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What is an item/ability that you want to like more than you do?

VikzeLink

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Pretty self explanatory. I’m not sure if there’s a thread on this somewhere on the forum from back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and people were still waiting for a new Zelda game on Wii, but I don’t feel like looking for one.

I really wish that the Mirror Shield was a better item in particular. We’ve seen it in 6 games. In LttP and LA they were pointless, in MC it was less than pointless, and in the 3D games it just appears as another item that exists specifically as a funny shaped key for a funny shaped door (though MM and WW both do something cool with it to be fair). The idea of a reflective shield is really cool on paper from a combat and puzzle perspective, but the games never do anything with them beyond “shine light here to progress.” Plus they’re always one of the last items you get, so even if they did have a utility purpose you’d never get a chance to use them. Mirror Shields have so much potential, but we haven’t seen them since MC, which is weird for an item that a lot of people to be a classic Zelda item.

I agree with this. I've always been fond of the look of the Mirror Shields (except the MM one, yikes!).
It's silly how the "reflective" shield no longer reflects deku nuts and octorok-rocks, but breaks them instead. One way to make the Mirror Shield better is to also add the ability to reflect other types of projectiles, or something similar to the Twinrova boss battle where you can reflect magic.
I'd love to be able to kill a Beamos with its own beam!
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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I agree with this. I've always been fond of the look of the Mirror Shields (except the MM one, yikes!).
It's silly how the "reflective" shield no longer reflects deku nuts and octorok-rocks, but breaks them instead. One way to make the Mirror Shield better is to also add the ability to reflect other types of projectiles, or something similar to the Twinrova boss battle where you can reflect magic.
I'd love to be able to kill a Beamos with its own beam!
The one thing I disagree with you on is that the Majoras Mask variant is one of my favorite shield designs in the series. It completely blindsided you with how bizarre and creepy it is. It made it a far more memorable item for me.

Beyond that, I’d prefer it if the shield did a bit more than just reflect other attacks. How about when you shield bash with one it has a bit more range to its stun. Technically the goddess shields in SS did something similar to this, but only to the undead bokoblins. Basically I want the utility of the item to be less situational.
 

VikzeLink

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The one thing I disagree with you on is that the Majoras Mask variant is one of my favorite shield designs in the series. It completely blindsided you with how bizarre and creepy it is. It made it a far more memorable item for me.

Oh, I don't dislike it at all, it's just very weirdly creepy! It's hard to describe really... I don't like it's design, but I do like it... I don't really know how to put it :suspicious:
 

Aro

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Personally, I want to like the gust bellows more than I do, it just seems unsatisfying for no explicable reason but I’ll try, it seems like it has so much more potential (my experience is from SS) and it seems not as good as it could be or smthn
 

TheGreatCthulhu

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Hmmmm.... this is awkward considering my knowledge of how the weapons featured in Zelda games are to be used.

I guess the Hidden Skills in Twilight Princess. I find them too flashy and showy, not pragmatic and straightforward like they should be.

Which is frustrating, because the martial premise behind the Hidden Skills are sound. Like the Mortal Draw. Yeah, absolutely, cutting and defending yourself at the same time as drawing your sword from its scabbard is ubiquitous in swordfighting, even in HEMA. That's right, it isn't just something unique to katanas and the Japanese.

I guess it's the animations, and not the actual skills themselves.

People could say this is showing off Link's prowess in battle, showing his agility, but in martial arts, the true masters have excellently honed fundamentals, and their basic attacks like jabs, front kicks, roundhouses, and takedowns are sharp, controlled, and honed after many years of training, sparring, and practice.

Apply this logic to sword fighting. A sword fight between two skilled combatants typically are short and brief affairs, because only a flick of the wrist could mean death. Thus, true swordmasters have cuts and thrusts that are sharp, controlled, and delivered with efficient biomechanics to get the most power, along with perfect edge alignment for cuts.

In other words, flawless technique looks... simple, but the Shaolin have a saying, "Simple is beautiful."

