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Series That Went Crap

shaymin1

Derp.
Joined
Dec 22, 2011
Location
Canada
I would have to say that Sonic sort of went downhill. But recently with Sonic Generations it got a bit better.
 

MW7

Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Ohio
The ability to nearly do anything what you want, given by LoZ, ALttP and OoT (some say MM allows it as well; reverse bottle adventures I believe possible but I do not know for sure) has noticeably gone absent from recent titles...

Just to add what you said, AOL and PH allowed for deviation unless I'm mistaken. I haven't played these games enough to really know though, but I've heard from other people that they are nonlinear in some parts of the game. However, PH being nonlinear didn't really make up for the control scheme (thanks to Xinnamin for posting about the control scheme). I'd played about 10 games in the series before playing PH, and for a Zelda veteran to never be able to pull off a roll in a game is ridiculous. I really didn't feel that the ability to controls items or draw on maps with the stylus necessitated you to control the whole game with it.

Also with regards to MM, it's style of dungeon progression is similar to ALTTP's. Both games usually only require you to obtain certain items (i.e. the hookshot) to reach dungeons. This is in contrast to most games that require you to obtain quest items at the ends of dungeons in order to progress to another. Using OOT as an example, requiring items to reach dungeons would be like needing the bombs to reach Inside Jabu Jabu (you don't need the Goron's Ruby, another example would be needing the hookshot to reach either the Forest or Fire Temples) whereas requiring quest items would be like how you need the Forest, Fire, and Water Medallions to reach the Shadow Temple. Something like the latter only occurs once in MM- at the very end you need the four boss remains to reach the moon. Otherwise you are free to enter dungeons, beat half of them up until the item, then leave and go to the next one. This isn't allows the case though, you can enter and beat the Stone Tower Temple without even entering the Great Bay Temple (requires the hookshot and you can just barely reach a tree crossing the river that has the Octoroks). So effectively you can finish the dungeons in MM in any order without any glitches. Since there are 4 dungeons, the number of possible orders is 4! (=4*3*2*1) which equals 24. Right now I'm in the middle of a file in which I'm outside Stone Tower Temple, but I haven't beaten any of the dungeons yet (but have entered Woodfall and Snowhead). Leaving the dungeons in the middle isn't pointless IMO because once you return with more items, you can complete them in completely different (and usually much faster) ways. Think about Woodfall- one of the last steps of the dungeon is to power up the "flower" in the central room, but you could do that really early since you would have the fire arrows.

Using Skyward Sword as an example,
the Zelda series has almost completely gotten rid of requiring items to reach dungeons in favor of requiring quest items. In the second part of the game involving the flames, the game is arbitrarily set up to require you to obtain the flames in a certain order. You must get a song from the thunderhead, get a flame, and repeat twice. The game would have less repetitive and more replayable if you could have just been given all three songs at once. Then you could just do what you want, and players that like to progress linearly could have easily been told the intended order of Faron, Lanayru, and Eldin for the flames quest.
 
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Teron

van der Nguyen
Joined
Nov 21, 2011
Also, Pro Evo
2006 — good
2007 — bad
2008 — very bad
2009 — mediocre
2010 — pretty good
2011 — bad
2012 — bad
 
Joined
Dec 22, 2011
Golden Sun (Only 3 games in the series, but Golden Sun: Dark Dawn was horrendous)
Dragon Age (there's only 2 games in the series, but the 2nd one was nowhere near the first).
Pokemon (they recycle the same garbage every time)

Yeah
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
Pokemon (they recycle the same garbage every time)
I agree. And people complain about Call of Duty recycling, yet they buy into Pokemon. Couldn't laugh harder. I mean, with Zelda, at least we get different game mechanics. In Pokemon, we get the same exact story, the same exact rivals...everything's the same except for the specific set of sprites featured in each new game. People are silly enough to buy multiple versions of the same game. I was done with Pokemon after G/S/C and HG/SS.
 
I would agree with many here that the Zelda series has steadily gone downhill in quality. While I loved the DS Zelda games to death, they were incredibly linear both in their overworld and dungeon design. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword both suffered from a "padding" problem. Both games' stories had parts that felt incredibly dull and flung in at the last second. Skyward Sword was especially disappointing for having such a simple overworld and being very weak technically. As Zelda buckles, Mario grows stronger and stronger as Nintendo's flagship franchise.

The Magic Meter, it adds limitation to the series. I don't mean it stops the series from being awesome, I mean it stops the series from becoming incredibly dull. You all saw what happened with Skyward Sword: the Sword was the singlemost important item in the entire series. What happened to Fire, Ice and Light arrows? What happened to diversity in item usage? What happened to having to think beyond ammunition when in a battle? Nintendo, you're not even trying. I realize a company's existence is to gain money, but I'm not a noob to Zelda. I want challenge, and I want the Magic Meter because it provided me with challenge as well as great fun.

As I made a point before, the story seems to never change in the Zelda releases. They're following the same ol' plotline: Peaceful establishment, evil force, find stuffs out, dungeons, find out more, forge something, undeniably WIN in the final boss. Where's the ambiguity? Where are the alternate scenes? Where are the unexpected events? I understand that Zelda has never really touched upon multiple endings and particularly sad events with the exception of Majora's Mask, but given that we do have an example of what Nintendo could do, why resort to the typical, annoyingly predictable "Hero Story" that we've played for the past 14+ games? Nintendo, please try harder.

I agree with the variety provided by the magic meter but feel that recent installments like Skyward Sword were leaning towards a more mechanical style that the magic meter would not have blended well with.

And yes the same old story is becoming stale. Skyward Sword disguised this better but those elements were still there. Majora's Mask should be given a pedestal of its own for breaking from tradition. Let Link or Zelda die or possibly give the victory to Ganondorf and end with a massive plot twist but this simply cannot go on.
 
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