General Zelda How Difficult Do You Like Your Zelda Games?

[Musicfan]

When it comes to challenge in Zelda, I remove combat from the equation. It's not gonna happen. When I think of non-puzzle challenge in Zelda, I think of things like the Goron Dance in OoA. Who looks forward to that on their next playthrough?

Is it really that hard all it is a memory and rythem game(at least I turn it in to one)

 

[Yoda's LSD Dealer]

I like my Zelda games with medium rare difficulty.

So medium.

 

[Ventus]

@Darkest
Also, with the recent re-release of the Oracles (which have really tough combat difficulty) as well as ALttP2's hearkening back to the days of ALttP so far in visuals, I would NOT say that combat difficulty is not going to happen. We don't know as of yet, but we still have current combat difficulty in the form of the Oracles.

 

[MW7]

I'd like Zelda games to be far more mentally challenging than they are. I would say Oracle of Ages is the most challenging game in terms of puzzles, and I'd like the series to really amp puzzles even beyond the level found in Oracle of Ages. Zelda games rarely offer true stumpers that you need to actually think about. Most games have been good about having at least one puzzle that is really difficult to do by just guessing (like the statue puzzle in Twilight Princess), but I'd like to be stumped more often. The vast majority of "puzzles" can be solved just by glancing around at the environment for a few seconds. One other thing that I think makes the games more difficult in a good way is including logic puzzles like both of the ds games had.

As for combat difficulty I thought Skyward Sword had enough challenge but could have benefited from more enemy variety. Having said that, I think Skyward Sword had the most entertaining combat of the entire series (for the record I would have to say Adventure of Link would be my second pick). This is my preference though. I want the fighting to be fun with some challenge but the puzzles to be absolutely brutal. For instance I wouldn't mind puzzles that could be in Professor Layton games, and I wouldn't mind them requiring me to stop playing to actually stop and think for a while.

 

[CynicalSquid]

Hard enough so I actually have a challenge but easy enough so it's not cryptic and stupid and I don't need to break everything I own to let out all of my anger.

 

[onebizarrekai]

Finally, a thread where I can express why I DON'T like ALttP! It's way too hard in my opinion, especially after starting off with literally almost every other Zelda game except SS.

I prefer it if the games are medium difficulty, since I tend to rage easily when playing video games ._. But I still want to feel awesome, so they can't get rid of the awesomeness too. I REALLY like Wind Waker, and Ocarina of Time is a pretty epic game, Twilight Princess made you feel awesome but isn't that challenging most of the time. I feel as if Skyward Sword wasn't exactly my game, though. My opinions about difficult games can be kind of mixed sometimes.

 

[Random Person]

OoT to MM difficult is perfect for me. ALttP is a bit too over while WW is the tiniest fraction to easy, although neither stop me from enjoying the experience. It's when you get AoL difficult or SS easy that the pleasure of the game really dwindles.

 

[DarkestLink]

Have you completed any of the older games? Because their combat is undeniably harder than modern Zelda's sorry excuse for difficulty. And that's just on a base level.

True, but I don't find myself having fun in it either...and those games are ancient history. Zelda will never be that hard combat-wise again. I guarantee you aLttP2 won't be nearly as hard as the original.

 

[Curmudgeon]

LttP is really hard? :huh: I don't ever remember this being the case... I recall being pushed at eleven years old but thinking that it was too hard? No.

As to challenge going forward, I never expect games in general to bite like they used to... I just hope they add enough to make it interesting - unlike TWW where I never felt in danger. Though not so much that it takes over the experience - like AoL where the challenge was the game.

 

[The Jade Fist]

Oracle of Ages Puzzles and AOL combat...

(semi sarcastic, but I really do wanna have to try to beat a game, not just oh look I've made progress)

I don't want puzzles that are difficult simply because I can't get the thingy in the thingy while being shot at on a moving platform, try it 30 times and give up thinking I must have been doing it wrong, and turns out I was right anyways. Those are the bad kind of hard puzzles.

And I want the combat to be legitimately dangerous at all times, but with times of spiked difficulty. I don't want it to be cheap difficulty either where oh look I step into next screen and get instantly jumped on by 4 things and fall into a pit of lava and die with no way to defend myself.

But over all I think the Oracle games had it spot on for 2d games, and the N64 games had it perfect for 3d, maybe a 2nd quest would have been nice for the N64 games though.

edit:

at above.