And that's why I'm trying to like the Hidden Skills in Twilight Princess. Their function in the game is what it is, I just find the animations too over the top, when simplicity and efficiency makes for better fencing.

Just my two cents.
 

Mikey the Moblin

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Hmmmm.... this is awkward considering my knowledge of how the weapons featured in Zelda games are to be used.

I guess the Hidden Skills in Twilight Princess. I find them too flashy and showy, not pragmatic and straightforward like they should be.

Which is frustrating, because the martial premise behind the Hidden Skills are sound. Like the Mortal Draw. Yeah, absolutely, cutting and defending yourself at the same time as drawing your sword from its scabbard is ubiquitous in swordfighting, even in HEMA. That's right, it isn't just something unique to katanas and the Japanese.

I guess it's the animations, and not the actual skills themselves.

People could say this is showing off Link's prowess in battle, showing his agility, but in martial arts, the true masters have excellently honed fundamentals, and their basic attacks like jabs, front kicks, roundhouses, and takedowns are sharp, controlled, and honed after many years of training, sparring, and practice.

Apply this logic to sword fighting. A sword fight between two skilled combatants typically are short and brief affairs, because only a flick of the wrist could mean death. Thus, true swordmasters have cuts and thrusts that are sharp, controlled, and delivered with efficient biomechanics to get the most power, along with perfect edge alignment for cuts.

In other words, flawless technique looks... simple, but the Shaolin have a saying, "Simple is beautiful."

And that's why I'm trying to like the Hidden Skills in Twilight Princess. Their function in the game is what it is, I just find the animations too over the top, when simplicity and efficiency makes for better fencing.

Just my two cents.
I totally agree, tp hidden skills are way too over the top. They should have toned it down and kept it more realistic like the hurricane spins in the toon link games
 

TheGreatCthulhu

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knowledge of how things are in real life doesnt really mean anything to enjoying gameplay i dont disllike hollow knight mechanics just because i know its not how bugs actually work?
I'm not saying go 100% realistic, otherwise sword fighting would look a lot like people pushing each other to create space and simple cuts and thrusts, and depending on the type of story you want to tell, that may or may not work.

For most people though, that wouldn't be exciting.

So I get why they went that way, it's just something I'll always notice in any visual medium that involves swords. They make sword fighting more entertaining, and to have the choreography tell a story. I get it. Just I feel you can ground the choreography a bit in sound martial technique, and still have it be entertaining.

In this specific case with Twilight Princess, I get the mechanics as a gameplay concept, it's just a personal observation. If Link is indeed a ranch hand that took fencing lessons from Rusl, and later the ghost of his ancestor, then I would imagine a fencer that uses more grappling, but that wouldn't work for the type of game Twilight Princess is.

That's my more nuanced view.
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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The hookshot (especially the dual hookshots in Twilight Princess).

The hookshot is an item that should just be cool by default. It's a mechanic grappling hook that fires a blade or a claw from a long range. The possibilities seem endless, but it's almost always boiled down to the exact same two functions:

1) Grapple to a specific point that the game marks (usually a target of some sort).

2) Grapple to an enemy's weakpoint.

I think it's the sort of weapon that should be used for crazier situations. Maybe you could specifically aim at an unaware enemy's leg to yank them off their feet, or pull a weapon from someone's hand into your own. Make it so a weakened tree in BotW could be yanked down using the hookshot.

It just seems like a cool item without a cool purpose.
 

Mikey the Moblin

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Obligatory tp honorable mentions
Spinner, ball and chain, gale boomerang, arrow upgrades, dominion rod, etc. Full of items that have the capacity to be fun but are animated, developed, or utilized all wrong

Since tp is such easy pickings though the item I'm going to choose is the whip
Every game it's implemented in it's actually designed much better than such a simple item ought to be but I wish it was a useful combat item like a regular whip is. I want them to make it a bow or boomerang esque staple item that you keep equipped if you like it, not just another key item
 

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