General Zelda For You, is the Series Story-Centric or Gameplay-Centric?

[Ventus]

Mmmmm I disagree. Just giving up because you aren't strong at something? Hell, let's save Nintendo time and go back to N64 graphics. Fans not appreciating SS's orchestra? Well let's just stop making songs and either re-use old ones or using music completely. Sidequests aren't that fun? Let's remove them. Fans think the series is too easy? Let's just give up on difficulty. Give Link infinite heart points and have enemies move at 1/4 speed. Nobody will complain since weren't that good at it to begin with.

Honestly, after some 16 games with spinoffs here and there, Nintendo has no excuse to not have their story in gear. It doesn't have to be AMAZING, but it can't be so loose as it is now; it's essentially 16 games and counting worth of rehashes - there's no excitement because everything that happens is entirely too predictable. Dropping the tryhard muse they've had up wouldn't affect much - Skyward Sword and Spirit Tracks' stories were still on par with any other Zelda, just with some emotional flair here and there. :I

Instead of putting a faux story up, just feed us with gameplay. They've done it with Mario, why not with Zelda too?

 

[ihateghirahim]

Zelda's always had the rumblings of a cohesive story. The games formed the pieces of a story jigsaw puzzle. Nintendo simply didn't pay much attention to them until now, and they haven't done a good job of assembling. Its not satisfying, buy just the fanfiction and theories on this site are enough to let one know that this legend has potential.

 

[DarkestLink]

Honestly, after some 16 games with spinoffs here and there, Nintendo has no excuse to not have their story in gear. It doesn't have to be AMAZING, but it can't be so loose as it is now; it's essentially 16 games and counting worth of rehashes - there's no excitement because everything that happens is entirely too predictable. Dropping the tryhard muse they've had up wouldn't affect much - Skyward Sword and Spirit Tracks' stories were still on par with any other Zelda, just with some emotional flair here and there. :I

Instead of putting a faux story up, just feed us with gameplay. They've done it with Mario, why not with Zelda too?

Why bother getting rid of it though? It doesn't really take any time. Just a side project that goes on while the real game is being made. If they wanted to save time, music, graphics, and sidequests could all go, but story would just save some pocket change and nothing else.

I mean heck, they recently took out the story for Paper Mario. Did you see how ticked off fans were over that?

 

[Keeseman]

I used to really love the story, at least when I started with OoT and then played aLttP. It wasn't extremely complicated, and I enjoyed the adventure story that the games told.

Now, though, after TP and SS and all this timeline crap, the story is losing its significance to me. I enjoy the story, yes, but because of how... overboard Nintendo's gone with the story (and all the freaking theories and crap), I'm now more gameplay-centric. The story is classic and I love it, but gameplay is the most important part to me when I am, well, playing the game.

 

[Phillers]

For me it's the entire experience. It's the game play, the music, the characters, the story, the exploration, the beauty of the terrain, mountains & lakes. I love the dungeons and the puzzles in them. All of these come together to make a good Zelda game.

With just one of the above elements missing, the game is far weaker. I think this is why OoT is everyone's favorite game. This game has ALL of these elements to the nth degree. New and fresh characters continually appear throughout the game to help advance the story. The music is legendary. The game play is epic. Everything in this game comes together like a well-orchestrated ballet. It's a beautiful thing.

Phillers

 

[Not Take Mirror]

For me it's gameplay all the way. I mean at least 95% of my complaints about Skyward Sword were somehow related to how the story made the gameplay less than ideal for me such as the treasure/bug notifications pausing gameplay and the lack of a skip cutscene ability in the normal quest. Most of why I play Zelda games to explore unique environments and solve interesting puzzles. I don't mind a story, but I want to be able to maximize the amount of time I'm actually playing the game by minimizing the amount of time the story takes (which doesn't imply a shorter story as long as players can skip and speed through cutscenes and dialogue).

Same here. The point of a video game is the gameplay. If I wanted a really good story, I'd watch a movie or read a book. That's not to say I don't care about the story or don't appreciate a good story. I do, but I don't like so much story it gets in the way of gameplay. I tend to find long cutscenes as an unwanted interruption.