What If...

[aviari]

What if the Legend of Zelda games were dungeon crawlers in the more traditional sense? They already are dungeon crawlers, but with many unique elements that set them apart from the rest.
Skills, hundreds upon hundreds of items, armors and weapons; leveling up and experience...
Classes to choose from, all that.

I personally wouldn't be as much a fan as I am now. It would be cool to see games like this show up on handheld consoles though - I've never seen one! Not Zelda of course, but a traditional dungeon crawler.

Credit to users at the Spriter's Resource for images that I edited.​

I know that back when the first Zelda title was released on the NES, this would be impossible due to technical limitations. But let's have this conversation assuming it was possible it could happen.

What does everybody think? Would you still play every new title, still be a fan?

 

[cloudy skies]

I don't think I would like the series at all. If it had this style the 3d games wouldn't have been designed this way and we wouldn't have been able to play the masterpieces such as ocarina of time, majora's mask and skyward sword.

 

[zeldalink]

not sure

 

[Awesome]

Do you mean dungeon crawlers as in the Diablo trilogy? If so, no I don't think Zelda would work in that style. I mean maybe if one dungeon was similar to that in the sense that it was full of enemies that you had to destroy, but even that I feel would not really work well. Think about it. With Modern Zelda games we have Z-targeting to make it easier to focus on an enemy. Unless Nintendo decided to drop that entirely and go with the 2D Zelda approach, then the Dungeon Crawler would never work. Besides, when you're going through Zelda Dungeons (no pun intended) you are trying to solve puzzles, the fighting is always second to that.

 

[Ventus]

If it were a dungeon crawler but with the 3D Zelda gameplay (kinda a cross between SS' 1:1 swordplay and OoT/MM/AoL/ALttP's item choice), I would enjoy the series. But a dungeon crawler in the sense like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon? I'm not sure. I liked PMD RRT/BRT (because of Chikorita believe it or not), but the later entries were turn offs.