn't really be an option if he was riding a horse. The idea would be some high speed chases, action movie style, only it'll actually be fun because you are doing it. As for the look, I'm not thinking suburbia at all. What I'm thinking is an interesting artistic style take on an "alternate present". I always loved the look of those very roman temples in Zelda 2, so I was thinking all the buildings could resemble that in their design. That means a lot of roman style collumns. I only have a rough idea for the look, but the idea is that it'll almost look like a magical version of our present era. Speaking of, magic would still be commonplace, because it's a Zelda game. I'm just a little sick of the whole "rediscovering magic" story archetype anyway. From here it could play out like standard Zelda, only very highly populated with all those old dungeons being tourist attractions, or else just roped off as too dangerous. I'm thinking the villian, just because I love shadow Link battles, could basically be someone resembling Link at least in build and fighting style. In a weird way, a very courageous lad who's just plain "not afraid to do what I want for MYSELF, no matter the odds". Basically, someone bouncing around rooftops who loves a dangerous situation, but really is a very selfish person anyway. This is a result of me wanting to constantly fight "against myself" style battles throughout a game, and only with a character who isn't the sort to sit around plotting in the background, or hide in some uberfort, can this be done.
My main man could be Link, but perhaps I want someone distinctly non-Link. I dunno, I might want a new species with unique abilities I plan on using the whole game, but really the idea is that this guy may have a different personality. Maybe this hero is actually sort of a coward with little self confidence, but is strong in wisdom. Someone who has to figure out how to be brave by the end of it all. Eh, the courage thing doesn't matter, but the wisdom thing is because I really would like to be able to design some tools in a Zelda game. Perhaps I could actually do some background manipulating of things on my own eh? I think that might be fun... Anyway, the idea is that it wouldn't be Link both because it would be odd to have that outfit in that era (if I had everyone wearing like jeans and stuff) and the personality might strike most fans as "totally not Link". I don't know, haven't really thought that out yet.
What I can say is it's growing though, and eventually I might just ditch Zelda as the basis completely.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Great Rumbler - 2nd August 2005
You have an insane attention to detail, lazy. I don't know how a game like that would actually work out, but it might be pretty cool.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 3rd August 2005
Well, the game play would all be the same as a Zelda game. To get from A to B you need a tool, to get the tool you have to go from A to C and then to B to accomplish the main goal. Lather, rinse, repeat. All the while making it more complicated as you progress so that the tool needed might be information from a particular person, an item or a series of events that need to take place before you can approach the B destination. Essentially all you're doing is saying go here, but there's a road block or two so find away around it and hopefully that way around it will induce fun and interesting mechanics that give the gameplayer entertainment instead of pissing them off with another side quest before they can move forward.
Other than that, Zelda is exactly like Mario or Metroid or Resident Evil or any other character driven role playing game in that the game mechanics rely heavily on your sense of exploration and you're willingness to confront danger or the unknown. How awesome is it to explore a dense forest for a key that opens a cave on the beach. Townspeople tell you the cave was once open and the roars of a monster could be heard and that the cave was sealed to protect the town. And here you go Mr. Fancy-Pants opening the cave... right when you walk in you're presented with a labyrinth that has no logical order and is filled with traps and enemies. Your entire progress could be halted for days (real days) because of a puzzle or a mini boss that seems impossible... or it could be a walk in the park. You wont know until you're done with the dungeon. And then you're reward, not only do you get this cool new gadget that allows you use a new ability that makes killing enemies or traversing harsh elements easier - you recieve an iconic gem that is proudly displayed on your menu showing you that you're one step closer to your ultimate goal.
The design is brilliant and Zelda has ALWAYS done it the best hands down, no one can argue that point but it doesn't stop companies like Capcom and Square from trying and usually providing something that's almost to Zelda's level (except the X series and the online FF krap).
