9th April 2020, 7:20 AM
You mention having to get used to Gamecube graphics again. For what it's worth, I think Wind Waker's look is timeless, the sort of old game where they emphasized an art style to the point where it ages very gracefully. I never have to get "used" to it personally, unlike old games that focused on "realism" which all aged like fine bananas. I'm looking at you Perfect Dark, though I wish I wasn't.
I think I know what you mean when it comes to Twilight Princess. I would add that Skyward Sword has a similar issue. When it comes to Zelda, I consider three aspects to be key to a Zelda experience.
The first is that cohesive "this is a massive world to explore" part, much like Metroid. It's not done in stages, it's done as a massive single piece where you explore from one area to the next using items and such in new areas. At the most basic level I think just about everyone understands that, and even Zelda 2 sticks with that idea. This is what necessitates a focus on puzzles I think. To explore means to get stuck and that involves mental as well as physical barriers.
The second I almost never see mentioned is what I call "tangibility". Zelda games are unlike most other adventure/RPGs in that every action is made to "feel" like you're actually doing something. Almost never do you just sit there selecting from a menu, you are an active participant in something that takes a certain level of control to accomplish. Pushing a rock doesn't usually just stop at hitting "A" while looking at a rock. You have to move your character into the rock and direct that motion. Picking up a vase involves walking next to it, hitting A, then walking around with it over your head right down to the reduction in movement and action options that implies. Every single action, every single item, every single STEP is carefully designed and itterated over and over again until it "feels" just right, as Miyamoto interviews have revealed. Zelda, much like Mario is a very tangible game, and Zelda without that hands-on feel is not Zelda.
Thirdly- there's the freedom of exploration. The freedom to go on and do what you want, explore where you will, within the restrictions of your character's abilities. Frankly, older games have more of this than never games right up until Breath of the Wild.
It's that last one I feel like both Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword sacrificed in the name of narrative. They're not the only series that have done that mind you. King's Quest 1 and 2 are both far more "open" games than their sequels. King's Quest 7 is most certainly the most linear, being broken up into literal "chapters". In fact, I'd say that this sacrifice of freedom also hurts that first point. Even though on paper TP and SS aren't level-based games, they end up FEELING like it because there's only one way to tackle the games. There's no freedom to tackle certain areas out of order. The most you're ever allowed is when you decide to handle the side quests. This has also hurt the speed running community, since they sealed up these games so tight that sequence breaking becomes very difficult. What's worse is the artificial nature of what keeps you from exploring. Your companion. It's one thing when the game relies on that tangibility factor to block off entry. If it's a physical barrier, it doesn't seem forced. It's just an actual wall. However, when the only thing keeping you from exploring areas you want to look at is a ghost yelling at you to turn back, it feels frustrating. Also, as the years go on Midna has become more and more annoying. She's honestly just hard to tolerate with that attitude of her's. It was kind of cute the first time around, it made her stand apart from Navi. However, you know who else stood apart from Navi? Tatl. Tatl is a better Midna. Then again, I'd easily take "annoying and ungrateful" to whatever they were trying to do with Fi. Her writing is awful. They thought to give a personality to the Master Sword, then forgot to give that personality a personality. Frankly, I am of the opinion that Fi would have had more personality if she never spoke a word of dialog and had to get across all her thoughts and emotion through her gestures.
The one thing both SS and TP maintain is that tangibility factor. Other than the narrative driven barriers, both games still have a heavy focus on making sure every action "feels" like you're doing it. For me, that's enough to keep it feeling like Zelda enough for me to enjoy those games for what they are. However, it's clear the shift to point by point narrative hurt the two games. Perhaps if they'd taken the time to develop multiple narrative paths to match up with multiple directions the player might choose to take, that could resolve the problem.
I will say that things can swing too far the other way. Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild both emphasize freedom to the point that every dungeon is equal in difficulty rather than being a curve. Further, puzzles are very unchallenging. Nintendo seems to have taken the position that players shouldn't get stuck to the extent that over the years they have "dumbed down" the most frustrating dungeons in remakes. Personally I think that hurts the experience, but there are ways to handle that too. Dynamic dungeon difficulty is one of them, but it involves a lot of work. If every dungeon had perhaps 4 layouts, selected based on which order you tackled them in and which items you had already collected, this would provide the best of both worlds. It would also drastically increase the amount of time and effort needed to develop dungeons.
