General Zelda Seasonal Shifts in Game?

[Justac00lguy]

In my opinion the key to making an overworld feel more real is to actually make it come to life, make it feel like a living l, breathing overworld that changes through time or just general events. Now this can be done throw many aspects such as day to night, whether, in game events etcetera. So an effective way to do this in my opinion is to implement seasons that alter through either time or in other ways.

One thing that was so impressive about Majora's Mask was that with each new day brought new quests, new patterns and even specific weather, there were even specific times that events would actually take place. This made the world feel real and it was ever changing, bringing depth. However what I am mainly proposing is doing this through seasons and weather shifts in specific places. I will refer back to Majora's Mask here with the region of Snowhead... This place was first filled with snow and if affected many of the Gorons and the livelihood of the entire race, however upon completing Snowhead Temple, winter would subside and spring would take over. This was a nice little feature and not only was it nice to see the shift visually but it opened up many new areas and things to do.

But how exactly could a Zelda game implement a seasonal shift effectively? Do you guys think this would be too complicated or do you think it could actually work? Tell me your thoughts and possible ideas.

 

[Ventus]

Just don't do it like Pokèmon does it. The shifts would have to come with a reasonable amount of real-world time; yes, this means it would run on the console integrated clock. But how? Seasonal shifts every 10-hours or so sounds really cool, but I don't know of a threshold that is in the common interest of many people. Perhaps it'd have to play out like Majora's Mask did it - "seasons" change based on your accomplishments within the mainquest?

Furthermore, would the change of a season alter the overworld or not?

 

[PapilioTempesta]

The shifts would have to come with a reasonable amount of real-world time; yes, this means it would run on the console integrated clock. But how? Seasonal shifts every 10-hours or so sounds really cool, but I don't know of a threshold that is in the common interest of many people. Perhaps it'd have to play out like Majora's Mask did it - "seasons" change based on your accomplishments within the mainquest?

Furthermore, would the change of a season alter the overworld or not?

I don't think shifts should depend on when you beat some dungeon, or finish a quest; it's more logical in the terms of game advancement=player advancement, but still it feels artificial. I'd rather have seasons passing in a cyclic way, say 16h for a year -4h per season-, and that to advance in the game you should have to wait for some concrete season to come (EG, Link have to attend a concrete midsummer festival, or have to wait for the snow to melt to have granted access to some snow mountain...).

Such a game should have therefore plenty of seasonal sidequests in order to make time pass as smoothly as possible, and so allowing the player to gain more hearts/items/expertise all along.

 

[JuicieJ]

It would honestly take me out of the game. Seasons constantly passing would imply that years were passing by before Link completed his quest, which would raise two problems. One, both Link and the villain must suck at their jobs for taking that long to get anything done. Two, years would be passing by with no one aging. I know these are rather petty issues, but I just wouldn't be able to take the entire premise seriously because of them, and that's not a good thing.

 

[Justac00lguy]

It would honestly take me out of the game. Seasons constantly passing would imply that years were passing by before Link completed his quest, which would raise two problems. One, both Link and the villain must suck at their jobs for taking that long to get anything done. Two, years would be passing by with no one aging. I know these are rather petty issues, but I just wouldn't be able to take the entire premise seriously because of them, and that's not a good thing.

Yeah I thought this too but I was thinking of a more efficient system maybe like an item or musical item that could shift weather, just to speed up or manipulate events and such.

 

[PapilioTempesta]

It would honestly take me out of the game. Seasons constantly passing would imply that years were passing by before Link completed his quest, which would raise two problems. One, both Link and the villain must suck at their jobs for taking that long to get anything done. Two, years would be passing by with no one aging. I know these are rather petty issues, but I just wouldn't be able to take the entire premise seriously because of them, and that's not a good thing.

Ok, you've got a point there. Hadn't think of time actually passing by. (Maybe those could be extremely short seasons, we've seen weirder things in Hyrule...)

But now as a joke, wouldn't it be cool to have a game where both the villain and the hero aged (along with everyone else), and that the two of them should have to take over the world/save it in the limit of their lifetimes? They'd be wiser and yet weaker every day, and honestly, seeing two old men fighting with their sticks and false jaws in an epic final battle would be just hilarious.

 

[Demise_]

I think that as long as you can control them, it would be a nice addition.

What I do not want is having seasons progress automatically with no way to influence them. Kinda like days in TP. In OOT, if you had to change the time but didn't have the Sun's Song, all you had to do was wait a couple of minutes; in TP, this was extended to about 15 (or so) minutes, and without any means of speeding the process up. Ever wanted to get some poes but were stuck in the day, or wanted to buy something but had to wait through the night? Then you will understand what I mean. Now imagine having whole seasons like that!

Another bad execution would be having seasons tied to the main quest. This could only result in two outcomes:
- If you progress in the main quest and then realise that you've missed a particular sidequest or something, the game would require either a complicated mechanic that would allow you to go back in time to complete it or you would simply be stuck on this sidequest for the rest of the game.
- Or, if sidequests are less dependent (or even independent) from seasons, what's the point of having them? Fans would rant that the season mechanic is underused, or even useless, and that such a great gameplay opportunity has been lost, and so on.

