Is Time Travel Overused?

[Sir Quaffler]

Although, I still don't understand how putting money in a bank (which would have to go back in time as well) can stop you from losing all your rupees. If someone can explain why a bank can save your money in time travel, please inform me

It's the stamp on your head. He marks you every time you make a deposit or withdrawl (which makes sense; being blind, he relies on his sense of touch to conduct business rather than sight). So rather than keep a ledger on himself, he relies on that mark which only he can feel to determine how much money you have. And when you go back in time, the mark stays with you, so just assumes that's how much money you had to begin with.

Note that I'm assuming he has a very large store of wealth (kinda like real banks) to match what the customers have, and that he has the memory of a goldfish.

 

[Blu Ray]

When something stops beings done for being useful and starts being done just for the fan service, It's most likely because It's been overused. OoA, OoT and MM were time travel at It's best, SS and TP not so much. It ended up feeling like a way to bring us back to OoT while at same time a way to make the game longer because you gotta do X things for time travel to work, that just isn't a good use for It...

 

[ThePurpleKnight]

I kinda agree with what Ventus said, for Majoras Mask is was a part of the game so I think that is not only okay but it's actually a really great part about the game. I never played Oracle of Ages because I had heard they weren't very good and I didn't have as much fun with the other ones I had played on gameboy, I prefered Zelda on a console so I can't really get into ages.

I don't remember time Travel in Twilight Princess but I assume you mean when you get the master sword, I don't remember much about it but I don't think it was necessary and it probably shouldn't be used unless it's a part of the way the game is played.

 

[ChainLink15]

I feel like time travel is re-used through the series because, much like the companions, or the Master Sword, it is a tool, which is given to our hero as a means of advantage. it plays a very important role in much of each game's plotline, as well as linking seperate games to one another.

 

[Terminus]

Enough. Unless Link is going to use a TARDIS or (Farore help me) a Vortex Manipulator, ax it completely.

But in all seriousness, time travel is just turning the timelines into a big wad of Wibbly Wobbly Timey-Wimey... stuff.

 

[SinkingBadges]

Nope, hardly overused at all. I'd think it a tough concept to over use when looked at with a little imagination, actually. As said before, it's not even a major point in some of the games it's used and it offers variations on the concept from one case to the other. Ocarina has the "see the same land you know in the future", Majora's has the Groundhog Day Loop, Wind Waker has an indirect kind of time travel (at least from the enemies' in Hyrule's castle perspective after being unfrozen from about a hundred years of sleep), Skyward could be considered like OoT's case but with past and future swapped, anyway, it must be clear by now. Point is it's a fertile concept if you make it so. Not to say they shouldn't try some other fun gimmicks, would be pretty cool if they added some variety in case it could get stagnant.

Not to mention I'm another time travel fanboy... well, sort of. Seen it used to powerful effect and it still holds a few interesting questions and implications by itself as a concept in general. One example is how Majora's Mask raises an issue that always puzzles me a little: how your work through the game could be rendered near pointless within the game's world itself. Say, when you go back, with the world resetting and everything, seeing how everyone you could have saved is not out of their troubles anymore, any appreciation you probably got for doing it is now forgotten (well, more like it didn't even happen in the first place), and better yet, the game makes sure to also reflect that on your inventory too by taking away your numbered items. It affects both the gameplay and the small factors fewer people might even bother to look at. It's some pretty impressive and clever attention to detail if you think about it... and the bosses are also fun to fight again. Not looking to drive the thread off-topic, it's just that was the first example I could think off.

The concept of time travel can be exploited in far more ways than that, so as I said, I don't think it is overused or can easily be. Just my opinion.

 

[Moonlight]

Actually I like how time is overused in the series. Reasons: It twists up the storyline making it more complicating, it adds many new features to time travel and it is perfect to plant theories with. In no way do they do it to please the Oot fanbase. :shake:

 

[Blu Ray]

I feel like time travel is re-used through the series because, much like the companions, or the Master Sword, it is a tool, which is given to our hero as a means of advantage. it plays a very important role in much of each game's plotline, as well as linking seperate games to one another.

It doesn't really link seperate games as well as I wanted It >.>... I have to disagree with you though. Master Sword is there all along, It's an important part of Zelda, time travel on the other hand, on both TP and SS was pretty much a "It's impossible to do It on the present, so let's go to the past" kind of thing, It felt like a "plot device" to make the game longer then It has to because you had to do more things to get the time travel to work. This is the least of my concern for the game though, but I just help that If Nintendo use time travel again, It will be like OoT, MM or OoA, where It was quite a major thing and a big part of the gameplay.