13th January 2017, 7:07 AM
Did you watch the same trailer I did for Zelda? Seriously, they give Zelda a lot of agency there. I think they did a great job establishing the basic goals and character and mood. Yeah, I'd rather they did something other that have Zelda get captured in it, but in terms of letting her be a well-written character with established motivation and agency (such as stepping in front of Link to directly influence the plot), I think they did very well there. Again, you and I differ quite a bit when it comes to what we care about in a story. I care about how well it is told rather than making it some incredibly complicated narrative filled with twists and turns and major changes to the characters. Read my comments on your review of LTTP for more detail.
But, maybe I'm giving it some slack when I compare it to some really sexist writing, the Mario games. I know you dislike open world design, but I'm looking forward to the new Mario game. It's clear from both the Mario and Zelda trailers we've seen that they are making a point of making every location well designed instead of just scenery to gawk at. But, well, Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser, and that's it. Zelda has agency in the world and is well written, even if she's probably going to get abducted again at some point. Peach has NONE of those saving graces. She just calls out for help, and that's that. This is a character who was playable in a handful of Mario games (Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario RPG, Super Princess Peach, and Super Mario 3D World are about the only ones outside spinoff titles) but she keeps falling back to this trope, and it's far more painful with her because it's clear they only ever intend it as a throwaway plot with zero chance for any sort of character writing. Heck, I'd probably be okay with the occasional "princess has been kidnapped" story if it was once every decade or two, done as a "throwback", but it's their go-to story they only make exceptions for when she's intended to be playable. The frustrating thing for me is she was written best in the Super Mario Adventure comic and in Super Mario RPG. In BOTH of those stories she got kidnapped, but it was over and done with in seconds, done more or less as a series gag, and she played a part in her own rescue. More to the point, she was written as "demure, up to a point" with those breaking points where she chewed out characters like Bowser being comedy gold. That "short fuse" bit worked well because her getting mad always made sense in context anyway, rather than the "short fuse" itself being played for laughs as "she's so unreasonable" (as in a lot of modern Japanese characters with that trait). She both was allowed to get angry and allowed to be totally justified in her anger, and that was appreciated. So, when the ONLY thing her character does is cry out for Mario or look sad in the new stuff, it annoys me to no end, because she can be so much more than that, EVEN in a "save the princess" story. In Mario, that story should be retired anyway. It's been shown numerous times there's a million and one throwaway motivations to get Mario and the gang to save the day. Heck, I'd even take "oh, that mean ol' bowser just ruined Peach's festive summer party by eating all the lemon cakes!", done in the style of a 1920's era cartoon. Even Moana has moments where the main character needs to get saved, but then she saves the male lead, and it's all balanced out with good writing and character agency and so on. Disney has recently proven you can have a damsel in distress moment so long as it's balanced and the "damsel" isn't treated like an empty headed "prize". (To be fair, at least neither Mario or Zelda have ever treated Peach or Zelda like "prizes" to be won, which has led a lot of Nintendo fans back in the day to endlessly complain that Mario and Link never "get any", much to my disgust.)
As for the Zelda series, I've said it before but there's a lot of possibilities the stories give us to play "Zelda's story". Generally, she clearly is doing something, you just don't actually get to see anything but the results of it. They do a great job of making her importance to the story felt, and she generally is a bit of a chessmaster character, coming up with all the overall plans for defeating looming threats. There isn't even any need to alter half the Zelda stories to make playing her "side" seem compelling. Ocarina of Time is very compelling, what with playing as a ninja running around defending her people and opening the way for the hero of time to gather the seals. She gets abducted for like 5 minutes at the very end, but even then there's reason to think she had expected it to happen. Skyward Sword pretty much shows Zelda running through dungeons and obtaining her necessary preparations throughout the game, and that's one game that really let my imagination soar considering the possible quest we could have played with "her side". Even Zelda 1, a game where she's Ganon's prisoner from the very start, gives a quick blurb in the manual stating that she personally broke up the Triforce of wisdom and hid all 8 pieces in the 8 dungeons herself. That's an 8 dungeon quest right there! There's a major plot hole in Zelda 1, in that there's no reason why she, already having the entire triforce of wisdom, didn't just fight Ganon herself instead of splitting it up and telling some random hero to collect them all over again to defeat evil. A "zeroth quest" where you play as Zelda could actually take a couple seconds to explain why she couldn't do it without help (I'm thinking she got herself caught on purpose to weaken Ganon with the Light Force during Link's final confrontation, meaning she plays the long game). Really, the toughest Zelda game to give her an entire quest for would have to be Link to the Past. Even though she's free for a longer period of time than in Zelda 1, she really doesn't do anything when hiding in that church. I suppose with a bit of a stretch, one could wonder what exactly goes on in that weird crystal world she and the other decedents of the sages are trapped in. Perhaps her quest could take place mostly in that quasi-spiritual realm, which turns out to be far more vast than we first thought. It was created with the power of the Triforce, so maybe it's an entire dimension that functions as a third world mapped onto Hyrule's basic layout. That one requires a bit of retconning, but it is surprising just how often Zelda is an active character with her own quests in the Zelda series.
Well, never mind about that for now. I'm interested in the Switch. There's a lot to get excited for in those trailers. Thin launch lineup? Yes, but that's been the case for every console I've ever played. What did the PS4 have at launch? Knack? Sure, there were a number of third party titles (a weakness for Nintendo), but those launch third party titles were, almost without fail, garbage. Heck, the PS4 and XBox One didn't get a decent number of games you actually wanted to play for a few years. Now they're doing a lot better, but at this point, I'm used to weak launch lineups.