Alttp wasn't extremely hard, but you could legitimately die during a boss battle, which seams to have gone out of style.

 

[Shadow Blade]

I like my game difficulty to be moderate and fairly consistent in the incline, one of the hardest games I have ever played was star fox adventures and I never beat it and as fun as it was to play I don't know if I will play it again. I don't know if any of you have played it but for some reasons there are parts in that game that seemed to just derail me, so yeah I prefer moderate difficulty but I do like there to be some really hard parts at the appropriate points in progress.

 

[Justac00lguy]

To be honest I think a lot of elements have to combine to give me the perfect feeling of "true" difficulty. The main quest should be a prolonged experience in my opinion, now I know quantity doesn't equate to challenge but I think they work hand in hand - having a longer main quest makes for a bigger and more of a grander take
at hand. I think both Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker had a rather nice quest time, long enough to feel like an adventure, however I'd like for more dungeons and whatnot in the future. The game should also have a multitude of side quests to compliment the main quest, I would refer to Majora's Mask here, the sheer amount of side quests really made this game something different, it felt as if we weren't just tackling one quest but several. This added a whole load of diversity and just added to experience. That being said though, I feel that we should have to differentiate away from the main quest to complete side quests. This is something I though Skyward Sword lacked, a compact overworld lead to little trailing off and actually having to go out of your way to complete non compulsory challenges.

Combat, or more specifically, enemies need to be "significantly" improved. It's not juts a case of adding to the damage they can inflict but a case of making them overall tougher. This means smarter AI, make them act tactical, such enemies could attack in swarms or use stealth etc. Another thing would be diversity, I think this is key to give any given enemy depth. Give enemies a variety of defensive and offensive options, this will allow for more strategic combat and actually make the player think. I also feel movement patterns could key to adding strategy and depth - all of the stuff I mentioned here should also be applied to the bosses aka the weak point of the franchise.

The puzzling aspects needs to become a stellar feature again, I feel it's diminished down the years and slight attempts to revive it have not been as effective as puzzles once we're in the 2D installments. Now i don't know whether Nintendo take it easier in the modern era or of they just can't transfer the puzzling side of things into a 3D perspective, but I would love to see the difficulty of puzzles, that of the 2D games, make its way into a 3D perspective. However, the top down perspective doesn't seem to be going away, which is a good thing, and that way we can still get our puzzle fix, providing the next installment nails it.

I also think advancing should be made a difficult task to go through. Within the 3d games it's a simple task of navigating your way through one area, maybe finding a specific item before hand or completing an odd job of sorts, but this doesn't go along way in my opinion. An easier way to look at it would be to, once again, look at the top down games. I would refer to A Link to the Past here, but since I've been recently playing Oracle of Seasons , I feel this would be better to go off. Even though this overworld is too compact in my opinion, I still feel it makes navigation and progression a task. One can't simply make large progress, you have to think, revisit past areas, obtain items, manipulate the overworld via the Rod of Seasons, all of which are just used to progress further. It's this kind of linking between navigation and puzzles that really add an element of difficulty in my opinion.

I'd also really like for Nintendo to add nonlinearity somewhat, which seems likely, and also make dungeons a exceedingly tougher, however this all links into what I said above. All in all it seems like what I want is a mixture between the puzzling aspect of the 2D games combined with the potential that a 3D game can bring. It's a wish that probably won't be fulfilled but I think if Nintendo put their minds to it they can easily achieve this.

 

[Lady of Hyrule]

I like them hard and challenging, especially when it comes to bosses. I like the feeling of accomplishment that you get after beating an especially difficult puzzle or boss. Yet, I don't want to be hard enough to really frustrate or make me not enjoy the rest of the game.

 

[Mudora]

To be honest, I miss the certain level of difficulty that the older Zelda games had. They were more mentally challenging and required you to think about what needed to be done and how to do it. I feel that the puzzles in recent instalments are getting easier, and because of this, I don't get that same satisfactory feeling once I figure it out. Of course there has to be balance - it cannot be extremely difficult and challenging or else most people would lose patience and end up not finishing the game. Despite this, I think they could amp the difficulty up a bit.

 

[Randomlink7]

Since I play a good amount of Zelda, I like them difficult. But they could have difficulty settings before you start the game.