The only way seasons could fit in the main quest would be by having the game center on them in some way, and somewhere towards 1/3 or even halfway through you would acquire an item that would let you go back in time to your desired season. Something like: "The Legend of Zelda: Master of Seasons". (Though I haven't played OoS, I don't think it has anything of the kind, right?)

EDIT: I spent a while typing this, and other replies popped up in the meantime. Some of these argue that seasons would imply that years were passing. Now that I think of it, something like the Master of Seasons (but with a better name, definitely :bleh would solve this too - the game would only take 1 year, and would essentially cover the events between Link setting out and Ganondorf taking over Hyrule.
Then you would acquire the Master of Seasons item and gain the ability to travel between seasons, beating dungeons and acquiring items until Link is finally powerful enough to defeat Ganondorf.

This would be even more realistic than current games, which seem to happen in a few days. (Especially SS, where Zelda's travels were implied to take only about a day, with Link beating 3 dungeons during that time. What bugs me the most is when you find the *SPOILER* Zelda is at the gate of time, and have the time to find the Mining Facility and beat it while Zelda is waiting in front of the Gate (presumable only a couple of minutes).)

The only drawback I can see is that it might be taken as a copy of MM, though the setting and method of travel would still be quite different (and you would be able to warp to any season, not just to the beginning of the game year).

 

[JuicieJ]

Yeah I thought this too but I was thinking of a more efficient system maybe like an item or musical item that could shift weather, just to speed up or manipulate events and such.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

 

[DekuPrincess]

I like the idea of this, but like others have said the in game mechanics could be problematic. I actually would like to see something where large scale overworld changes take place in relation to your progression through the game rather than having the game synced to an internal clock. Additionally, if there are certain tasks that rely on what the season is, then you get into the problem of waiting around (or needing an item to change the seasons, in which case we're just recreating OoS). This was one of the biggest frustrations for me with TP and collecting Poe souls. I have never bothered to get them all because I get so tired of waiting around for night to fall so I can hunt them. Where was the Sun's Song?? I would hate to see a similar mechanic show up in the future.

 

[Justac00lguy]

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

I kinda figured this was going to pop up somewhere but in Oracle of Seasons the Rod was just basically used as a puzzle solving item and I can see if we could control the seasons on how it could become a very similar concept as seen in OoS. Maybe a similar concept in Majora's Mask, where you activate a new event through doing a certain quest etc. Maybe it could happen manually through progression but then again this would take away from what I was trying to get at in the OP about making the overworld feel alive.

To be honest after thinking about it... How about seasons just occurred within the main Hyrule Field section of the game? With winter, passages could be closed, frozen lakes allow the player to traverse to new areas, in the summer/spring one could now swim in the lake..etc. or even with season changes in Hyrule Field means alternate ways of traversing the landscape and new enemies, just a few examples.

 

[CynicalSquid]

I'd like it if there was season shifts in a Zelda game. I think it would make me more interested in the game if that was used. Maybe certain quest and certain events happen with different seasons.

How would it work though? At first I thought of it running with actual seasons in the real world through the system time, but that seems too time consuming and you can change the setting and manually change the seasons.

"seasons" change based on your accomplishments within the mainquest?

I actually like this idea a lot. There's no amount of time you have to wait for the seasons to change. Seasons just change as the story moves on.

 

[ihateghirahim]

I think its a great game. Here's some ideas from a previous post: Maybe a mountain pass will be blocked with snow, except in the summer. A lake you can't cross until it freezes in the winter (maybe there you could have a rematch with Dark Link). You could bounce off of Deku Flowers that only appear in Spring. You might not be able to use mirrors if a blizzard covers the sun, or they might only function in the bright sun of summer. Chu-Chus or other blob enemies could freeze in winter. A lakebed could dry up in summer.

 

[Riddle]

It would honestly take me out of the game. Seasons constantly passing would imply that years were passing by before Link completed his quest, which would raise two problems. One, both Link and the villain must suck at their jobs for taking that long to get anything done. Two, years would be passing by with no one aging. I know these are rather petty issues, but I just wouldn't be able to take the entire premise seriously because of them, and that's not a good thing.

Who says time in Hyrule is the same as in our world? Maybe they would have a different season every month.

I think this would be spectecilaur, just like the magic mirror in AlttP, you could use seasons to get past different sections of the map, just like in Pokémon.
Having different regions were it snows or were it is very tropical just doesn't seem real to me.

 

[JuicieJ]

Who says time in Hyrule is the same as in our world? Maybe they would have a different season every month.

That would still mean months were passing by.

 

[Spirit]

i've mused and created a few threads ont he idea of seasonal changes in Zelda, i'd reallly like it to happen but they would be hard to implement. one idea could be to base it on the console's clock, but that means you'd have to wait a year for a season you missed which is just dense. another could be that as you progress through the game the seasons change, i think this could usher in a lot of backtracking and fresh exploration, but then, how do you keep changing the seasons if their changing is dependent on progress?

We've had OoS but that was pretty limited and i wouldnt like to see a season chaning mechanic by choice again.

Difficult design problem but something that could look really cool.