But on to DJ's ideas I think in my opinion the whole sense of "magic" is extremely hard to do with any realistic sense of "this is actually happening". When a Black Mage casts Lightening 4 on a level 88 Mindflare and watches him turn to squid barbeque you get a sense of great accomplishment. Not only did you work hard for your Mage to acquire that ability but you timed it right AND you did your homework enough to know that Lightening elementals kill Mindflare's dead very quickly. But the entire sense of realism isn't there. Smacking him with a sword; real. Throwing a stone at him, real. But no video game or film (except LotR) had produced an incarnation of it where one can fully say "yes this is happening, my suspension of disbelief tells me that this person is creating wind, fire, etc from his fingertips." It's just hard to do.
Ryan's RPG has an interesting take on it that he told me about where it binds a more realistic view in to magic use but nothing compares to best book in the world on magic use. The Bible. Not only does it depict human beings using elementals and magic but it goes in to detail of how it was done, how a person can create real magic but then their body is worn and frail or at the very least weaker and that this magic is not there's. It's God's, and God is allowing them to use it because God is using them to perform his goals. As long as you believe in atleast some sense of God (even the less spiritual scientific method of unknown energies) then it becomes completely plausible and defined to a point that everyone can grasp and understand.
Taking that view, I think it's safe to say that the realistic depiction of magic use has a far greater impact when you understand the character that's using it and how they're doing it. Gandelf's staff has a crystal in it which he can focus his powers in to create grand effects - a real life white mage. But the elves can channel it out of sheer will. She closes her eyes, almost praying and the small brook becomes a thousand ton tidal wave with the characteristic look and sound of giant horses charging in to her enemies. It's real, it's actually happening because it's based in reality and it has some feasible ground (the water is already there, she's amplifying it with the idea of charging horses).
When it becomes stupid is when too many people can use it and have no basis of it's use. If some dude in jeans and a t-shirt summons Ifrit the Titan of Fire to demolish an army we're going to call shenanigans and throw a bullshit flag. He better atleast break a sweat and have some veins popping out of his forehead to give us an idea of the mental stress it requires to summon a demi-God. It's more entertaining and it basis the ridiculous idea of creating and forming elemental magic (or any applicable magic) from your fingers. You need to be wise, educated, 'show the character' and help us believe what's happening is actually happening. You do that and you say Wow instead of yawn and unfortunately there isn't a single video game on earth that ever made that connection except maybe *MAYBE* certain games like Silent Hill and the like who give us a realistic depiction of black magic and black arts to the point of it making a connection and being believable (for the story and the gameplayer)
phew wtf was my point again Oh, if you wanted to throw people in to an alternate universe that is unlike what they're used to that's one thing. But what if that alternate universe is ours? as long as it's vastly different from they're used to in a game series the ideal holds the same amount of water. But then just for the sake of tying the series together you can take this reality (our current world) and begin to transform it in to what people are used to - a demented transmogrification of what we know to be real in to something we know is unreal is a fantastic element in story telling and it always works because you're telling people that it exists for real. That building is the Sears Tower in the real world but if you put on these interdimensional goggles you'll see that it's also Lucifer's Keep, the exact location where he was cast down by Michael and God. But you can only see it with these goggles. You're instantly put in a mode of "yeah I can grasp that" and your interest is atleast some what turned on and you're ready for the rest of the story because it began based in reality.
Michael Crichton among a thousand other authors makes a very good living doing that and it's usually the best way to induce interest in your sci-fi or your fantasy world. My favorite part of the Neverending Story is when Atrayu talks directly to the boy reading the book in the real world. That scene always grabs me and I always believe it. Zelda does it by telling you that this story is a part of a legend that goes back thousands of years, it shows you ancient scribes and tombs of soldiers in untold numbers of a war that took place before Hyrule existed. When you put a mass of history behind your locations you're able to create a feeling of realism because quite simply the more you know about something the more real it becomes whether it's how a Pokeball or a lightsaber work or how Jesus died on the cross which depends on what church you go to. The more you learn about it the more grounded in truth or 'reality' it is.
So keeping that in mind your pseudo-roman architecture akin to Zelda 2's art direction can be completely founded as long as your stick to some of the guidelines to make it entertaining and believable. I mean lets face it look at it all the theories that are crafted on why there are pyramids on every corner of the globe and how they're all built with the same design and architecture. I love the theory about how Atlantians fled the sinking city and spread across the world to build their grand pyramids in different cultures and spread their wealth of knowledge when in reality the reason the pyramids all look the same is because if you want to build a giant structure for your God or a tomb for your king the only you can make it is out of heavy stone stacked in to a pyramid shape in order for it to be excessively large and not buckle under its own weight. But the theories still are entertaining and fun to listen to :D
As far as my little experiment up there of an 'Unbreakable' Zelda I think it would be neat to mesh both our ideas in that we could have modern New York but as the game progresses it becomes more like Hyrule. The Goddesses awaken as their real purpose and the master sword fragments you collected begin to surge with energy and cause our reality to manifest in to what is the 'true' reality which is the land of Hyrule according to this story and whoosh pseudo-roman Zelda 2-esque architecture in a realistic modern world, millions panic, the seas boil, the sun turns to blood, cats and dogs living together, Elvis marries Bigfoot and has the Lochness monster's baby and Brad Pitt is carried on the shoulders of Steven Seagal to the stage where they accept the Academy Award for best Actors in Steven Spielberg's docu-drama cult hit; Ass Cracks in the Mud: Biography of a Black Jewish Rapist.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - A Black Falcon - 9th August 2005
Quote:Not only was it lacking dungeons, it was lacking in any kind of challenge. I didn't mind the cel shading too much. Afterall, the graphics were an afterthought - at least it should have been, but since the game wasn't all that great, it wasn't. Majora's Mask, with the same number of labryinths, is still Aonuma's masterpiece, and acheived far beyond what Wind Waker did. It was dark, it was challenging, it was mysterious, and it brought the world alive. We can only hope Twilight Princess is as dark, challenging, and interactive as Majora's Mask- and hopefully it will be longer as they promised.
As I've said before, MM, in the strict combat sense, actually isn't that hard. You don't die very often. The dungeons are of only moderate difficulty, or at least would be if not for the time element. The world is fun to explore, but like OoT isn't exactly overly challenging. I find myself dying quite irregularly in MM (yes, it does help that I have white-rimmed hearts, but even so...). The game's challenge doesn't come from that... it comes from the timing, the sidequests and the timing they require, the fact you have to try to complete long sequences of events within a strict time limit, etc... honestly, I think that MM without any timing element wouldn't be a whole lot harder than MM. I really think that...
But of course, with the timing MM becomes the game it is: very annoying and challenging, even if you sure don't die very often at all. (and yes, I will indeed continue to insist that OoT was and still is noticably harder on the combat-difficulty/frequency-of-death scale than MM or WW. Overall MM might be harder just because of how annoying it is, though...).
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 9th August 2005
Well first of all the idea wasn't really to make it seem "real". My idea was just setting it in pseudo modern times. Whether it's completely believable or not wouldn't be an issue.
And now, regarding pyramids. You know why pyramids happen to be all over the world? It's because that shape is the simplest way to build gigantic structures existing only for their size. Why do people like building this stuff? Because all humans are basically the same across the planet. There's no real mystery in the same sense that it is no great mystery as to why all guns have straight barrels. The laws of physics tend to restrain what we are capable of so there will be some similarities. Until some new engineering principles involving using triangles to support a structure, or collumns using the strength of a shape like a cylinder for support, allowing for things like skyscrapers came along, well, if you wanted a giant godly structure, you went with something that worked. What works? Something that gets wider at the same rate of load increase. You see it as sand falls in an hour glass all the time, a simple evolution in which the base gets bigger at the same rate that the amount of sand increases by. To make a connection, there better be something more than just the fact that lots of cultures made pyramids.
And oh yes, no one's found Atlantis yet.
Sorry about that, but I know some people that take their fantasies too far. It's why I can't actually suspend my disbelief all the way. What if I go insane? I FEAR GOING INSANE TO THE POINT OF IT BEING A DEBILITATING MENTAL CONDITION!
...
