• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

VikzeLink's Weekly Sunday Poll 410!

When it comes to story-telling in TLoZ, what do you prefer?

  • No Story

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Not that much story in-game

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Some Story

    Votes: 5 31.3%
  • A good, decent amount of story

    Votes: 8 50.0%
  • Heavily story based

    Votes: 3 18.8%

  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .

VikzeLink

The Destructive One
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 4, 2012
Location
Göteborg, Sweden
Gender
Male
Last week's Question: Which of these Links has the best special ability?

Third Place: Draw between "FS/FSA Link (Split into Four)" and "ALBW Link (Become a painting) " (6.3% each)
Second Place: MC Link (Shrink and Grow) (12.5%)
First Place: MM Link (Transformation Masks) (75.0%)

MM Link really crushed it this time! Second place has only 2 votes, while the 2 third place options only got 1 each. The transformation mask are amazing though, so I'm not surprised that it won.

RETRO POLL! Poll 57! End of June, 2013... It was about how much story-telling you want in a Zelda-game. This topic feel like it's become more of a thing now with some of the critisism for BotW's weaker storytelling. At this point in time, I had also started to announce the last weeks winner in the next poll, and in this one apparently "A good, decent amount of story" won with 60% of the votes. Looking at the comments in the thread, there were still a few people who wanted there to be less story in the games, as they mostly care about the gameplay and even one vote for having "Not that much story in-game", meaning the story would come from outside, like in the instuction manual (which no longer exists). But now, almost 7 years later, with new people here at ZD, what do you think about this?

This week's question: When it comes to story-telling in TLoZ, what do you prefer?

No Story
Not that much story in-game
Some Story
A good, decent amount of story
Heavily story based
 
Well, since I play Zelda for the story before anything else, I'm going with heavy story.

One of the reasons I love Wind Waker so much is because you can feel the history of series in the world and see it and it really enriches the experience for me.

I love how things linked back and gave everything an extra layer.

I also love the immediate plot and how Link is so brave.

Need me some story.
 

Sheikah_Witch

I just really like botw
Joined
Apr 8, 2019
Location
Sweden
Great topic! I'm quite unlike Spirit, while I of course love LOVE what we have in Zelda in terms of story (Wind Waker is a great example!) I, as a game designer, play Zelda mainly for the gameplay and dungeons. So story isn't top priority for me, but that being said, nobody is saying we can't have both. So I'm not going with heavily story based, but rather "good decent amount of story". :)
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

wah
ZD Legend
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Location
Iowa
Gender
Lizard
I've always been pretty vocal about my dislike of more intrusive storytelling. By intrusive, I mean storytelling in games that seizes control from the player for extended periods of time. This doesn't have to be in the form of one long cutscene, but could also take the form of a section of game where you have no choice but to just venture around and talk with people. The sort of Telltale game where you could effectively play the game one-handed.

Dialogue isn't so bad when there's player involvement (think stuff like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Divinity: Original Sin), but it's no fun when it turns into a passive experience.
 

Vanessa28

Angel of Darkness
Staff member
ZD Legend
Administrator
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Location
Yahtzee, Supernatural
Gender
Angel of Darkness
I love a story but it shouldn't interrupt a gameplay by throwing in cutscene after cutscene. Especially those you can't skip. And at least make it a decent story. Something we always remember. A good decent amount of story it is for me when it comes to the poll :)
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

CHIMer Dragonborn
Staff member
Comm. Coordinator
Site Staff
A good, decent amount of story. I choose this option because it's all we've ever gotten out of the series. I don't think we've ever gotten a really heavily story based Zelda. Of course Skyward Sword was meant to be a game with a deep story but it turned out to be a trainwreck. Thus, I have little hope that the series can fulfill a heavily story-driven game, although I'd like to see one that executes it amazingly.
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
Honestly, I think your question methodology could have been improved a little better with more concrete qualifiers. There isn't a real quantitative difference between "some story" and "not that much story". That being said, I went with "some story" because despite the fact that I can and do appreciate a good story in a Zelda game, as a priority for enjoyment, it's not really on the list.
 

