General Classic How Long Does It Take to Become a Zelda Master?

[paceman5000]

Hi Everyone,

Say what you will, but I would be lost without this site. When I was about 10, I played Ocarina without any help, except for a few small parts that I just got hopelessly stuck on. However, in '98 the internet wasn't what it is today, and such walkthroughs were not so easy to find. Now I finished Twilight Princess, and it inspired me to go back and play the original games starting with The Legend of Zelda.

My question is: how are you guys so good at these games that you were even able to make a walkthrough? I watch some of the video walkthroughs and you defeat enemies in with ease that I take hours with. Is it just a matter of wandering around the entire game for hours just for the sake of finding every last part?

Another point, I'm playing the old games with an emulator on Wii, which allows saves at any point. I guess this is not being genuine to the nature of the game, but I can't help it! If I had to die and restart at every hard enemy that I had trouble with, and then go through the whole game just to get back there, I would quickly give up, I don't have the patience now or when I was a kid. I'm playing Zelda II now, and if I didn't have the walkthrough you guys made, I would not have any idea where to go or what to do. I've figured plenty of stuff out on my own, but there is just some parts that I get stumped on and again, will eventually stop playing because I get bored of not moving on.

I have a goal to play a title without a walkthrough, but I just can't drop this site! In a round about way, I'm asking, how many people can finish these games solo? I feel like less of a man asking for directions, but I don't see any other way.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Ventus]

I personally don't play all the games without walkthroughs; LoZ especially required a walkthrough when I was playing it via ZeldaClassic. However, it usually just takes time and exposure. Many of Zelda's puzzles are recycled from past entries, so if you see a torch, chances are you have to light it with something in the room. Or if you see a barred door, maybe you'll have to shoot an eye switchh, or something. It's just exposure, and lengthy exposure to the elements at that.

 

[Zorth]

I think it has to do mostly with patience, at what point are you going to give up and read a walkthrough?

As a small kid I never really got to use our PC a lot since my sisters just never let me get on it. So I really couldn't do anything else but to sit for hours, even at the same point in a game, stuck, trying to figure out how to move on. I will never forget this from OoT, I was stuck for easily over a week at the Deku Tree, in the basement with the webbing over the door. I just couldn't figure out what to do, I had no clue that I could/had to light my stick at the torch to burn the web down. But like I said, I couldn't really get help from anywhere else and had to sit there for hours every day in the same spot trying to figure out what to do, and eventually I just started doing random until I accidentally lit my deku stick at the torch and solved the problem.

The above story was a bit hardcore, after some time I figured out I could ask my friends and cousins too who had the game, eventually I got some access to the PC too. But with an experience like this I had built up a big pool of patience if that makes sense. So I would only give up and seek help if I was stuck in a spot for weeks. So what I'm trying to say is that you should never give up, even if you might be stuck somewhere for hours just keep trying to figure out what you could've missed, done wrong etc. after enough analyzing of these kind of things your puzzle solving part of the brain lets call it, will get better and you will avoid similar mistakes in the future and get better at games in other words.

tl;dr

play a lot of games, never give up.. it's all about experience man.

 

[Yuki Cross]

It's not a particularly good or bad thing that you can't play a game without a walk-through, and it doesn't make you any less of a Zelda master. Even if you can't finish a boss as fast as the people who create walk-throughs, it's probably because they've played the game before. They must have, or else how can they create a how-to of it? In my opinion, what really makes you a Zelda master, is to finish the games, and know exactly what you're talking about, and what everyone else is talking about. For instance - me: All of the Zelda games I've played, I had to use the walk through at least once. Whether it was as small as finding an extra rupee, or as big as how to finish the last half of a dungeon. Either way, every game, without failure, I would use the cheats. I'm sure a lot of people can finish a game without them, but that's not me. And if you can't either, that's fine. Because it's really all skill (in my opinion). In other words, how good a person is at problem solving. I wouldn't call myself a genius in problem solving, frankly, I kind of suck. That's not to say that you can't finish a game without cheats, but for the time being, I can't. So my advice is: re-play the games a few times, until you get the feel for what the problems basically are in Zelda, and then the next game you play, don't allow yourself to use cheats.

^^this is all my opinion, and what I think of it. This being said, you don't have to listen to this, agree with this, or follow this.

PS: It's experience, like Zorth said. Play a lot, and soon you will see improvement!

