Daily Debate: Which Zelda Games Are Too Long?
Posted on December 19 2021 by Mike Midwood
The conversation surrounding game length has cooled over the recent years. Most people have come to accept that the paradigm of “hours played divided by money spent” doesn’t make much sense. It fails to account for replayability, expectations, and subjective fulfillment with the game in question. I feel the other side of the conversation, games that are too long and overstay their welcome, hasn’t had enough spotlight. Plenty of games offer extremely lengthy stories or mountains of content, but fail to deliver an engaging experience. Most Zelda fans would probably agree that our favorite franchise has been guilty of this at least once. Which Zelda games are too long?
Skyward Sword is by far the biggest culprit, for me. Despite having a relatively small amount of optional content for a 3D Zelda, it has the longest main story required for completion. This alone isn’t the end of the world. Twilight Princess isn’t quite as lengthy, but I’d put it in roughly the same category as Skyward Sword. They’re both long, languid games with many stoppages for narrative moments and extended sequences between dungeons. The difference is that Twilight Princess continues to offer unique, interesting dungeons all the way up to the game’s conclusion. Skyward Sword, conversely, sees fit to recycle it’s main areas (for a third time, actually) and have the player perform some of the game’s most mundane tasks to form the “Song of the Hero”. Twilight Princess could maybe have done with some shaving, but Skyward Sword has massive tufts the game would be better without.
Of course, Breath of the Wild‘s enormous amount of content grants it the greatest potential length by a mile. The vast majority of that content is optional, though. To a degree, Breath of the Wild is as long as you want it to be. In fact, completing just the absolutely required content can result in a playtime rivaling even the oldest Zelda titles. Smaller games can also go on for a bit to long. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks have always felt too drawn out to me. Despite being modest, handheld games, they are very slow and don’t have the content to support a lengthy adventure. It goes to show that how much content a game has matters less than how it is implemented.
What about you? Which Zelda game do you think is to long? Do you generally prefer shorter or longer adventures? Let us know in the comments below!
Hi, I’m Mike Midwood and I’m a Senior Editor at ZeldaDungeon! Video games and literature are my greatest joys in life. An avid Zelda fan, some of my other favorite games include the Resident Evil and Dark Souls series. I hope you enjoy my content here on ZeldaDungeon!
“The sword has no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage.”