VikzeLink

The Destructive One
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 4, 2012
Location
Göteborg, Sweden
Gender
Male
Honestly, I think your question methodology could have been improved a little better with more concrete qualifiers. There isn't a real quantitative difference between "some story" and "not that much story". That being said, I went with "some story" because despite the fact that I can and do appreciate a good story in a Zelda game, as a priority for enjoyment, it's not really on the list.

The "Not that much story in-game" would be something akin to the original TLoZ, where the story is only on the title screen and in the manual, wheras "some story" is something like Link's Awakening, where there is story there, but it's quite sparse
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
The "Not that much story in-game" would be something akin to the original TLoZ, where the story is only on the title screen and in the manual, wheras "some story" is something like Link's Awakening, where there is story there, but it's quite sparse
I meant including the quantifier in the question/choices. Like "story is mostly in manual/external source, with no real narrative in the actual game" and "story elements exist in game, but do not affect game direction" or "story elements are key to the main game". Because people reading things like "some story" and "not that much story" can interpret that differently, and give different answers even if they have the same game as an example in their heads. For instance, thinking about Ocarina of Time, one person might judge it to be fairly story heavy since there are usually a few cutscenes between each dungeon, with several moments of pivotal narrative sprinkled in. But another person might look at all that and decided that while those elements are there, they don't really affect what you're doing from beat to beat. I used to design surveys, so I like crafting questions and responses that more accurately drill down to the respondent's views. You'd be amazed how you can accidentally lean into the internal biases of an audience. And one of the most common ways to accidentally do that is to use ambiguous quantifiers, like "some", because different people have a different idea of what "some" means to them. This is also why many questions asking people to self-identify the occurrence of relative intangibles like thoughts or behaviors have answers at the extreme ends of the range of responses (the purpose of which is to provide a boundary for people to calibrate themselves against). Like if you ask someone how often they do or think about X thing, you gotta have the extreme negative and affirmative response, i.e. "I never participate in X behavior" or "I regularly participate in X behavior".

Anyway, that was fun! I haven't thought about this stuff in a while...
 

MapelSerup

not actually Canadian
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
I’m going with Some Story. I really love Zelda’s story, and have learned a lot about it, but O don’t want it to interrupt the gameplay. I love when games, most notably for me many Metroid games (though I’m sure there are others), tell stories through subtext and the player character discovering it as you go along. While this is mostly to serve Metroid’s themes of isolation, the less things outright told and the more things you must discover about the story or world, the better (to a point).
That certainly doesn’t mean I don’t want a rich story in Zelda games, I just don’t want it to be driven by the story.
 

VikzeLink

The Destructive One
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 4, 2012
Location
Göteborg, Sweden
Gender
Male
While I love to have a lot of story, I feel that it shouldn't be too much in a Zelda-game, so for me it's "A good, decent amount of story". So far, I don't think any of them has had too much story. Not even Skyward Sword, and that is the story-heaviest game we have. While SS has a lot going for it in the main story department, it's rather desolate when it comes to side stories. At least somewhat meaningful ones... And it was probably the biggest issue I had with BotW, since the story in it feels incredibly weak to me
 

Jimmu

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
I selected "a good, decent amount of story", meaning that the story is interesting enough to be engaging and enjoyable but not too lengthy or impactful on the gameplay in terms of where linear paths are heavily forced to support the story. Of course, where story which elicits emotion well can be implemented in a non-obstructive manner then I am all for it. For me though if I want something heavily story based a movie could scratch my itch, so in games including TLoZ it isn't the most important factor to me by any means.
 

~Kilza~

The Resting Sun
Joined
Sep 9, 2019
For me, the priority in Zelda games will always be on the gameplay, with the story being secondary. I still want a good story, mind you, but it's not the emphasis for me, so I ended up going with "some story". I feel like BotW works as an example of this, where there's a story, but it's not really the focus of the game and you can choose to ignore it if you want and just focus entirely on the gameplay. Though, I could've easily chosen "a good, decent amount of story" as well.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom