General Zelda Arbitrary Triggers to Progress in Zelda Games

[Salem]

Okay, this is a weird one and probably hard to explain, so please bear with me. They are the events that happen which the trigger that makes those events happen has nothing to do with that specific scene.

Here's some examples:

In OoT; the only way to enter the Shadow Temple is to learn the Nocturne of Shadow song from Shiek, but when do we lear it? In that (in)famous Kakariko scene when Bongo Bongo bursts out of the well. Now, when does this happen? After you beat the Water Temple, why? What does beating the Water Temple have anything to do with that scene? Nothing, it's an arbitrary restriction put there to prevent players from accessing the Shadow temple before the first three temples.

In WW; You can't find Makar and teach him the song to access the Wind Temple unless you beat the Earth Temple first. Furthermore, after learning the warp song and warping to the Fairy Queen, she doesn't give you the Fire and Ice arrows until after the Forsaken fortress and those revealing Tetra and King of Red Lion's real identities.

In TP; There're to many to count actually, the first one is actually near the beginning, you're not allowed to depart the Faron region to Hyrule field until you're don with the Forest temple. In the second half of the game, there's the broken mirror and the resistance's members shenanigans.

In SS; there are certain side quests that can only be continued even started until after you complete certain dungeons, an example being the Pumpkin bar with getting the money to fix it, the owner won't give you another job to do until after certain events

I hope now you understand what I mean by these examples. They're the events that only get triggered when you complete another event that has nothing to do with the event in question.

I don't like it when you can only progress in the game if the game ALLOWS you to do so, I like it better when the only restriction is the equipment and items I currently have. I hope we have less of those in the future.

So what exactly is my point? I just wanted to share this topic with you guys and hear your thoughts on it.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

........i want more of those
i don't know man,i just really like cutscenes

 

[TMLink76240]

I don't like it when you can only progress in the game if the game ALLOWS you to do so, I like it better when the only restriction is the equipment and items I currently have. I hope we have less of those in the future.

I agree, it would bring the game back to it's root(The Legend of Zelda), but that would still serve as a type of trigger, as what TheBlueReptile has posted.

........i want more of those
i don't know man,i just really like cutscenes

I loved the cutscenes, too, but they almost turned TP into an interactive cinematic because they had so friggin many with not enough gameplay to balance the equation. I still love TP, though, because of the fact it's like a interactive cinematic, but it loses playability after you've beaten the game because of that.

 

[Mangachick14]

These don't really bother me. It ensures that the story doesn't jump all over the place and that you aren't bombarded with a bunch of different plot elements at once. I think it really does more good than harm. :yes:

 

[DarkestLink]

I'm very glad they started doing this. It keeps things much better organized and ensures complete linearity.

 

[Salem]

Which is part of the reason why I believe OoT's nonlinearity is something that just happened, not something they tried to make happen.

What?

I don't get what the difference is between these triggers in Zelda games and these triggers in games in general...

Well, since this is a Zelda forum I wanted to mainly talk about Zelda.

Most Zelda games have a linear design when it comes to key gameplay moments. This is mostly just to facilitate a more comprehensive story and is a design choice rather than a design flaw. I can understand why people don't like that design choice (sometimes I don't), and I can also understand why people don't like certain executions of it. But I don't get why people associate linearity as a criticism solely of the Zelda franchise.

This thread is only tangentially related to linearity, linearity vs non-linearityis another topic, but I guess it tends to prop up a lot these days.

If you ask me, having your progress in the game limited by what items are in your inventory just sounds like another method of initiating triggers. Unless people are pointlessly going to leave a dungeon halfway through, they will still be playing the game according to a strict progression of item acquisition. I'd love to see another open-world Zelda, but this would rely on a bare-bones story. A game like Mount and Blade in which your only limitation is how powerful your character is relies on story that only features a beginning and an end. To have your progress dictated solely by items along with a decent story you would still be subject to the same triggers, just in a different form.

I prefer it this way, to me, this makes progress in the game more consistent.

As a hypothetic example; having the means to cross a broken bridge instead of talking to certain special character being the cause of having another unrelated character fix a broken bridge. You see this way, unless I have a strategy guide, I tent to forget how to recreate these events in future playthroughs of the game, specially in my younger games, but whatever, I'm used to it now.

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........i want more of those
i don't know man,i just really like cutscenes

I'm very glad they started doing this. It keeps things much better organized and ensures complete linearity.

What? Are these posts supposed to sound like troll posts?

 

[Ventus]

I find these arbitrary triggers to be a bit silly. I'd rather quest chains be started via text boxes and other things like that, instead of "complete dungeon, someone is magically hurt afterwards". I mean, I understand that completing a dungeon takes time, and it is time that influences when events occur...but still. :/

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

What? Are these posts supposed to sound like troll posts?

dude games are starting to include more and more cinematics whether you like it or not,and most likely the number of cutscenes aren't gonna diminish
you're just gonna just have to adjust to the fact that you'll be spending plenty of your gameplay time watching these flicks,welcome to the modern age

 

[CynicalSquid]

I like them. They make things more organized so the story isn't jumping all over the place. Sure, it does bring in linearity, but being able to just hop around certain areas might make the story confusing and less organized. The first few games didn't do this because there wasn't really any story, so they didn't have to worry about all of this. You could just go wherever you want. Now Zelda games are more story based. It makes sense that that added these triggers to make everything more organized.