In any case, Zelda is my absolute favorite series so I have a LOT to say about any given game. I'm just glad that Nintendo has never once taken the series for granted and released a cash grab. While I might disagree with this or that aspect of specific games, on the whole I appreciate Nintendo's willingness to reinvent the series every few games right down to the art style.
I think I know what you mean when it comes to Twilight Princess. I would add that Skyward Sword has a similar issue. When it comes to Zelda, I consider three aspects to be key to a Zelda experience.
The first is that cohesive "this is a massive world to explore" part, much like Metroid. It's not done in stages, it's done as a massive single piece where you explore from one area to the next using items and such in new areas. At the most basic level I think just about everyone understands that, and even Zelda 2 sticks with that idea. This is what necessitates a focus on puzzles I think. To explore means to get stuck and that involves mental as well as physical barriers.
The second I almost never see mentioned is what I call "tangibility". Zelda games are unlike most other adventure/RPGs in that every action is made to "feel" like you're actually doing something. Almost never do you just sit there selecting from a menu, you are an active participant in something that takes a certain level of control to accomplish. Pushing a rock doesn't usually just stop at hitting "A" while looking at a rock. You have to move your character into the rock and direct that motion. Picking up a vase involves walking next to it, hitting A, then walking around with it over your head right down to the reduction in movement and action options that implies. Every single action, every single item, every single STEP is carefully designed and itterated over and over again until it "feels" just right, as Miyamoto interviews have revealed. Zelda, much like Mario is a very tangible game, and Zelda without that hands-on feel is not Zelda.
Thirdly- there's the freedom of exploration. The freedom to go on and do what you want, explore where you will, within the restrictions of your character's abilities. Frankly, older games have more of this than never games right up until Breath of the Wild.
It's that last one I feel like both Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword sacrificed in the name of narrative. They're not the only series that have done that mind you. King's Quest 1 and 2 are both far more "open" games than their sequels. King's Quest 7 is most certainly the most linear, being broken up into literal "chapters". In fact, I'd say that this sacrifice of freedom also hurts that first point. Even though on paper TP and SS aren't level-based games, they end up FEELING like it because there's only one way to tackle the games. There's no freedom to tackle certain areas out of order. The most you're ever allowed is when you decide to handle the side quests. This has also hurt the speed running community, since they sealed up these games so tight that sequence breaking becomes very difficult. What's worse is the artificial nature of what keeps you from exploring. Your companion. It's one thing when the game relies on that tangibility factor to block off entry. If it's a physical barrier, it doesn't seem forced. It's just an actual wall. However, when the only thing keeping you from exploring areas you want to look at is a ghost yelling at you to turn back, it feels frustrating. Also, as the years go on Midna has become more and more annoying. She's honestly just hard to tolerate with that attitude of her's. It was kind of cute the first time around, it made her stand apart from Navi. However, you know who else stood apart from Navi? Tatl. Tatl is a better Midna. Then again, I'd easily take "annoying and ungrateful" to whatever they were trying to do with Fi. Her writing is awful. They thought to give a personality to the Master Sword, then forgot to give that personality a personality. Frankly, I am of the opinion that Fi would have had more personality if she never spoke a word of dialog and had to get across all her thoughts and emotion through her gestures.
The one thing both SS and TP maintain is that tangibility factor. Other than the narrative driven barriers, both games still have a heavy focus on making sure every action "feels" like you're doing it. For me, that's enough to keep it feeling like Zelda enough for me to enjoy those games for what they are. However, it's clear the shift to point by point narrative hurt the two games. Perhaps if they'd taken the time to develop multiple narrative paths to match up with multiple directions the player might choose to take, that could resolve the problem.
I will say that things can swing too far the other way. Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild both emphasize freedom to the point that every dungeon is equal in difficulty rather than being a curve. Further, puzzles are very unchallenging. Nintendo seems to have taken the position that players shouldn't get stuck to the extent that over the years they have "dumbed down" the most frustrating dungeons in remakes. Personally I think that hurts the experience, but there are ways to handle that too. Dynamic dungeon difficulty is one of them, but it involves a lot of work. If every dungeon had perhaps 4 layouts, selected based on which order you tackled them in and which items you had already collected, this would provide the best of both worlds. It would also drastically increase the amount of time and effort needed to develop dungeons.
In any case, Zelda is my absolute favorite series so I have a LOT to say about any given game. I'm just glad that Nintendo has never once taken the series for granted and released a cash grab. While I might disagree with this or that aspect of specific games, on the whole I appreciate Nintendo's willingness to reinvent the series every few games right down to the art style.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)