Moving along, yeah come to think of it Mario, Zelda, Metroid, there are a LOT of similarities, especially in the current generation's games. They are the same genre which for different considerations are called by different names.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 9th August 2005
Dark Jaguar Wrote:regarding pyramids. You know why pyramids happen to be all over the world? It's because that shape is the simplest way to build gigantic structures existing only for their size. Why do people like building this stuff? Because all humans are basically the same across the planet. There's no real mystery in the same sense that it is no great mystery as to why all guns have straight barrels. The laws of physics tend to restrain what we are capable of so there will be some similarities. Until some new engineering principles involving using triangles to support a structure, or collumns using the strength of a shape like a cylinder for support, allowing for things like skyscrapers came along, well, if you wanted a giant godly structure, you went with something that worked. What works? Something that gets wider at the same rate of load increase. You see it as sand falls in an hour glass all the time, a simple evolution in which the base gets bigger at the same rate that the amount of sand increases by. To make a connection, there better be something more than just the fact that lots of cultures made pyramids.
lazyfatbum Wrote:look at it all the theories that are crafted on why there are pyramids on every corner of the globe and how they're all built with the same design and architecture. I love the theory about how Atlantians fled the sinking city and spread across the world to build their grand pyramids in different cultures and spread their wealth of knowledge when in reality the reason the pyramids all look the same is because if you want to build a giant structure for your God or a tomb for your king the only you can make it is out of heavy stone stacked in to a pyramid shape in order for it to be excessively large and not buckle under its own weight.
Thank you for repeating everything I said DJ. :D
As far as the realism factor I wasn't just taking your idea in to account but a meshing of yours and mine. If the story was going to be grounded in reality then it must appear so even with fantastic flights of fantasy.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 9th August 2005
That we can both agree on. And, sorry for repeating it but I thought I'd elaborate on it...
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 9th August 2005
I am completely "down with that" my friend. *sips tea*
I've started pushing a script out about a Zelda movie and I started realizing it could really work. So I thought about who would be casted for the film if it was a huge budget super-hollywood popcorn movie and my brain exploded. Just day dreaming but I thought it would be fun. Any ideas?
I was thinking of Leonardo DiCaprio for Link but i'm not a fan of him, he just fits the look.
For the music I was thinking of getting Koji Kondo to write the main themes and have John Williams actually score and buff it up with the London Philharmonic.
For the director the first thing that struck me was M. Night but then I started thinking of the more obvious Peter Jackson
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 9th August 2005
Yeah I remember seeing that script... hidden in the excel folder along with lots of other things... things I'm not supposed to repeat...
lazy: That is a *gets melodic for next word* LIIIIEEE! I keep everything on my DESKTOP, everything!
DJ: Oh, you got me...
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - lazyfatbum - 9th August 2005
.....
*runs every anti-virus program known to man*
Haha..... I knew you were kidding.... I...
*unplugs modem*
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Weltall - 9th August 2005
I think Ice Cube would make a fantastic Link.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Dark Jaguar - 9th August 2005
No, Peter Griffin would. He can already split into 4.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Geno - 1st September 2005
I liked Wind Waker, but it could've been a lot better. It's got nothing on Ocarina of Time.
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Smoke - 2nd September 2005
lazyfatbum Wrote:I am completely "down with that" my friend. *sips tea*
I've started pushing a script out about a Zelda movie and I started realizing it could really work. So I thought about who would be casted for the film if it was a huge budget super-hollywood popcorn movie and my brain exploded. Just day dreaming but I thought it would be fun. Any ideas?
I was thinking of Leonardo DiCaprio for Link but i'm not a fan of him, he just fits the look.
For the music I was thinking of getting Koji Kondo to write the main themes and have John Williams actually score and buff it up with the London Philharmonic.
For the director the first thing that struck me was M. Night but then I started thinking of the more obvious Peter Jackson
How about Ridley Scott direct it? And we could get Tom Cruise circa 1985 to play Link!
Aonuma apologizes for Wind Waker - Great Rumbler - 2nd September 2005
Or you could just watch Legend!