 

[Curmudgeon]

Another point, I'm playing the old games with an emulator on Wii, which allows saves at any point. I guess this is not being genuine to the nature of the game, but I can't help it! If I had to die and restart at every hard enemy that I had trouble with, and then go through the whole game just to get back there, I would quickly give up, I don't have the patience now or when I was a kid. I'm playing Zelda II now, and if I didn't have the walkthrough you guys made, I would not have any idea where to go or what to do. I've figured plenty of stuff out on my own, but there is just some parts that I get stumped on and again, will eventually stop playing because I get bored of not moving on.

Welcome to pre-internet gaming. We either figured it out or we didn't. Imagine getting teleported back to 1940. Could you make it? Sure, but it would be uncomfortable.

When roughing it without tutorials, walkthroughs, or save states in an unforgiving world of brutal enemies and cryptic clues, there are a few things you have to do. First, read the game manual. Zelda II's was full of useful information (like the fact that the hammer can clear forests, something the game itself never tells you, but you have to know). You can get a copy at replacementdocs.com. Second, you have to listen to the villagers. Deciphering their clues is a pain, but it's also required.

Sometimes it's pretty clear.

Sometimes you have to put multiple pieces of information together to get the whole picture

Sometimes. Well, sometimes you have to be a bit of a detective and put disparate pieces of information together.

Is it hard? Yes. But there is a different, unique feeling of satisfaction when you figure it out. If that's not your cup of tea, no one is forcing you to finish the game.

 

[Starblast16]

I only needed walkthroughs for small parts of the Wind Waker once and TP and I needed it a lot for LoZ and I still can't finish LoZ. But anyway, that is a good question. What qualifies you to be a Zelda Master? I think part of it is Playing, beating, and mastering all Zelda games.

 

[Justac00lguy]

It depends really, Zelda is a series that focuses on puzzling and combat, in terms of challenge. So I guess one would have to be good at both aspects to be considered good at the game, to be honest though, I'm not really sure what would be classed as a so called "Master".

I played my first Zelda game when I was around 8, I owned the Playstation consoles growing up so I had to go to my friends to play the likes of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and I loved them. Unfortunately I didn't fully own a Zelda game till I got Phantom Hourglass. Now I wouldn't say I was amazing at games, but I was pretty good. Though PH gave me a real run for my money at that time. Usually in games it's about pure challenge and sometimes unfair challenge but this game offered a new type of challenge that I wasn't too familiar with - "Puzzles".

Now don't get me wrong, I had played puzzling games before, but very few, and this game did test me and I legit thought it was challenging. Playing Twilight Princess just a few months later, made me realise that this series was quite a challenge and this was a so called easy game. I did take a long hiatus from the series after this and my interest only sparked again in 2011 as the release of Skyward Sword dawned. So I decided to play quite a few installments some old, some new. Generally I got a lot better and I started to realise that this franchise isn't as hard as I thought.

Now I see most games in the franchise as being rather easy and sometimes it's just practice, or just adapting your playstyle to having to use your brain a bit more. I'm not sure how I compare to other players but I think I'm reasonably good, not an expert as I play the very causally, but I would just say with more experience comes more skill.

 

[DarkestLink]

Define master. Maybe you consider beating a game without a guide a master? I consider someone who can speed run within an hour of the World Record time a master.

 

[HyruleHistory10]

For me a Zelda master has nothing to do with how you play the game. It has to do with knowing your info. For me as long as you know who the general characters are in a game the general plot and enemies and such that is fine. Personally after beating OOT 200+ times I can play it with my eyes closed (not literally). Sure I have 'mastered' OOT in a sense but there is more to it than being a game geek or hardcore gamer that can recite every point of the game.

As was mentioned before a lot of things were reused (esp. from OOT) so it is easy for me to see the old puzzles like eye switches and ice blocks etc., but the new stuff stumps me until I get it like that rotating eye switch in skyview temple. I did EVERYTHING except rotate my arm in a circle lol. Of course I felt like an idiot after but that does not mean I am no less of a player. the puzzles ARE MEANT to stump you if they did they did their job.

Here are some rules for Zelda Puzzles:

1) Kill all the enemies in a room. A lot of times it is that simple.

2) look for a door and see what blocks it. If there is a gate and no enemies (or they are dead) then there is a switch.

3) Think of basic physics. Wood burns etc.

4) Try ALL of your items even in ways that you haven't tried.

5) Throw things. There are 2d Zelda puzzles were to open a door you got to throw a pot at it lol.

If you always think within these than you should be fine. And there is nothing wrong with using a walkthrough because you STILL have to do it yourself.