32GB of internal memory... Come on literally everyone in the world of mobile! 64GB should have been the minimum by now! That's still not a lot, but 32 is downright silly.
But, maybe I'm giving it some slack when I compare it to some really sexist writing, the Mario games. I know you dislike open world design, but I'm looking forward to the new Mario game. It's clear from both the Mario and Zelda trailers we've seen that they are making a point of making every location well designed instead of just scenery to gawk at. But, well, Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser, and that's it. Zelda has agency in the world and is well written, even if she's probably going to get abducted again at some point. Peach has NONE of those saving graces. She just calls out for help, and that's that. This is a character who was playable in a handful of Mario games (Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario RPG, Super Princess Peach, and Super Mario 3D World are about the only ones outside spinoff titles) but she keeps falling back to this trope, and it's far more painful with her because it's clear they only ever intend it as a throwaway plot with zero chance for any sort of character writing. Heck, I'd probably be okay with the occasional "princess has been kidnapped" story if it was once every decade or two, done as a "throwback", but it's their go-to story they only make exceptions for when she's intended to be playable. The frustrating thing for me is she was written best in the Super Mario Adventure comic and in Super Mario RPG. In BOTH of those stories she got kidnapped, but it was over and done with in seconds, done more or less as a series gag, and she played a part in her own rescue. More to the point, she was written as "demure, up to a point" with those breaking points where she chewed out characters like Bowser being comedy gold. That "short fuse" bit worked well because her getting mad always made sense in context anyway, rather than the "short fuse" itself being played for laughs as "she's so unreasonable" (as in a lot of modern Japanese characters with that trait). She both was allowed to get angry and allowed to be totally justified in her anger, and that was appreciated. So, when the ONLY thing her character does is cry out for Mario or look sad in the new stuff, it annoys me to no end, because she can be so much more than that, EVEN in a "save the princess" story. In Mario, that story should be retired anyway. It's been shown numerous times there's a million and one throwaway motivations to get Mario and the gang to save the day. Heck, I'd even take "oh, that mean ol' bowser just ruined Peach's festive summer party by eating all the lemon cakes!", done in the style of a 1920's era cartoon. Even Moana has moments where the main character needs to get saved, but then she saves the male lead, and it's all balanced out with good writing and character agency and so on. Disney has recently proven you can have a damsel in distress moment so long as it's balanced and the "damsel" isn't treated like an empty headed "prize". (To be fair, at least neither Mario or Zelda have ever treated Peach or Zelda like "prizes" to be won, which has led a lot of Nintendo fans back in the day to endlessly complain that Mario and Link never "get any", much to my disgust.)
As for the Zelda series, I've said it before but there's a lot of possibilities the stories give us to play "Zelda's story". Generally, she clearly is doing something, you just don't actually get to see anything but the results of it. They do a great job of making her importance to the story felt, and she generally is a bit of a chessmaster character, coming up with all the overall plans for defeating looming threats. There isn't even any need to alter half the Zelda stories to make playing her "side" seem compelling. Ocarina of Time is very compelling, what with playing as a ninja running around defending her people and opening the way for the hero of time to gather the seals. She gets abducted for like 5 minutes at the very end, but even then there's reason to think she had expected it to happen. Skyward Sword pretty much shows Zelda running through dungeons and obtaining her necessary preparations throughout the game, and that's one game that really let my imagination soar considering the possible quest we could have played with "her side". Even Zelda 1, a game where she's Ganon's prisoner from the very start, gives a quick blurb in the manual stating that she personally broke up the Triforce of wisdom and hid all 8 pieces in the 8 dungeons herself. That's an 8 dungeon quest right there! There's a major plot hole in Zelda 1, in that there's no reason why she, already having the entire triforce of wisdom, didn't just fight Ganon herself instead of splitting it up and telling some random hero to collect them all over again to defeat evil. A "zeroth quest" where you play as Zelda could actually take a couple seconds to explain why she couldn't do it without help (I'm thinking she got herself caught on purpose to weaken Ganon with the Light Force during Link's final confrontation, meaning she plays the long game). Really, the toughest Zelda game to give her an entire quest for would have to be Link to the Past. Even though she's free for a longer period of time than in Zelda 1, she really doesn't do anything when hiding in that church. I suppose with a bit of a stretch, one could wonder what exactly goes on in that weird crystal world she and the other decedents of the sages are trapped in. Perhaps her quest could take place mostly in that quasi-spiritual realm, which turns out to be far more vast than we first thought. It was created with the power of the Triforce, so maybe it's an entire dimension that functions as a third world mapped onto Hyrule's basic layout. That one requires a bit of retconning, but it is surprising just how often Zelda is an active character with her own quests in the Zelda series.
Well, never mind about that for now. I'm interested in the Switch. There's a lot to get excited for in those trailers. Thin launch lineup? Yes, but that's been the case for every console I've ever played. What did the PS4 have at launch? Knack? Sure, there were a number of third party titles (a weakness for Nintendo), but those launch third party titles were, almost without fail, garbage. Heck, the PS4 and XBox One didn't get a decent number of games you actually wanted to play for a few years. Now they're doing a lot better, but at this point, I'm used to weak launch lineups.
32GB of internal memory... Come on literally everyone in the world of mobile! 64GB should have been the minimum by now! That's still not a lot, but 32 is downright silly.
"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)